I Can't Eat That. (Or, Living with Food Allergies)

My food life didn't used to be so complicated.  When I was young, I ate whatever my parents put on the table.  Well, not the super-hot jalapenos, but my dad was happy to take those.  When I was a teenager, I started getting fierce sinus headaches, along with the usual skin break-outs that most teenagers face.  The cramps each month made school a misery but thank goodness for Midol!  When I was an older teen, I read Laurel's Kitchen and really got into using whole wheat flour, which nobody else in the house appreciated.  They liked it much better when I went through the baking cakes from scratch phase.

My first experience with the impact food might be having on my health came when I was living away from home, I think maybe the first summer in college.  It was my first time living by myself in my own apartment, having a kitchen to myself, and totally responsible for my own feeding.  I picked up the book, Sugar Blues, and decided to try going sugar-free. 

It was hard and required a lot of research, label reading, and learning to cook new ways.  I eliminated all added forms of sugar from my diet:  no white sugar, brown sugar, honey, maple syrup, or any other kind of sweetener.  I got pretty obsessive and even refused to buy products with caramel coloring since that was a sugar derivitive.  I ended up not eating dairy either, but I can't remember if it was because it contained lactose (a milk sugar) or because the taste didn't appeal.  A few weeks in, I lost my desire to eat meat; it no longer tasted good to me and the texture was bothersome so, by route of eliminating sugar, I ended up eating a vegan diet. 

My health and well-being improved significantly.  I was no longer troubled by sinus headaches.  I had plenty of energy.  I was happy.

I was seduced off this path by a simple, innocent gesture by my mom.  Trying to be helpful, she gave me a book called Sweet & Sugarfree: An All-Natural Fruit-Sweetened Dessert Cookbook.  The sweetness came only from fruits, but the concentration in the desserts of these naturally occurring sugars triggered my cravings for other sugars once again.  I went off the no-sugar diet with a bang by making and consuming half a grashopper pie.  I was laid up sick for almost a week with the worst sinus infection I'd ever had.

I have never been able to go completely sugar-free again since.  It's much more difficult to do when you share a life with someone else, but it's also just really difficult to do in today's world.

Fast forward a few decades to when I stumble across Dr. McDougall's book, The McDougall Program: 12 Days to Dynamic Health.  He brought together all the disparate nutritional information I'd read over the years into one concrete, medically-proven way of eating for optimal health.  I persuaded my sweetie to try it with me and we both felt great.  We were willing to give up animal products to feel better in the present and to prevent future disease, especially since each of us has a nice representation in our family lines (stroke, glaucoma, heart disease, and cancer).

The times that we stuck with eating a whole foods, plant-based, starch-centered diet, we felt great.  Our weight dropped, energy soared, aches and pains disappeared, and life was good.  Life was, however, sometimes more challenging because avoiding all animal products - meat (that includes fish), dairy, eggs, and even gelatin - is not the societal norm.  Not only did we skip those, we also eliminated added oils and reduced our sodium and sugar intake.  Plus, we switched to whole grain products.

It meant learning a whole new way of cooking for me.  At that time, there was not the cornucopia of vegan cookbooks available, and the few that were tended to use a whole lot of oil.  Learning to make the dishes we loved a healthy way, especially quick breads and muffins, meant a lot of experimenting (and some failures).  But over time, I came up with a lot of good recipes.  You can find some right here on this blog, under the recipe tab at the top of the page.

After eating this way for a while and feeling really good, I started noticing that sometimes I did not feel so good.  Repeated occurences of heartburn, which I never had before, led me to discover I was allergic to walnuts.  Or, maybe not allergic in a technical sense, but definitely sensitive to them.  Over time, I made the connection that eating any other tree nuts caused my skin to break out.  My skin clears right up when I avoid those tasty almonds and pecans.  Boy, would it have been nice to know that in highschool!  Without my overall system feeling and working better, I never would have been able to tease our specific foods that made me feel worse. 

However, the need to avoid nuts had just added a layer of complication to finding food that I could eat and also impacted the ability to eat with others.  When someone invites you over to dinner, they really don't want to receive a long list of what you can't eat (meat, eggs, dairy, fats/oil, tree nuts).  But, eating those things would make me sick, so I had no choice.  Or rather, I had few dinner invitations...

