Monday just might be the weekly equivalent to the month of March. While we enjoyed a few days of sun over the weekend, spring seems to be in a constant state of sticking out her tongue at us here in the greater Seattle region. March has dragged on, raindrop by raindrop, greyer than grey and longer than a week’s worth of Mondays. I guess you might have guessed that I’m in a gloomy mood. I was walking along the sidewalk today, and noticed that it was carpeted with evergreen droppings, dampness, and small branches bearing witness to strong winds. The few people I saw out of their cars were wearing scarves, boots, and warm black coats. April is just around the corner but Spring is no where in sight. To try to change my mood I decided to make cinnamon-pumpkin scones. Baking usually makes me feel happier, and it worked while I was busy in the kitchen, but now I’m back to looking out the window at the grey world. I could make kale chips but something tells me that won’t chipper me up. Perhaps I should just chalk this up to Monday and this never-ending March, and let my moodiness reign. Something tells me that my kids, almost home from school, will not agree with my bad mood indulgences though. At least I can offer them scones.

My oldest son likes a lot of different foods, but never in my wildest dreams did I ever picture him wolfing down a plate of kale. It happened. Several times actually, now that I’ve tweaked the recipe I tried during my cleanse earlier this year. Here’s their version: Kale Crisps which includes sesame seeds. In order for my son to eat them I have to leave off the sesame seeds and add fresh ground pepper and Mediterranean sea salt (which already has herbs mixed in.) They are so easy to make and you can spice them any way you want! I learned a trick at PCC for de-stemming kale; you just hold the end of the stem and run your hand up the kale to take off the edible green part. It is quick and effective, then all you have to do is cut the greens into chip-size pieces (they get smaller in the oven) then place them on a baking sheet, add 2 T olive oil and 1 T lemon juice, salt and pepper (and whatever else you want). Cook on 200 for half an hour, flip, then another 25 minutes or so (until they are crispy). There are quite a few companies out there making prepackaged kale chips too. I haven’t tried any since they are so easy to make at home (and I know what exactly is on them) but I did see that the Natural Foods Merchandiser team picked Brad’s as their favorite. I’ll just keep making them here though, since at least one son eats them. Now if I could just convince the other son to try them…

This week there have been three disturbing stories in the news concerning food. Here is the first I heard: Death by Bacon? It basically says that eating red meat every day increases one’s risk of all kinds of bad things, such as cancer and heart disease. Is this really news? How many times can that be said and reported and studied (thanks, Harvard, for that earth shaking insight) before people say, OH, I get it now…eat less meat, more veggies. Obviously this has not sunk in yet b/c this story was everywhere in the news for at least a day. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming, and bacon eating. The second one is about “Pink Slime.” What is pink slime you ask? Why it’s just what your child is eating at lunch today. Seriously. And apparently it isn’t just in the school cafeterias, it is also in grocery stores. And although it sounds like something you have to say “trick or treat” for, it is actually in the meat section. Unmarked. Pink slime is the oh-so-cute-little nickname of lean beef trimmings, and if you want to hear how they got that nickname and why 200,000 people signed blogger Bettina Siegel’s petition to get it out of schools you’ll have to read the article. My stomach doesn’t want to go there. But before the vegetarians start feeling too smug, there is yet another story to make one question what is on their daily fork: Eating white rice daily ups diabetes risk, study shows. Again, how many times do people have to hear that white rice, flour, bread, etc. is not the best thing for them? Brown rice is better. Whole grains are better. If you take off the outer bran of grains, you have more sugar and less fiber per serving, which isn’t how the grain was intended. Whether you believe God or Mother Nature or whatever made the grains out there, chances are they knew what they were doing. I suppose what really irks me is that these things are news at all~ don’t we all know this stuff? I mean really, c’mon. People must know these things and just ignore reality b/c it suits their taste buds, to the detriment of their waistlines, health, life expectancy, and the earth. I suppose it’s like global warming (in the ignoring reality sense), where everyone just kind of chortles and shakes their head at distant tsunamis and closer to home storms and says, “guess that’s global warming, heh heh.” It IS global warming! It IS a reality and it isn’t pretty. What exactly do people think is going to happen if we stay the course? So for goodness sakes, do something!

Ever since doing that detox earlier this year I’ve been really trying to only eat healthy foods, and avoid the foods that bloat me. For everyone this is different, but for me potatoes, soy, dairy, and processed foods are culprits that I still eat, but try to do so only when they are the best option available. On that detox I learned what it feels like to not be bloated, and it feels good! For all you people out there who can eat whatever you want without consequence, you probably have no idea what I’m talking about. For the digestively challenged, bloating is a way of life. So, a few days ago I noticed not only was I bloating a lot, my stomach was uncomfortable in a new way, but a way I remembered from years before. It definitely couldn’t be gluten this time around, so I got even more serious about (mostly) just eating whole foods, and yet the tummy problems just continued, and even got worse. I finally made a doctor appointment, fully expecting them to tell me yet another food allergy had surfaced, but before I even got to the doctor’s office I realized in my whole foods diet I had suddenly been eating a lot more dried fruit, specifically mangoes and tomatoes. There is this awesome dish that PCC’s deli makes which I’ve been making at home for a couple of weeks now and have been overly enthusiastic about the sun dried tomatoes. The recipe is here: PCC Texas Quinoa Tabouli and as long as you eat it in moderation it is quite healthy. The doctor agreed that my symptoms were most likely from the uptake in dried fruits I’d recently added to my diet, and further explained that those were highly acidic foods and that although I’d never experienced heartburn, some people have the acid issue lower down. That makes sense, especially since I once went a little overboard with dried apricots and had similar gastric issues. So much for trying to be healthy. I suppose the lesson here is moderation, which is hard when sun dried tomatoes are so darn good. Oh well, at least she didn’t tell me to give up coffee, although she did say to cut down a bit. Is tea acidic?

We may have done the whole “spring forward” thing, but around here the first part of that message was not received. It is cold, windy, rainy, and most definitely not spring-ish, besides a few flowers that couldn’t wait in the cold ground anymore. I don’t blame them. There are some buds around town, such as in the entire parking lot at the Redmond Library which is filled with trees donning pink blossoms, unfortunately the grey sky does not show off their radiance as well as a blue sky would. Explaining ‘spring forward’ is an especially hard task to do for a child who is perpetually here and now as my older son is. He had a very hard time learning that there were days of the week, that meals had specific names, and that he lived in a city that resides in a state in a specific part of a certain country, etc, so the idea that we have moved forward an hour naturally throws him. “So, it’s spring now?” “Where did the hour go?” “Do we have an hour less of school?” These questions do not seem so extraordinary except they were asked two days in a row (so far) and always before I had a chance to take in my morning coffee. We then had another conversation about time that went equally as well, “What is 200 years ago? Is it like, the dinosaurs, or Romans, or what?” I tried to think of something he’d understand, which in our particular house means answering, “It’s like Sherlock Holmes.” “WHAT! No way. 200 years is way too long ago for that.” “OK, it is a bit long ago~ Sherlock would be later 1800s but 200 years ago was 1812.” “No way.” “Really it was. 100 years ago was 1912, and 200 years ago was 1812.” In disbelief he shook his head and walked away. Can I just have my coffee now, please?