Earlier this week, I stopped at MacPherson’s vegetable stand and was delighted to find that chanterelle mushrooms have come into season. Chanterelles have a unique, light, buttery flavor and a great smooth consistency. Chanterelles are found in mossy coniferous forests and are gathered by mushroom foragers and then sold to local produce retailers. The folks at MacPherson’s said that it had been especially wet recently and that the chanterelle season would be short. These mushrooms are usually very expensive and reserved for a special treat, so when I saw that they were $6.99/ lb, I wasted no time buying some. I picked out a little over half a pound and spent $4.00. That night I made risotto with the chanterelles and some kale. Usually, I like to make a chanterelle gravy when they’re in season, so I only used half of the mushrooms I bought for the risotto. That way, I’ll be able to make the gravy this weekend. This recipe would work well with any kind of mushroom, so don’t feel like you have to wait for chanterelles to come your way to make it!
Chanterelle Mushroom & Kale Risotto: The Recipe
Serves 3-4
splash of olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup Arborio rice
1/2 cup white wine
5 cups water
2 cups chopped chanterelle mushrooms (or any other variety)
3 cups chopped kale (or fresh spinach if you prefer)
1/4 tsp-1/2 tsp garlic powder
salt & pepper to taste
Risotto is easy to make; it just requires fairly constant attention and stirring. Begin by chopping all ingredients. In the meantime heat 5 cups of water in a pot or kettle and set aside for making the risotto (the water just needs to be warm). Using a medium-large saucepan, add a splash of oil and saute onions and garlic with a pinch of salt and freshly ground pepper until slightly soft (3-4 minutes). Add the rice and stir. The grains will toast quickly and become opaque. Add the wine and stir to combine.
[Note: you can use red wine if that’s all you have; it will make a lavender-colored risotto. I usually make it with red because we usually have a splash of red wine in the fridge; this was my first try making white risotto!)]. Cook on medium heat until the wine has been absorbed and there is no liquid in the pot. Now start adding the water, a cup at a time. Only add more water when the water in the pot has been absorbed into the rice. Stir frequently through this process. Continue cup by cup until all of the water has been absorbed into the rice (this should take about 25-30 minutes).
finished risotto
While you are adding the water/stirring the cooking risotto, you can start cooking the vegetables. Heat a skillet with a splash of oil or water and add the kale and mushrooms. Add the garlic powder, a pinch of salt and some pepper and stir frequently until the greens are to your desired wilty-ness. Turn the heat off and set aside.
Note: if cooking the vegetables and making the risotto at the same time is stressful for you, you can always make the vegetables before you begin the risotto and set aside.
The final step is to stir the vegetables into the risotto to combine and give it a taste. Add salt and pepper if needed and serve!
some of the animals who were shot by Ohio law enforcement
I’m sure many of you have already heard about the hunting down and killing of ‘wild’ animals who had been let loose by their keeper, Terry Thompson, earlier this week. Thompson apparently kept upwards of fifty animals, including lions, tigers, cheetahs, wolves, giraffes, camels, and bears on his property in Zanesville, Ohio. On Tuesday, he opened the cages they were kept in and then committed suicide. When locals began spotting these animals roaming around the area, local law enforcement stepped in and began a hunt for the animals. Rather than using tranquilizers to subdue and relocated the animals, most of them were shot dead. Numbers vary, but approximately only 6 of the animals were relocated using tranquilizers; at least 49 were killed. NPR reports on the story, as well as the New York Times and many of the other major local news sources.
Thompson was an ex-con, having served time for illegal weapons charges. He also had a long history of complaints against him about cruelty to animals, and in 2005 was convicted for letting three cows and a bison die in his care. Local law enforcement had visited the property dozens of times over the years in response to complaints by neighbors with animal welfare concerns. Being well aware of the existence of these animals and the questionable conditions under which they were kept, it is particularly egregious that the sheriff is claiming they were in no way prepared for this kind of scenario. In other words, they were fully justified by their unpreparedness and by the imminent risk to ‘public safety’ to use lethal force when tracking down these animals.