I was never a big tofu fan but did eat it occasionally.  One day, I noticed that my throat felt funny after I ate tofu.  It felt constricted.  The next time I had some tofu in a restaurant, my throat definitely felt like it was swelling.  The final time I ate tofu, when a restaurant mixed up my order, I thought I was going to have to go to the hospital.  I have scrupulously avoided tofu since, which is a real PITA when you are trying to eat a strict vegetarian diet.  The vegetable meal options on Asian restaurant menus almost always include tofu.  Many of the vegetarian frozen dinners feature tofu.  Tofu is prominent at vegetarian potlucks and even the local all-vegan restaurant. 

I now had an ingredient that was critical to avoid, not just one that would make me a little ill, but one that could, in theory, eventually kill me if the symptoms got worse each time I ate it.  I learned to very carefully read labels and grill restaurants about what was in a dish I wanted to order.  If I went to a potluck, I had to request that everyone label their dishes for those with allergies.  It's a hassle but something I have to live with.

At least I could still use soymilk.

A few years later, I tried one of those Amazake rice drinks.  We were on the road when I realized that I was having the same kind of allergic reaction to it that I do to tofu.  We turned around and got to the nearest drugstore to buy some Benadryl, which we now always keep in the vehicle.  I've since avoided any product fermented with "koji." It's a rice-based product but apparently a problem for me.  To be on the safe side, I also avoid tempeh and miso.

But at least I could still drink soymilk. 

Or could I?  Lately I'd noticed that I had a lot more phlegm after any food or drink with soymilk.  That was a reaction I used to have to dairy - an increase in mucous.  Dairy also caused other problems, inflammation problems such as sinusitis (inflammation of the sinuses) and plantar fasciitis (inflammation of the plantar fascia).  Avoiding dairy virtually eliminated those two problems and soymilk was a wonderful substitute.  It acts much like milk in baking, which was very helpful when I learned to bake fatfree, eggfree, whole grain breads and muffins.

On Monday of this week, I started a little mini-diet to get back on track.  I'm eating potatoes as the main part of my meals, with steamed vegetables or a salad to go with it.  I've been doing great on it, losing weight while feeling completely satisfied with the food.  I have not missed coffee (or my old frappuccinos) at all.  I am using far less sugar and salt, and not missing dessert.  I sometimes miss the idea of dessert but not the actual food.  I had intentionally avoiding using any soymilk, based on my growing suspician it was responsible for the phlegm.

However, last night I made mashed potatoes and I really wanted them to be a little creamy.  So I used some soymilk.  To my surprise, I had a rather serious reaction.  It started about fifteen minutes after the meal when I felt quite flushed.  A bit later, I noticed that my neck was feeling stiff and my knee was starting to hurt.  I sat down and observed, with amazement, as the symptoms got progressively worse. 

As I described the litany of aches and pains returning - ones that I hadn't had for quite a while - to my sweetie, he wondered if I might be getting the flu.  Nope, no fever at all.  A few minutes later, my throat started to swell and I kind of, um, freaked out.  I quickly took a couple of Benadryl to deal with the allergic reaction, but that wasn't what the freak-out was about.

There are so many things I already avoid for my health and now I've got to add soy, all forms of soy, to that list.  Do you have any idea how much more complicated that makes life? 

Here's an example.  I went through the pantry today and pulled out everything that contains soy.  I can't eat these anymore. 

If my sweetie wants them, we'll set them aside in a labeled box for him.  Otherwise, I'll probably be trying to find a way to unload some of it.  Not shown are 15 freakin' pounds of dehydrated soy-based fake chicken nuggets we got for our food storage.  Leave me a comment if you are interested; they are tasty.

I have not gone through the refrigerator and freezer yet, but I know it's going to be equally grim.  What I did do this morning was check out a couple of natural food stores to look at other nondairy milk options.  What do I find? 

Almond milk.  Um, can't do that with my tree nut problem. 

Coconut milk.  It's two-thirds fat and all of it saturated.  Not an option. 

Rice milk.  All brands have added oil.  No thanks. 

Hemp milk.  Pretty high in fat, too. 

