Vegetarians: Don't Fly American!

This is cross-posted from my Vegging out in T-Town blog, but it's something I wanted to share both places.

I am now going to do my first vacation update. No, really. Part of me doesn't want to start on a sour note, but part of me would like to get this post out of the way. So, I apologize in advance for the crankiness of this post.

Let's talk airplane food. I have no delusions of walking on a plane and receiving the best meal of my life. I know that airplane food will be slightly above edible. As a result, I always bring snacks. I did, however, expect the airline to fulfill my special meal request, especially since their website says:

Special meals are available on Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Snack and Breakfast Snack flights when ordered in advance.

Order at least 24 hours prior to the flight:

• In First and Business Classes on transcontinental flights in the U.S.


• In all classes to or from Europe and Asia


• In all classes to or from Belo Horizonte, Recife, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador or Sao Paulo, Brazil; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Santiago, Chile or Montevideo, Uruguay.

And even after all the hoops I jumped through, yeah, not so much.

American doesn't allow you to complain by phone -- seriously. It's either fax, email, or snail mail. The email I sent to them to complain about the fiasco explains exactly what happened:

On October 1, my traveling companion and I flew on AA flight 36 from Dallas to Madrid. We requested vegetarian meals. I called two days in advance, as recommended, to confirm, and the automatic voice said that they were ordered. When we arrived at the airport in Dallas, we verified again with the employee at the gate, and he told us that our meals were ordered. I then also told the flight attendant upon boarding that we had vegetarian meals. When meal service began, we were informed that, though the meals had been ordered, they were not on board the plane. Two very helpful and friendly flight attendants helped to piece together something, but I was very disappointed by the situation. I went through a lot of trouble to ensure our requests were met to no avail.

On October 13, we took flight 235 from Rome to New York. To avoid the meal problem, we spoke with the woman at the gate who informed us that no request had ever been made. She later said the request was in the system but that it was made "improperly." They were unwilling to do anything. Then a supervisor arrived who told me, after being informed that I needed the meal for health reasons, that she would not let me fly. She changed her mind and then called catering to try to do something. Then she said the problem was solved. On board, the flight attendant said nothing had arrived, and again they cobbled a make-shift meal together.

I am very disappointed by this experience. How will AA try to rectify this situation?

So even after ordering my meal four months in advance, calling ahead, and speaking to two people in person, I was still stranded on board a 9+ hour flight with no meal. I mentioned that the outbound flight attendants were awesome and scrambled to give me something to eat. Here's the dinner we ended up with:



Two iceberg salads, surprisingly tasty dressing, a roll, "butter," crackers with Gruyere, a cheese-sundried tomato salad from the first-class meal, and a chocolate caramel brownie. I had decided in advance not to worry about eating vegan on this vacation. To make it easy on the airline (ha!), I chose the lacto-ovo meal. It's a good thing, too, because this was pretty artery-clogging. BUT it was food that I could eat, and I appreciated the flight attendants' hard work. For breakfast, we had:



Croissant, strawberry-banana yogurt (gelatin-free), more "butter" (which I never touch -- don't worry), and orange juice. This was acceptable. I can't complain about it at all.

The flight back is a different story, as you can see above in my letter. In fact, I was so livid after fighting -- in Italian, mind you -- with the airport folks that I didn't photograph anything. We ended up with mushroom lasagna, salad, dressing that contained anchovies (didn't eat it), bread, and some kind of cookie. The small meal at the end was pizza Margherita. The cheese had rennet in it, possibly animal, but I was so starving I ate it anyway. I wish I hadn't, but I could only eat so many granola bars without having a blood-sugar spike and crash.

American did respond relatively quickly. Their email has some kind of disclaimer about privacy, so I won't repost it word-for-word, but the gist is that they are oh-so-sorry to have disappointed me with meal service. Won't I please accept their apology with a $50 voucher? I decided that they deserved to know my answer:

This is in regards to your response to my previous complaint, #XXXXXXXXX.

