Thankful Thursday

I missed this last week, and it's nearly the end of Thanksgiving, so I figure I better get my post up now. Here's what I'm thankful for today:

1. Family. Sometimes you crazies stress me out, but I'm lucky to have you. Thanks for being mine! This means you, too, taller half.

2. A good job. Work, too, can be a stressor, but I am so thankful to be compensated decently for doing something I enjoy.

3. Hobbies. They make the non-family and non-work part of my life even more wonderful.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! I will post my advent calendar project soon.

Thankful Thursday

I have so many things to be thankful for right now, so the following three are only a sampling:

1. Supportive friends. One of my nearest and dearest recently had her heart broken. I admit that I'm not always the best friend. I'm the one of my group least likely to show up to a gathering or to call everyone else. However, we all dropped what we were doing to rally around my incredibly amazing gal pal. I hope she knows we're always there, and I know she would be for me, too.

As another example of good friends, the members of my book club brought all vegetarian treats to our meeting this week. In fact, the charming hostess made vegan chili with me in mind. I was overwhelmed. This is not a group of ladies I know very well yet, and that they were willing to plan around my dietary needs was so thoughtful. You can read more gushing about this here.

2. Successful cooking experiments. I threw caution to the wind and made a baked rice dish with Brussels sprouts and beets, two things I'm still learning to like. The end result was love -- beet love:

The recipe is posted on my food blog here.

3. A wonderful not-really-my-family-yet. I got a friendly, out-of-the-blue letter from my taller half's sister yesterday. She just wanted to be friendly and send me some tea she had recently tried. Her thoughtfulness overwhelmed me. I'm lucky to be surrounded by non-relatives who treat me like family. I hope they know I love them, too.

Beating the winter blues

I’ve made my winter blues no secret on this blog. (In fact, I have an entire tag for the subject -- yikes!) Last year, I had a particularly bad case of them, and all of you came to the rescue with encouragement and suggestions for how to turn my frown upside-down.

This year, I’ve decided to stop them in their tracks.

I am decidedly a warm-weather girl, but instead of whining about the cold and – eventually – the snow and ice, I’m going to embrace it in 2010. Cold means sweaters, and I like my sweaters. It also means cuddle time, soup, roasted vegetables, and knitting. I like those things, right?

Right.

Anyway, I am now kicking off three big projects to get me through the beginning of November. I’m hopeful that they will keep the blues away.

1. Learn to bake yeast breads. I will make my first one this Friday.
2. Weed through boxes in the apartment. This will probably carry me well into December, too, and possibly the New Year. I have so much unnecessary stuff left over from childhood, college, and my pre-cohabitating days. It’s time to give or throw a lot of it away.
3. Make an advent calendar. I was raised in an irreligious household, so I’ve never had one before. I’m currently looking at patterns and ideas, and I hope to start the project next week.

What is your favorite way to welcome the cold weather?

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!

Oh where, oh where can she be?

I have some splainin' to do. I've been even quieter lately than usual. But there's a good reason, I promise. What is it? Well, on October 1, I flew here:

And then we spent some time here:

And then two days here:

And then four days here:

And yes, we had a blast.

I've been back in the State since October 13 and haven't known how to update. So consider this a pre-update. I'll give you the full vacation deets soon and promise a post of substance even sooner.

Thankful Thursday

I had an easy time thinking of things for which I'm thankful today. :)

1. Tom Petty! Oh, my dear friend, thank you for canceling your Dallas show and coming to Tulsa. I hope you make it last all night.

2. A supportive network of crafters. I think you know who you are. Knowing you is a privilege. Thanks for everything!

3. The library. Since overcoming my outlaw status, I've become a constant user. I love how they forgive and forget, and how they keep me knee-deep in great stuff to read.

Now I'm off to get ready to see my friend Tom rock it out. Love you all!

Thankful Friday

I'm a big (well, little) stinky liar. I promised the return of Thankful Thursdays, and then poof, it was gone again. My intentions were good, but my memory was not, so I present a make-up Thankful Friday.

1. A sense of humor. Sometimes life sucks. Sometimes things don't go your way. I try (try being the operative word) to take it all with a grain of salt and a much larger grain of humor. I need to buy more of this:

2. Vacations! Have I mentioned my upcoming trip to Italy? I can't wait! Here's a shot of me in Rome in 2005 wearing something completely ridiculous:

3. A nice dose of sugar first thing in the morning. I know how to start my day off right. (You can read about my homemade peanut butter cups here.)

Tea party birthday extravaganza!

(I apologize in advance if you see this post on Vegging out in T-Town, too, but I wanted to share it both places.)

Wow. My tea party birthday was such a huge, amazing pile of fun that I'm not even sure where to start. I guess I'll go chronologically. Beware: this is a long, photo-heavy post. And there's a lot of sugar and caffeine to go around, too.

