How refreshing to read the piece in New Matilda by Katherine Wilson about the politics of the GM food debate. Science is like any other discipline - it has its hierarchy, its fads, its fashions, its powerful. And by its nature, and the fact that it sits at the top of the cultural knowledge tree, it also has its inevitable blind spots. Science is also greatly dependent upon funding for people to be able to practice.
It's not surprising that the side which holds all of the cash is the side which also funds GM foods. And so it's therefore also not surprising (but awfully sad) to find enshrined within the scientific community the notion that GM foods are perfectly fine, and that any thoughts otherwise are automatically labelled as pseudoscience and junk science, even though the jury is still absolutely and totally out when it comes to the safety of GM foods.
See, even in science you cannot escape the tendencies towards skewing the interpretation of the evidence based on prior belief, or fear . Although scientists by the nature of their discipline would be much more aware of this than people in some other disciplines, it still happens. And unfortunately, you will find a plethora of people who are willing, in the name of defending their own position, to label and try to discredit those who take an opposing view with the eternally shaming "unscientific" or "pseudoscientific". When sometimes it is nothing of the sort.
Silencing by shaming demonstrates more about the anxiety levels of the shamers than anything else.
My hope for the future of science, as in every other discipline, is that scientists will be freer to practice what they do best without the threat of monetary lack and peer disapproval breathing down their necks and muddying the waters. It's the same hope I hold for the rest of us. Greater freedom to explore what is already here, both within ourselves and within the world, without interference from those elements in our culture which the status quo currently serves best. Here's to that.
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Once, the thought of going bareblack and milkless with a cup of tea filled me with horror. Now, apart from occasional lapses and semi-regular forays into cheese Twisties, I've been pretty much off dairy for close to a year. I'd been thinking literally for years that I needed to kick dairy to see what happened, but it was always the milk in the cup of tea that killed my contemplation before it could turn into an intention. (Because have you ever tried any other whitener in tea apart from milk? Across the board, they are all plain disgusting. In a fit of desperation I even resorted once to buying some of that coffee whitener to see if it would help milk up my tea but it tasted like it was made from a combination of floor sweepings and pig fat. Sorta like a Hungry Jack's milkshake. Nothing worked - not that, not almond milk, not rice milk, not oat milk, and definitely not soy milk. Nothing replaces the taste of cow's milk in tea. Nuthin'.)
These days, milk in my tea isn't something I even think about anymore. It's just not an issue. Though I still crave cheese, acclimatising to black tea has been achievable, and I am proof of something I could not do for years. Yeah, I know, I know - in terms of accomplishment it's probably not up there, but in lieu of a brilliant career I gotta take the wins where I can get them. And anyway, quitting dairy (by and large) is a big win. According to some sources, up to 75% of the population are intolerant to dairy in some form. And though dairy farmers are struggling to stay in existence, the problem there lies with parasitic supermarket chains holding them by the balls rather than a lack of resource for their product. That's an awful lot of people who shouldn't be drinking dairy but who are. I'm happy with myself that I've made the changes, albeit imperfectly, that I knew I needed to make. Changing your diet is hard.
Like other stupid things I have consumed in my life like Christian conceptions of hell (though they didn't last long and I was skeptical from the start), unintelligent boyfriends and cigarettes, the wisdom you get when you come out the other side of consumption almost makes the stupidity of consumption worthwhile. There is a kind of achievement involved in overcoming things you do not believe you can overcome, and if you are not careful you will fall into a vat of Hallmark sensibility when trying to describe it because it's true, you are bigger and stronger than you thought you were before, you can cope with more than you thought you could before, and you must stop italicising so many words in this blog post.
(Oh, and as an aside, I must say I didn't have any problem overcoming the thought of hell as preached by modern Christians. I mean, what a bloody ridiculous concept. So not only do you send your son to die for the sins of the earth even though everybody's still running around all sinny, but then you negate whatever it was he did by sending everyone who doesn't believe in him to hell? What sort of an omnipotent loving thing are you? You sound more like a psychotic sook to me. But then different religions have different conceptions of hell - as in Buddhism and also even from within Christianity itself. CS Lewis was a most eloquent speaker of the idea that hell is not anywhere that you are sent to, but a place that you choose yourself, echoing the idea amongst New Agers that there are two camps - those who define their lives with a service to others ethos, and those blood-suckers who live in service to self. I could maybe even entertain the idea of hell as a place you choose if the rules of admittance were restricted to those parasitic elements who thrive in our current dying Western paradigms, who enjoy extorting other people for their own gain and calling it the market, or profit-making, or the way things are done. That is service-to-self if ever I saw it).
But anyway, this is a post about dairy, not about my conceptions of hell. Do keep to the point, Susan.
Which is part of the problem. Because I am really struggling to concentrate on anything at all for very long today. And that is probably at least partially due to the fact that last night I went sick eating spinach spaghetti that had dairy/cream in it, followed by a bit of parmesan on top, and then concluded with half a bar of white chocolate. And now today, I'm all over the place concentration-wise, I've been sorta anxious and sorta depressed and sorta unable to get out of my bathrobe even though it's 3 pm. I woke up feeling like I was coming down with bronchitis, and feeling sick in my stomach.
I've been really good for so long, apart from those Twisties forays (everyone has their limits, right?) And I've been able to get away with those - I think. I've gotten used to going without the occasional chocolate eclair, and in a way to the idea of not having cheese though I wanted it, and apart from the occasional mini chunk slobbered after whenever my partner was chopping some cheese off the block. After a while the thought of eating cheese substitutes didn't fill me with despair, and I got used to putting nutritional yeast on my gluten-free pasta instead of a bunch of parmesan.
Then a couple of weeks ago I started taking digestive enzymes. And even though I suspect that I have a dairy intolerance that is based on an inability to absorb protein rather than the sugars in dairy and that digestive enzymes as far as I can see don't help with protein absorption, I did begin to notice that lately I seem to be able to tolerate the occasional bit of gluten, the occasional bit of cheese.
Hence last night's ridiculous avalanche. Like a teenager who had a stubby the weekend before and now thinks he can tackle that four-pack of UDLs this weekend, I have overestimated my body's abilities and fallen into today's mass lethergy and depression-that-didn't-need-to-happen. And I only have myself to blame.
And dairy. Bloody stupid practice we humans have developed. Can you imagine if emus went around stealing the milk from sheep that was mean for their babies? Stupid dairy. Stupid.
I must say though that after spending all day feeling like this but still eating last night's leftovers for lunch, even though I felt like shite and nauseous, that this stuff is powerfully addictive and I have been eating it forever, and I am a stupid dolt who takes forever to learn and so I must cut myself some slack.
The thing that disturbs me though in my addiction is that even though it made me feel like that, within a body which is struggling for homeostasis as it is, the fact that I earlier took a few things that seemed to help quell the symptoms only made me think in that druggy way that sees an escape hatch that ooh, maybe it means I can just feast on dairy until it clogs all my arteries and gives me a heart attack. Irritating thinking. But still, it's good to know that an extra bunch of digestive enzymes, a dose of betaine (which reduces homocysteine, which is the inflammation response that rises when your body perceives an invader), and some Lactase for good measure, I feel a little better.
And because I'm a dickhead, I probably feel better enough that I won't be able to resist tackling half of the white chocolate bar that's still sitting in the pantry. I'm a stupid bloody dolt because though it wrenches my guts and depresses my soul and makes me write in italics a lot, I still want to eat it even now.
We are often allergic to the things we crave the most. I don't need cocaine. Dairy is my drug.
These days, milk in my tea isn't something I even think about anymore. It's just not an issue. Though I still crave cheese, acclimatising to black tea has been achievable, and I am proof of something I could not do for years. Yeah, I know, I know - in terms of accomplishment it's probably not up there, but in lieu of a brilliant career I gotta take the wins where I can get them. And anyway, quitting dairy (by and large) is a big win. According to some sources, up to 75% of the population are intolerant to dairy in some form. And though dairy farmers are struggling to stay in existence, the problem there lies with parasitic supermarket chains holding them by the balls rather than a lack of resource for their product. That's an awful lot of people who shouldn't be drinking dairy but who are. I'm happy with myself that I've made the changes, albeit imperfectly, that I knew I needed to make. Changing your diet is hard.
Like other stupid things I have consumed in my life like Christian conceptions of hell (though they didn't last long and I was skeptical from the start), unintelligent boyfriends and cigarettes, the wisdom you get when you come out the other side of consumption almost makes the stupidity of consumption worthwhile. There is a kind of achievement involved in overcoming things you do not believe you can overcome, and if you are not careful you will fall into a vat of Hallmark sensibility when trying to describe it because it's true, you are bigger and stronger than you thought you were before, you can cope with more than you thought you could before, and you must stop italicising so many words in this blog post.
(Oh, and as an aside, I must say I didn't have any problem overcoming the thought of hell as preached by modern Christians. I mean, what a bloody ridiculous concept. So not only do you send your son to die for the sins of the earth even though everybody's still running around all sinny, but then you negate whatever it was he did by sending everyone who doesn't believe in him to hell? What sort of an omnipotent loving thing are you? You sound more like a psychotic sook to me. But then different religions have different conceptions of hell - as in Buddhism and also even from within Christianity itself. CS Lewis was a most eloquent speaker of the idea that hell is not anywhere that you are sent to, but a place that you choose yourself, echoing the idea amongst New Agers that there are two camps - those who define their lives with a service to others ethos, and those blood-suckers who live in service to self. I could maybe even entertain the idea of hell as a place you choose if the rules of admittance were restricted to those parasitic elements who thrive in our current dying Western paradigms, who enjoy extorting other people for their own gain and calling it the market, or profit-making, or the way things are done. That is service-to-self if ever I saw it).