I know that the attached flight voucher was intended to make amends for the major inconvenience caused by your company as well as the extreme rudeness by your Rome-based employees. However, a $50 voucher is nowhere near enough recompense to cause me to fly American again. My traveling experience made it clear that American Airlines has no interest in serving those with special dietary needs. It was only through the hard work of the flight attendants that I had anything to eat at all on two 9-plus-hour flights. It's a good thing that I do not also have a dairy intolerance, because the only things available were filled with cheese and milk. If your airline does not wish to accommodate vegetarians or those with religious restrictions, then you should not offer the option. As it is, I have no confidence that I would ever receive a meal that meets my dietary needs on your flight. As a result, I will take my business elsewhere and encourage my vegetarian friends to do the same.

In addition, I hope you will tell your Rome-based employees that blaming the customer for your company's mistake is not appropriate, and threatening not to let a vegetarian fly because you failed to provide the appropriate meal ordered four months in advance is terrible business practice.

No, American, I will not use your $50 flight voucher to let you screw me out of the meal I ordered again. I paid over $900 for my ticket; $50 probably doesn't even cover the meals I wasn't served.

Vegetarians: I urge you NOT to fly American Airlines, especially not on international flights. If you do, bring a lot more food than I did. I had six granola bars, an apple, and a sample packet of Justin's Nut Butter. It wasn't enough. I'll know better next time, in that I will pack entire meals, and I will NEVER fly American again.

I promise my next post will be happy and full of beautiful photos and delicious food!

Vegging out in T-Town

Hello, friends!

I did something silly this week: I made a second (ok, like ninth) blog. I enjoy sharing recipes here sometimes, but occasionally I worry that my food talk doesn't fit the theme of this blog. So while I promise not to deprive this place completely of my recipes and eatings, most of it will now happen over at Vegging out in T-Town. I will crosspost tasty treats but leave the nutrition and restaurant talk at the new venue. If you have interest in keeping vegetarian in Tulsa or just like to think and read about food, check it out. I will keep Grey Eye Designs Studio more focused on creativity.

Thanks! I hope to see you at both places!

Eating to Live: Tuesday, July 6

In an effort to eat and feel better, I decided to try out Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s Eat to Live plan. The creative Vegan Epicurean writes about the plan here and there, and her recipes reflect its tenets, so I decided to give it a go. I’ve been trying to incorporate the overall philosophy (basically to eat tons of raw veggies, steamed veggies, beans and fruit; some grains and nuts; and very little or no dairy, eggs, added fats and sugars) over the past couple of weeks. My mother had a health scare last week, and somehow it allowed me to convince her to give it a try. We are now doing it together – or as together as two people who lives three hours away can – so I’m giving it a bigger push. Here is my Eat to Live day of munching.

Tuesday started off with my new favorite smoothie technique:

Stacked in there, from bottom to top, you see a large handful of spinach, a banana, frozen pineapple, frozen peaches and frozen mango. Then I added the creamy liquid that makes it so much more delicious: hazelnut milk. Yum! The consistency is far better than when I make smoothies with water. I only use about 1/4 to 1/3 cup, so it doesn’t add too many calories. Plus, I am not counting calories on this diet, so woo hoo! Unpictured is the tablespoon of flaxseeds I always forget to throw in until the last second.

Beaming in all its green glory.

When I got to work, I brewed a cup of Choice Organic Moroccan Mint Green tea. I always mix in 1/2 to a full tablespoon of local, raw honey to my morning tea. It isn’t actually my favorite, and it does disobey the no-added-sugars thing, but it keeps my allergies under control. I’d rather swallow it than an antihistamine.

Then the lunchtime fairy bestowed upon me this glorious spread:

Ahhhh…I cannot even express how delicious this meal is.

The mushy mess in the bowl is red lentils cooked in garlic, a little veggie broth, a bay leaf and water. It is then topped with maitake mushrooms (from the farmers market) sautéed in veggie broth and more garlic. It tastes like heaven, seriously. The original recipe (from my beloved World Vegetarian by Madhur Jaffrey) called for something like 1/4 cup of olive oil for four servings. Mine has none at all, and you wouldn’t even miss it.

Maitakes = drool.

On the plate is red leaf lettuce topped with my favorite dressing (a tablespoon of Dijon mustard, a tablespoon of red wine vinegar and a healthy dose of cumin) plus a dash of balsamic vinegar. I should have added some other vegetables to the salad, but I didn’t. Oh well. It was still good.