The only one left is Oat milk.  I remember not being thrilled about it when I tried it years ago, but I have no choice now.  I can try making rice milk again at home, with no added oil, but previous attempts did not leave me impressed.

This means I'll be having to revise all my recipes again and I suspect some will not be salvageable without soymilk.  This means I likely won't be able to eat out hardly anywhere anymore other than maybe Sweet Tomatoes salad bar where I can have salad with rice vinegar and a plain baked potato.  This means I will likely never share a meal with other people again unless I do all the cooking.  This means I will have to make almost all of our food from scratch.  Some of the products I've gotten in the past to save time occasionally contain soybean oil (the pasta sauce in picture) or soy lecithin (the whole wheat bread in my freezer). 

I am so irritated by this.  I've made lots of changes to get healthier and it's been worth it.  But now I have to eliminate a food I enjoy, one that is present in so many other foods I enjoy.  I guess I shouldn't complain since there are plenty of healthy foods out there left for me to eat: potatoes and tubers of all sorts, grains and seeds, vegetables in every color of the rainbow, and luscious fruits.  And theoretically, if I eliminate a food that has been causing me problems, even when I wasn't fully aware of them, my health should improve considerably.  It may even turn out to be a key factor in my ability to lose my excess weight.

If nothing else, I can still drink my homemade liqueur...

Shopping for Lower Food Prices

I got to thinking about this after reading a thread on a discussion board about folks who keep a list of the things they normally buy and shop from that each week. The impression I got was that they were shopping as supplies ran low in their pantries.

I shop differently. For instance, I buy in bulk so the price is cheaper and there's always something to eat in the house (as well as some stored food for emergencies.) And by bulk, I don't mean just filling up a bag at the bulk bins.

The natural food store near me gives a 10% discount for ordering by the case or bag, so when I need rolled oats, for example, I’ll order a 25 pound bag. A half-gallon jar of it goes in the kitchen cabinet and the rest is dumped into a bucket I got from the bakery department (well-washed, of course). Once sealed, the oats stay fresh pretty well as long as we work our way through them consistently. There are products to help storage, like oxygen absorbers and mylar bags, but we've found they aren't necessary in our dry climate as long as we keep the bucket in a cool place.

I buy my rice in 25 pound bags at a large ethnic food store for much less per pound than the little 2 pound bags at the grocery store. For those eating whole grains, brown rice is usually available in a number of varieties, including Jasmine, Basmati, and sushi. The store also has large packages of noodles, rarely whole grain, but good for the occasional noodle dish. And they store quite well.

Buying this way keeps the price of our food down, as long as we keep on top of what we have and use it up. Processed products like rolled oats do not keep as well as the intact whole grain - the oat groats, and products with higher fat - like oats - do not keep as well as lower fat things - like wheat berries. Whole wheat flour, of course, doesn't keep well at all unless stored in the freezer, but we have our own grinder (pedal powered) and just buy whole wheat berries that we can grind as needed. Brown rice does not store nearly as long as white; I've taken to keeping brown rice in the freezer now after having to throw quite a bit out because it got rancid.

For regular shopping, I go through the ads each week and shop the loss leaders. For instance, Shredded Wheat is on sale this week, so I'll get the maximum number of boxes (4) permitted. I also check the clearance shelves at any store I go to. Usually the expiration dates are a ways off; the store is just getting rid of a product. My best score was 9 tins of organic fair-trade cocoa powder for a buck each. Those lasted us, gosh, I think about 3 years. I recently scored a bunch of small wild rice boxes for pretty cheap, too, and we just finished up the last of a case of "Pasta & Chreeze" I'd gotten half price. I guess the brown rice noodle version wasn’t as popular as the regular pasta one.

For produce, I buy some frozen (on sale or at Costco) but primarily get organic, locally grown produce in season. It tastes better and is usually priced about the same as store-bought organic. For much of my produce, I trade volunteer labor - over three years at a CSA and now at a small organic farm's produce stand.  And, of course, we are starting to grow more of our own.

I have also been buying my spices in bulk for years so I don't have to run to the store every time I empty a jar. I just shop in the closet. A Penzey's store has opened up in Tucson and I can't wait to go check it out!

For my style of shopping, a print-out list wouldn't do a lot of good because what I buy weekly, monthly, and seasonally is never the same. Shopping weekly for only what I needed that week, regardless of sales, would also cost a whole lot more.