But anyway, this is a post about dairy, not about my conceptions of hell. Do keep to the point, Susan.
Which is part of the problem. Because I am really struggling to concentrate on anything at all for very long today. And that is probably at least partially due to the fact that last night I went sick eating spinach spaghetti that had dairy/cream in it, followed by a bit of parmesan on top, and then concluded with half a bar of white chocolate. And now today, I'm all over the place concentration-wise, I've been sorta anxious and sorta depressed and sorta unable to get out of my bathrobe even though it's 3 pm. I woke up feeling like I was coming down with bronchitis, and feeling sick in my stomach.
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| Pic of cheeses from Queen Vic Market by Alpha under a CC attribution/noncommercial/sharealike licence |
Then a couple of weeks ago I started taking digestive enzymes. And even though I suspect that I have a dairy intolerance that is based on an inability to absorb protein rather than the sugars in dairy and that digestive enzymes as far as I can see don't help with protein absorption, I did begin to notice that lately I seem to be able to tolerate the occasional bit of gluten, the occasional bit of cheese.
Hence last night's ridiculous avalanche. Like a teenager who had a stubby the weekend before and now thinks he can tackle that four-pack of UDLs this weekend, I have overestimated my body's abilities and fallen into today's mass lethergy and depression-that-didn't-need-to-happen. And I only have myself to blame.
And dairy. Bloody stupid practice we humans have developed. Can you imagine if emus went around stealing the milk from sheep that was mean for their babies? Stupid dairy. Stupid.
I must say though that after spending all day feeling like this but still eating last night's leftovers for lunch, even though I felt like shite and nauseous, that this stuff is powerfully addictive and I have been eating it forever, and I am a stupid dolt who takes forever to learn and so I must cut myself some slack.
The thing that disturbs me though in my addiction is that even though it made me feel like that, within a body which is struggling for homeostasis as it is, the fact that I earlier took a few things that seemed to help quell the symptoms only made me think in that druggy way that sees an escape hatch that ooh, maybe it means I can just feast on dairy until it clogs all my arteries and gives me a heart attack. Irritating thinking. But still, it's good to know that an extra bunch of digestive enzymes, a dose of betaine (which reduces homocysteine, which is the inflammation response that rises when your body perceives an invader), and some Lactase for good measure, I feel a little better.
And because I'm a dickhead, I probably feel better enough that I won't be able to resist tackling half of the white chocolate bar that's still sitting in the pantry. I'm a stupid bloody dolt because though it wrenches my guts and depresses my soul and makes me write in italics a lot, I still want to eat it even now.
We are often allergic to the things we crave the most. I don't need cocaine. Dairy is my drug.
The grower of trees, the gardener, the man born to farming,
whose hands reach into the ground and sprout,
to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death
yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down
in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn.
His thought passes along the row ends like a mole.
What miraculous seed has he swallowed
that the unending sentence of his love flows out of his mouth
like a vine clinging in the sunlight, and like water
descending in the dark?
~ Wendell Berry
Both of my grandmothers were gardeners. Tulla, my father's mother, lived in a granny flat attached to the house where my family lived for 15 years before my parents rustled up enough of a deposit to buy a house of their own. Tulla was out there every single day from the day I was born, and years and years after we had moved, right up until the time she went into a nursing home in her late eighties. I think Wendell Berry's words would have resonated in Tulla's soul. She was a bitter old thing in many ways, and there was more than one occasion where I was bewildered by her bizarre suspicion even of members of her own family at times. But her garden was her solace and her live, silent companion. I would pay good money to have one more taste of one of her meals, cooked with the produce that came fresh from her own planting.
As far as I'm concerned we should have let Tulla stay at home and continue gardening until she dropped dead right there on the spot, and then bury her right in the middle of one of her garden beds that was full of worms and dark, rich compost.
When I was born my mother's mum, Grandma, lived in Boronia with Grandpa on a double block. Their veggie garden was the most badass veggie garden I've ever seen. That's my auntie, Dawn, on the left there in this photo, with her famous legs. Grandma is in the middle. And that's my mummy on the right, carrying me.
That veggie garden was rows and rows. It was such a commonplace thing 40 years ago. Everybody grew their own veggies. I have heard it said that these days there is less than half a week's supply of food in our supermarkets. The intervening years have been very strange, and now we find it's an act of resistance and a wake-up from an eerie slumber to indulge in the subversive and tiny act of growing some of your own food.
The fatigue that has encroached and retreated in various degrees for over more than a decade has lifted a little recently, and on Sunday I pulled some weeds and lay down some newspaper and mulch in the veggie patch in preparation for some seedling planting next weekend. I think in hindsight I may have overdid it, as there was a tearful meltdown in there as well, but I don't know I've overdid it until I've overdone it. It's like being premenstrual for six straight months ... except for the times when I'm feeling fine. Bizarre.
I think I'm on the right track with the pyroluria/heavy metal detox treatment. I guess the meltdowns are not surprising when you consider that my body is ridding itself of a toxic cocktail it's been harbouring against its will for decades of high copper, antimony, beryllium, barium, cadmium, thallium ~ things I barely know how to spell let alone understand how I accumulated.
Although the cadmium I know - that's the legacy of 20 years of smoking those stupid cigarettes. And yet even it is fascinating to realise that the low zinc levels I have obviously suffered from for decades may have contributed at least in part to why it was that I began smoking cigarettes - the cadmium in the cigarettes is a compensation for the effects of low zinc, and provides a grounding feeling to compensate for the spaciness caused by high copper. Who woulda thunk?
When I'm not having meltdowns and feeling that horrible familiar vulnerability when the world just crashes in like a tsunami and my body crashes down and I just can't cope, I'm starting to feel good again. The hellish paranoia that has fogged up my body like my own personal cloud is beginning to go and I will never be able to quite put into words just how glad I am about that :)
In the last 10 years I've noticed a greater desire to begin gardening more, and growing more of my own food, but it's been something I haven't been able to put into much effect. The gardening bug seems to be one that hits people as they grow older, especially women. It hasn't been able to hit me yet, though I invite its invasion. It's hit my auntie though, Tulla's daughter. I never knew her to have a green thumb before but now, in the past several years, her garden has become a flourishing beauty full of variety, and she a member of her local gardening club.
The propensity towards gardening as you get older I think is a deepening into an understanding of and connection to your roots, both literally and figuratively. I invite the gardening bug invasion.
whose hands reach into the ground and sprout,
to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death
yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down
in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn.
His thought passes along the row ends like a mole.
What miraculous seed has he swallowed
that the unending sentence of his love flows out of his mouth
like a vine clinging in the sunlight, and like water
descending in the dark?
~ Wendell Berry
Both of my grandmothers were gardeners. Tulla, my father's mother, lived in a granny flat attached to the house where my family lived for 15 years before my parents rustled up enough of a deposit to buy a house of their own. Tulla was out there every single day from the day I was born, and years and years after we had moved, right up until the time she went into a nursing home in her late eighties. I think Wendell Berry's words would have resonated in Tulla's soul. She was a bitter old thing in many ways, and there was more than one occasion where I was bewildered by her bizarre suspicion even of members of her own family at times. But her garden was her solace and her live, silent companion. I would pay good money to have one more taste of one of her meals, cooked with the produce that came fresh from her own planting.
As far as I'm concerned we should have let Tulla stay at home and continue gardening until she dropped dead right there on the spot, and then bury her right in the middle of one of her garden beds that was full of worms and dark, rich compost.
When I was born my mother's mum, Grandma, lived in Boronia with Grandpa on a double block. Their veggie garden was the most badass veggie garden I've ever seen. That's my auntie, Dawn, on the left there in this photo, with her famous legs. Grandma is in the middle. And that's my mummy on the right, carrying me.
The fatigue that has encroached and retreated in various degrees for over more than a decade has lifted a little recently, and on Sunday I pulled some weeds and lay down some newspaper and mulch in the veggie patch in preparation for some seedling planting next weekend. I think in hindsight I may have overdid it, as there was a tearful meltdown in there as well, but I don't know I've overdid it until I've overdone it. It's like being premenstrual for six straight months ... except for the times when I'm feeling fine. Bizarre.
I think I'm on the right track with the pyroluria/heavy metal detox treatment. I guess the meltdowns are not surprising when you consider that my body is ridding itself of a toxic cocktail it's been harbouring against its will for decades of high copper, antimony, beryllium, barium, cadmium, thallium ~ things I barely know how to spell let alone understand how I accumulated.
Although the cadmium I know - that's the legacy of 20 years of smoking those stupid cigarettes. And yet even it is fascinating to realise that the low zinc levels I have obviously suffered from for decades may have contributed at least in part to why it was that I began smoking cigarettes - the cadmium in the cigarettes is a compensation for the effects of low zinc, and provides a grounding feeling to compensate for the spaciness caused by high copper. Who woulda thunk?
When I'm not having meltdowns and feeling that horrible familiar vulnerability when the world just crashes in like a tsunami and my body crashes down and I just can't cope, I'm starting to feel good again. The hellish paranoia that has fogged up my body like my own personal cloud is beginning to go and I will never be able to quite put into words just how glad I am about that :)
In the last 10 years I've noticed a greater desire to begin gardening more, and growing more of my own food, but it's been something I haven't been able to put into much effect. The gardening bug seems to be one that hits people as they grow older, especially women. It hasn't been able to hit me yet, though I invite its invasion. It's hit my auntie though, Tulla's daughter. I never knew her to have a green thumb before but now, in the past several years, her garden has become a flourishing beauty full of variety, and she a member of her local gardening club.
