Just Playin' Around

Getting Back On Track: Squash Curry

fry a diced spanish onion in a bit of olive oil
Add one tbsp curry, 1/2 tbsp cumin
Add one can Patak's Balta curry sauce (8% sodium, I checked, yes I am cheating a bit here by doing a canned curry, but I had to jump back into cooking somewhere)
Add one diced Kambucha squash (crazy looking japanese squash, arrived in my food box a few weeks back)
Add three or four leaves of Swiss Chard
Cook 25 minutes or so on low heat and serve over rice.

Not half bad really, very filling. Len and I have both fallen off the wagon a bit this week on portion sizes, so back at that aspect tomorrow. We're also both looking forward to getting back to getting some exercise tomorrow now that we're feeling better.
On the menu for this week:
Salad Green with fried wild mushrooms and a poached egg on top
Swiss Chard, Tofu, Avocado and Cucumber Dragon Bowl
Somethin' with yams cause there's too darn many in this house... thoughts anyone?

The big girl bed

Here's the promised pic of Adara's new bedroom and sheets. Len worked all last Saturday to pull of this transformation as the whole room had to be dissasembled including a massive bookshelf. Adara got to choose her own sheets and as you can see, the Dora and Diego sheets have been very popular. Adara spent much of an afternoon with the sheets wrapped around her wandering around the house. So far, so good. In seven days, she managed to wiggle her way back into our bed only once.


As to the food project, due to everyone being sick, we've fallen right off the wagon. I got strep throat last week, Len got a cold on monday, tuesday and wednesday when I was thankfully well; and then my strep throat returned on friday. I'm suffering pretty good this time as the antibiotic is pretty much attacking my whole body and filling me with aches and pains and body issues. I'm very much ready for this to be done!

Small Town, Big City

Sometimes Toronto is like a small town. I'm home sick with a really ugly case of strep throat today. I've had to go out several times though to the doctors and pharmacy.
This morning while at the Doctor, I was answering work emails on my blackberry. A guy beside me leaned over and started asking a bunch of questions about it, so we talked for about 5 minutes.
At the corner store, I was purchasing a pathetic gossip magazine to entertain my poor fevered brain. The headline was "Sandra fights back". The asian new owner of the store was trying to sound out the headline but was having trouble. He asked me for help wiht his pronunciation. So I found myself in the corner store repetitively saying Sandra fights back. Which led to a very confusing discussion of what it meant. "Cheated" as in "cheated on his wife" doesn't translate at all well to the very literal chinese.
On the way home a guy was walking towards me in the rain with two bikes, one on each side of him. He crossed below me on the sidewalk, on the left hand side of the walk for him, nearest the street. He stopped to tell me that he'd done so because it was chivalrous and made it so I wouldn't be splashed by the water on the street. I thanked him.
All of these encounters are things that I would have said don't happen in Toronto when I moved here fifteen years ago. But they do happen all of the time. Toronto is like a small town, except that you don't know anyone. Strange, huh?

Kapow Shirt

Adara has a favourite shirt. It's royal blue with colourful cartoon bubble words like "smash, kapow, bam" on it. She wants to wear it every day and hands it to me every night requesting that I wash it for tomorrow. It's vaguely infuriating but also very nostalgic. Do you remember your favourite item of clothing and your passionate devotion to wearing it every day? I had a light pink and brown calico dress that i was convinced made me look like Laura Ingalls Wilder. Then there was the red spring jacket with all of the very Michael Jackson zippers and pockets. And the purple figure skating dress that I wanted wear everywhere all of the time.
What was your obsessive clothing item?