A couple of hours later, I got fruity:

My friends the nectarine and the Cripps pink apple. (How nice that gangbangers are growing such delicious fruit these days!)

And now, let me introduce you to dinner:

Okra (from the farmers market) cooked in tomatoes, onion, garlic, oregano and veggie broth; steamed zucchini (from a friend’s garden) and purple new potatoes (farmers market) topped with Italian seasoning and nutritional yeast; and black beans. The okra recipe is from Dr. Dean Ornish’s Everyday Cooking, and it is incredibly tasty. The prep work for this dinner was minimal, just a little chopping and dicing. It all cooks pretty quickly and with little supervision. Next time around, we will drain the juice from the canned tomatoes, because the result was a bit soupy, but it sure is tasty.

Then I proceeded to make dinner for another night. I tried to use this recipe. I say tried because, while the purple hull peas are perfection, I am a pancake-flipping failure. The batter that supposedly makes 8-10 corn cakes for me made two that looked somewhat fine, two that were burnt nearly to a crisp, and a bunch of runny, blackened garbage-disposal fodder. I ate the two blackened ones, doing my best to remove the charred, cancer-causing bits. I forgot to take a picture before I'd inhaled everything, so this is what you get to see:

The not-so-hideous side.

Oh no! Someone keep the carbon away from this girl!

To be honest, they were really tasty, even with the not-at-all-like-the-picture appearance.

That was my Tuesday in food.

Salad Challenge Day 7

Sunday was the final installment of my Salad Challenge, and I pulled it off, despite Dilly Deli’s always enticing Michael Roy sandwich. Instead, I ordered the Rayzor salad and added a grilled portobello mushroom:

Nekkid!

Dressed.

I either misread the menu or they decided to give me a little extra somethin’ by sprinkling shredded cheese on top. Basic yellow fromage does nothing for me, though, so I happily picked the little pieces off. I should have photographed the resulting pile, which looked quite silly.

So, thus ends the challenge. Six of my seven salads fit the bill. Three were absolutely delicious, three were serviceable, and one I will not make again. I’m glad I did the experiment, and I may try it again in a couple of weeks – after play rehearsals are over. When I have more time to do prep work, I know the results will be more interesting. However, my overall goal of cleaning up my eating habits was mostly achieved, so that’s the good news. I do plan to carry that over into the rest of the summer.

Thanks for watching and for playing along at home!

Salad Challenge Day 6

I broke my own rules today, but I'm OK with it. Let me rewind.

I won two tickets to yesterday's Wine, Women and Shoes event: "From Manolo to Merlot: Fashion Show, Luncheon & Shopping." (Have I before properly expressed my deep love for TashaDoesTulsa?) Like a truly hip, swinging twentysomething, I brought my mom. For several hours, we sampled different wines, tried on shoes, mingled and had a ball. We also shopped a little to benefit the YWCA. I'll be picking up a tasty bottle of cabernet sauvignon next week, and Mom and I both when home with even T-shirts and amazing shoes. I have another big event to go to Sunday, and somehow I ended up buying two new dresses, so I wore one today:

I love this dress! I won't annoyingly rub in exactly the amazing deal I got on this vintage-inspired Calvin Klein beauty, but it was pretty impressive. I also bought the shoes on sale at Macy's, and the "sash" is the last batik scarf I made with a brooch my grandmother gave me in the center.

Grey caught me all windblown. :)

Anyway, as a last-minute addition, I was not able to request a special-diet meal in advance, so when I saw the menu was a salad topped with chicken, I just asked that mine be brought out meatless. Normally I don't mind raising a bit of a fuss, but in a room full of people who paid $75 for their tickets and I feel like the kid who sneaks in, I decided to be grateful for what I got. Since I'm not actually a full-time vegan, I have chosen adaptability over pickiness in this instance. Here was the lunch salad:

The picture was not actually taken inside a cave, I promise. It was just dark in there, and I used my camera phone. It was Bibb lettuce, cherry tomatoes, black beans, corn, avocado, pepperjack cheese, and these delicious tortilla strips. There was chipotle ranch to go on top. I only used a very small amount, but it had a wonderful bite. I want to thank the waitstaff for getting me my chicken-less order quickly even though it was a last-minute request!