The propensity towards gardening as you get older I think is a deepening into an understanding of and connection to your roots, both literally and figuratively. I invite the gardening bug invasion.
When my doctor told me three months ago he thought I might be dairy-intolerant, I reacted the way drug addicts react when you try to take away their drug of dependence. It was that reaction that made me think ~ in the beautiful part of my brain that is reasonable and wants always to see what's really there rather than what I want to be there ~ that perhaps he had a point.
I really struggled for a few days with his suggestion that I quit, but because I have been battling health issues for many years, I *finally* decided to take him up on the challenge. While having no idea how on earth I was going to do it.
I've had people suggesting I need to cut out dairy to see if I feel better for years. But I haven't been able to do it until now.
Quitting milk was easy. I always felt creepily weird about drinking milk anyway. But cream and cheese were another story.
It's been about three months since I've cut out dairy. But I decided from the start that if I wanted to have some, that I would. And I have, from time to time. I think it's part of the learning curve. And I think now that my body has finally got a break from this substance that it is now beginning to be able to show me just how much it doesn't like it.
Still, even after how bad I felt today, and the mounting evidence, I'm still not entirely convinced. I sit here observing myself being not entirely convinced and it reminds me of the addictive feeling I had with smoking cigarettes, or weed, or eating sugar, or eating wheat, or all of the other million and one things that are required of a person living nowadays who must face up to the fact that this thing here, seems like it's good for them, but it's not.
It takes people a long time to really understand the force of their addictions, does it not?
I've been rather partial to chocolate eclairs over the years. And over the past three months I've indulged twice. And twice I noticed about four hours afterwards my head would begin clogging up, both in my brain and in my sinuses.
Last night I had a hankering for potatoes dauphinoise. Yum. And so I had them. Pigged out on cheese and milk. Had some Twisties to top it off, while watching the Tour de France.
Is it a coincidence that all day today I have felt fatigued, brainfogged, confused, and achey? And anxious, feeling unable to cope? And depressed, like I wished I was dead? That last bit sounds melodramatic, only it's not. Only melodramatic if you have not experienced it yourself. I have struggled all day to stay focussed. I have weeped over inconsequential tasks that were monumental.
No cheese is worth this. Not even the deliciously cheesy and wonderful Mersey Valley that went on last night's potatoes.
Is it a coincidence that now, about 27 hours after I ate those potatoes I am beginning to feel all of these symptoms start slowly lifting, like a shroud? Symptoms that when they are there feel permanently stuck on, as if they are my skin?
I wonder how many people have suicided from dairy intolerance. That would be funny if there weren't so many fucking people in the world whose immune systems are folding their hands across their chests and saying, "Nup. I've had enough of these toxins and from now on, I'm ramping up the symptoms because you. Are. Dumb. And. Aren't. Listening. You dumbass."
I think finally I am really starting to see with my own eyes, and feel with my own body, what it has been most likely trying to tell me for years. It really does not want to eat dairy.
Chocolate eclairs look pretty difficult to make. But maybe I might give these ones a whirl - gluten-free and I think I will fill the centre with whipped coconut cream. That way I could have my eclair and my sinuses too.
I would like for the synapses in my brain to form a little more quickly - the synapse that starts with a picture of some dairy products on one end, that bypasses my taste buds and goes straight to a picture at the other end of the synapse that is a visual reminder of how hellish I felt today. It's taking a while. Sometimes these things do. Especially when you're a slow learner like me ;)
I really struggled for a few days with his suggestion that I quit, but because I have been battling health issues for many years, I *finally* decided to take him up on the challenge. While having no idea how on earth I was going to do it.
I've had people suggesting I need to cut out dairy to see if I feel better for years. But I haven't been able to do it until now.
Quitting milk was easy. I always felt creepily weird about drinking milk anyway. But cream and cheese were another story.
It's been about three months since I've cut out dairy. But I decided from the start that if I wanted to have some, that I would. And I have, from time to time. I think it's part of the learning curve. And I think now that my body has finally got a break from this substance that it is now beginning to be able to show me just how much it doesn't like it.
Still, even after how bad I felt today, and the mounting evidence, I'm still not entirely convinced. I sit here observing myself being not entirely convinced and it reminds me of the addictive feeling I had with smoking cigarettes, or weed, or eating sugar, or eating wheat, or all of the other million and one things that are required of a person living nowadays who must face up to the fact that this thing here, seems like it's good for them, but it's not.
It takes people a long time to really understand the force of their addictions, does it not?
I've been rather partial to chocolate eclairs over the years. And over the past three months I've indulged twice. And twice I noticed about four hours afterwards my head would begin clogging up, both in my brain and in my sinuses.
Last night I had a hankering for potatoes dauphinoise. Yum. And so I had them. Pigged out on cheese and milk. Had some Twisties to top it off, while watching the Tour de France.
Is it a coincidence that all day today I have felt fatigued, brainfogged, confused, and achey? And anxious, feeling unable to cope? And depressed, like I wished I was dead? That last bit sounds melodramatic, only it's not. Only melodramatic if you have not experienced it yourself. I have struggled all day to stay focussed. I have weeped over inconsequential tasks that were monumental.
No cheese is worth this. Not even the deliciously cheesy and wonderful Mersey Valley that went on last night's potatoes.
Is it a coincidence that now, about 27 hours after I ate those potatoes I am beginning to feel all of these symptoms start slowly lifting, like a shroud? Symptoms that when they are there feel permanently stuck on, as if they are my skin?
I wonder how many people have suicided from dairy intolerance. That would be funny if there weren't so many fucking people in the world whose immune systems are folding their hands across their chests and saying, "Nup. I've had enough of these toxins and from now on, I'm ramping up the symptoms because you. Are. Dumb. And. Aren't. Listening. You dumbass."
I think finally I am really starting to see with my own eyes, and feel with my own body, what it has been most likely trying to tell me for years. It really does not want to eat dairy.
Chocolate eclairs look pretty difficult to make. But maybe I might give these ones a whirl - gluten-free and I think I will fill the centre with whipped coconut cream. That way I could have my eclair and my sinuses too.
I would like for the synapses in my brain to form a little more quickly - the synapse that starts with a picture of some dairy products on one end, that bypasses my taste buds and goes straight to a picture at the other end of the synapse that is a visual reminder of how hellish I felt today. It's taking a while. Sometimes these things do. Especially when you're a slow learner like me ;)
I'm back on the fruit bandwagon again. Mm, apples are very nice, aren't they? Especially juiced with carrot and celery.
They are very nice, unless they happen to be in the no-no foods category. Battling adrenal fatigue? They were in the almost-no-no category for me. Eating for my liver? They were a good choice. Trying to get on top of a candida overgrowth situation? I needed to keep away, at least in the short term. Now, after months of dragging my feet, being told by my naturopath and my hair mineral analysis results that my body is in a highly acidic state, I am finally turning my attention to trying the alkaline/acid approach to nutrition. And in that world, apples are back in the good category again.
I have become so used to not eating fruit that it feels almost decadent to do it now. Some people are quite strident in saying that we should stay away from fruit altogether. Their reasoning is that fruits are high in sugars, and that sugars are bad for the body. Which is true. And in certain situations you definitely should limit or stop your intake for a time while you try to get your body right. But many fruits are so good for you (and help curb your cravings if you have a sweet tooth like me). And there is a big difference in the way your body will respond to eating, say, an apple, compared to a chocolate eclair, even though there is sugar in both.
When your body digests an apple, it creates alkalinity in your system. A chocolate eclair will do the opposite, and contribute to acid forming. A slightly alkaline body is optimal. In that environment, your organs are in the best state to function optimally. Your lymph is free to move throughout your body picking up the stuff that needs discarding as it goes. Your muscles won't ache, in the way mine have been in recent months. Viruses and parasites and other organisms find you a rather uncomfortable environment to live in. They much prefer an acid environment, which is what the standard Western diet contributes to. Unfortunately, all of what many of us find is the good stuff - meat, dairy, processed wheat - are all acid-forming (although interestingly, if you sprout the wheat, it becomes alkalkine-forming. There is a whole world out there of sprouting, fermenting, different applications that people in times past have used to lengthen the life of their foods, to make them better for us. A really strong and deep wealth of knowledge gained by experience over thousands of years). An alkaliine-forming food is not necessarily one that doesn't have high acid content. For example, lemons are a very acidic fruit, and yet they are one of the most alkaline-forming substances you can eat for your body (along with parsley).
My aim with this way of eating is to get myself to a place where I am eating 80% of alkaline-forming foods, and 20% of acid-forming foods. Which is really, really daunting. But it seems I have an uber-sensitive system, one that did not take kindly to having antibiotics shoved into it over the space of a year, and one which now finds it hard to get rid of that which is bad for it. An acidic body is a stressed body. And I've been battling that. Pretty badly, actually.
And so my back is really up against the wall when it comes to my health. I can feel the clock ticking. I am a 41 year old female. I need to get myself in order before I go through menopause (and that little baby is knocking at the door. Just ask Anthony ;) It's a real challenge and I am feeling pretty frustrated because I have been trying for so long to get myself right, and I have become, as the scientist who performed my hair analysis informed me the other day, a hard-basket case. Well, he didn't say it exactly like that. I think he said I was someone who was in the "too hard basket." But I prefer "hard-basket case." Because then it's a multi-use description with just a flip of a hyphen. Move the hyphen over one word in the times when I'm being a "hard basket-case," and there you have it :)
Health and emotional health and mental health are all linked. And mine have all been swaying recently. I am up against it, and I have to do everything I can to get myself healthy. It is the difference between living in heaven on earth and hell on earth.
