The First Step is Admitting You Have a Problem

Hi, my name is Lillian, and I'm addicted to Brad's Raw Kale Chips.

You see, these kale chips -- particularly the Vampire Killer variety -- are freakin' delicious.  They're garlicky, savory, crispy...everything a girl could want in a chip, but made from kale.  Kale!  It's so damn good for you!  How could I possibly resist the allure of something so delicious and nutritious?

They come with a hefty price tag, though.  $8 bucks a pop ain't cheap.

However, it's a known fact that addicts will lie, cheat, and steal to get the money for their next fix.  So, who stashed away cash so she could go get some kale chips without it showing up on her bank statement?

I did.

Furthermore, if it came down to the last box of Vampire Killer kale chips in the Arlington Whole Foods, I'm pretty sure I'd shank anyone standing between me and that coveted box of leafy green magic.

It started dawning on me last year that I might have just a small problem when it comes to my unbridled love of the aforementioned kale chips, so I added a dehydrator to our wedding registry in hopes that I'd be able to make my own.  After seven million failed attempts at recreating the deliciousness of my store-bought kale chips in the oven (half-soggy and half-burned = epic fail), I figured I needed to figure out what this dehydration buzz was all about.

So I put it on the registry, and voila, we were soon owners of a lovely dehydrator.

But who found it intimidating as all get-out?  Who looked at it and thought "Shit, this thing is going to be a huge pain to clean" and then didn't use it?  That'd be me, y'all.

Last weekend, though, I finally hit the kale chip addiction wall.  It was time to suck it up and overcome my fear of the dehydrator.

FEAR ME.  Or not.  Whatevs, it's your call.

I'd been wanting to try Angela Liddon's recipe for sundried tomato kale chips since she first posted the recipe on her (absolutely awesome) blog, Oh She Glows.  So after a day -- ok, almost a year -- of giving the dehydrator the side-eye, I marched right up to it, pulled it off the shelf, washed it, and got to work on the kale chips.

I amended Angela's recipe by adding more garlic (10 cloves - did I mention that I love garlic?) and omitting the basil in favor of some diced onion (1/4 cup).

I worked the cashew-sundried tomato-garlic mixture (which, I should add, was insanely good.  I nearly freebased half of it just standing in my kitchen.) into the kale, carefully laid it out on the rings of the dehydrator, and turned 'er on.

12 hours later I had kale chips that rival even the best of my boy Brad's.  No joke.  So, for about the same amount of money -- the ingredients cost about $8 -- I made four times as many kale chips as  I can buy at the store.

It's a win-win for everyone: I get to have delicious kale chips without having to spend an obnoxious amount of money, and everyone at Whole Foods can relax and not feel like they have to watch their six to keep from being attacked by a crazy kale chip addict.  Huzzah!

EPIC WIN!

Thwarting Intellectual Snobbery

Ok, so we all know that everybody has pet peeves.  Some are ridiculous (case in point: I totally can't deal with it when my clothes or linens smell like food, so I close all the bathroom and bedroom doors before I cook dinner), and some are legit.

One thing that has generally driven me up a wall is intellectual one-upmanship.  You know what I mean: the "Oh, you read that?  I find it insulting to my intelligence."  Or "You're referencing a TV show?  I never watch television of any sort, and I only watch artsy, independent, foreign films."

Personal faves, those lines. 

When I was younger, I used to try to keep up with these people.  I felt overwhelmed by the need to defend my intelligence.  Even if I knew that I was just as smart as, if not smarter than, the people claiming to be at the very top of the intellectual food chain, their one-upmanship would make me feel totally inadequate.  (That, of course, is exactly what it was designed to do -- and it worked.)

In recent years, though, I've stopped caring as much.  I still feel the pang of "Hey, that's not fair!" whenever someone tries to start an intellectual pissing contest, but as I've gotten older I haven't felt like making the effort to defend myself or engage in their one-upmanship.  

I'll never win at that game, because no one ever does when dealing with someone who's so wholly determined to prove their superiority.  

The fact is, I love -- nay, adore -- all manner of things that a lot of people think are completely vapid.  

What's more is that I now get a huge kick out of owning my love of such things.  I also get a huge kick out of seeing the reactions of the smarter-than-thou crowd when I 'fess up to my love of People magazine.

So, with that, I decided to make a list of all the intellectually bankrupt things I love:

1)  I've read a bajillion criticisms of Eat, Pray, Love, most of which involve people saying that it insulted their intelligence and that they got dumber just by reading the first chapter.  By contrast, I freaking loved it.  I loved every minute I spent reading it.  My copy is dog-eared all over the place, underlined, and extremely well-loved.  It's one of my favorite books, and I re-read it all the time.

