Gothic Granola

My gifts to others were a gift to myself this year for Solstice/Chanukkah/Christmas. I turned my writing time into beading time for the last two weeks in December. Focusing on beading let my mind wander and work out plot issues with my writings and meditate on other matters.  

This is probably a sentiment that will alienate me from abolitionist vegans at large. But here it is.

...For when you have cranberries, but sauce seems like too much of a project and pie or bars or muffins are really too much of a project. Juice is also a project. But you have to eat breakfast, right? Why not make a smoothie?

TC had surgery last week and has been drinking all the smoothies. While I haven't made this one for him yet, here is the pineapple-loaded smoothie I plan to make for him.     Why pineapple? Pineapple contains bromelain, an enzyme shown to reduce inflammation. Since post-surgery care involves keeping swelling and inflammation to a minimum, this smoothie is a good way to get some natural inflammation-reducing bromelain in your system. Feel free to add a scoop of protein powder if smoothies are all your "patient" will eat.

Donuts gone batty! While I was waiting for Yosemite to install this week, I found these Jam-Filled Coconut Donuts on the Whole Foods Market website. Only WFM would say "jam" not "jelly" donuts, right? The original recipe is neither vegan nor gluten-free, but I made it so.

Laurie Sadowski has done it again. Canadian vegan and gluten-free cookbook author delivers excellent recipes, so I'm just adding a new filling option and an instructions tweak for high & dry altitude.  

I learned a trick this week, and I'm going to extrapolate several explanations for why it works.[1] Then I came up with a tea drink, and a way to make my date-based chocolate syrup.

National Cookie Day is 4 December, which also happens to be an important date in the novel I've been writing since 2006. If you know me in person, you know that I like vampires: old-school, bloodsucking, remorseless, Dracula, Carmilla, The Vampire Lestat type of vampires. None of this Twilight wishy-washy stuff, a little Charlaine Harris (haven't read much of her work, but from what I hear...). Some Hemlock Grove as well, though that book (and excellent Netflix series) is about werewolves, which are cool, too. Back to the point. We need food for the brain as much as we do food for the body. Creativity for me (writing, beading, recipe R&D) feeds me, too. And I like vampires.

First, we bought a package of rice wrappers. Then TC's dad brought us a package of rice wrappers. Then we forgot about the rice wrappers for a while. Finally, we decided to make them a few weeks ago for dinner. My protein for the meal was scrambled tofu in San-J Polynesian sauce and the men's protein was yoghurt-ranch marinated grilled chicken. The salad dressing marinade was my idea, for the record.  

I spent a good part of 2013 and early 2014 proofreading a novella for a former co-worker, and he self-published it a few months ago. Read it! White Plastic Butterfly Barette  by Erin Willis.   There's some part of WPBB on the ground in this photo, amongst all my other books (mostly religion books) from August 2013.

Going gluten-free is not a magic bullet to health, contrary to this article from Paleo Magazine . If you have, in fact, experienced real intestinal damage at the hands of bread, pizza, cake, and beer, then your health is going to take a nosedive even after becoming gluten-free. Why? The body doesn't heal overnight.   Mmm, cake... Eww, beer...

By "bad" webinars, I mean, "poor quality," for the following reasons. These reasons are presented in a list format, like many webinars giving health and wellness tips; some representative titles: "Top 5 Must-Do's for Small Business Wellness," "Top 5 Cost Neutral Wellness Program Strategies," and "14 Wellness Predictions for 2014." I've listened to a lot of webinars since entering the world of health and wellness in December 2012, listening to those first live calls with the Institute for Integrative Nutrition .   Grab some stove-popped popcorn and read on. 

On Saturday, we took a road trip to the highest incorporated town in North America: Alma, Colorado .  

If I have to read or hear one more "great workout playlist" that involves rap, dubstep, pop, or Top 40 hits, my daily Les Mills Combat practice will stop being practice.    

I was right about a rant brewing, but my prescient vision was off by a week. Yes, I finally finished reading Frank Herbert's  Dune .  

Long time, no blog. I was camping in California for Wasteland Weekend.        

