the name says it all

I know that foods with the word instant in the title are totally out of fashion these days, but I’ve chosen to write about this one anyway. What is ‘roasted nuts powder’ anyway? And what does it have to do with me? You might be thinking. Well, if you are a busy person who hardly has time for breakfast or lunch, this might be just the item for you. I’m not a busy person, and I have loads of time for breakfast and lunch (not to mention dinner!) so I haven’t been drinking this lately, but there was a time when I snacked on this drink (does that make sense?) several times a week.

Quoting from the product description: … It is an instant natural health food produced for the purpose of easy consumption whenever one is hungry, especially for those that want to avoid spending too much time in preparation. Originally it is a traditional instant food designed to give the human body the 10 most important cereals such as nuts, sesame etc. and especially beneficial for the brain. Also this can be taken at ease when going fishing, hiking or on trips.

Back when I was living in Korea, there was a time when I was so busy that I didn’t have a free moment for lunch three or four days a week. This was entirely my own fault: I was working at one kindergarten (teaching English, of course) and another kindergarten was looking for a part-time teacher, so they asked me if I could work there during my lunch break. I said yes. I’m not sure why– maybe the extra money motivated me, or maybe I’m just bad at saying no. In any case, the manager of the kindergarten would come pick me up and drive me to the second kindergarten where I would work for an hour. After, she delivered me back to my regular job. The drive to and from the second kindergarten took about half an hour each way, so in total I was gone for two hours, and had no time whatsoever to eat lunch. The manager/chauffeur was not a cruel woman (she was exceptionally sweet, actually) so she took it upon herself to arrange something for me to eat each day, while I was working. Sometimes it was a plate of fruit or some rice cakes, but the act of chewing and swallowing made it difficult for the children to understand what I was saying, which cut down on my productivity as a teacher. So, what I’m trying to say here is that drinking this grain & nut tea was a convenient way to keep going for hours at a stretch, without eating (don’t try this at home) just like the Energizer bunny (TM). Those busy South Koreans have thought of everything.

All that’s required to make this is one packet of nut/grain powder, one mug or glass, some hot water and a spoon or something to stir it with. This will buy you some time between meals, but at 80 calories a serving I wouldn’t recommend it as an actual meal replacement. As far as packaged foods go, though, you could do worse than this one: it’s mainly composed of powdered walnuts and chestnuts, and has a lot less sugar (2g per) than those snack bars (granola bars, bran bars, cereal bars, etc.) that are so popular here in Canada these days.

What did you talk to the manager about during the hour you spent together in the car, you ask? Well, we didn’t really talk about anything. I barely spoke Korean and she barely spoke English, but we managed to understand one another very well, I think. The manager, Eun Joo, was passionate about OST’s. I didn’t know what those were, but they are Original Sound Tracks. From the movies. So, we would listen to movie soundtracks while we drove (or more frequently) sat stuck in the traffic of Kangnam, Seoul. Though busy, it was not a bad time in my life.

But, if you have the time, do make a proper breakfast/lunch for yourself, and take a minute to think of the poor souls out there in the world who are rushing around, trying to find time to eat, rest, breathe.

So, how about it? What do you eat when you’re in a hurry?

love,
meg

What is a Happy List, you ask? Well, it’s just as it sounds– a list of things that make me happy. I used to write them all the time when I was younger and needed to cheer myself up for some reason or other. Try writing one sometime. They’re lots of fun, and your list will change as quickly as your mood does, if you’re anything like me. Today’s list will have 27 items, one for each of my years.

Happy List: April 16th 2010 edition

1. spring

2. dark chocolate w/ mint

3. herbs (especially thai basil and shiso)

4. Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red

5. Marisa Monte

6. butterflies

7. cornflower blue

8. Joni Mitchell’s Blue

9. ikura sushi

10. penpals

11. tea from Hibiki-an & Camellia Sinensis

12. asparagus

13. hiking trips

14. truffle oil & salt

15. green smoothies

16. running!