OK, Sunday is the last day. Look for more fancy-dress photos in addition to a final salad that will meet my own rules. :)

Salad Challenge Day 3

My company has started a new wellness program. To be honest, I’m not sure anyone knows what it is going to be, but to kick it off, folks from one of the local hospitals are on-site today and next Wednesday to do health screenings. I got one done today, even though I knew I’d be stabbed poked with a needle. It was only a finger prick, though, and I was brave. There were no tears, no hyperventilation, and no amusing stories to tell about getting whiplash from passing out. The news is excellent: all my stats are normal! This was my first cholesterol test, and my total is 126 with my HDL being 58 (ideal numbers are <> 55 for women, respectively). As a totally-vegetarian-and-mostly-vegan eater, I assumed my cholesterol would be low, so I’m glad to see I was right. I’m gonna live!

Speaking of my eating habits, here is today’s response to my salad challenge:

Sorry, no n00dz this time. I dressed this puppy as I assembled it. Before you is a mostly local salad, containing lettuce (green and red leaf), broccoli and maitake mushrooms all from the farmers market. Last night, I sautéed the broccoli and mushrooms in garlic and olive oil. I also threw together my favorite dressing: juice from one small lime, about 2 teaspoons of Dijon mustard, and a few healthy dashes of cumin. This dressing is incredibly flavorful, thanks to the nearly overwhelming mustard I bought this last time. Oh, and I also washed and cut up the lettuce. Today, I heated the sautéed goodies in the microwave for 30 seconds and put everything together on the plate. Quick, easy and delicious. It’s even better topped with a roasted portobello mushroom instead of the maitakes, though the latter are quite tasty, too.

Ah, the goodness of local produce.

Once again, I had fruit salad at tea, so I won’t bore you with more pictures of the same. Tomorrow, I’m looking forward to a salad involving two somethings I’m using for the first time. Here’s a hint . . . one component is one of Rick Bayless’s favorites.

See you on the flipside of Hump Day!

Salad Challenge Day 2

For some reason, I woke up with an upset stomach, so I attempted to quiet things by only making half my usual breakfast. I made a good-sized smoothie but forewent my usual toast with cashew butter. As a result, my stomach got angry with my further starting around 8 a.m. I don’t know how I fended off stomach-eating-itself hunger until 11:30, but I did. Since Monday was another busy night, I got my salad on at Jason’s Deli today. Here’s the delicious beast:

Nekkid again. ;)

Dressed and tossed.

This delicious monstrosity features nearly everything a salad could ever need: lettuce, baby spinach, red and yellow bell peppers, baby carrots, broccoli, mushrooms, red onion, sunflower seeds, a dollop of hummus on the side, and the thing that makes any salad something to moan about: artichoke hearts. And lots of them. The whole thing was crowned by balsamic vinegar and enjoyed with two organic flatbread crackers (of which one is pictured). Yum! Seriously, this thing must have weighed two pounds. I did prefer this combination of salad toppings more when I was still using the Italian dressing, but it contains a milk product (I assume parmesan cheese), so I now opt for the balsamic, which is good, but it lacks some bite. I, however, lacked no bites today and instead ate every bit of this baby I could scrape from the plastic container. Scrumptious!

I did not have time to prepare a lunch today because, between work and rehearsal, I scarfed down the mock chicken salad sandwich I posted yesterday and made a tangy fruit salad. And guess what was my teatime snack today . . . yep!

This time, the mixture is two Granny Smith apples, a container of fresh pineapple (chopped by Whole Foods), a pint of strawberries, slightly more than half a bag of green grapes, and the juices of half a large lemon and a whole small lime. I like my fruit salad a bit sour, as you can probably tell, and I never add sweetener. Fruit is naturally sweet; I never understood the need to top a mix like this with sugar or honey.

So another successful day in my Salad Challenge. Did you participate today?

