This is just a short little discovery that has had me giddy of late. Normally my kids will eat baby carrots with a bit of an eye roll or, from my younger one, all out fury, but lately I’ve been putting them in a small bowl on the coffee table while they watch a movie or music or whatever, and they gobble them down. Seriously, they jump on the bowl as if it held buttery popcorn or chocolate kisses, every single time. Part of it has to be the fact I just put out one bowl~ it gets their competitive streaks going and my husband and I find ourselves saying, “just take one at a time.” I normally have to refill the bowl at least once. Maybe I should set out broccoli next…

That’s the big news in the world of school lunches. Congress calls pizza a vegetable even though the USDA wants to improve school lunch nutrition. For the record, it seems the USDA still would like to call pizza a vegetable, they would just like to increase the tomato paste from 2 T to half a cup. Perhaps this is a good time to take a good long look at our schools, and our school yards. Both times that I reached the point where my sons entered Kindergarten, I felt nauseous at the fact they would suddenly be spending so much time sitting down, not moving their little boy bodies nearly as much as when they are at home. The 15 minutes of recess twice per day does not cut it, nor does the PE class twice a week. During the summer my boys are active all day long~ and they are happy and healthy. Obviously they can’t swim all day at school and run around on the grounds, but I do think more activity can be built in. And the lunches~ of course they can be improved, but in the end it is the student making the choices and if he or she gets to pick between pizza or salad, most likely pizza will be the winner. We have to teach our kids about food, where it comes from, how it differs nutritionally, ethically, and connect the food to how it makes them feel. They need to understand there is a difference in food, that there are choices that make them grow taller, run faster, lift heavier items (normally each other in elementary grades I’ve noticed) and feel better. I think one answer is to starting gardens at school. California leads the way in Edible Schoolyards, and I would really love to see the entire nation follow their lead. Having a garden or greenhouse on the school property gives students the opportunity to see real food grow, to connect to it, and the earth it comes from. Gardening is an excellent thing to learn young and enjoy life-long. It is the perfect venue for teaching kids about energy (trucking food all over the place), about eating local, healthy foods, about being stewards of the earth and about being active~  active doing something real and meaningful. Kids love that, and they deserve it. I approached my sons’ principal about starting one at their school and he was surprisingly open about it, but unfortunately their school is under construction for two years and all the property is vulnerable to large earth movers at the moment. He said when that is over he had already been thinking about putting up a greenhouse. Now is the time! The idea is out there, and it is spreading. Let’s teach the kids something real. Ask your school, they just might be waiting for someone to get the ball rolling.

There was a recipe I saw in a PCC newsletter that caught my eye…it was fennel with roasted garlic and thyme. The article was about vegan Thanksgiving dishes, but since we are happily celebrating Thanksgiving in a rental, I decided to try the recipe tonight instead. I love any recipe that uses something commonly thought of as an herb as something more~ like using basil or cilantro as a real green vegetable instead of just seasoning. This recipe was pretty good, though I used seasoned Mediterranean salts instead of regular salt, dried thyme instead of fresh and water instead of vegetable stock. It was really different and considering how good fennel is for digestion, I felt like I was doing something good for my stomach with each yummy bite. My husband liked it too~ especially how it was seasoned. (Those salts are awesome!) On a different note, one way I get more nutrients into my younger son who does not exactly have a rich diet is by making smoothies. Here is his favorite, which he shares in the morning with his dad: 1 cup 1% milk, 6oz. vanilla yogurt, 1 scoop vanilla whey protein, 1 banana (frozen and pre-cut), 1 t. vanilla extract, 1 (big) t honey, 1 scoop greens (Trader Joe’s) and a bunch of frozen berries~ I use a mix from Cascadian Farms called Berry Jubilee and I use at least 2 cups, probably closer to 3. The blender hates me but the result is sweet enough for my sour-puss.