On the one hand, this situation was grossly mishandled by local law enforcement who could have used tranquilizers to capture the animals rather than shooting them had they been trained to do so. The sheriff stated that they did not have the equipment or training to tranquillize the animals and that they did try to tranquillize one lion, but apparently missed and things got out of control. Jack Hanna argues that it is actually quite difficult to tranquillize an animal, particularly in the dark; the sheriff’s orders from the start were ‘shoot-to-kill’. This unpreparedness resulted in the unneccessary slaughter of at least 49 animals. In a state were there are no laws preventing individuals from ‘owning’ these types of animals, law enforcement agencies should be prepared to capture animals of this nature in a humane way, particularly within a county with such frequent previous problems with Thompson over his keeping of these animals.
On the other hand, this situation is endemic of a much more widespread problem involving global trade practices and state and federal legislation. The illegal capture and trade of wild animals is a global problem of epic proportions. In fact, illegal trafficking of wildlife is the third largest black market trade after drugs and arms and a hundred billion dollar industry. This illegal trade is part of what allowed Thompson to be able to acquire and keep these animals will little legal intervention. Because of Ohio’s lacking state laws regarding these types of animals, Thompson was within his rights to keep these animals in cages on his property. Some states have laws on the books (like Washington) that make it illegal for private persons to own ‘dangerous’ animals. Even in states where there are laws on the books, enforcement can be lax and individuals still continue to keep animals illegally in subpar conditions.
Of interest to me also is the way in which this story has been reported. The animals themselves are labelled as ‘wild,’ ‘aggressive,’ and ‘dangerous’–all terms which promote a discourse of fear and threat. News reports plead with people to keep their children inside and these animals are involved in a ‘hunt or be hunted’ kind of scenario. None of the reporting I’ve seen says anything of the animals’ experience or the ethics of slaughtering these animals without debate. Additionally, Thompson’s property was known as a private preserve. This is a reminder to be aware that any individual keeping animals can call themselves a preserve or a sanctuary, but this does in any way mean that the humans involved have the animals’ interests in mind.
This situation, while deeply depressing and sickening, is also a call to action. The global trade of ‘exotic’ animals and the keeping of these animals by individuals is a serious problem.
What can you do? Write to your local representatives and let them know your outrage at this situation and at the general legislation and enforcement related to keeping wild animals. OCCUPY your city and demand justice for humans and animals. Animals are part of the 99% too! Let your voice be heard!
Saturday morning was another delicious breakfast made by Emma– sweet quinoa with pecans and dried apricots. Yum! Emma had to work again and Gwen had gone back to New Haven on Friday (to return on Saturday afternoon), so I headed uptown to visit my dad where he was staying with some good friends at 207th & Broadway. We spent some time hanging out around there and walked over to a little farmers’ market. It really was starting to look like fall in NY and I think it helped that everywhere I turned there were more pumpkins:
One of the vendors had vegan cookies, so I got a huge carrot raisin cookie that was quite satisfying–pretty healthy tasting, kind of bread-like and gigantic!
Dick Hughes, the friend my dad was staying with, is one of seven siblings from Pittsburgh who have been family friends for decades (my mom met them in her college days). Dick has been involved in political action in and about Vietnam since the 1960s. In 1968, Dick received a call for the draft to go to Vietnam with U.S. military forces. He fundamentally opposed the war and, refusing the draft, became a conscientious objector. He did in fact head to Vietnam then, not as a soldier, but as a freelance journalist, determined to find out what was really going on and report back. When he arrived in Saigon in 1968, he was moved by the many children living on the streets. He and a friend brought some of them into the apartment they were renting, providing food, shelter, and support. This casual arrangement, born out of necessity and compassion, evolved into the Shoeshine Boys Project (named as such because the children subsisted mainly on shining shoes). An internationally recognized movement with 8 shelters for homeless children in Vietnam, this project has helped at least 2500 kids. Dick was in Vietnam for 8 years (1968-1976) helping to organize education, shelter, and support for Vietnamese children who needed it. This was the beginning of Dick’s involvement with political action relating to Vietnam and a life-long commitment to improving the lives of Vietnamese affected by the war. You can listen to a video of Dick telling his story here.
When I arrived on Saturday, Dick was in the heat of organizing an event to promote the new re-release of two books on the effects of Agent Orange by Fred Wilcox.