2)  I don't care that celebrity gossip is vapid -- in fact, that's precisely why I love it.  It's brain candy, except that it doesn't actually rot your brain.  After years of resisting its allure and echoing sentiments like "I could never read such crap," I started reading it in grad school to give myself a break from all the dense articles I was slogging through.  I never looked back.

3)  Seriously, folks: BAD TELEVISION IS A GODSEND.  Want to know how I love to spend my Friday nights?  I can assure you: it doesn't involve artsy, independent films filled with moral ambiguity, complex character development, or plotlines focusing on how irrevocably messed up the world is.  It does involve The Soup and Fashion Police.  You'd better believe that my week ends on a high note when it's in the company of Joan Rivers and "Starlet or Streetwalker?". 

4)  Speaking of artsy, independent films, it's generally my view that "artsy and independent" are code for "depressing and disturbing."  There are a few exceptions to this, clearly -- but barring those outliers, I'm NOT on board with movies that leave me feeling like all my internal organs have been ripped out.  I like my entertainment to be entertaining.  For me that involves humor, romance, explosions, or some combination thereof.  If it makes me an idiot, then this idiot will go hang out with a collection of movies that don't make her want to cry her eyes out for the next four days.

There you have it, friends: the definitive guide to thwarting intellectual snobbery by embracing one's love of fluff.  Now I have some TMZ to read...

Strawberry-Vanilla Muffins (Gluten Free, Dairy Free)

I'm a big fan of muffins.  More specifically, I'm a big fan of blueberry muffins.

If I'm being honest, I'll concede to the fact that I have a raging, undying love of blueberry muffins.

So imagine my horror, circa May 2008, when I realized that my body hated on gluten and I'd never again open a box of Betty Crocker blueberry muffin mix.  (What can I say?  Boxed baked goods and I were tight back in the day.  During grad school, I kept some just-add-water blueberry muffin mix in the cupboard for the days when I felt like my overworked brain was going to angrily climb out of my skull in protest.)   

It was a dark time.  No joke.

I've tried several pre-made GF blueberry muffins in the last four years, but they've all tasted like sandpaper.  Then I read about baking with almond flour -- everyone said that unlike brown rice flour, which produces muffins that could double as a cute little brick, almond flour produces light, fluffy creations that actually taste good.

I had to try this.

I tested the almond flour theory using a recipe for Paleo Pumpkin Muffins (I'm not on the Paleo plan, but I occasionally borrow from Paleo recipes that strike my fancy), and it was a hit.  There was no doubt: I was a convert to the world of baking with almond flour.

I decided to tweak the recipe a bit and see if I could come up with some blueberry muffins, because it's high time for blueberry muffins to be welcomed back into my life.   


The results were pretty good, but not spectacular.  I suspected I could do better.

So, last night I tweaked the recipe again and made strawberry-vanilla muffins.  Now THAT'S what I'm talkin' about!  These muffins are light, fluffy, and delicious -- and, since they're made with almond flour, oat flour and applesauce, they're loaded with both protein and fiber.

Damn Good Strawberry-Vanilla Muffins (Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Oil Free)

Makes 12 muffins

1 cup almond flour (I like Bob's Red Mill)

1 cup GF oat flour (again, I like Bob's Red Mill)

3/4 cup applesauce

2 eggs (vegan option: add the equivalent of 2 eggs using either a flax egg or Ener-G egg replacer)

1/3 cup organic sugar
1/4 cup honey (vegan option: agave or stevia)

1 tsp almond butter (preferably smooth and salted)

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

2/3 cup fresh strawberries, diced small
1 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
Vanilla sugar (for sprinkling on top)

Put all ingredients but the blueberries in a mixer, and mix until combined and smooth.  Gently fold in strawberries by hand (they're delicate little dudes, and a mixer will smush them).  Line a muffin tin with paper liners, and dollop the muffin batter into the tins.  Sprinkle vanilla sugar onto the top of each muffin (how much you use is up to you).  Bake 20 minutes at 350 or until a toothpick stuck in the center of each muffin comes out smooth.

Ain't she a beaut?

Standing at the Base and Standing at the Summit

After I finished grad school and started working, I felt a persistent sense of...meh.  A strong blah, if you will.  

There was something missing in my life.

I had no goals.

(This always makes me think of this scene from "Can't Hardly Wait" where the nerdy kid gets drunk and says "I can't feel my legs.  I have no legs!  I HAAAAAVE NOOOOOO LEEEEEEEEEEGS!"  That, in turn, made me occasionally say "I HAAAAAAVE NOOOOO GOOOOAAAAAALS!")