Dietary restrictions always are tricky when cooking for other people. I’m always so aware of my own issues that I tend to overcompensate when guests are due. After all, not many people want to eat meals that are meat and wheat free, generally healthy and organic, so I get nervous when it is my turn to host, well, anything really. It doesn’t help that I’ve had some real disasters in my hosting past, most of which happened while living in Prague where the food selection was slim and I was young and trying out the whole adulthood thing for really the first time. When I first moved to Prague, in 1999, there were three of us in the flat. Early on we decided to host a hot wine party which was very popular in the Prague markets around town~ red wine warmed with an orange that had cloves in it, and maybe some cinnamon sticks…? Can’t quite remember. What I do remember is that we packed the flat with a bunch of people we had very recently met but didn’t really know, two of which were roommates who had been, well, let’s just say it was awkward between on of my flatmates and the two roommates, and actually everyone else there. We all clutched our wines, waiting for the conversations to flow, but discovered shortly that we had boiled the alcohol out of the wine. Painful silence could be felt in every corner of our small flat. I was sitting next to a nice Kiwi who asked me, “So, what did you do today?” I responded with a boring recounting of teaching classes and grocery shopping. Silence. Then, ‘what did you do?” He responded with about the same story. Silence. Then he asked, “So, what did you do yesterday?” at which point I excused myself and made a plan with my friends to get some more wine and turn down the stove top. Next, we had a Thanksgiving in between Canadian turkey day and America’s. Again, we invited everyone we met to join into our imported cultural event. This was a far more lively event, with guests proclaiming, “this is great duck!” And we’d say, “no! It’s turkey!” But alas, it was indeed duck~ that’s what happens when two vegetarians who don’t speak Czech host Thanksgiving in Prague. Next was a Christmas party during my sick months. I don’t remember it much, other than my flatmates putting a Santa hat on me to take pictures, surely an effort to make me look somewhat presentable. The festive sickling. The last hosting event was my own disaster~ my flatmate was elsewhere so I invited 3 Czech friends over for an ‘American’ meal. I should first explain that Czech food is meat and potatoes, bland and bland. I made spicy fish with hot peppers and spiced rice. All three looked like they’d just swallowed a torch with the first bite. It was obvious they hated it though they only spoken in English pleasantries. At some point one let on they were expecting McDonald’s type food. I’m sure that’s exactly where they went after leaving my place! Oh well. A flop or two is good for learning~ keep the audience in mind when cooking. So what are some good no-fail dishes?

At Whole Foods this evening I saw a roller perfume I’ve not seen there before…it’s called Love & Toast and I really like the scents! I only tried two of the four testers but I would definitely wear both~ they are floral with spice, and like the names suggest, there are fruits and sweets in the scents too. Walking out to the car in the crazy Saturday afternoon parking lot was far more enjoyable with the testers’ scents wafting up from my arms and chest. There are hand cremes there too which would make lovely gifts. I just might have a new obsession. (Besides fish tacos which I can’t get enough of lately, with a lot of cilantro, avocado, and pico de gallo.) These perfumes are a much better smelling obsession…my family will probably appreciate that.

For some reason I’m very drawn to the raw foods movement. Actually, maybe it isn’t so surprising considering most things in the raw diet are gluten free and vegetarian, but every time I think about trying it, I manage to talk myself out of it by asking, “why eliminate even more things from your diet and make eating even more challenging? Just add more salads into your life.” It just sounds so good for one’s body to eat almost all fresh food with enzymes in tact and such, and I think it is an all or nothing kind of thing. I’m sure the more fresh foods one eats, the better, but to get the full benefits it seems you would have to be at least 75% raw. I just read The World Goes Raw by Lisa Mann and most of the food not only sounds delicious, it is also mostly gluten free. There are some wheat berries used in some recipes, but it looks easy to replace them with quinoa. I really think I need to try this for a good month, at least, maybe even 3 months, and see how hard it is to eat totally raw while still cooking for picky boys and a not-at-all-raw hubby. I just don’t know if I can do it without a dehydrator, and I also think I would have to add beans into the diet, not just bean sprouts. I love beans and I read somewhere else that the longest living cultures (as in the cultures where people live the longest in a healthy state) eat a lot of beans. The recipes in The World Goes Raw rely heavily on nuts, and I think that would just get old. I don’t know, maybe next summer after I do more research into the diet because there is just quite a lot that I still have questions about, such as; can you drink tea if you make it without heat? (Like sun tea.) Is coffee just out of the question? What about wine? And that’s just the beverages!  Hm.