Salad Challenge Day 1

I am a creature of habit. I follow a highly regimented eating schedule, largely to avoid blood-sugar crashes and the nasty migraines and crankiness that accompany them. Any given work day, I eat at the following times:

· 6:30 a.m. – breakfast (usually toast with nut butter and a fruit smoothie)
· 7:30 a.m. – tea with honey
· 10 a.m. – coffee (black)
· 12:00 p.m. – lunch
· Between 3:30 and 4 p.m. – tea with honey
· Between 6 and 6:30 p.m. – dinner

Today has been a whole different story. I signed up for a wellness check this morning at 8 a.m., for which I had to fast two hours in advance. So, I packed up my smoothie, a slice of bread and my homemade cashew butter to eat afterward. However, the city got caught in a crazy storm, which caused a power outage at work starting at 7:45 a.m. Needless to say, my wellness screening was cancelled. I finally remembered that I could eat at 8:30, so I drank my smoothie and then smeared cashew butter on my untoasted bread. The power went on and off for a while, finally choosing the latter for a while around 10:30. We were all told to take an early lunch until noon. A coworker and I headed to Panera, where I drank a massive large coffee (black) and ate 3/4 of a whole grain bagel (plain, no cream cheese) at about 11 a.m. So when noon rolled around, I was definitely not ready for lunch, which meant I didn’t enjoy my first salad of the week until 2:30. Sheesh.

Anyway, here is my first entry into my Salad Challenge:

Nekkid. (tee hee!)

Dressed.

It’s going to be a crazy week, so I will admit that I did not make this salad. It is one of Whole Foods’ salad shakers. However, the ingredients are all-natural and fit the bill. The salad contains brown rice, edamame, carrots, mushrooms, cabbage, almonds and their no-oil carrot ginger dressing (carrots, mirin, agave, tamari, rice vinegar, mustard and ginger). The verdict: it’s tasty, though not particularly filling. I intended to serve it atop spinach I washed, spun and tore up previously, but they were pretty nasty by the time I got them out of the Ziploc. Given my particular non-love for spinach, it’s probably tastier without the greens, though the added iron and magnesium would have been nice. The dressing is great without oil; I love the ginger zing.

Here's some bonus salad pr0n:

OK, so there's really nothing salad-like about chicken salad. Mine is, of course, of the vegan variety. This post was apparently sponsored by Whole Foods.

(Not really. I paid for all of these items. Or rather, my love did, since it was his week to buy.)

Verdict on this one: tasty, though not life-altering. I'm not sure I've ever eaten actual chicken salad, so I have no basis for comparison. I will tell you that, last week, when my taste buds weren't working properly, nothing tasted as amazing as this sandwich. Today, I would not go that far, but I still enjoyed it.

Did you enjoy a nutritious salad today?

Salad Challenge starts tomorrow

If you're joining me in my 7-day Salad Challenge, tomorrow is the start. I loaded up with farmers market goodies yesterday, and today we will take our weekly Whole Foods trip. I will be sharing my concoctions throughout the week. Please feel free to do the same!

See you on the flip side of Sunday.

Salad Challenge

My eating has been weird lately. I’ll eat one incredibly healthy, balanced meal and follow it up with an emergency chocolate milkshake or half a jar of French onion dip. As a result, I’ve been a bit sluggish lately, and I’ve been more headache-prone, so it’s time to remedy the situation. In two weeks, I’m going to enter into a salad challenge. The idea was inspired by last night’s dinner, when I sautéed some sugar snap peas in garlic and a little olive oil and added them to spinach and radishes, topping it all with jalapeno hummus and lime juice. The result was delicious, healthy, local produce eaten in a way that is totally different from anything else I’ve made before.

Here are the rules for my salad challenge:

• Must eat at least one salad each day for seven days. Imaginary brownie broccoli points go for two salads in any given day.
• Salads can be of any healthy variety: veggies, fruits, grains and beans.
• Pasta can be one component, but it must be overwhelmed by produce.
• Only one cooked vegetable is allowed per salad (i.e. stir fry is not a salad).
• Salads must be somewhat different each day, but they can incorporate several of the same elements.
• No eggs, dairy or meat (duh) allowed.

This is me throwing down the gauntlet. I am waiting two weeks to start because I won’t be in town this weekend for the farmers market, and I’d much, much prefer to incorporate as much local stuff as possible.

