I don't eat big breakfast very much anymore. A couple times a year I catch one when I'm home visiting the family and every once in a great while, Chris and I will go out for a gluttonous breakfast at our local diner. But by and large, my big breakfast days are a thing of the past- a happy, delicious memory. Once every couple of weeks, though, we indulge in a "little breakfast", which is essentially some carby, buttery deliciousness that normally wouldn't fly in this house as a respectable breakfast (a respectable breakfast being one with nutritional value that doesn't make you immediately feel full and lazy).
Light and fluffy, yet still moist and rich- the perfect pancake Hi, my name is Cara and I am addicted to breakfast food. As someone who identifies as a healthy, veg-heavy food fanatic, it feels good to get that off my chest! Growing up, every Saturday our family would prepare what we affectionately referred to as "big breakfast". Big breakfast is the kind of breakfast you might expect to get at a top-notch old fashion diner. A heaping plate of diverse breakfast foods- ideal for the indecisive eater and all-around breakfast food lover. A typical big breakfast menu in our house consisted of "eggy-tatoes" (don't bother googling it- we made up the name and my mother is the only person on earth I've ever seen make them), scrambled eggs, english muffins, bacon, and either french toast, waffles, or pancakes. Even with six people at the table this is, yes, a massive amount of (mostly very unhealthy) food smothered in butter and syrup. But it is soooo good. So good. I don't eat big breakfast very much anymore. A couple times a year I catch one when I'm home visiting the family and every once in a great while, Chris and I will go out for a gluttonous breakfast at our local diner. But by and large, my big breakfast days are a thing of the past- a happy, delicious memory. Once every couple of weeks, though, we indulge in a "little breakfast", which is essentially some carby, buttery deliciousness that normally wouldn't fly in this house as a respectable breakfast (a respectable breakfast being one with nutritional value that doesn't make you immediately feel full and lazy).
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A rich, spicy and satisfying Indian curry with fresh, buttery naan That rain we never got has been sitting in the sky, getting heavier and heavier. Southern California is not a humid place by any means- even the most humid of days in Riverside is less humid than an ordinary day on the east coast. But when it's over 100 degrees, that 20% humidity is surprisingly palpable- and it is seriously unpleasant. The hours of 9 am to 8 pm are all but resigned to being indoor hours, which always makes this time of year difficult for me. I'm an outdoor person. There are few afternoon plans that I find more appealing than spending a good six hours out in the garden or going for a nice long hike. Of course, most of the year here is very conducive to outdoor living. All winter long I can camp, hike, and garden to my heart's content- but from roughly June to September I feel stuck. I feel cooped up in the house, frantically trying to squish all outdoor activities into the couple of light hours in the morning and evening that are bearable to leave the house in. With or without the humidity, the summer here is mostly a wash for outdoor things unless we hitch a ride to the coast or the mountains, but at least the dry heat is slightly more comfortable to contend with. So today, with grey clouds once again filling the sky, all I can do is cross my fingers and hope that maybe, just maybe, it will finally rain. The humidity will dissipate, the parched soil will be quenched, and I will sit by the window with a cup of tea, dreamy and nostalgic about rain. Although, it's been so very long since it last rained here that I may just have to go out and stand in it, letting it soak me through.
Dark savory caramel, mildly sweet figs and tangy yogurt Today has been immensely lazy. We did our 8:30 market run, but despite leaving early it was miserably hot by the time we got back. I was already feeling sleepy this morning after a post-wine-Friday dinner party that went to 11 pm, and the onslaught of 100-degree heat just totally deflated me. I came back to the house, stuffed the dairy in the fridge, drank down a couple glasses of water, and laid down. It's 3 pm and all I've done since then is get the rest of the groceries put away, load the dishwasher, and eat a number of snacks that are supposed to collectively pass as lunch. Am I slightly disappointed that 1/4 of my weekend is gone and I haven't hardly moved today? No. Not really, actually. The weekend is my time and I like to use my time productively and constructively, but today the most productive thing I could do with my afternoon was to just be a bump on a log - to embrace being lazy. Sometimes going from tired and lazy to active and engaged is just a matter of getting going. Sometimes its a matter of needing to be a waste of space for half of the day and then rebooting yourself. After heaps more water and an afternoon coffee, I'm starting to feel ready to take on whatever little odds and ends peak my interest today. I think the beginning of a nice fresh loaf of bread is on the horizon for today. Maybe a little stretching, a phone call to my dear mother, a nice hearty curry for dinner, a long walk once the sun goes down... I'll make the rest of the day count. I promise.