One book, called Scorched Earth: Legacies of Chemical Warfare in Vietnam, is about the lasting and devastating impacts of Agent Orange use during the Vietnam War on generations of Vietnamese. The other book, called Waiting for an Army to Die: The Tragedy of Agent Orange,is about the impact of Agent Orange use on American soldiers in Vietnam during the war. For those not familiar with the history of Agent Orange use in warfare in Vietnam, Agent Orange is a dioxin chemical herbicide and defoliant manufactured by Monsanto and Dow during the Vietnam War for the U.S. Department of Defense. In Vietnam, American troops sprayed millions of acres of land with this chemical, aiming to destroy forest cover as well as the ability of the Vietnamese to grow their own food for survival. The use of Agent Orange has affected at least 3 million people, causing directly the death and maiming of close to half a million Vietnamese and at least half a million severe birth defects in future generations of children who are currently sick and dying from Agent Orange exposure.
Noam Chomsky wrote the introduction to Scorched Earth and he was coming in on Monday to attend the event. The event was promotional for the books, but also educational about the horrific effects of Agent Orange. I wasn’t there for the event (I’d already returned to Seattle), but I heard it was a great success–very well attended and all went smoothly. On Saturday, we headed out to the upper west side to hand out flyers informing New Yorkers of the upcoming event and also getting the word out that the effects of Agent Orange were still very much a pressing issue. It was so nice to be with the Hughes clan and to spend some time with my dad; they’re all such amazingly good people and it is so heartening to be around them.
I didn’t end up making it to Occupy Wall Street because after the leafletting I was scheduled to meet up again with Gwen and Emma. We were meeting another friend, Leah, for dinner at Blossom. I had been to Blossom before on another trip to NY and really liked it. And they happen to have Gwen’s all-time favorite piece of carrot cake. I ordered a kale salad with a lemon dressing and pecans on top and a bowl of spicy lentil soup. It hit the spot as I had been feeling slightly greens-deprived. For dessert we ordered a couple of pieces of carrot cake to share, which was quite delicious. The pictures did not turn out well, so you’ll just have to use your wild imaginations to picture this meal. After dinner, we headed back to Brooklyn and snuggled up with a glass of wine, some tea and chatted until we were ready for bed.
On Sunday, Emma and I said our goodbyes first thing because she had to head off to work. Gwen and I decided to head up to 207th again to visit with my dad for a couple of hours. Even though it was a short amount of time, I was glad we went up to see him again and got to spend a bit more time with the Hughes family. After visiting, we headed back down to Brooklyn and stopped at Bliss Cafe again for brunch before I had to head to the airport. I resisted the urge to get another bowl of chili and cornbread, and tried instead the vegan breakfast burrito, which was served with vegan sour cream, chili, and salsa. It was tasty (though not quite so much as the chili/cornbread combo) and very filling for my trip home:
All in all, a lovely trip to NY with wonderful people and wonderful food. But I have to admit, it’s good to be back home!
On Friday, I got up early and ate a delicious breakfast that Emma made for Gwen and me of steel-cut oatmeal with grilled bananas and apples, cinnamon, vanilla and pecans. It was delightful! I headed to the conference, which was on NYU’s campus. A cute little food market on the way:
fall harvest
The conference, called Animal Studies: Changing the Subject?, was a day-long event and I outlined the line-up of speakers in an earlier post. When I arrived, breakfast was laid out for all the conference participants. All of the food was vegan and you wouldn’t have believed the smorgasbord of vegan sweets available. I felt too conspicuous snapping photos of the food, so unfortunately I have no pictures from the conference. But, if you can just imagine a long table filled with several different kinds of brownies, cookies, and all kinds of other amazing looking vegan desserts… I didn’t eat any breakfast (bagels and fruit, I think) since I had eaten at Emma’s, but at the midmorning coffee break, I did have a cup of tea and a brownie. Delicious! Lunch was also good–several different quinoa and other grain salads, several different kinds of sandwiches (I had one of the pesto panini, some quinoa salad, and another brownie). The food was great and it was such a treat to have such a wide selection of all-vegan goodies!
