Gothic Granola

Continuing on the theme of last Saturday's post , I realise since March I have patronized quite a few restaurants in the DMV area. Sometimes I was on dates, or artist's dates, or out with friends or family. As I pointed out last week, there is a difference in being veg*n or gluten-free by choice or by force. What do your vegan and gluten-free date's eating habits say about her bedroom habits?

What else is circular? Syncrhonicity. Synchronicity, as explained by Carl Jung, is “the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance, yet are experienced as occurring together in a meaningful manner."( Wikipedia ). In simpler terms, stuff happens and it seems to be related to previous stuff.

For real and for…the “working class university of life” as I saw someone listed as their school on Facebook.  I’m from the deconstructionist school of eating, but that’s a whole ’nother story. On Monday I officially began the Institute for Integrative Nutrition ® program to become a health coach.  What is a health coach?  A health coach works with people who want to make positive changes in their physical, spiritual, and mental health by encouraging said people along their wellness journey.  A health coach makes recommendations for sustainable changes and holds hir clients accountable for making gentle changes in their lives in support of the clients’ goals.

Nostalgia...comes in many flavours.  Nostalgia also features ellipses, and sometimes tissues, and, for the VGF among us, carbs. While tackling the rolls my grandmother makes for Thanksgiving to make them vegan and gluten-free will probably never yield a perfectly white piece of bread, I can make a bread that’s pretty darn close to the rolls served at the now-defunct chain restaurant Steak and Ale .  (By the way, you should donate to Wikipedia.  It’s worth your while to support the free sharing of knowledge.)  The molasses and buckwheat flour colour these rolls a pumpernickel brown, while I’m sure it was caramel colour and a heck of a lot more sweetener that gave the Steak and Ale bread its dark sweetness.

A few days ago, I found a MySpace survey I took when I was in high school, one of those series of questions designed to tell your followers/friends/lurkers a little about you.  Five years later, it made for a good laugh.  I had answered some questions as a real person and some as a vampire. Following that, I read Heather’s similar survey in October and decided I would like to add it on my blog, too, but with a twist (a turn of the screw, since we must be Gawwwwth).

Most of the food featured below was made (and probably stored) in circular equipment.  Much like my logic. Last Sunday, when I returned to New Jersey, I made a pecan-oatmeal pie in a raisin-oat-almond crust.  I modified the usual pecan pie filling recipe that I’ve been using for the traditional pecan pie and chocolate pecan brownie pie, adding oats, according to this Cooking Light recipe.  My mom has made this pie a fair few times as post-Thanksgiving pie, and I wanted it, deglutinised, four months later.  You could make it with the traditional flour-based crust, but I made a nut-oat-raisin one just ’cause.

Have you ever stood in the shower, fiddling with the knob for the water and discovered there’s a point above which the water’s obnoxiously hot?  A mere millimetre below that spot, the water’s glacial.  Then if you spend about five minutes, undressed, messing with the dial, you can have a perfect blend of lava and ice floe.  Of course, having two knobs—one for hot and one for cold—simplifies this matter.  As you may suspect, I just took a shower.  Mind you, taking a shower is not a big production for me; I don’t mention showering because it’s unusual for me to do so.  Freshman year, my roommates noted that I take short showers.  Taking a less than ten-minute shower was called taking a “Q-rate shower” amongst residents of Buyers 12.  When I was younger and had less surface area, I took really short showers (OK, so, my brother and I would time each other…bragging rights for the one who took the quickest showers and managed to scrub everywhere despit...

Hello from Alexandria!   I have been having a wonder-filled fall break back in the D.C. metro area.  After making excellent time from NJ (3.5 hours!) last Thursday, I made a pumpkin pie as soon as I arrived at my aunt and uncle’s house.

I’m back at school.  My room is double the square footage of last year’s 87-square-foot closet.   The kitchen is in the same building, which is convenient.  The oven in this kitchen does not have a timer.  Tell me that’s not a safety hazard in a dorm of absent-minded undergraduates.  Go on, tell me people are responsible.