tales of woe from my kitchen
December 4, 2009
The downside of taking time to write a post to link to the guest post at Zen Family Habits (convoluted or what) is that doing so didn't really reflect what's going on in my life right now. The post at Zen Family by the way took weeks to write and was in process for a couple months. It takes me a long time to write an article like that. Whether my post reflects that or not, well...
The guest post was started months ago and was written to help promote our family's adventure blog. Which we hope will someday play a part (the blog that is) in how our family earns a livelihood. It's a long term, kind of complicated but thoroughly exciting dream that we are holding close for the present, ie: no more details right now.
But before I start to ramble... what I had wanted to write about earlier this week was the here and now but I didn't have time because of the scheduled Zen Family Habits post. And although here and now is usually quite wonderful and always blessed, it's not always easy and certainly never trouble-free.
This week's troubles have been in my kitchen.
- Our electric oven element literally lit on fire on Thanksgiving morning as I was heating up the oven to bake the rice stuffed squash.
I screached for Damien to grab the fire extinguisher but any major disasters were averted by simply turning the oven off. The element was fried however. Thank goodness we have tenants in the basement with a working oven. Because not only did I need an oven for Thanksgiving (they were cooking later, phew) but for Brienne's birthday cakes. Disaster averted. Damien, always the internet researcher and ever so handy, ordered the correct replacement the next day and installed it in time to bake cookies for my birthday.
- Next up to die, our soymilk maker.
The one we use almost every day to make "milk" for breakfast hot cereal and other needs. We only use it in things, not to drink, but still we need at least a quart a day. Do you know how much a quart of organic, non-GMO, grown in the US, with no additives packaged soymilk costs these days? Way too much. We make our own. Plus that's a lot of packaging that needs to be recycled. We've had the machine for almost 4 years and it's saved us hundreds of dollars. So now we need to shell out another hundred or so (right before Christmas) to replace what no longer works. Bummer.
- On a more serious note, Damien is doing a further round of dietary testing and elimination to figure out what's causing his skin rashes to reappear.
Trust me, he's given up most everything bad so now we're starting in on the good (but maybe not so good for him). Specifically certain fruits and a bunch of other whole and usually healthy foods that are high in fructose. It's his health journey and not mine, so I'm not going to share it all here, except to say I'm having once again to change my cooking.
The hardest thing right now? No onions. Onions!? I mean who could be sensitive to onions. Supper prep is heralded at our house with the sizzle of onions and garlic but not right now and I'm finding even this small change hard after all I've had to adjust through the years. Forgive the whining but if I can't whine on my blog, where can I?
- I'm feeling deprived.
During this time of over indulgence and over eating, where sweets and treats abound everywhere it's hard to say no - over and over again. No to myself, no to the kids. So I'm craving and caving, just a wee bit. The hard part especially right now is that we are making less treats at home with Damien eliminating dried fruits from his diet and he is the primary dessert maker in our house. So if he isn't making the healthy desserts and I'm not making the healthy desserts no one is. Which leaves me feeling sorry for myself and worried that I am depriving our children.
I had a little post supper, well I hadn't actually finished my supper before the tears starting flowing, pity party on Tuesday night. When I think of how much of the world goes without I am ashamed of my attitude. But it's there nonetheless. I sobbed about how I just wanted sugar, fat and was fantasizing about ground beef spaghetti sauce and I don't even like ground beef! My husband reassured me the only thing we are depriving our children of is illness and out of the kindness of his heart or simply to shut me up made me a decadent fresh roasted almond butter coconut milk chocolate ganache. I forgot all about my "deprivation". Oh yeah. I love that man! He received his dessert later (wink).
And that's the story from my kitchen this week. If you want to read something actually health promoting my mom posted recently about eating your greens. And I get to visit her and her kitchen for a whole week this month!!
Thank you all for the birthday wishes. It was a great day.