I started drinking tea a lot more often in the past few months. I was interested in learning to dry my own mint leaves and such to make tisanes, and my research led me to look for a particular book on tea that my local library didn't have. Instead, they had Victoria magazine's The Essential Tea Companion, which is full of information on steeping tea, using fancy dishes, and throwing tea parties. My brain went, "click." This was May or June, I believe, and I quickly started searching my mind for a good reason to throw a tea party. I decided my birthday was a good choice. It was far enough away to plan, and I knew people would indulge me in honor of my ability not to die before I could ring in another year.

I spent a couple of months hitting up estate sales and thrift stores here and there in search of a hodgepodge of tea cups, cloth napkins, and other accoutrements. I had some early successes, but my search lagged towards the end. Luckily, the day before I had a great score at CMCA Thrift Shop (I would link you, but their website may be compromise at the moment -- the store is on Utica, right by Hillcrest). I ended up with 18 beautiful tea cups all within the basic color palette I had chosen (pink, blue, purple, and gold).

Taking a much-needed, pre-party bath.

That's enough background. On with the party!

My taller half and my mother helped me set up an hour before guests were due to arrive. We held the party at Chandler Park's gorgeous new community center. The room was perfect!

My major task the day before and the morning of was cooking and assembling food. Here's the result:

The rundown (from left to right): paper plates (more on those below); plastic cutlery, a stack of vintage cloth napkins; tea sandwiches: white bean (with chives, basil, garlic and onion) on top, herbed cream cheese (with chives, garlic, onion, paprika, and chili powder) below, and peanut butter and banana on gluten-free bread on the silver platter; two veggie trays, one with hummus in the middle and the other with ranch dip; berries; two boxes of cookies brought by my cousin; sugar cookies; pumpkin chocolate chip cupcakes; tea cups; lemonade; assorted tea bags; honey; creamer; and the electric kettle (well, and the boom box).

Here's a close-up of the dessert/tea area:

I want to take a moment here to talk about the lemonade -- yes, the brown stuff in the pitcher is lemonade. Why is it brown?, you may wonder. Did you serve your guests rotten juice? Yes, we did! No, wait, no, we didn't. Here's how you take freshly squeezed lemonade (or any other lightly colored, homemade juice) and make it look like tea: when creating the sugar syrup, use raw turbinado sugar instead of the processed white stuff. Isn't that ingenious? No matter what everyone was sipping at the party, we all looked like we were enjoying tea. I dislike lemonade, but I heard tons of "yum!"s from the crowd, so I will let you know that the recipe came from The Joy of Cooking. The raw sugar was entirely our idea, however. The lemonade was lovingly squeezed by my gorgeous taller half.

Both of the desserts I baked were entirely vegan. The sugar cookie recipe is from the Joy of Vegan Baking, and the cupcakes are my favorite still from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.

Beside the desserts, I placed the tea cups so guests could choose their own. Then they could either enjoy the brown lemonade or one of the varieties of tea:

The electric kettle on the far right, barely visible, supplied the hot water. I also placed (coconut milk) creamer and honey for flavoring, but I apparently forgot to photo them. Here are the adorable containers:

In front of all the food, I placed little signs denoting what was available. I also placed an informational piece on how to make tea. Here is that and one of my favorite food labels:

My love set out three eight-top tables, at which we seated five each, and cushy chairs, all of which were included in our incredible reasonable facility rental. I didn't have appropriately sized tablecloths, but we made do. My mother did three gorgeous, springy flower arrangements. I know it's nearly fall, but tea party just doesn't scream deep oranges and reds to me.

When guests arrived, I asked everyone to wear a name tag since I had a variety of people there who didn't know each other: my family, my love's sister, high-school friends, and Tulsa Craft Mafia gals. After about 30 minutes of mingling, I unleashed everyone on the food. We ate and sipped our tea for about an hour.

This is Kayla, my friend since 9th grade. She is beautiful. She has a 17-month-old daughter who will one day be named the most drop-dead gorgeous creature that has ever lived on this planet. Kayla also knows how to pretty up some tea. Also, don't let that "Miss" on her name tag fool you. She's a married lady, so hands off.

This is my love with his sister. Check out her amazing hat. Can you believe my dark Greek man shares so much DNA with this fair redhead? Totally. Just look at their matching smiles and gorgeous faces.

Another reason I asked everyone to wear name tags is because I held a best-dressed contest. Everyone voted for their favorite outfitted party attendee or attendees, and I added up the votes. The winners were:

Holly, the crafty hottie behind Hollyrocks, in second place, and my little cousin Diana in first place. How amazing do they both look? For their efforts, Diana went home with a rubber ducky tea infuser, and Holly got a gift certificate to Tulsa's Dragonmoon Tea Company (which I'll have to review someday).

Let's check out Diana's full ensemble once more:

No wonder she won with 50% of the votes.