Contrary to what you might be thinking, I didn’t go to the conference for the food. I went to hear the amazing scholars who were speaking! Each of the speakers was very interesting and I came away with much to think about. There were certainly a few special highlights:
Gary Steiner, professor of philosophy at Bucknell and author of several books on animal ethics, was a real treat to hear speak. He began by tracing the history of how animals have been theorized by philosophers throughout history and then responded to why he believes their theorizations were insufficient. Steiner takes a fairly radical, hardlined approach to thinking about animals and ethics. Similar to Gary Francione , Steiner advocates the abolition of our use of animals in every facet of our lives, arguing that animal use is so pervasive and wide-spread because it is convenient, pleasurable, and customary. These reasons are anthropocentric and if we want to avoid engaging in speciesist practices, we should turn to the idea of the ‘vegan imperative,’ which requires us to stop using animals for our purposes and understand veganism as a goal where we are constantly striving to be better. He challenged the audience to imagine life without the use of animals and then work toward that goal. I was inspired by Steiner’s talk, partly because his use of philosophy was interesting, and partly because he is willing to talk about veganism in an academic context.
Marc Bekoff is a former evolutionary biology and ecology professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He has published extensively on animal behavior and emotion and has collaborated with the likes of Jane Goodall. Bekoff was already one of my ‘animal studies heroes’ before the conference and so I was very excited to see him speak in person. He’s very casual in his demeanor and speech and was a pleasure to hear. The talk he gave was filled with statements that lended themselves well to bullet-points:
where is the animal in animal studies?
do no intentional harm- do the best we can in a complicated world
expand our compassion footprint for coexistence
the question is about who lives and who dies. We’re making these decisions all the time.
caring about animals is not radical or extreme
we don’t have to apologize for caring and feeling
animals live in different sensory worlds than humans and this is important.
we know enough about animals’ emotional and intellectual capabilities right now to stop harming them
Bekoff is also dedicated to working with children and has written several children’s books. In one activity with a group of kids, the children were asked to draw a picture of their dreams for the future. One child drew a picture of happy-looking animals and people and the caption was “I dream that all animals will be safe from people.” I was really touched by this. I think children are so important in making a better world for animals. So many children start out sensitive to the animals they encounter and as they grow up are often taught by adults to care less for animals. Kids are told that some animals are made for us to eat (cows, chickens, pigs) and some are made for us to love (dogs and cats) and so they are (at an early age) indoctrinated into the culture of violence and domination that humans have created in relation to animals.
Steiner’s and Bekoff’s were the two talks that stood out the most to me, but the other talks were also very good–from Lori Gruen’s talk about chimpanzees mourning, and Jeffrey Bussolini’s research on cats developing a taste for eating chili peppers, to Susan Crane’s beautiful analysis of the poem, “A Scholar and His Cat”.
After the conference was over, I met up with Emma for dinner. We were quite close to Angelica Kitchen, so we walked over there.
As I said, in yesterday’s post, I was still thinking about the delicious cornbread and chili I had the night before at Bliss in Brooklyn. You can imagine my delight when I opened the menu and saw this:
That’s right! Three bean chili with cornbread! Emma and I both ordered it. Emma said that she likes when she’s out to dinner with someone and they order the same thing because it’s like they’re having family dinner together and can have more of a shared experience of eating. I thought that was a nice way to think about it:
The chili was served with a little side of butternut squash salsa, which was superb and which I am going to try to recreate at home.
It was so wonderful to have a nice hearty dinner with Emma. Good food and good conversation.
emma and her chili
For dessert, we shared a piece of pumpkin pie, which I honestly thought was a little lacking, though it looked pretty:
pumpkin pie
It just didn’t have much flavor and it was quite sweet. Emma thought it tasted okay to her, but did admit that her cold might be preventing her from tasting it. We stopped for a bottle of wine on our way back to Brooklyn and stayed up late talking and catching up. A nice end to another full day in New York.
Well, it’s been a whirlwind trip to New York City. I left last Wednesday night on the red-eye and returned to Seattle late last night. The trip was lots of fun and I thought I would recap a little at a time so as not to overwhelm you, dear readers. Before leaving for NY, I printed up a list of all the vegan restaurants in New York and we referred to the list every time we were thinking about having a meal or a snack. We got to try so many amazingly good vegan offerings throughout the four short days I was there.