17. banh mi from Marche Hung Phat

18. Townes Van Zandt

19. films by Wong Kar Wai (especially Happy Together)

20. sun salutations

21. my orchid (which has been blooming for the past month)

22. biking

23. oksusu cha (Korean roasted corn tea)

24. pretty teacups

25. frilly blouses

26. mangoes

27. new beginnings

What’s making you happy these days?

love,
meg xox

Do you know what these are?

On Friday at Oka (a lovely National park, in a village which is known in Canada as the site of the Oka Crisis) I spotted a few little spots of green among the brown leaves on the forest floor. I immediately knew what they were, and went closer for a better look. They were ramps! It was so exciting to find edible (and delicious) plants growing when I hadn’t even been looking for them. There was only one problem. That being that ramps are on the endangered list in Quebec, so we are supposed to leave them alone.

Lots of wild, onion-y goodness.

So, the very anti-climatic end to this story is that despite my joy at finding these lovely wild ramps, I decided to leave them in the forest where they were. Well, except for the few that I picked and tried raw, straight from the soil. They had a good, strong allium taste, so I was lucky enough to go on tasting them for the next hour or two (aka onion/garlic breath, big time).

We considered picking a few more to put on the banh mi’s we had packed for lunch, but decided against it in the end. I consoled myself about leaving the ramps with the thought that we still had a few hours of walking ahead of us, so they likely would have been pretty wilted and heat-weary by the time we got them home anyway.

Here’s a little more information on ramps: at The Forager Press, and The Atlantic.

And if you’d like to read about the Oka Crisis of 1990, the link will take you to the Wiki article.

So, are you much of a forager? Have you tried ramps? If so, did you buy them or pick them yourself?

love,
meg

Update– I watched an excellent documentary on the Oka Crisis, by Alanis Obomsawin. The entire film is available to watch at the NFB site here: Kanehsatake 270 Years of Resistance.

Today I wanted to write a bit about coffee. We’ve really been enjoying a coffee in the morning for the past few months, brewed on the stove top. Our coffee of choice lately has been from 49th Parallel Coffee Roasters, which is based in British Columbia. We buy it here in Montreal at Cafe Myriade, which is a darling & delicious cafe downtown, right in the midst of Concordia’s campus.

I am, decidedly, a tea person. But my relationship with tea is not exclusive–I do still enjoy coffee, though I try not to enjoy it in copious quantities, or more than once per day (usually). We have gone through a few bags of the above-pictured Organic Expresso, and enjoyed it greatly. It is strong yet smooth, and very perky. Perfect for those mornings when you must get up early, but would rather not. We are currently enjoying a milder and sweeter coffee by the same company–a fairly-traded Organic Ethiopian coffee called Sidamo. It is wonderful, with a complex, sweet, fruity quality. It is not overly bitter, and is very good without any sort of milk or creamer.

And here is my new favourite mug. I found this mug at a thrift shop several weeks (months? I can’t keep track of time lately) ago, and was so impressed by his happy-dog expression and tiny trunk that I just had to bring him home.

He's definitely a morning person (elephant).

So, how about you? Do you drink coffee? If so, how do you prepare it?

love,
meg xo

In the past few weeks I’ve done a lot of reading, quite a bit of cooking, gone ice-skating twice, and drank a lot of tea. C & I spent Valentine’s Day in the Emergency room at the hospital (we are fine, just couldn’t get into a clinic!) which was interesting, but certainly not fun. We are not vegan (or even vegetarian) but we have been eating lots of vegan & vegetarian meals lately. Out of sheer laziness, we’ve also been eating out a few times a week. Since it has been raining and/or snowing all week here, I haven’t been buying as many groceries as I usually might. Consequently, we’ve just been using up the contents of our cupboards and fridge.

Various aloes: far left is a gel for topical use. The others are edible and delicious.

What I wanted to write about today is aloe vera. Everyone knows that the gel of this lovely plant is useful for calming skin irritations like sunburn, insect bites, rashes, etc. However, aloe’s benefits go far beyond topical applications. It can be used to calm and soothe the digestive tract, has anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties, boosts absorption of vitamins and minerals from food and supplements, and is highly nutritious; aloe contains many vitamins, minerals and amino acids that our bodies need to function optimally.