The Food Project

I'm taking a left turn from adoration of the babe to tell you about the other major thing in my family's life. The food project didn't start as a food project, it started as a series of blood pressure tests. Len was feeling really off all winter, tired and achy and listless. He started checking his blood pressure at the drugstores about two months back and it was up, really up. Thus began the food project.
To give some context, we didn't eat badly comparatively speaking before. Typically we were eating red meat once a week or less, vegetarian once a week and the rest chicken, pork and occasionally seafood. We were big eaters of sandwiches, breads of all of kinds and cheese, my goodness, do we all love cheese.
And then Len started feeling poorly and we all started looking for solutions. On the suggestion of several friends we started by cutting out wheat. In Toronto, this is a pretty easy thing to do as there are lots of alternative breads and crackers and such, so we thought, why not, let's give it a go. It took more then a month but Len's energy came back and he felt much better.
Next went the salt. We started looking at everything and cutting it everywhere. And from there it's just snowballed into a whole lifestyle change. More tofu, vegetarian three times a week, less sandwiches, way less cheese, more vegetables, less of everything. As Michael Pollan says in his wicked awesome book "In Defense of Food" "Eat food, not much, mostly plants". For those of you who haven't read it he means real food,not packaged, not processed, not with all of the fats replaced with oil.
So, some things have been unexpected. We switched the low fat cream cheese for a real organic gorgeous real whipped cream cheese, and the no fat yogurts for the more real stuff.
It's working. Len has lost probably eight to ten pounds, although there's no scale in this house so we don't really know. I'm down a couple as well. Len's blood pressure is just starting to get back into the normal zone. But more importantly, I'm excited and energized by this challenge.
Three weeks ago we switched to having organic fruit and veggie boxes delivered to the house. I am like a kid in a candy store! I can't wait to see what this weeks challenge is! Swiss chard, bring it! Watercress, wait until you see my watercress, roasted beet and orange salad with homemade orange salad dressing that I mixed with peach balsamic white vinegar. Kale, I can take it, keep it coming! Suddenly, the making of food has become something to dream about and imagine how creative I can be.
So, that's the start of the food project. In the next while I'm going to post an occasional description of triumph or failures and maybe even a recipe or two. I'm thrilled by what's happening at home and how it fits with my work and can't wait to share. As always, amidst pictures and stories of Adoring Adara!

What is it about spring

In reading everyone's blogs this week it seems like all of our children got a lot older and bigger and made huge leaps ahead all at once.
Griffin is being registered for school (not daycare, thanks for the catch Kris, I've been sick all week and not so lucid)
Dylan is suddenly ridiculously tall, although perhaps it's because of the infrequency of Sarah's posts! :)
Cameron is adding more words and his little brother Jackson is walking
Emma is one.
Diego is demanding to go outside
and Phelan is four.
And yes, Dennie, Christopher is 19!

Craziness, all of your children made me feel old, yet filled with wonder this week. It reminded me that children make leaps ahead while adults tend to gradually progress. But, you know what, this last two weeks hasn't been any gradual progression for me. I'm really truly happy, inspired by my work and back where I belong.

Giddyup

Eyes and Noses and Teeth, Oh My

Well, it was a pretty eventful week of rest between one job and the next. Here's a picture of St. Anne's spa where I spent two lovely days with Heather.

I had a Thai massage, we ate great food, we hiked, we laid in various hot tubs, we drank and I kicked Heather's butt at scrabble in this empty, gorgeous,late night, old farmhouse. It rocked! Thanks to Len for making it happen and Heather for being my partner in crime.
And then, in my last twenty minutes at St. Anne's spa, I threw up. No idea why, had a sore tummy for the next two days.
So, the lovely Heather drove me home, where I found a baby and husband with colds. And, oh yes, a baby with pink eye too. Sigh, so much for relaxing. Adara was home with us Monday, tuesday and wednesday and Len ended up home taking care of both of us too.
By Friday Adara was better and so I spent a lovely afternoon at another spa, Body Blitz, as someone had given me a gift certificate long ago. I was relaxed and had lots of time to think and prepare for my new gig.
And then on Saturday, Adara knocked a tooth out. Well, not actually out, just at a really odd angle with lots of blood and four bite marks through the lip. We had an emergency dentist trip and he said "wait and see, it might stay in, it might fall out, don't really know". I'm making him sound unhelpful 'cause it's fun, but really he was very nice, saw us 20 minutes before closing and distracted Adara nicely with a choice selection of stickers.
So, that's my relaxing week, all of which led me to this today...


The lovely new building of my lovely new job. I'm pretty excited, all in all.

Tower Power

This is Adara's new favourite game. She takes basically every toy in the house to create these massive towers of power. It's actually quite a lot of fun.