the unexpected chef

Homemade vegetarian black bean chili with avocado lime salsa. That's what I made for dinner tonight. I'm not even joking. The girl who specializes in frozen pizza and microwaved dinners made this from scratch:

I think I was channelling Julia Child. Or maybe just Julie Powell, who channelled Julia Child. Anyway, I've been suddenly forced into thinking about what I'm eating every day since I saw a naturopathic doctor (ND) last Thursday, who decided I need to try an elimination diet. (I've had digestive issues since I was a teenager, ranging from heartburn, to IBS, to a number of others issues and, frankly, I'm sick of it. No pun intended.) I guess I've metaphorically been putting sugar in my gas tank for most of my life, and it's time to learn how to eat the right stuff... and therefore, how to cook.

Side note: The word elimination in my particular case means no alcohol, caffeine, sugar, gluten, dairy, eggs, corn or soy... for two weeks.

So far, so good. Surprisingly, I haven't had any cravings and haven't been hungry yet, and it's the end of day four. I've discovered the wonder of herbs and spices (like, for example, you can fry a chicken breast in olive oil with oregano, thyme, garlic salt and ginger powder and then sprinkle it with Montreal Chicken Seasoning and it's heaven in your mouth.) Coriander is a real thing. I don't know what, exactly, but it goes well in avocado lime salsa.

Breakfast, every day until last week, consisted of some kind of egg or cheese item with a cup of coffee (strong, with cream). Breakfast now means plain oatmeal with almond milk or a fruit smoothie with peanut butter (organic, no sugar or salt added.)

Now I'm chowing down on fruit like it's candy (watermelon, mandarin oranges, apples, cherries, and bananas are making me happy) and rice cakes are a nice staple. Okay no, actually, that's a lie; they taste like stale cardboard, but at least they offer something on which to put peanut butter or eggplant antipasto. So instead of coffee, I'm drinking about 2 Litres of water a day, plus roughly four cups of herbal tea. Peppermint is a nice morning pick-me-up, by the way.

I haven't been hungry or craved anything yet (not even chocolate!) -- It may be simple denial, but this super-restricted diet has, so far, been a fairly easy challenge, and I'm kind of enjoying learning to make real food.

Tomorrow I'm going to buy rice flour and make banana nut muffins. I'll just have to figure out how to compensate for not using eggs. I found this book at the library called Cooking For Isaiah: Gluten-Free and Dairy-Free Recipes for Delicious Meals. All I can say is, "Thank-you, Isaiah, wherever you are, for having a finicky stomach, and, even more, to your mother for coming up with these recipes and publishing them!" There's life after bread and milk. Of course, should it turn out I don't have any sensitivities to either gluten or dairy, the first thing I'm going to do is chug a nice tall glass of two per cent and eat a big ol' piece of cheesy pizza pie.

But I will make the pizza myself, from scratch. Because I will know how to do that. Learning to cook: one small step for my digestive tract, one big step towards crossing off bucket list item #38.

New Hero

I've discovered Casey Neistat. The guy is a year older than me, living in NYC, travelling the world, and making a living as a self-proclaimed "YouTube filmmaker." He's doing pretty much exactly what I want to be doing, and living pretty much exactly the life I want to be living. I want to meet him and find out how I, too, can make the awesomeness happen.

I'm going to write him a letter.

Mouse, please!

I was this close to getting one of these today:

I'd love to have a fancy mouse or rat. Call me crazy, but I've heard they're great pets. They're smart, clean, affectionate, and only live about two or three years, which is about all the time I want to commit to cage cleaning at this point in my life. Of course, I really, really want a dog. A Border Terrier or a Boston, I think... but not yet. Way too much responsibility.

When I was a kid, my family's house was a veritable menagerie of guinea pigs, hamsters, rabbits, cats, dogs, fish, canaries and other assorted wildlife we managed to catch and keep for a while. These days, my folks have but one cat and one dog. But the dog is half cat and the cat is half retarded, so to me, they're nice, but not sufficient for my personal pet preferences. I want a little furry creature that's just mine, that I can maybe teach some tricks, and that will go for car rides with me on weekends. Rats love car rides, right?

Anyway, waking up this morning, I suddenly had an epiphany: I could get a pet if I wanted to. After thinking about it carefully (for about 30 seconds) decided that yes, I do want to. So I went to the animal shelter, all ready to cross off bucket list item #15, but found there were only a couple of pit bulls, a few skittish rabbits and about 37 million cats looking for their "forever homes." Yes, I would love to see all of these animals get picked up by some loving folks who will pet them tenderly and feed them scraps from the table... but I was hoping for a mouse.

Then again, maybe I'll wake up tomorrow and realize it's not mice, but medical school, or hot air balloon rides my heart is truly after. My mother always says to "sleep on it" when making any decisions (even rodent adoption), so I'll do that. But if I wake up wanting a mouse I'm gonna go get one right after breakfast.

30-Day Photo Challenge

I got the Canon 7D for making sweet videos, and it turns out it's pretty good at taking sweet still shots, too. Not wanting to waste my camera's capacity for sweetness, nor allow my photography skills acquired in journalism school to wither, I've decided to take it upon myself to take some pics every day and post the best on Facebook (one frame per day). I started the project on May 1, which means I've got six pics now. Here's today's best shot, taken at Rocky Point Park in Port Moody:

My bucket list includes #91 - Take a photograph good enough to frame... I realize now this is rather vague, because technically, I've accomplished this already, what with an engagement photo already framed and hanging on the wall in my brother's house...

But I think if I'm specific about this goal, it's to really get a handle on the technicalities of shutter speed, aperture setting and ISO setting, and be able to know just how to set the camera and how to frame a subject so I can get a really amazingly sweet shot. I want to feel like a pro, knowing I can at any moment get my camera set up in five seconds to be ready for the shot as soon as I see it. Then, I dunno, maybe I'll know I can cross this one off the list when someone's wiling to pay for the framed photo. Maybe that's the goal.

Paralyzed by Indecision

Okay, so I haven't posted for almost a month because I've been trying to make a million decisions about a million things. For example, to climb or boulder? To commit to weekly Toastmasters meetings yet or put that on hold? Go for a one-year reporting contract or stick with my business plan and be self-employed?

There are daily choices to be made and with all of these comes F.E.A.R. of making the wrong choice. 

At least, that's the way I feel. I want to live a big life, and do everything, but of course that means doing something, anything, starting today. Instead I often find myself sitting here at my desk doing a whole lot of sitting and thinking about what to do. Argh! I want to be more like this guy and JUST DO IT! Something! Anything! 

Life = movement = action. Do one thing that scares you. Every day. Make a list if you have to, but then start crossing things off.