I did, in fact, spend almost the entire time eating delicious vegan food, but I also got to socialize with wonderful friends and my dad (another wonderful friend!). I arrived at 6 am on Thursday morning and made my way to Brooklyn where I was staying with my friend, Emma. After dropping my bag off at her apartment and giving her a hug before she ran off to work, I showered and headed into the city. I met a friend (Claire) at Le Pain Quotidien for breakfast. While the restaurant itself was certainly not vegan, and it is a chain, it was a most pleasant eating experience. They have some vegan options on their menu, and I ordered a lovely pot of earl grey tea and the steel-cut oatmeal prepared with soymilk and fresh berries:
steel-cut oatmeal with berries
Most delightful! After spending the morning sitting and chatting over breakfast with Claire, we parted ways and I headed uptown to Grand Central to meet my friend Gwen who was coming in from New Haven, CT for a visit. We walked from Grand Central to the hat-making shop (somewhere in midtown) where Gwen was going to try on the lace-covered top hat she had commissioned to be made:
lady lace
After making some very particular suggestions to the hat-maker for changes she wanted to have made, we headed downtown for some lunch at Liquiteria
where Gwen and I each got an avocado wrap:
avocado wrap
and I got a green juice (I was really needing a pick-me-up after the all-night plane ride!):
green juice
From there, we walked over to Lula’s Sweet Apothecary, only to find that it did not open until 3 pm. We both needed to charge our phones (so I could bring you photos of the rest of our adventures for the day) and so we wandered to a little coffee shop for a cup of tea and a chat while we waited for Lula’s to open and gave our phones some juice.
Lula’s Sweet Apothecary
Lula’s did not disappoint. They have all-vegan ice cream and other frozen desserts. I had planned to taste a number of their offerings before choosing, but when I found out they had banana ice cream, I just ordered that (since it’s my favorite ice cream flavor). The ice cream was good, and certainly the flavor was spot-on. The consistency was slightly icy, but still good. I guess I’ve gotten used to the creamy creamy coconut ice cream consistency.
Lula’s ice cream cones
After Lula’s we headed to the garment district where Gwen needed to stop at a lace shop and a trimming shop to buy supplies for her latest lace tea gloves order. If you remember the post about Gwen’s lace gloves… The lace shop was completely overwhelming and extremely expensive. The lace Gwen fell in love with for the gloves she wanted to make was $149/ yard! I couldn’t believe it. I guess I’m very disconnected from this kind of fabric buying world what with my fabric buying at the Goodwill: $5 for 12 yards! Anyway, it was very interesting to see all of the different kinds of beautiful lace. The trimming shop was also quite overwhelming. This wall was just one of many covered from floor to ceiling with buttons:
buttons!
The trip to the garment district was exhausting and I was surprised, particularly in the trimming shop, at how many trimmings were made out of animals. There were so many feather embellishments, bone buttons, and leather trimmings. I’m sure this is the case in most cities but because everything is magnified in New York City, it was particularly noticeable to see the pervasiveness of humans’ use of animals for fashion, food, and everyday items. Just being out on the streets and walking around, too, there was so much fur and leather clothing on people and in shop windows. So many people buying and wearing clothing made out of dead animals without thinking at all about the animals themselves.
After the garment district, we headed back to Brooklyn to meet up with Emma, who was off work by then. We met her at Bliss Cafe, a little vegetarian/vegan restaurant in Williamsburg, just a few blocks from Emma’s apartment. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of this meal because it was so dark in the restaurant. But this was easily one of the best meals I had in NY. I ordered the “Chili con Pan”, which was a giant bowl of three-bean chili with two pieces of cornbread sitting in the bowl and topped with some vegan sour cream and pico de gallo. The combination hit. the. spot. In fact, I loved it so much, I ordered a similar meal at Angelica Kitchen the next night. But that will wait for tomorrow, along with a recap of the Animal Studies conference I attended at NYU.
This past weekend, in an effort to use up some more of the pears from our pear tree, I decided to make some apple-pear pie. Our next door neighbor, who just moved back into her house, had an abundance of apples weighing down her little apple tree. Along with the pears, I used some of her apples, which were quite tart and crunchy and perfect for pie. I’ve finally settled on a recipe for pie crust which is so easy and uses the simplest ingredients (I would recommend doubling the recipe for this one). I knew I wanted to make individual sized pies in these cute little white ramekins:
Making individual pies would make it easy to deliver some pie to my neighbor. This can easily be made as a single large pie–just roll out the dough for a regular pie pan. I made the crust dough first and put it in the fridge to chill. While the dough was chilling, I prepared the filling.