If you’d like, you can read more about the benefits of aloe vera here. It’s an article from a natural healing website called Uncle Harry’s.

Aloe vera juice is really popular in Korea, which is where I first started drinking it regularly. But, the sort of aloe juice popular in South Korea is more like a soft drink than a health drink–it has a lot of added sugar. I did find a natural version of this beverage in a health food store in Seoul, which was sweetened with pure apple juice instead of the usual sugar or fructose.

Here in Canada I usually drink my aloe juice straight-up: undiluted and unsweetened (as in the bottle to the far right in the photo above). I find it really refreshing, and it really feels like it soothes me from the inside out. I love drinking a few tablespoons in the morning before breakfast.

If you are at all familiar with traditional Korean ‘teas’ (contains no tea!), you might recognize this one. These jars of syrupy ‘teas’ are more of a sweet, dessert-like drink. In Korea you can find many different types. A citron syrup is probably most popular, and it looks exactly like a jar of marmalade to the untrained eye. Other types of sweet Korean tea concentrates are: pomegranate, onion, quince, jujube, ginger, and aloe & honey (pictured above).

Traditionally, this aloe gel & honey syrup would be stirred into hot water to make a sweet, tea-like drink. However, I like it best on top of plain yogurt! Unlike regular aloe gel, I try not to eat this one too often because it is very sweet. It does make a nice treat on occasion, though, and despite its sweetness has a strong aloe flavour that I really enjoy.

Soon, I want to try fresh aloe gel, which I’ve never had. I’ve seen it at a few grocery stores around. The only thing that has kept me from buying it so far is my reluctance to carry home an aloe frond as big as my arm!

Finally, I also love to use aloe gel as a moisturizer and toner for face and body. It never irritates my sensitive skin, and makes my face nice and soft. Plus, it’s only about $5 for the tube in the photo. Frugal facial care, anyone?

So, how about it? Have you tried eating aloe vera, fresh or otherwise? What did you think & how did you use it?

love,
meg xo

just a few simple ingredients...

These chocolate-balls-of-goodness are so amazingly simple and sinful that I’m sure I’ll be making them all the time. They are quick and easy, and will completely nix the most insistent chocolate craving in minutes flat! I was inspired by this recipe from Chocolate Covered Katie. She has many variations on the original Fudge-baby recipe, and I’m sure the others would be equally good. These snacks are very much like the Jocalat Larabars, only much cheaper and homemade, which is always better, in my opinion.

rollin', rollin', rollin...

The first time I made these I followed the recipe to the letter, and they were delicious. However, I now find that I can taste the chocolate better when I skip the vanilla, and I like using a variety of nuts and a few less dates (since I don’t like things that are very sweet).

No matter how you like to eat, these should fit into your diet. They are gluten-free, contain nothing processed, are vegan and even raw if you buy raw cocoa. So, what are you waiting for?

Cocoa bliss balls adapted from Katie’s fudge baby recipe
1 cup pitted dates (I used honey dates, medjool are even better)
1.5 cup nuts or seeds (I used 3/4 cup raw cashews, 1/2 cup raw almonds and 1/4 cup raw pumpkin seeds)
4 Tbsp. cocoa (your finest!)
pinch of fine sea salt, and a few drops of liquid (almond or rice milk, or water), if you wish.

Throw all ingredients into your blender or food processor, and let the work be done for you. If your food processor is lazy like mine, it might protest a little by making lots of loud noises and vibrating madly. Continue blending. The mixture will turn into small stuck-together bits. Keep blending. After a minute or two more everything will be well incorporated and the bits will start to stick together. You could roll them into balls at this point, but I like to add a few drops of almond milk and then blend it once more so that everything sticks together in one big clump. Then, roll this ambrosial mass into balls, or any shape you would like.

Finally, enjoy.

Pure bliss.