Oops, I did it again!

I missed my own Blogiversary.  I've had it in mind for a couple of weeks yet the 23rd just slipped right on by without my even acknowledging it.  Time for an apology letter!

Dear Blog,

I am so sorry that I missed our four-year anniversary.  Traditionally, this is the anniversary for fruit and flowers.  However, seeing as you are not technically a living being, I suppose you'll forgive me for not dripping fruit juice on you or getting your tags all clogged up with flower pollen. 

In these modern times, the gift recommended for the fourth anniversary is appliances.  Well, Happy Anniversary early (er, late?)!  I hope you are enjoying your new, faster laptop.  It uses less energy than that old desktop and sure is quieter.  In fact, so much quieter that I can spend more time with you when my sweetie is still sleeping. 

See?  I do still love you even if I forgot our anniversary.

Love,
Chile

Time to Laugh

My sweetie's new favorite YouTube video.  Our dogs really, really wish we were not vegetarians!

Tropical Plant Roots

This is just a little update on my efforts to propagate a couple of the tropical fruits I recently bought for a salad.

Here is the current status of the pineapple rooting in water.  I initially had it in way too much water, which caused some of the bottom leaves to begin rotting (not rooting).  I peeled them off, washed the plant well, and put it in a much smaller jar with water only covering the bottom nub part where the roots were coming out.  It is doing much better and should be ready for planting in soil in a week or so.

The mango seed has obviously sprouted and started putting out roots.  I'm not ready to dig it out of the damp peat moss yet for planting, but probably will check on it this weekend.

How It Spirals Out of Control

Years ago when we lived closer to my mother-in-law, we'd sometimes catch the "Clean Sweep" program on television while visiting her.  I really enjoyed that show, especially when Peter Walsh was on as the organizer.  He was tender but firm with people about cleaning out the clutter and doing it now!  What I didn't understand then, though, was how people's home got into the incredibly cluttered mess in the first place. 

We're not talking just a half dozen loads of clean laundry piled up on the couch, a week's worth of mail on the counter, and some crap on the floor.  No, these people often literally could not use their furniture because it was buried under the mess.  Their homes were a source of stress rather than a place to relax and retreat from the cares of the day.

My house does not look like that, but it has gotten pretty darn messy.  It's probably the worst it's ever been other than when we've been in the middle of a move.  In fact, in some ways my house looks like we're still in the midst of moving in, because once we had to get rid of the shed, tools and other things moved into the house - things that still have not found a good place to live within the house so they either keep getting moved around or they sit in the way.

What this situation has done is show me how easy it could be for a home (or life) to spiral out of control until one begged "Clean Sweep" to come to the rescue.  Why do I say this?  Because getting out from under this mess is proving far more difficult than I imagined.  My schedule is always overfilled (gotta plant those new trees ASAP, you know) so carving out the time to work on the mess is difficult.  Spending 15 minutes on a room barely makes a dent. Finding an entire weekend to spend on it might be possible but it would still not get it all done.  The magnitude of the task at hand is daunting.

So, I can see how easy it would be for someone to just throw up their hands and give in to the clutter and chaos.  The focus would turn to just dealing with the immediate needs.  For instance, in my case, despite having months-old papers on my desk that have not been filed, I still make sure the bills get paid.  I know that is a high priority so I make the time for it.  Filing all that paperwork, not so high a priority, even though it would be nice to be able to use my desk again. 

I fully intended to get the office under control this month.  Before I file those papers, I wanted to clean out the old files so I'm not adding to the mess hidden away in the drawers.  I've run into a snag, though.  A higher priority project came up:  working on getting my health back.  That project is requiring a significant investment in time spent exercising and making meals from scratch again.  Not only that, the new exercise regimen is leaving me wiped out, with no mental or physical energy left to deal with paperwork.

So the mess marches on.  I've moved some of it into the living room so that the office won't seem so bad.  I'd show you a picture but a "Before" all by its lonesome without a success story "After" photo would just be depressing.

Need a Chuckle?