I actually don't have a sermon screed today, which probably means one is brewing. I finished Beachbody INSANITY for the second time this morning. Like a customer at WFM said last year, it's harder the second time around. Indeed. This time, though, I didn't go as extreme, and I don't think the absence of INSANITY will make me go, well, insane. I plan to finish September with Blogilates  and yoga. October I will do the Blogilates October workout calendar, and since I'm used to doing an hour workouts, I'll do all the videos each day. November I may do P90X all the way through since I exercise outside and I may have to move indoors, for which P90X is perfect.  

It's Thursday, and it's time for a roundup of wellness bits and bobs, readers.

This post has two geneses: as Fall rolls around to Northern Colorado (37 degrees yesterday, what?!), TC requested an apple pie, after I made Key Lime Pie a few weeks ago. One of the two things I didn't do before I left DC was to make VGF pie with my friend Andi. This is for you, Andi, since it's unlikely I'll be back in DC to bake pie with you anytime soon.  

My friend Potter said the above years ago. I blogged about it without stating it in 2011 . Join me in a thought experiment. Nota bene that this thought experiment is in the setting of 20th-21st Century Western Hemisphere society.  

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.

Gothic Granola has moved to gothicgranola.com . The site you are viewing is gothicgranola.blogspot.com.

Last week's synchronicity went from Sunday to Sunday.

We do. We need some kind of handheld snack to eat while playing with (aka: sorting) our latest LEGO horde, courtesy of TC's dad.

**GOTHIC GRANOLA PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT** This blog is in a serious state of reconstruction. We have switched from Blogger to Wordpress thanks to the patient and thorough guidance of Jason at Site Image Studios . Themes will change pretty much daily. It's like shopping for clothes...no, wait, shopping for clothes is way more straightforward. Jason made the technical side of transferring the GG domain to a different registrar, setting up my email, and configuring Google Apps utterly painless. My site will be ready to expand should I use it for health coaching as well, and I have more features than ever before. Gothic Granola lives on, thanks to Site Image Studios!     Toys! My Polly Pocket restaurant set from 1992 or 1993 looks like a burger restaurant. But it’s vegan and gluten-free. Literally, because it is plastic. Literally, because there’s nothing to eat, just like at a vegan and gluten-free place. Hah. No, it's vegan and gluten-free because I say so. Good veggie burg...

Reposting this blog has brought much reflection. 2011 was my first taste of freedom as an intern in DC. 2012 I sought to recapture that freedom, but such things cannot be duplicated. 2013 was divided into nine months in the Working Class University of Life and School of Hard Knocks followed by  Gothic Charm School . 2014 got off to a rocky start, but now we're in the Rockies.  Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt  I invalidated in this instance as TC and I worked at improving our outlooks on life before the move, with great success. Another recipe without many pictures, so there are cat pictures instead!

Reposting this blog has brought much reflection. 2011 was my first taste of freedom as an intern in DC. 2012 I sought to recapture that freedom, but such things cannot be duplicated. 2013 was divided into nine months in the Working Class University of Life and School of Hard Knocks followed by  Gothic Charm School . 2014 got off to a rocky start, but now we're in the Rockies.  Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt  I invalidated in this instance as TC and I worked at improving our outlooks on life before the move, with great success. Another recipe without many pictures, so there are cat pictures instead!

Researchers recently presented findings from analyzing the 2005-2006 U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in San Francisco at the American Sociological Association. They found that college-educated workers moved more on weekends while workers with a high school diploma or less moved more during the week. The study lead author, Jarron Saint Onge, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Kansas, pointed out why this is so: "work-related activity [for less-educated, working-class people] tends to be low intensity and typically involves repetitive motions that can have harmful health effects."  Woo, HIIT!

Researchers recently presented findings from analyzing the 2005-2006 U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in San Francisco at the American Sociological Association. They found that college-educated workers moved more on weekends while workers with a high school diploma or less moved more during the week. The study lead author, Jarron Saint Onge, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Kansas, pointed out why this is so: "work-related activity [for less-educated, working-class people] tends to be low intensity and typically involves repetitive motions that can have harmful health effects."  Woo, HIIT!

