Food

What kind of coffee would you be?

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Me? I am all black coffee. Unless of course we are on a road trip and the only coffee around is nasty gas station coffee, and if all I want, yes, all I want at that very moment is nasty gas station coffee, then I will take that watered down dirty coffee and add as much sugar and fake cream to disguise the bitter taste any day. Usually I just decline the bad coffee and go for a water.

Bad coffee aside. If we talk good coffee, local coffee, then it better be black. I want to taste it for all its richness, all its realness, I want to taste that coffee.

If I were coffee, I would be black, raw to the core of the bean, just me. No cream or sugar to coat the edges of that strong hit of goodness, just true to itself, real, and direct. Yes, there might be times when I add a little sugar to things, to smooth things out, but if you want the real me, go get that cup of joe… black as can be. It might come out bitter, it might come out strong, but it is me. I wasn’t always that way. I used to add lots of cream and lots of sugar, more of the latte variety, and over time I have migrated to the no additive version. Of course, I am still finicky, it has to be good coffee for me to drink it black.

If you were a cup of coffee, would you be a latte, a cappuccino, a mocha? Would you add mostly cream, or mostly sugar?

I do it all for me.

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There are not many things in life that we get to do all for ourselves. There is one thing I do each day for me. It is my zen at the end of the day. It is my moment to breathe and process what happened each day. It is just for me. It is my daily run. Multiple times in the past few months I have had individuals ask me why I work out. Do I do it for myself? To lose weight? For Chris?

I run all for me. I work out to take care of me, to stay healthy and fit. I do it because it is the one hour of my day that is entirely for me. I can make the choice to just listen to music, or to read (yes I read while I run on the treadmill), or to zone out and meditate. It is my time. At the end of the day it does not matter how much I weigh, or the tone of my body, it matters how I feel about myself. Am I confident about who I am and how I treat others? Yes. That is what matters, not the curves or the sag of what the years have done to my body.

I am a health nut. My parents passed on when they were in their 50’s. I never once remember seeing my parents workout. Of course, my dad being a contractor had plenty of physical activity, but I never saw them consciously focus on what they ate, or specifically thinking about physical fitness. I want to be different. I want to be active. I want to think about what I put into my body. Is it good fuel, or crappy sugar that does nothing to give me energy throughout my day?

What do you do all for you? I hope there is something.

Fresh grown tomatoes

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I have just grown my first tomatoes. 

I know I am light years behind most folks, especially Barbara Kingsolver, who wrote “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” but you see I never really liked tomatoes too much. Yes, I like some ketchup for my fries, I enjoy a tasty red sauce, and of course there is whatever tops my pizza, but raw tomatoes were never my thing. Until recently. I cannot remember what the turning point was this summer, but I started eating cherry tomatoes with mozzarella, basil, and olive oil. Yes, I know it is called caprese salad. But, you see, I always had caprese sans tomatoes, and now I have the complete shabang. Maybe I’m a late bloomer.

In June of this summer I purchased a tomato starter at our local farmer’s market. I was excited for all the bounty it would bring us this summer. It is called “Oregon Spring” and was developed by Oregon State University. My $3 starter has yielded 3 tomatoes. As a late bloomer to tomatoes, and as a non-green thumb, I am stoked. Although I have to confess, Chris has watered them every day, so really he should be the proud farmer.

As you can see from the first photo, the first tomato is ready, and we cut into it last night. While some of you may say it is a sin to put it into a caprese salad, remember that I am a late bloomer. Baby steps. I still have to learn what varieties are good to grow for what types of eating, just like what types of wine are best to drink with which foods. Ah, there is so much to learn in the world, right?

I am off to gloat about my bounty, however small it may be.

Farting on an airplane?

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Come on, you know that either you are a victim of the airplane fart, or you were the one that wounded everyone. I have had this article saved in a blog draft for months now, and I just found it. I think at the time that I found this article I thought why would anyone want to read about farting on an airplane? Recently I was on a flight with Chris and while waiting for other passengers to board the plane we smelled the most horrifying body odor. I wanted to gag, or maybe I started to gag. I looked over at Chris and he looked ill. Eventually the passenger continued to walk to the back of the plane and we were saved.

The ironic part about the body odor is that the man who came to sit in the seat next to me leans over and says, “I am so sorry about my body odor. I have been camping in Mexico and I have not showered in days.” The thing was, he did not smell that bad. I will tell you, I might have horrible hearing and eyesight, but the one thing God gave me that fully functions is my nose. My smeller is attuned and always on high alert. This guy did not smell that bad. I told him so. I thought to myself, what amazing self-awareness to alert me. I appreciated his bluntness and if he was going to be so blunt I thought, why not respond in kind? So I lean over to him and say: “You do not stink at all, you missed the guy that has the bad body odor.” He smiled and said, “Oh, good. I felt bad that I might.”

Which leads me to the actual topic of this blog: Flatulence on an airplane. You will want to read this article I just shared. For a little tidbit, it starts out with: “Flying increases flatulence.” How many times have you thought, seriously who did that? The smells and odors that willingly escape and waft through the heavy, hot, and stuffy air seem to linger, and slowly kill our nose hairs. And, yet, we probably have all had a bad day, a bad airport lunch, or got stuck with a crazy, uncomfortable stomach while turbulence has imprisoned us to our seats thanks to the fasten seatbelt sign.

I am not going to lie. Chris has berated me for such misdemeanors. What can I say? Sometimes you cannot help it. Yes, I would rather be the guilty one, then the recipient.

Eternal Searcher

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I can find contentment in my life. I can appreciate what is right in front of me. Yet, I also find that I am always searching, voraciously for new information. I am a learner. I have often wondered what made me crave wanting to know and learn more. Over the weekend I finished reading: Poor Man’s Feast: A Love Story of Comfort, Desire, and the Art of Simple Cooking by Elissa Altman. It is a memoir about food and she often talks fondly about her father and how he helped shape her craving to want to learn more about food. As a child he would whisk her away to upscale restaurants while her mother would be off getting her hair and nails done.

This quote made me think about why we search in life. Altman is talking about her father’s mother leaving when he was young.

“Her leaving him at such a young age turned my father into an eternal searcher–always walking, always moving and hoping and looking for something he was never quite able to find, or to nail down.” page 219

It made me wonder do I do that? It has always been so hard for me to slow down. My days and sometimes nights are filled with work, which I love. Yet, I also squeeze in my hour run each day, and this weekday blog. It often means I crawl into bed and look over at Chris and say “Before we turn the lights out, can I just catch up with my Words with Friends game? It is the first moment I have had all day.” Then my eyes close and I am quickly off to la la land.

Do we all have a bit of wanting to be wanderers? Do we know when to stop or when enough is enough? Usually I know when I have hit my limit. It happened last week. I came home from work and essentially crawled into bed and fell right to sleep. Chris woke me up a few hours later, and I babbled nonsense to him as I woke from my nap. None of it made sense, and I think it showed just how exhausted I was from my ongoing, never-ending days.

Maybe being an eternal searcher is a good thing, as it means that you are always creatively looking freshly at the world. I would like to think that I am the eternal searcher, content with my life just as it is, but always grateful for that new idea and inspiration that comes as I pop into a boutique, finish that good book, have an aha moment during my run. What I can tell you is that the only way you will find me as a couch potato is if I cannot keep my eyes open and I have to (s)nap out of my long wandering ways.