Green Bean has finally regrown from her dormant roots and resumed her own blog!  Yay!  To you new kids on the block, you may not understand the excitement, but many of us "green" bloggers all started blogging around the same time and seemed to be a pretty tight little cyber-group for a while. It was a sad day when Green Bean pulled back from her personal blog although she still made appearances on The Green Phone Booth group blogging site she put together.  (It was also a sad day, several times, when Crunchy Chicken quit her blog ... but her quitting never stuck.  LOL)

Anyway, for you chicken fans, go check out Green Bean's "Tales from the Roost" for a good chuckle this weekend.  Start from the earliest posts in that series and work forward.

I Quit Coffee (Again)

A glance through my past posts labeled "coffee" will show my love/hate relationship with the stuff.  I love coffee and hate that I occasionally have to give it up.

Alas, a recent visit with my doctor revealed that my blood pressure has crept up a bit over the past year.  It's not really into the hypertension range so much as flirting with it in the pre-hypertension zone.  Although I was disappointed, I wasn't terribly surprised.  After all, I used the last year of stress as a license to eat all the unhealthy foods I'd eliminated from my eating in the past. 

Want fried zucchini appetizers?  Go for it.  You've had a rough week dealing with the zoning inspector.

Want to make another batch of homemade soy ice cream ... this time with more chocolate chips?  Why not?  You just sledge-hammered 39 porch supports out of the ground today.

Want to order pizza for dinner?  Sounds reasonable after watching your shed get hauled away today, sold to someone else for two-thirds of what you paid for it just a couple of months ago.

Want to bake chocolate chunk cookies?  Might as well.  You can always share them (a few) with friends even though they rarely have the time to come visit.  Or maybe they've just been avoiding you because you've been so damn negative.

Shall I stop to get a white mocha frappucino today?  You must or the baristas will think you don't like them anymore.  Besides, since your friends don't want to hear about all your stress, they are the only ones who will listen to you whine anymore.  And if you're getting the frappucino, you might as well have the whip cream on top, too.  You deserve it, you know!



Yep, that's the kind of thinking that put on quite a few pounds last year, and raised my blood pressure and my cholesterol.  The doctor has threatened me with medication if I don't get the blood pressure and cholesterol under control.  I don't do medication for symptoms I can treat with diet and lifestyle....which means I am having to change my diet and lifestyle.

I've been trying to wean myself off the caffeine for quite a while.  When I switched to making half-caff at home, I mysteriously felt the urge to resume my frappucino habit.  It took me a while to figure out that I was craving the caffeine as much as the fat and sugar.  (And I'm currently reading a really interesting book about how fat and sugar really bang the dopamine receptors in the brain, making it very addictive.)  I started making extra coffee at home so that I could have a cup in the afternoon to help me get over the frap cravings.

I'd gotten down to less than a quarter caffeinated coffee per cup when I got the lab results about my cholesterol.  Coffee can raise cholesterol as well as blood pressure.  It was time to give it up.  My last cup of coffee was Tuesday, May 10.  On Wednesday, I tried one of the coffee substitutes I'd reviewed a while back.  Ick, didn't like it at all.  On Thursday, I tried a different one that was better.  Today, I had nothing as I had to get out of the house early.

Was quitting easy?  Yes and no.  It was not as hard as in the past.  I had no headaches or physical withdrawals, probably because I'd been cutting back on the caffeine already.  However, sometimes my mind acts like a two year old and wants what it wants.  I had to talk myself out of stopping for a frappucino yesterday afternoon after going to the gym.  (Yes, I joined a gym.  Gotta deal with the weight, too!)  It was hot, I was tired, and boy did I feel like I deserved a treat.  I managed to keep the car from turning into the parking lot, however, and feel better for having done that.

Am I ready to get rid of my last remaining French Press?  Oh, okay, I'll admit I have two left:  a four cup press and a single cup one.  No, I'm not ready to give these away.  Knowing my past history with quitting coffee and then taking it up again, they're best packed away in a dark closet until after I've conquered the cholesterol and blood pressure issues.  At that point, I suspect I'll start drinking coffee again and seeing what I can get away with before it affects my vital numbers.