They are very nice, unless they happen to be in the no-no foods category. Battling adrenal fatigue? They were in the almost-no-no category for me. Eating for my liver? They were a good choice. Trying to get on top of a candida overgrowth situation? I needed to keep away, at least in the short term. Now, after months of dragging my feet, being told by my naturopath and my hair mineral analysis results that my body is in a highly acidic state, I am finally turning my attention to trying the alkaline/acid approach to nutrition. And in that world, apples are back in the good category again.
I have become so used to not eating fruit that it feels almost decadent to do it now. Some people are quite strident in saying that we should stay away from fruit altogether. Their reasoning is that fruits are high in sugars, and that sugars are bad for the body. Which is true. And in certain situations you definitely should limit or stop your intake for a time while you try to get your body right. But many fruits are so good for you (and help curb your cravings if you have a sweet tooth like me). And there is a big difference in the way your body will respond to eating, say, an apple, compared to a chocolate eclair, even though there is sugar in both.
When your body digests an apple, it creates alkalinity in your system. A chocolate eclair will do the opposite, and contribute to acid forming. A slightly alkaline body is optimal. In that environment, your organs are in the best state to function optimally. Your lymph is free to move throughout your body picking up the stuff that needs discarding as it goes. Your muscles won't ache, in the way mine have been in recent months. Viruses and parasites and other organisms find you a rather uncomfortable environment to live in. They much prefer an acid environment, which is what the standard Western diet contributes to. Unfortunately, all of what many of us find is the good stuff - meat, dairy, processed wheat - are all acid-forming (although interestingly, if you sprout the wheat, it becomes alkalkine-forming. There is a whole world out there of sprouting, fermenting, different applications that people in times past have used to lengthen the life of their foods, to make them better for us. A really strong and deep wealth of knowledge gained by experience over thousands of years). An alkaliine-forming food is not necessarily one that doesn't have high acid content. For example, lemons are a very acidic fruit, and yet they are one of the most alkaline-forming substances you can eat for your body (along with parsley).
My aim with this way of eating is to get myself to a place where I am eating 80% of alkaline-forming foods, and 20% of acid-forming foods. Which is really, really daunting. But it seems I have an uber-sensitive system, one that did not take kindly to having antibiotics shoved into it over the space of a year, and one which now finds it hard to get rid of that which is bad for it. An acidic body is a stressed body. And I've been battling that. Pretty badly, actually.
And so my back is really up against the wall when it comes to my health. I can feel the clock ticking. I am a 41 year old female. I need to get myself in order before I go through menopause (and that little baby is knocking at the door. Just ask Anthony ;) It's a real challenge and I am feeling pretty frustrated because I have been trying for so long to get myself right, and I have become, as the scientist who performed my hair analysis informed me the other day, a hard-basket case. Well, he didn't say it exactly like that. I think he said I was someone who was in the "too hard basket." But I prefer "hard-basket case." Because then it's a multi-use description with just a flip of a hyphen. Move the hyphen over one word in the times when I'm being a "hard basket-case," and there you have it :)
Health and emotional health and mental health are all linked. And mine have all been swaying recently. I am up against it, and I have to do everything I can to get myself healthy. It is the difference between living in heaven on earth and hell on earth.
What food brings me intense joy to eat?, NaBloPoMo asks me today, on this fine and gently sunny winter Friday that I can enjoy a little better now that I am feeling less ill than I was earlier in the week. I am still feeling crappy today, and so distracting myself by writing about good things to eat is an extremely good medicine to take alongside the nettle tea, the litres of water, and the sauna.
Cheese. Oh, cheese. Very little tastes as good to me as a good quality vintage tasty cheese. Oh. Cheese. But me and dairy do not appear to coexist well, and while cheese may taste so good in my mouth, it rankles in my guts. I am beginning to think it tastes better than it ever has before, simply because I know I shouldn't have it.
Which is sometimes the best reason to partake ;) Just a little.
If quitting dairy is an ongoing thing, removing black and white thinking from the equation (ie, not eating dairy equals, well, not ever eating dairy from the day you decide it's to be so) then things are going reasonably well. I have taken to black tea pretty easily. But then quitting milk was never going to be an issue - the thought of it makes me feel a little ill, and has done so for a long time. Rice milk, oat milk, especially almond milk, are very yummy and I don't miss cow's milk at all. But take that very same substance and whip it into a frenzy and I'll love some of that, thanks. Keep whipping it and I'll smother it on toast. Mix it in with some other bits and mature it and do whatever else you do to make cheese, and you have one of the finest substances to grace God's green earth.
That's weird, isn't it? The same substance, and it assumes so many different forms. How creative we people have been over the millennia, experimenting with one particular substance and coming up with so many alchemical alternatives.
~ . ~
The other food is invisible, doesn't live in the fridge or the pantry, but fills me up with nutrients as if it was chlorella. When I was feeling really bad the other day I got out a charcoal pencil and did some sketches of a picture that had come to me while in the shower (where else?) And so now, with the aid of this man here, I am going to make a few changes of my own while I play along with him and see if I can paint it. Eek!
This other sort of food is more satisfying even than cheese. But it's harder to eat than cheese. I wish that I was forced to do it every day, even when I'm feeling really bad, the way I am forced to eat. But not every day can be a creative day when you are ill. But what about the days when you are well, and you still don't do it? I think you have to actually learn that what you are starving for is it. Self-expression, creatively messing about for the fun and the food of it. And then go do it. There is resistance to be overcome to being creative, which is always a curious thing to me even while I understand it. What fear (of failure, of achievement, of clarity) can ever hope to override the satisfaction that comes when you see something you have made? (And the satisfaction lies not in the dexterity or technique, of which I have little, but in the pure doing itself; being creative is the closest thing to being a child again as I can imagine).
Being creative is like the reverse of eating cheese. Sometimes it rankles in your mouth while you're doing it, a metallic taste, with your critic maybe sitting on your right shoulder whispering sour everythings into your ear. But afterwards, when you've gone away for a day and come back and looked at it again, even with the smudge in its corner and the blobs of stuff over here, and the fact that it is nowhere near the picture you had in your head, regardless of how it actually looks, the fact that it is in front of you is like medicine, tastes as good and intensely joyful in your guts as a big slab of Margaret River. Minus the guilt, the calories and the decrease in kidney function.
Cheese. Oh, cheese. Very little tastes as good to me as a good quality vintage tasty cheese. Oh. Cheese. But me and dairy do not appear to coexist well, and while cheese may taste so good in my mouth, it rankles in my guts. I am beginning to think it tastes better than it ever has before, simply because I know I shouldn't have it.
Which is sometimes the best reason to partake ;) Just a little.
If quitting dairy is an ongoing thing, removing black and white thinking from the equation (ie, not eating dairy equals, well, not ever eating dairy from the day you decide it's to be so) then things are going reasonably well. I have taken to black tea pretty easily. But then quitting milk was never going to be an issue - the thought of it makes me feel a little ill, and has done so for a long time. Rice milk, oat milk, especially almond milk, are very yummy and I don't miss cow's milk at all. But take that very same substance and whip it into a frenzy and I'll love some of that, thanks. Keep whipping it and I'll smother it on toast. Mix it in with some other bits and mature it and do whatever else you do to make cheese, and you have one of the finest substances to grace God's green earth.
That's weird, isn't it? The same substance, and it assumes so many different forms. How creative we people have been over the millennia, experimenting with one particular substance and coming up with so many alchemical alternatives.
~ . ~
The other food is invisible, doesn't live in the fridge or the pantry, but fills me up with nutrients as if it was chlorella. When I was feeling really bad the other day I got out a charcoal pencil and did some sketches of a picture that had come to me while in the shower (where else?) And so now, with the aid of this man here, I am going to make a few changes of my own while I play along with him and see if I can paint it. Eek!
This other sort of food is more satisfying even than cheese. But it's harder to eat than cheese. I wish that I was forced to do it every day, even when I'm feeling really bad, the way I am forced to eat. But not every day can be a creative day when you are ill. But what about the days when you are well, and you still don't do it? I think you have to actually learn that what you are starving for is it. Self-expression, creatively messing about for the fun and the food of it. And then go do it. There is resistance to be overcome to being creative, which is always a curious thing to me even while I understand it. What fear (of failure, of achievement, of clarity) can ever hope to override the satisfaction that comes when you see something you have made? (And the satisfaction lies not in the dexterity or technique, of which I have little, but in the pure doing itself; being creative is the closest thing to being a child again as I can imagine).
Being creative is like the reverse of eating cheese. Sometimes it rankles in your mouth while you're doing it, a metallic taste, with your critic maybe sitting on your right shoulder whispering sour everythings into your ear. But afterwards, when you've gone away for a day and come back and looked at it again, even with the smudge in its corner and the blobs of stuff over here, and the fact that it is nowhere near the picture you had in your head, regardless of how it actually looks, the fact that it is in front of you is like medicine, tastes as good and intensely joyful in your guts as a big slab of Margaret River. Minus the guilt, the calories and the decrease in kidney function.
There is a fair bit of mental gymnastics that go on in the days after I have stepped inside a doctor's domain. It involves reverse jumping through the mental hoops I jumped through while in the sanctum of his surgery so that I can gather up my own health, and my own responsibility for it, so that I can leave his office not feeling like I'm walking out of the principal's office and that I'm six years old.
I don't know if that makes any sense at all. I always feel like this, though. I do not know how many other people feel the way I do about doctors, or whether this is indication number 38,395,853 of my uber sensitivity. Because I am, unfortunately, rather over-sensitive to other people telling me what to do. Even if I'm there asking for the advice.