What are you snacking on these days?

love,
meg

A few days ago we made a big pot of turmeric-ginger tea. I’ve made turmeric tea before, using powdered, dried turmeric, and even wrote about the tea and it’s health benefits here in this post. This time we used fresh turmeric and fresh ginger, and it was much better than using the dried powder. Using fresh turmeric also means that more of the potent anti-inflammatory properties of the root are preserved, making it even healthier. It’s not difficult to make, either, as long as you are able to find fresh turmeric. It looks much like fresh ginger root, except it has a smaller diameter and is bright orange (especially when cut open).

Keep in mind that turmeric stains, so be careful not to get it on anything that is very precious to you. I even find that it leaves a yellow-orange residue on the knife blade that it is cut with, so use a knife that can take a lot of scrubbing. Aside from that, it couldn’t be simpler to make. Just slice equal amounts of turmeric and ginger root (or just turmeric, if you’d prefer) and put it in a pot with several cups of water. Bring this to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for ten or fifteen minutes. Pour the tea and you’ve got a mugful of sunshine-yellow, comforting warmth. I keep any leftover tea in a glass container in the fridge, and drink it diluted throughout the day with either hot or cool water. Also, I find that the turmeric and ginger can be simmered twice. The second pot will not be quite as strong, but is still nice to drink.

I do hope you try turmeric tea, either the powdered or fresh sort. It’s a nice change from ginger tea, and considering all the health problems that are caused (directly or indirectly) by inflammation, it surely can’t hurt. The flavour of this brew is earthy, and spicy from the ginger. It is also good for digestion and caffeine-free, of course.

What is your hot drink of choice?

love,
meg

Winter is like that for me. My dad used to refer to it as my ‘blue fog’ (or was it fug?) anyway–I don’t necessarily feel sad or SAD (seasonally-affected) in wintertime, just very passive, very quiet, and very low-key. I suppose that I don’t do much of anything. Like a bear, I hibernate and try to keep warm. Unlike a bear, I do a lot of reading.

I came across something by Doris Lessing today, that seemed to fit my current mood perfectly;

Let us be lazy in everything, except in loving and drinking, except in being lazy.

Quite.

Not to condone laziness, but we don’t all have to be busy-as-bees all the time. It’s nice to take one’s time, to move slowly, to do exactly what one wishes. And to do an awful lot of reading.

I didn’t really set any New Year’s Resolutions as such this year, but I did decide that I should read a book a week. Yes, one book per week. Likely, I was already reading that much and have been since I learned how to read, more or less, but it seemed an obtainable goal, and goal-setting is likely good for me. I’m keeping track of these books in a little reading journal, which my dad gave me when he was visiting this summer. So far, it’s going well. Since this experiment has formalized my reading in a way, I find that it’s helping me choose books that I might not pick up usually–since I’m keeping track of them all, I find that I crave more variety in my reading, and that feels like a good thing.

As for food, I’ve been eating a lot of stir-fry and rice, lots of soups, warm & hearty things. We’ve been eating our way through a great, big red (purple) cabbage, and laughing about our purple-tinted tongues at every meal.

Stay warm, friends. Spring is right around the corner.

Read any good books lately?

love,
meg

My seventeen year old self, like many other adolescents, was able to identify deeply with Salinger’s characters; their humanity, their yearning for a more authentic way of being in the world, the passions and recklessness of being very young. I haven’t re-read Salinger’s work in years, and look forward to revisiting it as an adult. I loved Holden Caulfield’s voice, but identified even more profoundly with Franny Glass of Franny and Zooey. The fact that Salinger’s characters inspired such devotion in fans was a source of pain for him, he who most wanted to be left alone, but it has also insured that the genius of his singular talent will continue to live on. That’s the beauty of the written word.

Anyway, as Salinger has claimed to be writing, writing, writing away all these years, hopefully he does have some work that can now be published posthumously. There are many articles to be found on the world wide web about his death, and the one I read is here, if you’re interested. The portrait of him is nice.