A vegetarian version of a Vietnamese classic I moved to California shortly after graduating college. I had a bit of money saved up and a place to live, but no job prospects to speak of. But I had a good degree, a spotless academic record, 8 years of solid work experience under my belt, marketable skills... how hard could it possibly be for me to find a job? If you've been unemployed any time since 2008, you're already nodding you're head at me, fully aware of how naive a question like that is. It doesn't matter how qualified you are- these days finding a job is incredibly difficult. So I went through the same monotonous soul-sucking motions as anyone else in that position. For months I spent 6 or 7 hours a day scouring job sites, sending in resume after resume, writing cover letters, taking skills tests. This process is so grinding, so disheartening. I'd send out a hundred resumes in a day sometimes and never hear anything back. So when I did finally get an offer, I jumped on it. So what if it's something I've never done and know very little about? I have loan payments that are going to start coming due next month. I have rent to pay! So I took the job. It was awful. Awful! I was working for peanuts in this lonely office on the other side of town, spending all day long arguing with banks over lost paperwork and unfair denials of loan modifications. If you've ever had to call a bank for any reason whatsoever, you can imagine how truly horrible and infuriating this line of work was. Hold music... talk to a machine for 20 minutes... more hold music... talk to a representative who makes you repeat everything you already told the machine.... get transferred to someone else.... repeat. A month or so later, I started my job hunt again.
Tangy, fresh cucumber and yogurt dip This morning I woke up feeling refreshed. I let myself sleep in a bit, just until the sun was starting to beam through the slits in the blinds. I woke up smiling. Chris and I made a nice wholesome breakfast of veggie omelets and blueberry-nectarine smoothies. Then he brewed up our morning coffees- for him, a straight shot of espresso followed by an iced coffee and for me, my typical hot americano. It's been a nice morning. No pressure. Just enjoying the day. Soon I'll get started on some work- calculating the environmental impacts of fertilizer production. It isn't the most thrilling bit of research I've been tasked with, but it's one of those things I can get fairly easily caught up in and it will serve the goals of this project well. So I'll power through that- perhaps breaking for some lunch-time yoga- and I'll take Chaco out later this evening when it's cooled down a bit. I feel good about today, the whole of it, already. I think if I had kept on feeling guilty over my blah-kind-of day yesterday, I wouldn't feel this way this morning. It never ceases to amaze me what a difference perspective can make.
Colorful, flavorful, crispy fresh falafel I woke up today feeling tired, despite falling asleep embarrassingly early last night. It took me until lunch to turn myself around, but I still never felt like I really got going. Some days just seem to pass like that. I tend to feel disappointed by days when I just never really feel that present. I try to force it upon myself. Get over it! Snap out of it! But ultimately these days come about because a part of me is tired- physically, mentally, emotionally, or some combination of the three. And I think that rather than feel disappointed or frustrated by these days, I ought to recognize them as a sign that something in me is tired. Something needs rejuvenating, or maybe even just a break. It's 6 pm and I'm just starting to feel settled in myself today. I've been spending a lot of time up in the old head lately. Overwhelmingly it's been for the better. I'm reconnecting with some long lost things that make me feel whole, I'm clarifying and simplifying -like cleaning an attic. But today I woke up feeling overwhelmed by it. I needed to just clear my head space. Reset.