Being GF is not a diet. It's a lifestyle. It's sometimes not a choice ( id est , coeliac, IBS, leaky gut, intolerances, allergies). A recent NY Times article by Kim Severson pointed out how life as a GF diner is becoming somewhat easier.  I do and don't understand why someone would become gluten-free just to try it. After initially losing weight due to losing an entire food substance from one's diet, being GF (or being vegan, for that matter) is no guarantee of weight control/maintenance. This dog is GF because he has food allergies.

Being GF is not a diet. It's a lifestyle. It's sometimes not a choice ( id est , coeliac, IBS, leaky gut, intolerances, allergies). A recent NY Times article by Kim Severson pointed out how life as a GF diner is becoming somewhat easier.  I do and don't understand why someone would become gluten-free just to try it. After initially losing weight due to losing an entire food substance from one's diet, being GF (or being vegan, for that matter) is no guarantee of weight control/maintenance. This dog is GF because he has food allergies.

The first time I made this recipe, I soaked the dates and it ended up as this: frosting, which I used on my 22nd birthday cake. The second and third times, I wised up and kept things dry to make raw chocolate...stuff...fudge...freezer snacks.

The first time I made this recipe, I soaked the dates and it ended up as this: frosting, which I used on my 22nd birthday cake. The second and third times, I wised up and kept things dry to make raw chocolate...stuff...fudge...freezer snacks.

Greetings from Colorado! I've been busy accomplishing things since April of which I am proud, in no particular order:

Greetings from Colorado! I've been busy accomplishing things since April of which I am proud, in no particular order:

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.

Thesis: The so-called glorification of busy in 21st-century, first world business stems from an unconscious cultural reverence of saints and mystics, and martyrs, to a lesser extent. Bias: I studied martyrs, mystics, and saints in college and see their characteristics everywhere: self-sacrificing, obsessive, whole-soul commitment to a cause that extends (sometimes) beyond their personal aims.

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!

Before I had my licence/parents would let me drive, for the super-early National Honor Society morning meetings, Ownie Mom would drive me to school. As usual, she gave me breakfast: a thermos of Earl Grey tea, a pot of Stonyfield Farms organic, low-fat yoghurt (chocolate please!), maybe an apple, and a bag of enhanced trail mix. Trail mix with more stuff became my vice in later years: GORP, M'n'Ms, peanutbutter-filled pretzels, and Quaker Oatmeal Squares. Of course I ate it to stay awake in 2006-2008. I made it for myself and ate it to fill some hunger for the same love and care for my success in 2009-2010.

"...Not that I believe in it." What is it these days with people and belief? I've noticed this attitude particularly amongst my peers; religion or spirituality is an uber-private facet of one's life. If you mention it, goddess forbid you offend someone by simply saying, "Bless you," when they sneeze. Sure, there are plenty of alternatives, but I didn't invoke my higher power by name!  You  can't  believe in anything. 

I am rubber, you are glue. Whatever you say to me bounces off and sticks to you. How. I. Wish. Resilience...

This blog post is dedicated to the awesome blog that is no more, "Option Pitch and Waffle Crisp" and its intrepid author.

Let us repeat lesson number one of living with food allergies: You will not be fed. Ever. So get used to it and plan ahead. You will save yourself time, money, and headache. If you learn anything from reading this blog, this is the lesson, hence why I repeat it so often. If you learn anything else, it's that with a little planning and thinking, being vegan and gluten-free can be as normal as breathing oxygen.

"What really happens to you if you eat gluten, though?" Women's Health Magazine has this most enlightening article for all the new faux paus committed around the GF-ers. Actually, saying these things to anyone who has allergies ("I tried soy nut butter once and it was disgusting!" to a peanut allergic person) is rude. Not to be all high and mighty, but a little education goes a long way towards creating a better dining (and  kissing ) situation. That being said, eating gluten-free and eating more whole foods (the two generally go together) involves a palate adjustment, visually and physically. TC rightly called me out on using being GF as an excuse to eat even weirder foods. Green juice and overnight oatmeal, anyone?

Today was Hoodie-Hoo Day, according to WellCat.

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!