Thank you, Mr. Salinger, for sharing what you could of your life, your voice.
—-

Also, I’ve been wanting to say something about Haiti. I won’t post a link to sites you can visit to donate money, because I’m sure you’ve seen them/donated already. Though I’d like to say something meaningful about the earthquake and the devastation it has caused, I can’t. My heart goes out to all those touched by this tragedy, and I wish there was more I could do to help.
—-

In other (non) news, this is what Montreal looks like today, right outside my window. I stayed in and read some feminist/race/class theory today, which was somewhat relaxing. I also had a very good lunch, and discovered that stir-fried daikon is delicious.

I hope you’ll excuse me my rambling… I’m trying to get back into blogger-mode after my conspicuous absence. I have a few recipes that I look forward to posting, and a few books I’d like to write reviews of, but am having a bit of trouble getting it together these days. Part of the reason for this is that I haven’t been using recipes most of the time, so it makes it hard to share what I’ve been cooking without measurements and precise instructions. I find that a lot of the fun of cooking is in doing it ‘on the fly’, and that looking at food, something so simple and essential to us, as a precise science can make it intimidating, which is the last thing it should be.

I didn’t set out to write about cooking in a didactic way, since I do still see myself as a bit of a novice cook… so I apologize if this site is lacking in consistency. I hope to continue writing about food, books, and tea, and many other things that I find interesting along the way. I would like to write in a conversational tone, to flesh out my current ideas about feeding myself and feeding others, intellectually and physically.

And I do hope that you will join me.

Yesterday, I posted about Pennywort Juice, and in the spirit of that I tried another fresh herb drink. This one would definitely fall into the ‘on the fly’ category, and was certainly interesting.

This is Tia To Juice. Tia to, as you may know if you are familiar with Vietnamese herbs, is a Vietnamese variety of perilla. It is in the same family as basil and mint, Japanese shiso and Korean gaenip. It has a distinctive, herbal flavour that is hard to explain if you’ve never tried it… it’s very aromatic and fresh-tasting. No one recommended that I try this, and as far as I know it is not a known recipe. I happened to have some tia to in the fridge, so thought I’d give it a whirl.

tia to, up close and personal

I used the same method to make this drink as for pennywort juice. I removed the leaves from stems, put them into the blender, added water to cover, added a bit of sugar and blended it for about a minute before straining.

Although this herb has a very strong flavour, it didn’t come through very well in this drink. I enjoyed it, but would stick with perilla syrup, which I tried this summer and loved. Next time I feel like drinking this particular herb, I’ll make the syrup again, and will post the recipe. It is delicious, simple, and is the prettiest red-fuchsia colour.

How is your life these days?
Have you read J.D. Salinger?

love,
meg

Asiatic pennywort looks like this

So, I piled the leaves (there is one leaf per stem) without their stems into my food processor (a blender would work better!) and whirred them up into this lovely cocktail:

I used Wandering Chopsticks’ recipe for Nuoc Rau Ma as a guideline. It seems that you can make it as watery or as sweet as you like, of course. I didn’t make mine very sweet. I’m not going to include a recipe here, because it was very easy: wash one bunch of pennywort (wash well, it’s a swamp-growing herb) in lots of running water, remove stems and put the leaves in your blender. Add enough water to cover the leaves (or more, if you like) and about a teaspoon of sugar or other sweetener (I used chicory syrup. Again, sweeten to your taste). Blend well, the water will turn a very dark green. Then, strain the juice into glasses or a pitcher and drink! Add ice, if you like. I didn’t, but would in the summer.

How did the pennywort juice taste, you ask? It was delicious. It was actually a pretty subtle herbal quality; with such a dark green colour I was expecting a bold flavour, but it was mildly herbal and very refreshing. I thought it tasted a bit like the way carrot tops smell, if that makes any sense.

For the sake of comparison, I also tried the canned variety of pennywort juice. It was much sugarier than the one I made, and also lacked the bright herbal quality of the fresh version. I still liked it okay, but it had a bit of a swampy taste. If you’re trying pennywort juice for the first time, definitely try it fresh if you can. Here’s the canned drink:

Wonderfarm's pennywort juice.

Have you tried pennywort juice?
I’m looking forward to experimenting with other fresh Vietnamese herbs!

love,
meg