Greening my Brown Thumb

When I write about my garden, you may have noticed I often actually write our garden.  I've mentioned a few times that I am not particularly good at growing things.  My gardening efforts before marriage were a complete bust.  In one large plot I planted, I had zero germination.  Zip, nada, nothing came up.  When I bought and planted flowers outside, they all died.  Quickly.  I was hard-pressed to keep my landlord's landscaping plants alive.  When I house-sat for one couple, the lady's biggest concern was that I keep her poinsettia alive.  As anyone who's every kept a Christmas poinsettia alive knows, these are fickle and difficult plants and I was looking at seven weeks of care.  I did, but I'm not sure how.  (And let's not get into their rotten little dog who hated me.)

Houseplants that came to live at my house usually could have saved time by just jumping directly into the trash can themselves.  If they couldn't survive on water once a week and absolutely no other attention, they died.  Most died or I gave them away as quickly as possible.  In one case, I'd neglected a Christmas cactus terribly and finally offered it to a friend.  She took it somewhat reluctantly, saying that once so neglected, they rarely recovered or ever bloomed again.  The next time I visited her, only a few months later, the plant had increased in size by a third.  The next visit, she showed me its profuse blooms.  This was a plant that barely survived several years with me and certainly never once bloomed.

I learned to turn my attention to destructive gardening instead of constructive gardening.  In a house with an overgrowth of trumpet vine, so bad that it as cracking the plaster and messing up the window screens, I ripped that stuff out and coiled big piles of it for the quarterly brushy pick-up.  I went after the huge tuberous roots with a passion to keep it from re-sprouting.  I removed dead trees, small and medium-sized, by hand with no power tools.  I did biweekly pruning on the fast-growing Chilean mesquites in our yard.  I was good at these things.

When we decided it would be wise to start growing some of our own food, I was the one who encouraged it but my sweetie is the one who does it.  I am the grunt labor.  I find or buy the buckets we need for container planting.  I make the compost - collecting browns around town and saving every kitchen scrap to go into it.  I tend the compost, get rid of the mice nesting in it (or black widows as the case may be), and I sift it when it is finished.  I dig the holes for the trees and shrubs, and sift the leftover dirt for use in pots buckets.

Then this Spring I decided I needed some color.  I'm not a fan of flowers usually because, well, I kill everything, but also because they need resources I'd rather put towards edible plants.  Also, I dislike many flower fragrances; roses, for example, make me nauseous and I absolutely cannot stand the smell of lavender.  Yes, I'm strange.  Certainly not a girlie girl!

Back to the need for color.  I purchased a "Color Bowl" at the nursery.  It no longer looks as pretty as it did when I first got it, but it's still alive and some of the flowers are still blooming.  Encouraged by this, I bought some vegetable starts and planted them in moss baskets and a regular pot.  Other than a problem with aphids, they are doing pretty well, although I find their constant neediness - for water, fertilizer, and hand pollination - somewhat annoying.  (See why I chose not to have kids?!)

Perhaps it was time to move on to more ambitious projects.  I had a number of sweet young onions to clean one day and remembered reading something about regrowing the greens from onions.  While searching for information online, I stumbled across a thread on growing plants from the produce department.  It was fascinating!  It sounded like fun and it sounded like a way to maybe get a little extra food from something that would ordinarily just get tossed in the compost bin.  Several books were mentioned and I decided to order them from Amazon.

These are the two books I got.

By the way, my attempt to grow greens on my onion bottoms looks to be a total bust.  Nothing is coming up. 

My first experiment was a pineapple.  Using the instructions in the newer book (on the right in the photo), I twisted off the top of the pineapple and then peeled off several layers of leaves.  I added some activated charcoal to the water and plunked the pineapple top in.  Those little white nubbins you see on the bottom are the beginnings of roots.  When those get a few inches long, this will get planted.

I'd been craving a delicious tropical fruit salad I like to make in summer.  It is not a local dish because these fruits don't grow here, but I bought them anyway so I could try some ideas from the books.  The salad has chopped pineapple, mango, papaya (Mexican), banana, and orange segments tossed with lime juice.  I forgot about the oranges but got everything else.

As I processed the fruit for the salad, I saved the appropriate bits and pieces for my propagation attempts.  You can click on this photo to enlarge it.