It's complicated.
Today I walked in, having certain thoughts about what I was there for, the information that I wanted. Along with that I had certain expectations, I guess, about what I thought was going to happen.
When I left the doctor's surgery this afternoon, I had exactly the things I went in for - two bits of paper to two different places requesting a blood test and a hair mineral analysis test to try to find some more answers. I also had another piece of paper for another test that I don't even know what it is, because we didn't get around to that. I also left with a few supplements I didn't know I was going to get, and a few other pieces of paper, one being about all the dairy I can't eat, and all the alternatives that I could have instead, none of which in the least take my fancy except for coconut cream.
Even though I got the tests I asked for, in the space of entering the doctor's surgery I feel like my health and my body has been taken from me, where it belongs, and deposited into his bits of paper, his advice and suggestions, some of which contradicts other advice I've received from other doctors who also have faith and belief in their approach.
Which isn't to say that he isn't right to have that faith and belief. Just that I've seen enough to know that five different doctors means five different approaches and contradictions amongst them all. Meanwhile, it's frustrating in the meantime, because you have to take on board their approach, all the while not knowing if it is going to be in the least bit helpful for you, whether you are wasting your money. And where does gut-feel fit into doctor's orders? What if you have a feeling that your doctor is barking up the wrong tree? Where does that fit into a standard general practitionerly consultation? It doesn't.
But anyway, I digress, because I don't feel too much of a concern about that here. The main problem I have left with today is a gut-feel that he is right, when I don't want him to be, and I am going to have to learn how to live without dairy. And wheat. And sugar.
The last two aren't so bad. And that leads me to believe that once I wrap my head around it I can largely quit dairy if I can largely quit wheat and sugar, something I wouldn't have believed 15 years ago. But quitting dairy as well as those? Quitting cheese!! I don't think it's going to be anything other than a Real. Hard. Struggle. Because I think I am addicted to it. And the doctor thinks that perhaps it is causing some of my anxiety issues. And a lot of other people have found the same thing. And I dread to think that perhaps I am going to be one of those people who can't tolerate dairy.
I think this doctor is quite a lovely man. But I always feel strange afterwards. Resentful that they have all the power, when we're talking about my health. I have to go through a process of reverse hoop jumping where I have to say to myself, very slowly so that I can understand it, that this is my health, that I am still in charge, that really, the doctor is a fallible human being and that I really don't have to do anything he asks me to do if I don't want to. That I am free not to, because he's not the cops. I then go on to remind myself, very slowly so that I can understand it, that this is my health, though, and I have paid the doctor for his expertise, and to be childish and close-minded about anything that happens defeats the entire purpose of going in the first place.
There was so much discussed in this consultation that my head is spinning, so that everything we covered today is sitting in a pile in front of me, waiting for my brain and mind to digest it down into my own language so I can eat it and work out what I think about it all.
When I told the doctor how much I struggle with the idea of giving up dairy, he became a bit of a schoolteacher, telling me in so many words that I'm up against the wall, and that I will need to buck up, and suck it up, which made me want to tell him to fuck up. Instead, I burst into tears a bit further down the track when he asked me if I was having problems with depression or anxiety, thus adding further glitter to the feeling that going to visit the doctor's office always feels like I'm going for a pap smear, even when I'm not.
I don't know if that makes any sense at all. I always feel like this, though. I do not know how many other people feel the way I do about doctors, or whether this is indication number 38,395,853 of my uber sensitivity. Because I am, unfortunately, rather over-sensitive to other people telling me what to do. Even if I'm there asking for the advice.
It's complicated.
Today I walked in, having certain thoughts about what I was there for, the information that I wanted. Along with that I had certain expectations, I guess, about what I thought was going to happen.
When I left the doctor's surgery this afternoon, I had exactly the things I went in for - two bits of paper to two different places requesting a blood test and a hair mineral analysis test to try to find some more answers. I also had another piece of paper for another test that I don't even know what it is, because we didn't get around to that. I also left with a few supplements I didn't know I was going to get, and a few other pieces of paper, one being about all the dairy I can't eat, and all the alternatives that I could have instead, none of which in the least take my fancy except for coconut cream.
Even though I got the tests I asked for, in the space of entering the doctor's surgery I feel like my health and my body has been taken from me, where it belongs, and deposited into his bits of paper, his advice and suggestions, some of which contradicts other advice I've received from other doctors who also have faith and belief in their approach.
Which isn't to say that he isn't right to have that faith and belief. Just that I've seen enough to know that five different doctors means five different approaches and contradictions amongst them all. Meanwhile, it's frustrating in the meantime, because you have to take on board their approach, all the while not knowing if it is going to be in the least bit helpful for you, whether you are wasting your money. And where does gut-feel fit into doctor's orders? What if you have a feeling that your doctor is barking up the wrong tree? Where does that fit into a standard general practitionerly consultation? It doesn't.
But anyway, I digress, because I don't feel too much of a concern about that here. The main problem I have left with today is a gut-feel that he is right, when I don't want him to be, and I am going to have to learn how to live without dairy. And wheat. And sugar.
The last two aren't so bad. And that leads me to believe that once I wrap my head around it I can largely quit dairy if I can largely quit wheat and sugar, something I wouldn't have believed 15 years ago. But quitting dairy as well as those? Quitting cheese!! I don't think it's going to be anything other than a Real. Hard. Struggle. Because I think I am addicted to it. And the doctor thinks that perhaps it is causing some of my anxiety issues. And a lot of other people have found the same thing. And I dread to think that perhaps I am going to be one of those people who can't tolerate dairy.
I think this doctor is quite a lovely man. But I always feel strange afterwards. Resentful that they have all the power, when we're talking about my health. I have to go through a process of reverse hoop jumping where I have to say to myself, very slowly so that I can understand it, that this is my health, that I am still in charge, that really, the doctor is a fallible human being and that I really don't have to do anything he asks me to do if I don't want to. That I am free not to, because he's not the cops. I then go on to remind myself, very slowly so that I can understand it, that this is my health, though, and I have paid the doctor for his expertise, and to be childish and close-minded about anything that happens defeats the entire purpose of going in the first place.
There was so much discussed in this consultation that my head is spinning, so that everything we covered today is sitting in a pile in front of me, waiting for my brain and mind to digest it down into my own language so I can eat it and work out what I think about it all.
When I told the doctor how much I struggle with the idea of giving up dairy, he became a bit of a schoolteacher, telling me in so many words that I'm up against the wall, and that I will need to buck up, and suck it up, which made me want to tell him to fuck up. Instead, I burst into tears a bit further down the track when he asked me if I was having problems with depression or anxiety, thus adding further glitter to the feeling that going to visit the doctor's office always feels like I'm going for a pap smear, even when I'm not.
The company responsible for 30% of Australia's tomato supply has gone under, as reported in The Australian.
Being uber-successful was not enough to stop SP Exports going into voluntary administration last week. And the reason, according to its owner Andrew Philip, was the relentless squeezing, squeezing, squeezing - not of his tomatoes (indeed, his company came up with a new juiceless breed in 2009 that was snapped up by Subway to assist in the relentless fight against soggy sandwiches). According to its owner, the reason for SP Exports' demise was the relentless squeezing of his profit margins by the big supermarkets like Coles and Woolworths that stock his stuff - the same supermarkets which have 67% market share on all food and alcohol sales in Australia. SIXTY SEVEN PER CENT. That's a lot of power concentrated in a couple of businesses whose intent over and above everything is to make profits. Even if it's at the expense of those who supply them the products they sell.
Anyone noticed the strange conundrum going on in Australia? Some things getting more expensive (house prices here are some of the most expensive in the world) and yet on the other hand, other things getting cheaper and cheaper. Like fresh fruit and vegetables from Woolies.
And even though our knee-jerk consumer reaction might be that that's good, it's just not. From the cradle to the grave we are encouraged to focus primarily on me me me and my pocketbook. But there is a point where that becomes obscene. There is a point where the chain will snap. If we take some time to think about our food supply chain, and the people at the other end of that chain who are actually growing that stuff and need to make a profit from selling it, we realise that simplistic cheapest-price-possible thinking leads to the desert. In this case, the desert of 30% less tomato supply simply becuase we're all so used to shopping at Coles, and at Woolies, and that we want the cheapest prices, and they are more than happy to give us what we want.
Which is why it's up to us to change that situation, and why some people are. The internet, God bless its cotton socks, makes it much easier for like-minded people to band together to cut out the greedy middlemenandwomen. My partner and I have been bypassing the supermarket chains and buying our fruit and veggies by other means. Partially for these reasons listed above, and partially because I made a decision several years ago that I would only eat organic fruit and vegetables wherever possible to aide my chronic health issues. We have been getting an organic veggie box from the wonderful CERES (The Centre for Education & Research in Environmental Strategies. They have a number of pick-up points throughout certain parts of Melbourne where people agree to host delivery of boxes. We have also used the services of Aussie Farmers Direct, which deliver organic or non-organic fruit and veg boxes of various sizes, along with other items, to your door. Of course, both of these options are more expensive than if we bought our stuff from those supermarkets. They are also more sensible and more sustainable, and more soulful.
Has anyone here seen or heard about The People's Supermarket? A co-operative supermarket venture set up in Camden in London in 2010, its shaky beginnings were viewed by me across the world in Australia when the four-part BBC documentary was shown here a couple of months ago. One of the things that captivated and frustrated me about it was the amount of food that is regularly thrown out by major food chains in the UK. And it would be no different here in Australia. And that makes the testicle squeeze by those chains on the farmers just a little more absurd, and just a little more grotesque.
