Talkin' 'bout a (whole food) revolution

I recently read two books by journalist/food guru Michael Pollan: The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food. Dilemma reads as a pretty scathing indictment of the industrial food industry in the U.S., while In Defense of Food discusses what it might look like for an individual or family to more or less opt out of eating diets high in processed food and low in whole foods--like vegetables, grains, meats, etc.

We have long tried our best to eat healthful foods, to buy locally when feasible, and to "shop the periphery" of the grocery stores where most of the whole foods are kept. So most of what Pollan discussed really resonated with me.

But one thing we have consciously tried to do since I finished In Defense of Food is to make our meals more of a celebration. When we take the time to carefully prepare, serve, and eat our food, we tend to appreciate and value our food more. So what does this look like for us? Lately, it's primarily meant that we 1)prepare complete meals without using processed foods; 2)have stopped serving the food to ourselves in the dishes we cooked the food in. Yes, friends: no pots and pans on the table. This has made for more dishes after dinner, but when we started treating ourselves the same way we treat our company, I really think we started to value our food more--and our meals are much more relaxed.

So that's the start of our whole food revolution. Huzzah!

I like it when we eat new things

Nothing says "Welcome, summer" like a girl's first-ever popsicle. She surely enjoyed the treat, and when the last bit fell off the stick she spent several minutes working to put the stick back through the popsicle. I will admit that the whole event turned into quite a sticky situation, but her glee was worth the mess.

Noodler

Let the official countdown begin! In less than one week, Clara will return to the allergist for her wheat "oral challenge," which is when she will eat Cream of Wheat at the allergist's and people will watch her to see what happens (I'm bringing popcorn for the show). The hope, of course, is that nothing will happen and that we can cross wheat off of our foods-to-avoid list.

We are feeling quite confident that the oral challenge will go well, since before her initial allergy testing she ate wheat with abandon and seemed to suffer no ill effects. But for the past three months, Clara has not had any bread, crackers, or any of the millions of other food products that contain any wheat. She does enjoy her daily wheat-egg-milk-free waffle, which I buy at great cost and great convenience from the special-diet-friendly Wegman's. But I am truly excited to be able to make her a great number of wheat-a-licious delights, even if I still have to avoid eggs and milk (and peanuts, tree nuts, shellfish, and fish, which are her "just-in-case" no-nos).

So wish us luck! And don't feel to bad for Clara: as you can see from the picture, she manages to eat quite well on her special diet. Here she is eating some (actually quite delicious) brown rice pasta with a tasty red sauce mixed with smooth Tofutti cream cheese. Good times.

Grammy's Baked Beans

Clara just loved her lunch today: a nice tray full of baked beans. I'm just glad this happened during daddy-daughter time! Believe it or not, when I came home from teaching my class the only tell-tale sign was the bit of dried bean residue tucked into the crease of her neck. (Bonus in the first picture: you can see all three of her teeth!)

Vegan-Plus?

I'm trying to figure out what to call my new diet, which has been drastically altered following the news that Clara has mild-to-moderate allergies of dairy, eggs, and wheat. Typically, those have been my three primary food groups, but since I'm still nursing her I am having to embrace the new. We were pretty sure she had a dairy allergy, but the wheat and eggs were a bit of a surprise. I was ready to be Vegan-Plus (my phrase for a dairy-free diet that is heavy on veg, grains, fruit, and beans but which also includes meat). Now that we have to cut out wheat for a time, I'm kind of at a loss for a clever moniker.

We have an appointment with an allergist in a few weeks, but in the meantime Clara's pediatrician counseled me to err on the side of caution by eliminating the offending foods from my diet as well. Right now I'm in "survival mode," which means that I am eating a lot of cold cereal and soy milk. Clara and I did venture out to Wegmans (if I could leave Jeremy and marry a grocery store, I would marry Wegmans) and purchased some wheat-dairy-egg free delights, so I'm sure my new culinary repertoire will just continue to expand. The good news in all of this is that she'll probably outgrow these allergies within the next few years. In the meantime, we'll be grateful that she's over the moon for oatmeal, barley, veggies, and fruit. Now we'll work on getting her to like meat and soy...

Really, though, as you can see from the following photo, she doesn't much care what she eats:

In which I channel my inner homemaker

My friend Laura and I enjoyed a drizzly morning at the Farmers Market on Saturday, and among other things I came home with a large box of juicy peaches. What does one do with a large box of peaches, one might ask? Well, among other things, I decided to try my hand at freezer jam. My mom thought I'd be better off making regular jam, but I have neither the knowledge of such mysteries nor the equipment. She only has herself to blame for this gaping hole in my domestic education.


At any rate, this is my jam. It looks lovely, but is quite chunky as I don't have a food processor or a potato masher and therefore had to resort to using a pastry cutter to mash my peaches. But if we are known for anything here at the Blog of Glory, it's for liking our jam chunky! We also like our jam tasty, and I actually haven't tried it yet. I'm sure it's delicious. Anytime you add four and a half cups of sugar to only three cups of fruit you must have a winning combination.