On the left is the cut-off top of the pineapple.  I'm trying the method from the older book (yellow in the photo) on this one which suggests leaving some "meat" attached and letting it dry a couple of days.  Above it are the little papaya seeds.  I only saved a few and made sure to pop them out of their slimy little cases before drying.  I'll get around to planting them eventually.  The seed next to the bag is what you find inside the husk from the pit of a mango.  After dicing up the mango, I scraped the extra pulp off the mango pit and let it dry overnight.  In the morning, it was easy to snip off the top end and pry the husk open to extract the seed.  I placed it in the baggie of moist peat moss and stuck it in a cabinet where I'm hoping it will start to sprout roots.

I planted the pineapple top yesterday.  The pot has mostly potting soil in it plus some peat moss and a few batches of rinsed and dried used coffee grounds (drying in the pie tin in above photo).  Pineapples like acidic soil supposedly.  Since they are related to bromeliads, they also take in nutrients and water through their leaves, so I picked up a spray bottle to spritz and feed it occasionally from the top.  If all goes well, it will live and I can force it to bloom in a few years and grow me a new pineapple! 

I've just scratched the surface of the possibilities of kitchen growing.  The books promise I can grow out my spices from the spice cabinet and plant my sprouted sweet potatoes, among many other things.  We shall see how many plants I can actually get to germinate or root, and then how many actually survive to make houseplants or maybe even produce a bit of extra food.

Too Few Posts?

Getting bored with Chile Chews because the posts aren't coming fast and furious anymore?  Well, part of the reason is that Chile, who looks more like a bell pepper than a slender green chile, is also posting at her "fat" blog.  Check it out for the same no-nonsense writing you've come to love here.  Today's post even features one of her good ol' rants!

Coming soon here:  "Greening my Brown Thumb"

Washing Laundry by Hand: Product Review

Please note:  This is an unsolicited review of a product I purchased, used, and liked.  I am receiving no compensation from the manufacturer or distributor for this review. 

How many of the blogs you read have a subject tag for laundry?  Mine does.  It's not that laundry is exciting, sexy, or glamorous; it's more like laundry is a fact of life.  Unless you are a full-time nudist, you're always going to have some dirty clothes to wash.  If you have children or you like to garden or muck around in the big composting pile of horse manure, you probably have a LOT of laundry to do.

I am not advocating that you do all your laundry by hand.  If you have the time and energy to do so, it's a great way to save electricity and probably water as well.  However, more people are willing to save energy and water on laundry by only washing full loads, using cold water, and line-drying than go to full-time hand washing. 

Being able to wash clothes by hand, though, is helpful for those times when you've got clothes that you absolutely need for the next day and don't want to run the machine just for a couple of items.  There are also those times when the machine breaks or the power goes out, but you still need to wash some clothes.  Some people don't mind hand-washing in their sinks or tubs, but I prefer to use a plunger-type tool and a bucket.  It's easier on my wrists and shoulders - two joints with ongoing issues - and makes it much easier to dump the water into a nearby tree basin.

You may remember from my hand-washing laundry post two years ago that I had purchased the "Rapid Washer" from Lehman's.  (See picture in post linked above.)  It was a nice design and, after my sweetie drilled a hole through the top of the handle to put a rope through it, it could be hung up outside to dry. 

However, it still rusted and I've been increasing less comfortable with using it, especially on whites and light-colored clothing.

Now I know some folks out there are anti-plastic anything.  I, on the other hand, think plastics can be useful if chosen wisely and then treated with care so they last.  I noticed a plastic laundry plunger - the Mobile Washer - for sale at the Emergency Essentials website recently and ordered one.  For those unfamiliar with using a plunger to wash clothing by hand, they have a short little video demonstrating its use.

I tried it out this afternoon and was pleased with its performance.  I think it worked just a little better than the Rapid Washer.

Best of all, I was able to disassemble it afterwards to dry thoroughly. 

I know that I could have purchased a plain old rubber toilet plunger and drilled some holes in it to "hack" a homemade laundry plunger, but I like having one designed specifically for the job and easy to take apart for cleaning and drying.  Plus, I know this one will never be put in a poopy toilet and then used on my clothes.  There's a lot to be said for that!

Versatile Blogger Award

It's been a long time since anyone has given me a blogging award, probably because I started getting cranky about the rules involved with passing them on.  In fact, I still have never acknowledged the award Rob gave me a couple of years ago.  Hm, I wonder if I still have that info.