One of the many things I love about The People's Supermarket is its commitment to reduction of that food wastage. Another is to fairly-priced goods both for consumers and farmers, a precarious balancing act. One of the creative ways this balancing act is achieved is that TPS buys the fish John West reject - they buy the potatoes and the capsicums that the supermarkets pass over because they are not perfect. They might not be perfectly oval potatoes, they might be slightly-more-bizarrely-shaped-than-usual capcisums. TPS buys and them and sells them at a good price to people who are prepared to believe that they can handle the fact potatoes and capsicums come in all shapes and sizes, and taste the same regardless.
Being uber-successful was not enough to stop SP Exports going into voluntary administration last week. And the reason, according to its owner Andrew Philip, was the relentless squeezing, squeezing, squeezing - not of his tomatoes (indeed, his company came up with a new juiceless breed in 2009 that was snapped up by Subway to assist in the relentless fight against soggy sandwiches). According to its owner, the reason for SP Exports' demise was the relentless squeezing of his profit margins by the big supermarkets like Coles and Woolworths that stock his stuff - the same supermarkets which have 67% market share on all food and alcohol sales in Australia. SIXTY SEVEN PER CENT. That's a lot of power concentrated in a couple of businesses whose intent over and above everything is to make profits. Even if it's at the expense of those who supply them the products they sell.
Anyone noticed the strange conundrum going on in Australia? Some things getting more expensive (house prices here are some of the most expensive in the world) and yet on the other hand, other things getting cheaper and cheaper. Like fresh fruit and vegetables from Woolies.
And even though our knee-jerk consumer reaction might be that that's good, it's just not. From the cradle to the grave we are encouraged to focus primarily on me me me and my pocketbook. But there is a point where that becomes obscene. There is a point where the chain will snap. If we take some time to think about our food supply chain, and the people at the other end of that chain who are actually growing that stuff and need to make a profit from selling it, we realise that simplistic cheapest-price-possible thinking leads to the desert. In this case, the desert of 30% less tomato supply simply becuase we're all so used to shopping at Coles, and at Woolies, and that we want the cheapest prices, and they are more than happy to give us what we want.
Which is why it's up to us to change that situation, and why some people are. The internet, God bless its cotton socks, makes it much easier for like-minded people to band together to cut out the greedy middlemenandwomen. My partner and I have been bypassing the supermarket chains and buying our fruit and veggies by other means. Partially for these reasons listed above, and partially because I made a decision several years ago that I would only eat organic fruit and vegetables wherever possible to aide my chronic health issues. We have been getting an organic veggie box from the wonderful CERES (The Centre for Education & Research in Environmental Strategies. They have a number of pick-up points throughout certain parts of Melbourne where people agree to host delivery of boxes. We have also used the services of Aussie Farmers Direct, which deliver organic or non-organic fruit and veg boxes of various sizes, along with other items, to your door. Of course, both of these options are more expensive than if we bought our stuff from those supermarkets. They are also more sensible and more sustainable, and more soulful.
Has anyone here seen or heard about The People's Supermarket? A co-operative supermarket venture set up in Camden in London in 2010, its shaky beginnings were viewed by me across the world in Australia when the four-part BBC documentary was shown here a couple of months ago. One of the things that captivated and frustrated me about it was the amount of food that is regularly thrown out by major food chains in the UK. And it would be no different here in Australia. And that makes the testicle squeeze by those chains on the farmers just a little more absurd, and just a little more grotesque.
One of the many things I love about The People's Supermarket is its commitment to reduction of that food wastage. Another is to fairly-priced goods both for consumers and farmers, a precarious balancing act. One of the creative ways this balancing act is achieved is that TPS buys the fish John West reject - they buy the potatoes and the capsicums that the supermarkets pass over because they are not perfect. They might not be perfectly oval potatoes, they might be slightly-more-bizarrely-shaped-than-usual capcisums. TPS buys and them and sells them at a good price to people who are prepared to believe that they can handle the fact potatoes and capsicums come in all shapes and sizes, and taste the same regardless.
I was talking back in May about how big my garden would need to be if I grew my own ingredients from every plant or tree that I ingest in handy form from the shops. There are a few more that need to be added to my list at the moment. Those who have read here for a long time (all three of you) know that I'm on an ongoing quest for better health, and for ultimate recovery from chronic fatigue syndrome. It's an ongoing quest because, quite frankly, parts of my body are not in particularly good, well-functioning order after a long-term illness and antibiotic regimens. Those parts of the body are also the ones that are not generally spoken about in polite society. (I find in my online readings of forums that women, so often, seem to have to go on with the requisite "Eww" and "That's gross" and such comments so that everybody knows that even though they're talking about such gross stuff like their own bodies, they're still feminine and all, you know? But honestly, there's so much of that stupid squirmy my-body-is-gross stuff that goes on that you would think that they had Barbie mounds and their shit didn't even happen, let alone stink ... but anyway, I digress :)
Hmmm. Anyway, so even though I diverged there, I do most heartily concur that trees and shrubs and living things are far prettier than me talking about my bowels. Even though it's fascinating (did you know, for instance, that the gut has receptors in it that are connected to your brain? A second brain, as it were. Hence trusting those gut feelings because they balance out the brain in your head with a different kind of wisdom. A body brain. And also, my father's comment to people he disliked on the TV and to us kids that "You've got shit for brains" ... well, Dad, you're not so far off in some respects).
Anyway, my digression digressed. As I was saying, as my bowels are not of interest to you, instead of talking about them I will add a few more plants to my theoretical garden (which looks far more organised than the real garden, which does not have any of the herbs or vegetables we had planned to plant into it by this stage but instead is growing a lovely pile of daisied weeds at this point in time).
The first new tree to the theoretical garden is the black walnut tree, or juglans nigra. It's a gorgeous-looking thing, and I could sit under it in my garden and read. My partner with his magic hands could fashion it into woodish things, as according to this site it is "unquestionably the finest wood in the world." But what I'm after in my apothecary is the nut, the black walnut, picked green and hulled. This little baby goes into a nice little concoction with the two items listed below to kill parasites, the latest of my health quests.
I would need to be careful about where I planted this next shrub in my garden because it can inhibit the growth of other plants grown near it. Artemisia absinthium, or wormwood, is the bitter herb that goes into absinthe and drives you into beautiful before it drives you mad, according to folklore (although this Wikipedia entry argues that it is no more harmful than other spirits). The pretty silver-green leaves will be pressed for their oil, to go into the tincture form.
Can you guess what spice these flowers are?
They're more easily recognisable in their dried form as cloves (syzygium aromaticum to you, Jack). Apart from being the most wonderful-smelling air freshener when you boil five or so on the stove with a cinnamon stick, cloves go well in apple pies and, less appetisingly, here in my tincture, where they kill parasitical eggs. Those tiny little sticklike buds come from a tree that can grow from 8-12 metres tall.
Hmmm. Anyway, so even though I diverged there, I do most heartily concur that trees and shrubs and living things are far prettier than me talking about my bowels. Even though it's fascinating (did you know, for instance, that the gut has receptors in it that are connected to your brain? A second brain, as it were. Hence trusting those gut feelings because they balance out the brain in your head with a different kind of wisdom. A body brain. And also, my father's comment to people he disliked on the TV and to us kids that "You've got shit for brains" ... well, Dad, you're not so far off in some respects).
Anyway, my digression digressed. As I was saying, as my bowels are not of interest to you, instead of talking about them I will add a few more plants to my theoretical garden (which looks far more organised than the real garden, which does not have any of the herbs or vegetables we had planned to plant into it by this stage but instead is growing a lovely pile of daisied weeds at this point in time).
The first new tree to the theoretical garden is the black walnut tree, or juglans nigra. It's a gorgeous-looking thing, and I could sit under it in my garden and read. My partner with his magic hands could fashion it into woodish things, as according to this site it is "unquestionably the finest wood in the world." But what I'm after in my apothecary is the nut, the black walnut, picked green and hulled. This little baby goes into a nice little concoction with the two items listed below to kill parasites, the latest of my health quests.
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| Creative Commons pic by Jean-Pol Grandmont |
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| Creative Commons pic by Matt Lavin |
Can you guess what spice these flowers are?
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| Creative Commons pic by Dainee. |
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| Creative Commons pic by Adrien2008 |
I often wonder how big my yard would need to be if I had to grow everything I ate there. Well, I don't often wonder that. That would be sorta weird, wouldn't, it, but I do think about it from time to time as I go about my life being able to purchase vast quantities of herbs and spices and thingymies and jiggeries that wend their way to me from parts round the globe to end up looking rather dull in the local supermarket, so that I have to actually take the time to ponder their origins and write, in sentences far too long for good readibility, about how rich it makes me feel to have all of this stuff to be able to cook with and drink whenever I want.
This last one is my favourite. It is ulmus rubra, commonly known as the slippery elm. It's not the leaves or the flowers or the fruit that are eaten this time, but the bark.
Ground down into a fine powder and drank, the bark becomes very moist and sticky when mixed in water, which helps to soothe inflamed parts of the body. People use it to help with their inflamed gastrointestinal tracts, bringing relief to sufferers of irritable bowel syndrome and leaky gut syndrome.
Whereas these Indian women who are picking the camellia sinesis leaves that go into my five-a-day tea habit do not. We are very lucky, my friends. When I feel displeased because the era impedes on me with its whirrings and ringings and connectedness-but-notness, I remind myself of the basics of a rich life: a bed, a roof, and a full pantry.