So now I turn to my friends and readers for help: What is your favorite salad? What adventurous component should I try? I’m a picky eater, but I’d love to get some new ideas. Also, if you’d like to take part with me, let me know! Feel free to make up your own rules according to your dietary needs and preferences. The challenge starts Monday, June 7!

My history with food

I probably think (and write) too much about food. I never meant to turn this blog into such an eating-focused venture, but the poll I did recently indicated you crazy kids like that kind of stuff, so I will keep on. Plus, food is important. I like it and I value it.

I’m not sure I’ve ever discussed this on my blog, but in my teens and early 20s, I had some problems with food. I never had a full-blown eating disorder, thankfully, but I had several years of what experts now call disordered eating. I say this not to elicit sympathy or claim some kind of bizarre bragging rights, but rather for some background. I think my outlook on eating has a lot to do with my past issues regarding food.

For those of you who don’t know, I did my undergrad at an all-women’s college (not a “girls’ school,” haters). It was a loving, open environment that encouraged discourse and success, but, as you can imagine, it also had a high incidence of eating disorders. I think my senior year, our student body was estimated to have twice the national average rate of anorexia, bulimia and EDNOS. It was fairly common to speculate about who threw up dinner, and it was sadly common for such gossip to be based on fact.

I don’t blame my college for this problem; rather, it was a result of the kinds of students it attracted (overwhelming upper- to upper-middle-class and white). It was also easy for stress to get the better part of any student, and sadly many young women deal with stressors through food issues. I wouldn’t say I struggled through college at all, but my course load was always demanding, as was the pressure to be as thin and perfect as the other 20-year-olds around me. In my Oklahoma high school, the number of perfectly toned and bronzed classmates was minimal; in Southern California, it was overwhelming. My pasty curviness no longer seemed ideal, and I had no idea how to deal with it.

I tried exercising like everyone else, but nothing seemed to change. I know looking back that my diet was largely to blame. At the time, I knew I needed to eat better. I read online about counting calories and protein and fat grams. I learned that a serving of grains is about the size of your fist, and one of meat is roughly equivalent to a deck of cards. I became convinced that The Zone would help me. One week, I decided to drink four cups of green tea a day to boost my metabolism – until the day my GERD rebelled and I threw up for an hour.

The summer I was 19, we got terrible news. My stepmother lost her battle with lung cancer. My dad was left a widower, my brother and sister were motherless, and I had no idea how I was supposed to feel. I still had my mother, but I felt the loss deeply, deeper than most people expected or realized. I mostly distracted myself with friends and my summer job at a day camp, but the following semester, I felt like I didn’t belong anywhere, including in my own skin.

Controlling my weight nearly obsessed me for those four months. Between papers and crying fits, I uploaded every morsel I ate into an online program and tried to go to the gym regularly. All the time, I couldn’t stop buying the cans of Pepsi, the Taco Bell tacos or the jumbo Milky Way bars. After a while, I realized that I could even them out calorie-wise by eating far less real food. Lunches became green salads and maybe a boiled egg. My weight fluctuated within a 10-pound range thanks to sporadic adherence to an exercise plan and my bizarre eating habits. My body was never deprived or near underweight, but this wasn’t healthy. I knew it then, and I feel it even more resolutely now.

The following semester, I took a plane ride to Italy for a semester study. I had been dreaming about it since I was 15 and just returning from my first trip there. In previous months, I considered calling the whole thing off (as I had considered transferring to a local), but ultimately good sense won out. In many ways, I had a rough semester there, too. I never made any good American friends. I refused to try very hard, since the vast majority was there to party, not to study or have a real cultural experience. At the same time, it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. I made a close friend in my Italian roommate and fell briefly in love with one of her friends. I spent most of the time around Italian people, not over-privileged Americans. I discovered wine and zucchini and spaghetti carbonara. I walked miles and miles each week. Though I was nearly broke, I traveled and ate delicious food. I was happy and never wanted to leave. Six months after my arrival, I returned to Oklahoma with tears in my eyes, a broken heart, and 10 extra pounds.