There’s been a lot of grumbling about the weather around here. I know there is a big heat wave in most of the country, but here in the Seattle area it’s been cooler than usual, rainier than usual, and definitely not what July normally is here. Most Seattle-ites will tell you that July and August or gorgeous, sunny and warm without the humidity most of the states deal with in the summer. People move here from all over after visiting Seattle in the summer, at least that is the old version of the story. The updated version of that story is that people move here from all over for Microsoft. Either way, the newbies must be having a hard time right about now. This drizzly day has me thinking, in the kitchen, which has led me to baking, something I haven’t done since the colder winter months, and I must admit I’m glad it’s not ‘baking’ outside with 90 degree heat because I’d never turn on the oven in that case. The other day I bought beautiful, voluptuous blackberries at Whole Foods. My oldest son used to adore picking blackberries in late summer and eating them off the prickly vines. Unfortunately, the berries in the clear plastic container just did not have the same allure. This got me thinking of blackberry biscuits, cobblers, crepes and such. So, I readied the gf biscuit dough (ala the Flying Apron cookbook) and it is chilling in the fridge. That only calls for a cup of berries though and I’m anxious to make something else, so I’m looking for a regular ol’ wheat flour kind of recipe for my husband to enjoy. Maybe the coffee cake from the Horn on the Moon cookbook. Then maybe tomorrow the weather could change…?

For our picnic lunch yesterday I made a wrap that reminded me of the Greek hummus veggie pita sandwiches I used to love. It was simple~ hummus on a corn tortilla with lettuce, tomato chunks and cucumber sticks. I wanted to add tzakiki sauce on top but was afraid it would be too runny for a packed meal. It hit the spot at lunchtime, especially with the cucumbers cut into long thick strips instead of thin circles~ it gave my teeth something to sink in to. Later for dinner I steamed broccoli and squares of extra firm tofu with a little soy sauce and balsamic vinegar for about 3 or 4 minutes. I warmed a tortilla for my oldest son and put the broccoli and tofu in the wrap with garlic sauce. (I ate mine on brown rice because there was some leftover in the fridge, although I love the wrap version my son ate.) He liked it although I was hoping for a more passionate response such as when he discovered the joy of artichokes and garlic sauce. At least I know I can get just about any green into him with enough garlic sauce!

While perusing the tortillas section at Whole Foods the other day I almost bought some corn tortillas that I had never noticed before. Just because it is such a habit, I read the ingredients and lo and behold wheat was listed. Why?! This really bothers me on several levels. One, there’s just no need to add wheat to corn tortillas~ there’s a reason they are called ‘corn’ tortillas. For another thing, it just panders to the wheat-saturated appetites that are bombarded with it in every single little thing. The biggest thing for me though was, does that mean corn tortillas cannot be trusted at say, a Mexican restaurant? That just sucks, quite frankly. There are very few carb-type things gluten intolerants can safely count on while out and about, and corn tortillas (I thought!) was one of them. Now I’m going to have to add to my annoying customer list of questions which is already quite long, “are these purely corn tortillas or is there wheat in them?” which just sounds bitchy, really, but now I won’t be sure. I mean if Whole Foods has the two flours mixed, then it is probably pretty common.

For our 8th anniversary my husband and I went out for a casual dinner. On my favorite walk (to the library) I pass by a  Mexican restaurant that is tucked into a shady corner on a quiet street just off a busier retail area. It always has really good Latin or flamenco music pumped outside and there is actual seating on the patio  which is a rare treat around here. Everyone there always looks happy and whenever I walk by there I think, we should try that place. So finally, we did, though my husband has actually been there several times and swears I went there years ago. Since it was our anniversary I didn’t argue, but I really don’t remember going there before. It’s called Ooba’s and apparently there are ones in Bellevue and Woodinville too, but the feel is all funky college town, not suburban sprawl at all. You order at the counter and they bring out your food to you after you have gathered your own condiments, utensils and such. The food was good~ for gluten free folks like myself there are tacos and salad in a corn taco shell. They bring our individual bags of corn chips with every meal and serve a wide variety of adult beverages. I got a salad with veggies (as opposed to chicken, beef, or fish on top) and regretted not ordering it dairy free as they are generous with the cheese and sour cream. Luckily I had my enzymes with me, but next time I’ll see if I can get it topped with avocado instead. Everything was fresh and crisp and there were enough black beans in the salad to keep me happy. My husband enjoyed his burrito, though agreed there was a bit too much dairy. The proportions are huge, so come hungry. Really cute place to go for Mexican that isn’t fast-foodish but also isn’t the sit down and listen to a succession of bad mariachi songs while wondering if your beans are made with meat and your corn tortillas tainted with gluten. Really glad we went~ whether it was my first or second time.