Gothic Granola

The old woman nodded as she listened to the soft, bubbling words [of the spirit of the well].  Then she went back to the cottage, her eyes bright with resolve, her step firm with courage. She took water from the sieve and sprinkled it over the doorstep.  When she got inside she saw a cake, dark reddish brown and unappetizing to look at, on the table.  'They didn't even wait for me to come back with the water,' she said to herself.  'They were greedy as well as wicked.  But thanks to the spirit of the well I know what is in that cake.' Geoffry Palmer and Noel Lloyd, "The Horned Witches," Nine Witch Tales, ed. Abby Kedabra (New York: Scholastic Book Services, 1998), 13. There were a few magical things about this cake I baked for my birthday: I still had the book from which the above quote is excerpted and the cake actually  worked this time.  

Before I get to my screed on this poorly-written original recipe I found for grain-free banana muffins, I will discuss other problematic bits from last year.

My dear cousin K8 ( @akateisakate ) forwarded me three Brene Brown TEDx talks today and they were probably the most valuable audio I heard all day.  Vulnerability  and  Critics  and  Shame .  Go, listen. I'll be here when you get back, with hankies.

Call me biased and call me teetering on the fine edge of victim-blaming, but really, one can choose not to be offended in this fairly innocuous trend:  #fitfam and the public celebration of physical fitness. I read this Elite Daily article and wanted to post my meal-prepped box of lunches all the more  (Then I stopped posting. More on that later) . FitFam is about working towards goals that have to do with physical fitness: for improved health, for better quality of healthy life, for competitions, for improved physical appearance.  I can do yoooooga!

And not over it all the blessed time. 

"Fear of the Unknown" by Siouxsie and the Banshees One of my personal rules: don't give out problems unless you have solutions or suggestions!

Post #253 I have bloody scrapes on two fingers, a nice purple bruise and cut in one calf, a ruined batch of flapjacks, too much sugar, and a cancelled personal training session.  Then there's this.

Fluffy Bunny, Curse Reversed "For what has been, thanks! For what shall be--yes!"  --Dag Hammerskjold What doors are you going to keep open, once opened? Premise: I don't like marshmallows.

Part I of Cooking with Hard Liquor Vegan pica. That's all that justifies this recipe. I wanted to make

<meta>I go through this  swing  every Thursday and sometimes on Saturday: OMFG, so tired. I'm just going to go home and sleep and fuck the blog post. No one'll notice. Ahhh, now I have an idea. Oh shit, I didn't cook anything this week. Well, I'll be up late anyway. Ooh, now I'm looking forward to my fireside chat/captive audience. Man, lemme loose at the keyboard! I have ideas and pictures to share!</meta>

Power, paleo, pumpkin, press, pensamientos . Reading is wonderful. As I'm not driving as much during the workweek, I read for news. I'm going to do what my grandparents on both sides fear about blogs: share my opinion! As if I don't any other week.

Having your head stuck up your ass so far you can't see is the wrong kind of flexibility.

A video primer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsQTzxzDYjw

Today I present two recipes using golden assam tea, both of which were made for “events.”  Golden Assam Tea Bread and Irish Tea Brack But Q, you say, I thought you weren’t going to post more than one recipe per post?!  Well, no, I’m trying not to, but one of these recipes is a rerun.  I ought to trust myself more. As I searched for this recipe, I failed to take into account that after I separated out the recipes from my gonzo 2011-2012 posts, I have two posts with “brack” in the title, and the bread recipe was in the second post. I knew it was on this blog somewhere! Anyway, I redid the recipe, and I used chia seeds in the egg replacer since I think they bind better. I used different dried fruit as I have a friend with date sensitivity. I also used different flours in a different ratio since that’s what I have in my pantry.

Take a seat; there’s a sermon in here somewhere. Last week, I read Isaiah 24:16 before going to bed: “For the treacherous deal treacherously/ The treacherous deal very treacherously.” (NRSV) Treacherous cat is treacherous.

Slow down or be slowed down.  Prophetess of doom that I am, I’ve learned this one a few times during this time of year the hard way (November-February).   At age 22, I’m sick of making myself sick by trying to raise my energy to the wrong vibration for winter.  For the past eight years, I’ve had midterms or finals in January during the rush-rush madness of the Thanksgiving to St Valentine's Day gauntlet, meaning I did a bunch of concentrative, intense, mentally loud work when the energy around me was quite expansive, hushed, and contemplative.  I ended up out-of-phase, out of sorts, and out of breath.

Dear $(6,4)@#, What’s all this detox business about?  Can you give me some pointers? Sincerely, Cats on a Cleanse

Instead of chocolate chips in your breakfast, have some raw cacao nibs: crunchy, tasty antioxidants!   Instead of riding the white sugar roller coaster from some cookie-lookalike cereal, enjoy a chocolate-oat-nut mélange that will power you through the morning or the rest of your workday, if you’re like me and enjoy granola for lunch a few times a week.

Remember that old New Jersey tourism slogan, “New Jersey and You: Perfect Together”?  Can you be a tourist this holiday, observing but not being of them?  Granted, there’s also the tourist philosophy of, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”  My family’s not from Rome (Naples and Sicily, thank you very much).