Though it made me overweight for the first and only time in my life, I still view those six months as crucial in my changing attitude towards food. Meals with friends were truly an event. Ingredients were fresh and local. I didn’t want to be seen as uncultured, so I ate pretty much whatever was in front of me. I even ate wild boar (cinghiale) twice in Tuscany. I tried to enjoy fish, but it never happened. Though I’d grown up considering only corn, potatoes and raw broccoli as vegetables worth eating, Italy taught me to open my mind. In many ways, I have Italy to thank for who I am now.

I spent the summer mending a broken heart and trying to find myself again. In October, I quit eating meat just because I wanted to. Though I spent most of my final year in college with the same problems I had four years before, things were transforming. I rarely counted calories any more, and I let myself have dessert when I wanted. I got into a regular exercise routine. An intense, unreciprocated crush made it difficult for me to see myself accurately for a time, but by the time graduation rolled around, I was healing. Within months of returning to Oklahoma, I lost five pounds and have never regained them. I blame happiness.

One thing I’ve realized from the pattern I’m glad to say I’ve left behind is that I enjoy thinking about food. Reading about it, planning out meals and looking forward to dining out are important to me. Trying to abandon this part of me would not help get past the disordered eating of my college years. Instead, I’ve learned to embrace the foods that give me strength, energy, and happiness. I never deprive myself of nutrition. I’d still like to lose five pounds, but I intend to do so through exercise, not a diet. My diet is the food choices I make every day, not some pseudo scientist’s magical cure. Usually it is heavy on the veggies, always meat-free, and increasingly devoid of animal products. I won’t encourage everyone to eat the way I do, but it works for me. It keeps me focused on treating my body with respect and love. That should always be the ultimate goal. Various religions treat the body as a temple. No matter what tenets you hold, this message should not escape you. Your body is in many ways the physical manifestation of your spirit. Treat it with the dignity you deserve.

And falling madly and passionately in love with someone who thinks you are perfect and beautiful just the way you are doesn’t hurt either.

Do you kombucha?

I’m not cool. I’m usually in bed by 10, even on weekends. I was briefly a cheerleader in high school, yes, but I was also captain of the academic team and valedictorian. In college, I never hooked up with a stranger or got less than a B+ in a class.

So, like I said, not cool at all. If I discover something “new,” it’s likely been all the rage for months, at least. The item of the moment for me is kombucha. I’ve been reading about it forever online, but I did not encounter it myself until Saturday at the Cherry Street Farmers Market. The lovely chef from Pure Raw Café now makes the fermented tea herself and sells it locally. According to the blogosphere, kombucha is imbued with magical powers that will make you grow five inches taller, improve your IQ by 30 points and cause a flock of angels to follow you around singing dreamy ballads of love and happiness.

Well, that may be going a bit far, but I’ve read that kombucha improves your mood, your hair, your stomach ailments, and your mental clarity. It also reportedly removes heavy metals from your system and helps ward off the ickies thanks to probiotics and antioxidants. And some of you think it’s delicious. When offered a free sample, how could I say no? I’ll be honest: my first sip was interesting. I dare say I even liked it in all its apple-cider-vinegar-flavored glory. I was feeling spunky that day (I blame the tie-dyed skirt), so I bought a bottle. Shall it cure all my ills? That’s the goal.

I tried kombucha again on Sunday, and my taste buds rebelled. This tastes like apple cider vinegar, you freak!, they said to me, lovingly. They’re right. It tasted like it Saturday and every day since then. I’m not sure why I found it pleasant one day and eye-watering the next. But luckily, I’m nothing if not stubborn, so I’m keeping with it, at least until the bottle is empty. It’s an experiment, I’m telling myself. I’ll never know if it will make me prettier and able to fly unless I drink it. (Did I mention the bottle had an Alice in Wonderland-inspired “Drink Me” tag? Have I learned nothing from that cautionary tale?)

Honestly, I do feel a little energy boost every time I choke down a couple of ounces of the stuff. I haven’t had any acid reflux this week, which sadly I experience regularly. The jury’s still out on the rest of its promises, but I will keep chugging along and taking note. And any way, just saying I own a bottle of kombucha (locally produced at that) must earn me some cool points, eh?

Do any of you drink and – gasp! – enjoy kombucha? Am I doing it wrong?