The Recipe for Apple-Pear Pie
2 pie crust dough
5 small-medium tart apples
5 small-medium pears
1/4 cup agave nectar
2 Tbls brown sugar
juice of 1/2 a lemon
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 Tbls flour
Preheat the oven to 425 F. Wash the apples and pears, core them, and slice them thinly. No need to peel them unless you prefer it. Toss the fruit in a large bowl with sweeteners, lemon juice, spices, salt, and flour. [Note: You may want to add more sweetener if you like a really sweet pie. It will also depend on how tart your fruit is. Mix the fruit together with the other ingredients and taste for sweetness. You can always add a little extra if you think it needs it.]
filling mixture
Set fruit aside while you roll out the pastry. Roll out the pastry either for small ramekin-sized pies, or one large pie. Line your pie dish(es) with half the crust.
line your pie dish(es) with dough
This is where I ran into some problems. I saw right away that I wasn’t going to have enough crust for 6 small pies (for the tops and bottoms), so I decided to just make 4 pies and throw together 2 little crisps with the remaining apples (see recipe below).
To complete the pies, add a generous scoop of the apples to the dish(es), mounding the fruit a bit:
add fruit mixture
Roll out and cut appropriate top-sized dough to cover the pies. Pinch together the top and bottom crusts to seal the pie. Cut little air vents into the top crust:
pies ready for the oven!
Bake at 425 F for 10 minutes. Then turn the heat down to 350 F and bake for approximately 30 minutes more, until the crust is golden brown.
The Recipe for Apple-Pear Crisp
3/4 cup oats
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 Tbls agave nectar (or a little extra sugar)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/3 cup sunflower or vegetable oil
If you want to make a full pie-sized crisp you can double this recipe. This was enough for 2 VERY generously topped individual crisps. Prepare the apple-pear mixture as you would for the pie (above). Spoon fruit into the baking dish:
Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl. Add oil and mix well. All ingredients should moist when combined, but not soggy. If you need to add a little extra oil, feel free to do so (one tsp at a time):
crisp topping
Spoon topping onto fruit and bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes. If you happen to be making both pie and crisp at once, you can bake the crisp according to the pie directions as I did:
ready for the oven
Serve both the pie and the crisp warm with vanilla coconut milk ice cream or deliver a little basket of warm apple-pear goodness to a friend or neighbor. If you remember from my last trip to the goodwill, I got this cute basket and dishtowel for delivering some treats to my neighbor:
basket of treats!
Do you prefer pie or crisp? I never can decide which I like better, which was one perk to making both at once!
This week, I’m headed to New York City for an animal studies conference at NYU called “Animal Studies: Changing the Subject“. This conference comes out of NYU’s exciting new animal studies initiative and is also registered as a pre-conference event for the massive Minding Animals International 2012 conference next summer in Utrecht, Netherlands. The conference at NYU is composed of sessions throughout the day where the attendees will have the opportunity to hear well-known animal studies scholars speak on a range of topics. In the afternoon, there will be breakout sessions in which all in attendance will break into groups for more informal discussion. The lineup for the conference is as follows:
Una Chaudhuri– Welcome
Gary Steiner– “Animals as Subjects and the Rehabilitation of Humanism”
Ralph R. Acampora– “Changing the Subjects, Indeed: Diversification of Inquiry in Animal Studies and Animal Ethics”
Jeffrey Bussolini– “Cats Eating Chile Peppers: Refutation of the Rozin Hypothesis”
Lori Gruen– “Pan thanatology- Mourning Chimpanzees”
Marc Bekoff- “Minding Animals Redux: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why?”
Jacques Lezra– “Bestiality”
Susan Crane– “A Scholar and His Cat”
Una Chaudhuri– “Theatre of Species and the Interspecies Imagination”
What a line-up! I’m very excited about the conference and hearing all of these amazing scholars speak about their work. You can certainly expect a recap of this event.