In any case, the Versatile Blogger Award was passed on to me from Rural Aspirations.  Her aspirations of living on her own farm have come true and it's always interesting to read about the latest projects there.  I have to admit, though, I also get jealous that she is able to move forward in so many directions that we cannot.  But, each of us has our own circumstances so I live the life I have.

As part of the award process, I am to share seven things with my readers that you may not know.  Since I've been blabbing online for four years, that's hard to come up with!  Let's go with a nice light theme, okay?

1. I love to watch movies.  I hate going to theaters anymore because of the rude audiences and sound systems that are overwhelmingly loud, but I enjoy watching movies at home.  I cruise yard sales and used bookstores to find movies that we would want to watch more than once. 

2.  I love food movies.  My very first DVD purchase was "Tampopo," a really good Japanese film (subtitled) about the quest to make the perfect noodle bowl.  I always crave noodles after watching it.  Also on my shelf: "Babette's Feast," "Big Night," "Chocolat," "Eat, Drink, Man, Woman," and "Mistress of Spices."  And yes, I crave whatever type of food is featured in each film after watching it!

3.  I like foreign films.  This is pretty obvious from the list in #2.  Foreign films can still be watched in a theater environment because the presence of subtitles tends to weed out the worst of the rude and noisy audience members.  Foreign films are also a welcome change from the predictability and over-reliance on special effects found in Hollywood films, as well as being an interesting glimpse into other cultures (at least as represented by the filmmaker).  I can do without Dogme films though.  A little technology - lighting and sound - goes a long ways towards making a better movie!

4.  Documentaries used to be better.  I have watched some of the highly touted documentaries on soil, peak oil, and food issues in the past few years, and have been very disappointed.  Instead of a well-presented film that thoroughly explores the subject, all of them seem to be preaching to the choir - making the movie for those people already familiar with the subjects instead of trying to educate those that are not.  They jump from interview to interview, presenting multiple experts but in a somewhat random manner without a unifying thread to tie it all together.  Whether one liked his experiment or not, at least Morgan Spurlock had a framework to his movie, "Supersize Me."

5.  I love IMDB: the Internet Movie Database.  You know how you're watching a movie and you're sure one particular actor or actress looks familiar?  Well, at IMDB, you can quickly go find out what other films or TV shows they've been in.  There are ways to search even for films that both feature the same two people.  For instance, Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks....which makes me kind of wish I hadn't gotten rid of "Sleepless in Seattle."

6.  I don't own a TV but I watch TV.  The local library carries many of the TV series on DVD so I can occasionally watch shows that I've watched in the past or heard about.  I have a few series at home that I was able to pick up for a good price, shows that we like to watch more than once.  This includes "Northern Exposure," "Forever Knight," "Angel," and "True Blood."   

7.  I like vampire books and movies (but have not seen "Twilight").  It all started with Anne Rice.  I've read all of her vampire chronicles, more than once.  Okay, more than twice actually.  I absolutely loved the "Forever Knight" series when it first came on, especially the thought-provoking aspects presented by Lacroix.  We watched "Angel" sporadically when it aired but after picking up the whole series used, I've been working my way through it.  And we're currently rewatching "True Blood" seasons 1 & 2 in anticipation of the DVD release of season 3.  I am not a vampire wannabe but I enjoy watching how authors and screenwriters present their culture.

Alright, now I need to pass this on to five other bloggers. 
1.  Katie.  I've been following this lady for years.  Her blog(s) and life have gone through so many changes, and I'm thrilled to see that the current status is pretty darn good.

2. Erica at Northwest Edible Life.  I only discovered her in the aftermath of the Devraes debacle but find myself nodding along with or fascinated by every post she makes.  Makes me wish, once again, that we'd found a way to migrate up north.

3.  Sharlene at Solar Cooking for Mainstream Cooks.  I love that Sharlene has tackled the huge challenge of trying to convince the mainstream folks - not just the granola crowd -  to look into solar cooking.  I eat differently than she cooks but she offers up recipes that much of the population would drool for.

4.  Rob's World is an adventurous one where Rob constantly trying out new things, both in fixing up his home and in his garden.  And he's got cute pet pics.

5.  You, the reader.  Yes, you.  Why not?