Part of allowing that process to happen is just taking some of the pressure off of myself. Some days aren't going to be full and productive. Some days are just going to be so-so. And that was today, and now I feel better. A fresh, raw salad that delivers in texture, flavor, and nutrition I've struggled with balance so very many times in so very many forms throughout my life. Sometimes I find it, sometimes I don't. Lately I've been trying to find the balance between going with the flow and taking decisive action. I like having a plan. I like routine. But I also like spontaneous adventures and getting so wrapped up in something that I forget who and where I am. That's how I tend to feel when I get out into the garden. I go to water something and 4 hours later I've weeded the whole yard, planted a few trees, set up a trellis, and harvested a basket of peppers. Any "plans" I may have fly right out the window. I value that and I need that. But I also need some degree of structure and regularity. It's important to me to maintain certain habits and maintaining these habits requires having some semblance of a plan for the day. So I'm trying out a new approach to balancing these aspects of my life. Set out with objectives and a plan in my head for the day, but allow myself to get lost in each thing that I do and prioritize what I'm feeling passionate about in that moment. If I feel terribly distracted and can't get any work done, then I should go do what I want to be doing instead and not feel bad for taking a break from work. But when I do get into working on a project, I shouldn't just stop at 5 o'clock. I should power through until I get to a satisfying finishing point and not feel bad for skipping yoga and getting dinner started late. Have a plan, but remain willing and ready to re-adjust. Fighting against myself takes too much energy and is much less fulfilling.
Crunchy, tangy, and full of flavor The rain never came. It really looked as though it would, but instead it was just uncomfortably humid. Oh well, so much for that... I am happy to report, however, that I did manage to get a respectable amount of work done. And guess what? In the two days since then, I've gotten even more done. Slowly but surely I'm starting to gain some momentum. There are really two major obstacles for me in getting into any good habit- starting and keeping momentum. I always find starting things difficult, largely because I don't like to start anything I don't intend to see through and, to a lesser extent, because I'm a big proponent of trying to start out on the right foot, as they say. So if I think about it for long enough to grasp the full weight of what it will mean to choose to start something, I'm prone to being easily deterred. But with a little planning and a lot of reminding myself that I don't need to do everything all at once, I can get over that hurdle. The second bit is gaining and maintaining momentum. I find that this requires a certain amount of effort and commitment until that point in time where I hit the sweet spot- where said habit becomes just another part of my flow. My qualifying exams turned my flow into something unrecognizable. Most of it's contents were bagged up and tossed into storage like a bunch of old toys that you don't have time to play with anymore. I would start studying by 8 am and stop around 8 pm, putting in only slightly shorter days on the weekends. In retrospect, I'm actually a little amazed I still found the time to take Chaco on our daily hour-long escapades and get dinner on the table more nights than not.
Cheeze-its done better and with only 6 ingredients It's Monday morning. I'm lying in bed sipping on a hot cup of genmaicha looking out at the thick grey clouds sitting heavily in the sky. I grew up on the east coast, where rain was something that was easy to take for granted, but rain is not something I take for granted anymore. I've been living in southern California for four years now and rain is easily one of the things I miss the very most. When I first left New England for South Carolina, I was happy to be in a place where the number of sunny days was at least comparable to the number of grey-sky-days. In coming to California, the grey-sky-days all but disappeared. And while this is quite convenient for bike commuting and camping trips, it's also given me a strong nostalgia for rainy days. Part of my longing for rain is environmental. The southwest is dry enough as it is and with the persistence of a three year drought, the dryness is all the more tangible. The earth is longing for moisture and so am I. But the other part of my longing is more basic and poetic. Sitting in bed, hearing the rain beat down on the roof, watching little rain drops trickle down the window pain, the sun muted out by heavy clouds emptying themselves onto the earth. You know this feeling. You've reveled in it sometime or another. There's something so calming and rejuvenating about it.
A cool refreshing summer salad I'm a morning person. I like to wake up with the sun, when the neighborhood quiet and the birds are calling out to one another. I like to sit at the table by the kitchen window drinking a hot americano and eating a nice little breakfast while Chaco makes excited howls at me from the other side of the glass, waiting to be taken out for his morning walk. When I've finished eating, we head to the park and run around in a big open valley there, breaking every so often for a snuggle session. And when we get home, I like to spend a half hour or so watering whatever needs watering and checking up on each individual plant- ensuring their happiness and taking notes of anything that looks off. Then it's straight to the shower and the start of getting ready for the day ahead.
I like mornings. But I do not like rushed mornings. |
AuthorHi there! I'm Cara- plant ecologist, gardening addict, and whole foods enthusiast. My whole life revolves around plants, including my kitchen. Join me here at LWM each week as I post local, seasonal, plant-based recipes and write about my never ending quest to find balance and tranquility in this crazy little world. Archives
June 2015
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