I’m staying in New York a few extra days, too, to visit with my dear friend Emma and my dear friend Gwen (of the Hardly Alice glove line). In fact, Gwen and I already have some plans to make a few stops at a lace shop for her glove materials and a trimming shop. Particularly since I’ve been sewing a bit these days, I’m looking forward to the trip to the garment district.
Plus, there will be lots of sampling of NYC’s vegan food offerings (take a look at that directory of veg restaurants. yes!). Plus, a visit to my dad who is also in New York for the week. Plus, a trip to Occupy Wall Street for a little protesting. Should be an action-packed week of academic, activist, and artistic inspiration!
Sometimes one-pot meals can be a real life saver. This one is so easy, warming, filling, and delicious. You can use whichever vegetables you have lying around. And for protein, you can chop up a couple of field roast sausages of your choice and toss them in with the vegetables. The other great thing about this meal is it makes the house smell awesome and cozy without a lot of effort.
I used an enamelled cast iron dutch oven, but any baking dish with a lid will work. If you don’t have a baking dish with a lid, aluminum foil over the top of a baking dish works just as well.
A tip, though, if you’re looking to buy a dutch oven. You can certainly spend hundreds of dollars on one (yikes!)…OR you can watch out for them to show up at your local Goodwill or thrift store, OR my mom found one for me at Marshall’s or TJ Maxx for about $35, I think. So worth it! We use it all the time. Thanks, Ma! And it’s cute and red:
dutch oven
This also makes a great side-dish if you’re making a more elaborate meal, because you can just chop everything up, pop it in the oven, and focus on the other things you’re cooking. Use whichever vegetables you have–for instance, we were out of carrots, but carrots are great in this!
The Recipe
1 yam
2 medium red potatoes
2 small parsnips
1 turnip
1 medium onion
whole garlic cloves (optional)
1.5-2 cups cabbage
2 cups kale
olive oil
salt and pepper
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Pour a small amount of olive oil in baking dish, lightly coating the bottom. I used a garlic infused olive oil, so I did not use whole garlic cloves, but the whole garlic cloves are a real treat! Chop all vegetables (and field roast, if using) into large bite sized pieces:
chop all vegetables
Toss them in the pot and drizzle with a small amount of olive oil. Sprinkle some salt and pepper on top (you can always add more when you serve it, if need be).
all ingredients in the pot
Cover the pot/baking dish. Bake in the oven for 30-45 minutes. You’ll want to test the vegetables for done-ness after about 30 and they are ready to eat whenever they are cooked to your liking.
finished and ready to eat
Serve them up and each person can top with salt and pepper if they desire it. What is your go-to super-easy one-pot wonder meal?
This week came with some very tragic news in my family and so it seems a little weird to have spent the week posting about exercise and food. However, dealing with the death of someone in your life seems to maybe be tempered a bit by continuing a familiar routine and reminding those around you to continue a routine–continuing to eat, continuing to exercise, and continuing to do whatever characterizes the mundane, day-to-day activities of your life.
Monday October 3: A recap of the Northwest Tea Festival, which we attended last Sunday. It was quite delightful and we have spent the remainder of the week enjoying our spoils from the festival.
Tuesday October 4: Congrats to Holly on winning the giveaway of The Pig Who Sang to the Moon! Eric was craving chicken soup with orzo, so I made up a Not-Chicken Noodle Soup, which we ate for three nights in a row and was warm and comforting.
Wednesday October 5: A very exciting law suit against Big Dairy charging dairy companies in California with slaughtering 500,000 healthy cows in order to drive up the price of milk. Definitely something to keep track of in the coming months.
Thursday October 6: Ok guys, please help me out here!! I’m about 55% to my goal of fundraising for Farm Sanctuary and there are just two weeks left until the Walk for Farm Animals! I’d be so grateful for any help at all you’re able to give!
Friday October 7: I finally got it together to write a post about my current workout routine. This workout routine has definitely helped me stay sane through all the ups and downs.