After I announced those winners, we briefly did some birthday things. My taller half kicked it off with a game called, Do You Know Brigid? Ten trivia questions separated the knows from the know nots. My mother won. I meant to exclude her, but my love didn't want to. She took home a prize she brought to give out to a winner. Speaking of Mom, here I am with her and her mother, too:

We don't look alike or anything. Afterward, everyone sang to me and I opened a few gifts, which included:

An amazing Alice in Wonderland teapot from my friend Nichole and these way-too-awesome cupcake baking molds from my cousin Charity. Yes, I put them to good use this morning and enjoyed a leftover cupcake and Earl Grey Lavender tea in one of my tea cups for breakfast. My love's sister also gave me a subscription to the awesome Ready Made magazine. My dad's girlfriend gave me a gift basket of homemade apple butter, peach melba jam, and a gluten-free, vegan pancake mix. So thoughtful. Holly gifted me one of her terrariums for my desk at work, which I've been dying to have. Uber-crafty Tara gave me Loop-d-Loop Crochet. Speaking of my Mafia gals, check us out:

Yes, it is hard work being this hot AND crafty.

And after two hours of eating, sipping, chatting, and playing, it was all over. Mom and my love helped me clean and pack up. We ended up with some leftovers, which is fine by me. We ran out of plastic containers after I threw a bunch away, so Mom took the rest of the baby carrots and broccoli home in a vase:

Clever and weird.

It runs in the family.

I want to thank all of my 14 guests, including my two super-duper helpers, for making this party a reality. I couldn't have had more fun dressing up and just hanging out with some of my favorite people ever.

Now, for a little honesty: I had planned to include a few things that I had to scrap after running out of time and money. First, I intended to use real plates instead of Chinet. However, not all of the tea cups came with saucers, and eventually I had to give up on finding enough that matched my color scheme and vision. I hate to be wasteful, but it saved my sanity. At least I bought plates made from recycled materials. I also intended to make flavored honeys and put out sugar cubes. These things didn't happen, and it was OK. I ended up with a nearly vegan tea party that fit my fancy fantasies without breaking the bank.

Speaking of nearly vegan, of the things I made, only the cream cheese sandwiches were not dairy-free. The cookies my cousin brought and the ranch dressing that came with the veggie trays weren't either, but I ate vegan during the party (with the exception of the honey, but I don't exclude that from my diet). I'm pretty proud!

And though this concludes the food portion of my food blog, I will now parade a few more vanity shots:

Me with Kayla and Nichole, two of my oldest friends and favorite gals. (I was wearing really tall shoes. In real life, I'm only about 1.5" taller than both of them.)

Cousins! That's us in age and height order. Notice that Charity is not wearing heels and towers over us anyway.

Me with my stepsister Kaity, my little sister Sarah (who is an 11-year-old giant), and Dad's girlfriend Jo.

And me and my love, AKA the best tea party co-host in the world.

I wish you a Sunday filled with peace, love, and half the amount of sugar and caffeine on which I ran yesterday.

The return of Thankful Thursday

It's been a long, long time, but I'm reinstating this uplifting blog feature. Yay! So here's what I'm thankful for today, on this eve of my 26th birthday.

1. My taller half. I'm a little more freaked to be leaving 25 behind than I expected. Luckily, I have an understanding -- and decade-0lder -- man to put things in perspective for me. As Trudy said to Peggy, however patronizingly, on this week's Mad Men, "you know, 26 is still very young."

2. Silliness. I'm ringing in my second quarter of life with some tea-party fun. Expect a post full of pictures soon.

3. My bike, Marcello. I've been riding him a lot lately and having a wonderful time. I'm down a couple of pounds, and my legs have never looked or felt better. So if I start to feel aged, I can at least remind myself that I'm in better shape than ever.

What are you thankful for today?

Songbird in training

Last month, I decided to enroll in private voice lessons. I’ve never been much of a singer, but that hasn’t stopped me from chirping my little heart out. In the interest of noise pollution, it only makes sense for me to learn how to do the thing I enjoy properly.

Tomorrow will be my fifth lesson, and it’s amazing to hear the improvement in such a short period of time. I’m tackling some Patsy Cline head on right now. I still feel nervous in class, as if the teacher would rather be working with someone a lot more talented than me. And honestly, that may well be true, but she’s kind and patient and always encouraging. I already feel a bit more confident, though I still have a ways to go.

I’ve wanted to take voice lessons since I was about 19 or 20 but was always too afraid. Same goes for pottery, painting, dance, sewing, and tennis lessons. In the past two or three years, it has been my goal to eliminate those silly fears from my lifestyle. None of these things could possibly kill me. In fact, in one way or another, they can only fulfill me and make me stronger. So what if I crash and burn? At least I tried. I will probably never be a professional singer, a ballerina, a seamstress, a ceramicist, or a painter, but I would rather fail at something fun than never try. I guess that leaves tennis on my list of things to attempt.

And there’s always the chance that I’ll find my calling. Look for me in soft focus on the cover of a CD, keytar strapped around my shoulders, and a wistful look on my face.

What have you always wanted to try? Have you been brave and gone for it?

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?