This is capsicum annuum. From this variety we get regular capsicums (known also as bell peppers), cayenne pepper and paprika. It would also need to grow in my garden because the paprika's gone into the slow cooker for tonight's chickpea soup. Today it freezes in Susieland in a raining winterishness, and so a bit of pepperishness goes into the soup to keep the immune system running hot.
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| Image: Nac Datta |
This is capsicum annuum. From this variety we get regular capsicums (known also as bell peppers), cayenne pepper and paprika. It would also need to grow in my garden because the paprika's gone into the slow cooker for tonight's chickpea soup. Today it freezes in Susieland in a raining winterishness, and so a bit of pepperishness goes into the soup to keep the immune system running hot.
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| Image: Douneika |
The brassica oleracea, or cabbage, is very unsexy. It's sort of like the vegetabilic equivalent of a pair of daggy tracky dacks with the bum hanging out. But I love cabbage. Whether I love it in the above soup remains to be seen, because Chickpea and Cabbage Soup ain't exactly the thing you dream of rushing home for when Mum's cooking, but we shall see.
This is fabacae, sp. caesalpinioidae, and while we're here, aren't these Latin names rather tiresome? There's not a lot of timbre about them, is there? It's like other Latin words, like clitoris and testes; it just takes all the humanity or shrubanity or life essence out of these things and turn them into something cold and antiseptic that you certainly would not want to touch even with a bargepole, let alone anything else. Whereas plenty of people like to touch clitorises and testes, and actually find it quite a pleasurable experience.
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| Image: Frank Starmer |
This is fabacae, sp. caesalpinioidae, and while we're here, aren't these Latin names rather tiresome? There's not a lot of timbre about them, is there? It's like other Latin words, like clitoris and testes; it just takes all the humanity or shrubanity or life essence out of these things and turn them into something cold and antiseptic that you certainly would not want to touch even with a bargepole, let alone anything else. Whereas plenty of people like to touch clitorises and testes, and actually find it quite a pleasurable experience.
Drinking this is also quite a pleasurable experience, although not in the same category. But a cup of senna tea is a lovely thing to help ... well, you know, move things along down there.
Yeah, I know, I'm getting all coy suddenly talking about poo, after I've just talked about clitoresis and testes. But those are generalised clitorises and testes, not my personal ones. Whereas now you all know that I had a cup of senna tea today because the cableman came round and there wasn't any cable to lay.
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| Image: Lalithamba |
This last one is my favourite. It is ulmus rubra, commonly known as the slippery elm. It's not the leaves or the flowers or the fruit that are eaten this time, but the bark.
Speaking of the flowers, Wikipedia informs me that the flowers of elm trees are bisexual or unisexual. Well, there you go.
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| Image: (C) Steve Baskauf |
Ground down into a fine powder and drank, the bark becomes very moist and sticky when mixed in water, which helps to soothe inflamed parts of the body. People use it to help with their inflamed gastrointestinal tracts, bringing relief to sufferers of irritable bowel syndrome and leaky gut syndrome.
My old doggy had a bad day yesterday, throwing up his guts all over the floor. A visit to the vet last night reported an overindulgence in bones (mea culpa) resulting in an overtaxed system and an inflamed stomach. And so I was particularly heartened this morning when Lester, after not eating anything yesterday, partook of his very own soup: broiled chicken in slippery elm and chicken stock-flavoured water. Dat dog knows what's good for him.
Which may very well end up being tastier than the version the two leggeds have this evening, but we shall see :)
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| Image: Swamp Dude |
Meet Sonia Gregorii. Her father was a boab, her mother was a weirdo :) Not sure about the branches yet, I'm not convinced they are right. I like the idea though, and may continue playing with it. Can't seem to ditch this tree/person with cool fat feet thing :)I had a funny intersection with food and this sculpture last week. I bought some chia seeds. Never heard of them before but they are one of the superfoods the Aztecs were adept at growing. These tiny little seeds pack a punch. Full of omega 3's (the good fats), vitamins, proteins. Good to help regulate your blood sugar. Give you energy. Mixed with water they go all gelatinous and the resulting gel can be used in place of oil or butter in cooking. Pretty nifty and handy little things and I shall be buying them again.
When I was looking up info about the seeds after I bought them, I had just begun adding branches to this sculpture. When I saw that the seeds can be sprouted in all sorts of weird and wonderful places, I just knew with a jolt that after I get this girl fired, I'm gonna be spreading me chia seeds all along her boughs and have myself my own chia tree :)
Funny how things intersect, sometimes. Food and sculpture.
When I was 8, my best friend was Jane Thomas. She was English and had the fruit-skin of peaches and cream to prove it. She said interesting words and she drew really cool whimsical stuff. Her whole family had cool accents and their cupboard had interesting things in it like Marmite. I only ate it the once. Yuk. How they could eat it was beyond me.
But Vegemite? Well, that's a different story. Sometimes there's nothing for it but Vegemite on toast. Which could possibly be strange to a panel of taste-testers who have eaten neither, because I'm pretty sure to an uninitiated adult palette they would be on a par of disgustingness. Perhaps they wouldn't even be able to taste the difference. But to me, there was a world of difference. Marmite was just naff.
Barb wanted to know what Marmite tastes like and what you do with it, but I cannae speak with much authority on that. When Vegemite first came into being in the 1920s, though, Marmite dominated the market for dark road tar spreads. Bad sales of Vegemite in the first six years of its existence caused a name change to Parwill (a pun on Marmite, as in, Marmite, but Parwill. Geddit?) Anyway, luckily it was changed from one naff name back to its original naff name.
I think maybe you need to grow up on certain things to be able to eat them as an adult. My cousin eats black pudding, has since she was a child, just loves it. The very thought makes my toes go all curly. But eating black tarlike stuff that could take several layers of paint off your car, and cause your tastebuds to disintegrate? Get 'em while they're young and corrupt their tastebuds. I imagine if you started feeding a child road tar early enough they'd scrape it over their toast as an adult.
It's like eating lamb's brains and stuff like that, and kidneys. I could never eat steak and kidney as a child. I hated the sliminess of the kidney and it just looked horrible, sitting there in dark chunks on the plate. And yet, I had no trouble eating oysters kilpatrick. Or the actual cow itself. Whereas if I grew up vegetarian and you bought a cow to me, with her big heaving udders and those beautiful bashful eyes, the very thought of eating her! would make me shudder. And yet, last night on the phone, when my mum said she was having spaghetti bolognese, my mouth watered. I haven't been eating much meat lately, mainly because of the cost, but does my mouth water at the thought? Oh, yes.
Lamb's brains. My mum used to cook those up for my dad and they would stink out the whole bloody house. They smelt rather like how you would imagine frying brains would smell like but my dad ate them all down, yummy yummy in his tummy. Weird. In some Middle Eastern cultures lamb testicles are a delicacy. I balk at the idea, but am quite happy to chow down on the lamb itself (if I don't think too much about it. If I stop in the middle of the cutlet, even if smeared with mint sauce, and think, this was a frolicking lamb, I lose my appetite). The discrepancy makes little sense. Except to my stomach.
To eat Vegemite on toast, you really need to have a much greater proportion of butter than Vegemite. Here's one I prepared earlier. That piece of toast (rice bread. No wheat for me, thanks) is smothered in cholesterol forming butter and mmm, yum yum yum. And a spread of Vegemite. Not too much or it rips off several layers of my mouth. Some people though are amazing. Some people smother their toast in Vegemite and I can only admire them, while wondering if they will be able to taste anything else for the rest of the day. That stuff is salty, dammit.
Here are the contents of Vegemite, for your foodlish education:
yeast extract (mmm, yum yum!)
salt
mineral salt (just for a bit of added saltiness)
malt extract (from barley)
colour (150d - dark poo brown)
preservative (220)
flavours
niacin
thiamine
riboflavin
folate
Yeast is often an evil substance, or at least the versions that we have in Western foods are often the type that contribute to candida overgrowth. Candida is a yeast that lives in everyone's body in varying degrees, but becomes a problem when it proliferates. Causes brainfog and digestion problems and fatigue. But then, so do 400 million other things. The standard Western diet of sugars and certain yeasts contributes to the proliferation of candida, though.
But then, like everything, lump everything into the same category at your peril. Because brewer's yeast, the stuff used to make beer, is actually good for you. Made from the yeast species saccharomyces, which is good for your gut and also contains a lot of chromium, which helps balance your blood sugar levels. So there you go. Always exceptions to every rule.
Vegemite is good for you. Contains shitloads of B group vitamins, those saviours against hormones and bluedom. I have a Vegemite cookbook. I actually typeset the text of it, years ago, working for a firm that specialised in cookbooks. Suffice to say, I have quite a few cookbooks. There are tons of recipes in there to use Vegemite in, like stir fries, sauces. It's savoury taste adds a nice bit of tang. Just don't use too much of it.
I would love to know if anyone from outside of Australia has tasted Vegemite, and what you thought of it.
But Vegemite? Well, that's a different story. Sometimes there's nothing for it but Vegemite on toast. Which could possibly be strange to a panel of taste-testers who have eaten neither, because I'm pretty sure to an uninitiated adult palette they would be on a par of disgustingness. Perhaps they wouldn't even be able to taste the difference. But to me, there was a world of difference. Marmite was just naff.
Barb wanted to know what Marmite tastes like and what you do with it, but I cannae speak with much authority on that. When Vegemite first came into being in the 1920s, though, Marmite dominated the market for dark road tar spreads. Bad sales of Vegemite in the first six years of its existence caused a name change to Parwill (a pun on Marmite, as in, Marmite, but Parwill. Geddit?) Anyway, luckily it was changed from one naff name back to its original naff name.