I’ve had some inquiries from folks about what I do for a workout routine to accompany all the delicious vegan food I spend much of my time eating! This has been a very tough week, and honestly, I think the routine of exercising every morning has really helped. Some background on my relationship with exercise… I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with exercise. In highschool, I was very active. I was on the soccer, swimming, crew, and track teams and as a result I was constantly on an at least 5 days a week schedule of working out, either on the field, track or water, or in the gym training for these activities. Needless to say, in those days I was very fit. Then came college, and following a fairly typical story, I stopped exercising, got distracted by school and social life, and gained the freshman 20 or 30 lbs (who said anything about stopping at the freshman 15?!). My weight and exercise level wavered in college, and periodically I would go to the gym and get into an exercise routine and it would feel great, but I wouldn’t sustain the practice of going. I did manage to take fairly regular yoga classes in college, which was something new to me at the time. After college, I moved to Seattle and honestly, did almost no exercise for the first year or two of being here. Then, I got into doing yoga sporadically at a studio nearby our house. I liked yoga because it was increasing flexibility and it got my body moving without any extreme kind of exercise.
Coming to Bikram:
About a year and a half ago, I stumbled across Bikram Yoga, which is a 90 minute set of 26 poses. The class is the same every time and Bikram has trained all of the teachers to say almost exactly the same kinds of narrative with the class. The room is heated to about 105 F and the class is for all levels at once. I had always liked the other forms of yoga I had tried, but I LOVE Bikram. It is very intense, you sweat like crazy and for much of the class, your heart is pounding. Bikram’s not for everyone, particularly not if you have any heart problems or other serious medical problems, but I’ve really enjoyed doing it. I’ve taken classes on and off for the past year and a half. But then I started thinking more about weight lifting and building muscle in a way that Bikram doesn’t do so much. Don’t get me wrong, Bikram does certainly build strength and will change your body to a more toned version of itself. But I decided to start going to the gym again (with a great gym buddy I met at school).
Back to the Gym:
At the beginning of this past summer, I got a gym membership and started going with a friend of mine who is a real gym expert and could teach me about a workout routine and weight-lifting. He’s been going to the gym for years, he is in amazing shape, and I always feel like I’m with the cool kid at the gym! We got on a routine for the summer together and now that fall is here, I feel confident enough to go to the gym and lift weights on my own. I have not been to Bikram all summer, but I found a Groupon for it a while back, and plan to go sporadically through the winter. Here is an example of my weekly workout routine. My goal is to lose some weight, but more importantly to get strong! I’ve been meeting both of those goals this summer.
Note about weights: I do 3 or 4 sets of 12 reps each on at least 3 or 4 different weightlifting activities (machines or free weights) for each muscle group. I lift as much weight as I can and still get to 12 each time (I’m trying to tone up, but not build giant body builder muscles, so this routine works well). Also, the order of the weight lifting changes up so that my muscles don’t know what to expect on any given day.
Monday: cardio–30 min elliptical; weights–chest and triceps
Tuesday: cardio–60 min elliptical or 30 elliptical & 30 stairmaster; abs
Wednesday: weights–kick ass leg workout: usually 6 or 7 different exercises at least (this is intense and will make you too sore to walk, so this is done alone).
Thursday: cardio–60 min elliptical or 30 elliptical & 30 stairmaster; abs
Friday: cardio–30 min elliptical; weights–back and biceps
Saturday: light cardio–1 hour walk with Maizy
Sunday: light cardio–1 hour walk with Maizy
Also, at the beginning of the summer, I was trying to get into a healthier eating/exercise balance and so I used for about two months a free online fitness/calorie program: My Fitness Pal. It allows you to track any goals you have, what exercise you do, and the calories you eat. I mainly wanted to use it to get a sense of the rough balance of calories burned to calories consumed, and it also counts how much protein, iron, etc. you get with each meal. For your bodyweight/gender/age, it tells you how much of each thing you should shoot for each day and let’s you know how you’re doing along the way. This was helpful just as a rough gauge to make sure I was getting the nutrients that I needed from the food I was eating. I hate counting calories because I think it tends toward the obsessive, but it was a good way to get started and I’m glad to have done it for a short while.
Finally, my sister recommended a book, The Women’s Health Big Book of Exerciseswhich is filled with great strength-training exercises. It has many great ideas and offers variations for each exercises which decrease or increase the difficulty depending on your needs. I would highly recommend it!
That’s a quick run-down of my current exercise routine and it’s working out really well for me so far.
Do you all have any particular exercise routine you’re in love with lately?
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