I think maybe you need to grow up on certain things to be able to eat them as an adult. My cousin eats black pudding, has since she was a child, just loves it. The very thought makes my toes go all curly. But eating black tarlike stuff that could take several layers of paint off your car, and cause your tastebuds to disintegrate? Get 'em while they're young and corrupt their tastebuds. I imagine if you started feeding a child road tar early enough they'd scrape it over their toast as an adult.
It's like eating lamb's brains and stuff like that, and kidneys. I could never eat steak and kidney as a child. I hated the sliminess of the kidney and it just looked horrible, sitting there in dark chunks on the plate. And yet, I had no trouble eating oysters kilpatrick. Or the actual cow itself. Whereas if I grew up vegetarian and you bought a cow to me, with her big heaving udders and those beautiful bashful eyes, the very thought of eating her! would make me shudder. And yet, last night on the phone, when my mum said she was having spaghetti bolognese, my mouth watered. I haven't been eating much meat lately, mainly because of the cost, but does my mouth water at the thought? Oh, yes.
Lamb's brains. My mum used to cook those up for my dad and they would stink out the whole bloody house. They smelt rather like how you would imagine frying brains would smell like but my dad ate them all down, yummy yummy in his tummy. Weird. In some Middle Eastern cultures lamb testicles are a delicacy. I balk at the idea, but am quite happy to chow down on the lamb itself (if I don't think too much about it. If I stop in the middle of the cutlet, even if smeared with mint sauce, and think, this was a frolicking lamb, I lose my appetite). The discrepancy makes little sense. Except to my stomach.
To eat Vegemite on toast, you really need to have a much greater proportion of butter than Vegemite. Here's one I prepared earlier. That piece of toast (rice bread. No wheat for me, thanks) is smothered in cholesterol forming butter and mmm, yum yum yum. And a spread of Vegemite. Not too much or it rips off several layers of my mouth. Some people though are amazing. Some people smother their toast in Vegemite and I can only admire them, while wondering if they will be able to taste anything else for the rest of the day. That stuff is salty, dammit.Here are the contents of Vegemite, for your foodlish education:
yeast extract (mmm, yum yum!)
salt
mineral salt (just for a bit of added saltiness)
malt extract (from barley)
colour (150d - dark poo brown)
preservative (220)
flavours
niacin
thiamine
riboflavin
folate
Yeast is often an evil substance, or at least the versions that we have in Western foods are often the type that contribute to candida overgrowth. Candida is a yeast that lives in everyone's body in varying degrees, but becomes a problem when it proliferates. Causes brainfog and digestion problems and fatigue. But then, so do 400 million other things. The standard Western diet of sugars and certain yeasts contributes to the proliferation of candida, though.
But then, like everything, lump everything into the same category at your peril. Because brewer's yeast, the stuff used to make beer, is actually good for you. Made from the yeast species saccharomyces, which is good for your gut and also contains a lot of chromium, which helps balance your blood sugar levels. So there you go. Always exceptions to every rule.
Vegemite is good for you. Contains shitloads of B group vitamins, those saviours against hormones and bluedom. I have a Vegemite cookbook. I actually typeset the text of it, years ago, working for a firm that specialised in cookbooks. Suffice to say, I have quite a few cookbooks. There are tons of recipes in there to use Vegemite in, like stir fries, sauces. It's savoury taste adds a nice bit of tang. Just don't use too much of it.
I would love to know if anyone from outside of Australia has tasted Vegemite, and what you thought of it.
I feel a bit ill from the raw biscuit dough I've just been eating. For my first writing challenge, suggested by Kent, to write about the snickerdoodle biscuit* (snickerdoodle doo!), I decided that writing about them was difficult when I had never had one. Write what you know, many writing books suggest, and while it is true that I know what biscuits in general taste like, I wanted to know what Snickerdoodles in particular tasted like. That whole write what you know thing - well, if you only wrote what you knew, how dull would our fiction be? It would all be about washing socks and cleaning the grouting of the shower and stuff. What, you say? I should get out more? Yea, I should and I shall. I also shall clean the grouting of the shower before I do. And speaking of fiction, I'm gearing up to write some again. It's been a long and lonely 13 months since I last wrote any. My art therapy definitely seems to be working :)
Anyway. I did doth digress. According to the only place we glean our information from these days, Wikipedia, here are a few bits and pieces about our humble Snickerdoodle:
Before I started making the biscuits, I needed to go to the supermarket to get some sugar. When I got back and got started, I realised I didn't have any baking powder. Oh well. Not going back up the shop again. This is ridiculous anyway, baking biscuits at 10.30 at night. So instead of going back up the shop, I did a bit of substitution. That should work, right?
It was difficult rolling the pastry into a ball with my hands. Very messy, but I do love getting my hands dirty. And then rolling them into the cinnamon and sugar mixture to coat them made it a bit easier to form them into some sort of ball shape. The recipe said to keep a 2 inch distance between each biscuit to allow for rising. So I did. Kind of. Give or take an inch or 2.
Popped in the oven. Now, this oven's handle and fascia fell off a few weeks ago, right while I was in the middle of cooking a roast. Nigel, my friendly neighbourhood landlord and fix-it man managed to put it all back together. But that's okay. Shouldn't affect the oven. She's an old beastie, and she's always been about 20 degrees out, but that's okay. The roast I cooked in it a few weeks ago was primo. Temperature calls for 190 degrees? No wuckers. I'll bung it on 210.
Well. Perhaps it was the substituted baking powder. Perhaps the different flour I used. Perhaps the oven. I'm glad, really, that I ate so much biscuit dough. 'Cause I aint gonna be eating any biscuits. Those bastards needed a shot of viagra, 'cause they never quite made it up. Even though, by God, they expanded out sideways.
Sheesh, look how grotty the stovetop is in that photo! And how large my nostrils are in this one! You could hide a family of 4 up there. I wish I'd brushed my hair before I took this photo. I look like I'm developing a comb-over. And I wish I'd cleaned the stove. Apart from that, I'm fine with these photos :) (I can't be too mean to myself, in the hour of my failed snickerdoodling grief). Unfortunately no, my eyes are not that lovely shade of blue, but a somewhat more darker, grottier shade.
So anyway, in summary. Snickerdoodles sure smell nice when they're baking. All that cinnamon. Such a delightful smell (and, I will add, burning a stick of cinnamon along with a handful of cloves in boiling water on the stove is the most sensational of air fresheners). Snickerdoodles also taste nice raw. I can only imagine they would probably taste pretty good cooked, too.
Next time :)
* Biscuit = cookie for you Northerner folks.
Anyway. I did doth digress. According to the only place we glean our information from these days, Wikipedia, here are a few bits and pieces about our humble Snickerdoodle:
The origin of the name “Snyckerdoodle” has given rise to many theories but few facts. The Joy of Cooking claims that snickerdoodles are probably German in origin, and that the name is a corruption of the German word for "snail dumpling" (Schneckennudeln, or cinnamon-dusted sweet rolls).[citation needed] Similarly, one author states that “the word `snicker' may have come from a Dutch word `snekrad,' or the German word `Schnecke,` both describing a snail-like shape.”[1] However, another author believes the name came from a New England tradition of fanciful, whimsical cookie names,[2] and yet another cites a series of tall tales around a hero named Snickerdoodle from the early 1900s.Fascinating. Now, I'm not sure which recipe Kent's Mum used to make these biscuits that got him all dribbling out the side of his mouth in anticipation while chowing down on his steamed asparagus, but this is the one I used.
Before I started making the biscuits, I needed to go to the supermarket to get some sugar. When I got back and got started, I realised I didn't have any baking powder. Oh well. Not going back up the shop again. This is ridiculous anyway, baking biscuits at 10.30 at night. So instead of going back up the shop, I did a bit of substitution. That should work, right?
It was difficult rolling the pastry into a ball with my hands. Very messy, but I do love getting my hands dirty. And then rolling them into the cinnamon and sugar mixture to coat them made it a bit easier to form them into some sort of ball shape. The recipe said to keep a 2 inch distance between each biscuit to allow for rising. So I did. Kind of. Give or take an inch or 2.
Popped in the oven. Now, this oven's handle and fascia fell off a few weeks ago, right while I was in the middle of cooking a roast. Nigel, my friendly neighbourhood landlord and fix-it man managed to put it all back together. But that's okay. Shouldn't affect the oven. She's an old beastie, and she's always been about 20 degrees out, but that's okay. The roast I cooked in it a few weeks ago was primo. Temperature calls for 190 degrees? No wuckers. I'll bung it on 210.
Well. Perhaps it was the substituted baking powder. Perhaps the different flour I used. Perhaps the oven. I'm glad, really, that I ate so much biscuit dough. 'Cause I aint gonna be eating any biscuits. Those bastards needed a shot of viagra, 'cause they never quite made it up. Even though, by God, they expanded out sideways.
Sheesh, look how grotty the stovetop is in that photo! And how large my nostrils are in this one! You could hide a family of 4 up there. I wish I'd brushed my hair before I took this photo. I look like I'm developing a comb-over. And I wish I'd cleaned the stove. Apart from that, I'm fine with these photos :) (I can't be too mean to myself, in the hour of my failed snickerdoodling grief). Unfortunately no, my eyes are not that lovely shade of blue, but a somewhat more darker, grottier shade.
So anyway, in summary. Snickerdoodles sure smell nice when they're baking. All that cinnamon. Such a delightful smell (and, I will add, burning a stick of cinnamon along with a handful of cloves in boiling water on the stove is the most sensational of air fresheners). Snickerdoodles also taste nice raw. I can only imagine they would probably taste pretty good cooked, too.Next time :)
* Biscuit = cookie for you Northerner folks.
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