I had spent such a long time working towards completing my Master's and getting a job in DC that once I found myself in possession of both said Master's and job in DC, I...well, I had nothing to work towards.  It felt really, really weird.

Over three years later, though, I've definitely got myself some goals.  I now have what often feels like an aircraft carrier's worth of goals, to be more precise:

1) Get back to my "happy weight" -- the weight at which I feel my best, can run without hurting my knees or feet, and look good without compromising my athletic body type:

STATUS:  Sooooooo close!  I've lost a lot of the extra weight I put on during grad school and my first few years back in the working world, and I'm within spitting distance of my goal.  Happily, I've officially reached the stage where I had to buy new pants -- and I'm down a full size.  (*Does happy dance*)  Progress!

2)  Pay off my credit card:

STATUS:  As of today...achieved!  It took a while, but who has two thumbs and no credit card debt?  This girl!

3)  Start running competitively again:

STATUS:  It's a work in progress, but I'm definitely on my way!  I've had osteoarthritis in my feet since I was 21 -- most likely caused by decades of undiagnosed Celiac disease --  and I haven't run a 5K since just before the arthritis was diagnosed.  I know that in the world of competetive running, a 5K is like a leisurely afternoon stroll.  I've never been (nor will I ever be) a marathoner, and I'm cool with that.  I run because I love it, not because I'm hardcore -- so those 5Ks are just the right distance for me.

I've largely forgone running for 10 years, but I miss it something fierce.  Now that I'm outfitted with an awesome set of running shoes and am dropping the extra weight (which has greatly reduced the pressure on my joints), I'm up and running again.  (*Does another happy dance*)  My goal is to start running 5Ks again this fall -- for now, I'm working on getting my mile times down and my endurance back up to where it once was.  Progress!

4)  The big one: start my own business as a health coach and cooking instructor:

STATUS:  It's intimidating as all get-out, but progress is being made.  I know what I want to do and how I want to do it, so now I need to focus on things like paperwork and marketing.  Those are no small tasks, so it's going to take a lot of determination and persistence to do this right.  (*Crosses fingers*)

I find that pursuing long-term goals can be a daunting prospect, especially when in the beginning stages.  When I start working towards a long-term goal, I always feel like I'm at the base of a mountain, looking up at the summit and wondering how the hell I'm going to get up there.  The beginning is always the hardest: you know there's a lot of hard work ahead, and you haven't started seeing any of the benefits or pay-off -- so it's hard to stay motivated.

At moments like that, I have to work extra hard to keep myself focused and on task.  When I first set out to lose weight, I nearly gave up after 8 days.  When I first climbed on the treadmill again after a years-long hiatus from running, I could only run one mile at a dreadfully slow pace.  When I first started setting aside a larger percentage of my paycheck in order to pay off my credit card sooner rather than later, it felt like it was going to take forever to get to where I wanted to be.

Whenever I feel like the goal I've set for myself is intimidating -- that it's going to be too hard, take too long, or that it might not be achievable at all -- I look at this picture:

That's me and my dear friend Jes at the summit of Mt. Bierstadt, a 14,000 foot peak in our beloved Colorado.  We climbed it in June 2007, and it was a tough hike.  I remember standing at the base of that mountain, looking up at the summit, and thinking "Sweet Jesus, what am I doing?  How the hell am I going to get up there?"  It took a lot of trail mix and some blisters, but we made it -- and we had an awesome time.

The view from the base

I keep that picture framed as a reminder that I really can achieve things that, at the outset, are incredibly intimidating.  Much like Mt. Bierstadt, a lot of my big goals seem imposing and more than a little bit scary (please see Goal #4 above).  But, much like climbing to the top of a Fourteener, progress is made one step at a time -- and it's always worth it.  When a task feels too big, I remind myself to just keep going one step at a time.  I know I'll get there eventually.

The view from the summit

Redesigning the Home Office

I’ve always loved redecorating, renovating, and reorganizing my stuff.  When I was growing up, I reorganized or redecorated my bedroom on what was probably a quarterly basis.  My parents, God love ’em, were endlessly patient and never once interfered with my grand design plans.  (Side note to parents: you guys rock.)  

As an adult, that impulse has never really gone away.  While I don’t constantly rearrange and redecorate the way I used to, I still find myself examining the apartment from time to time and thinking “Hmmmm.  That needs to change.”

The need has been particularly acute lately whenever I look at my sad, cluttered, awful-looking space in our study/spare room.  I bought the desk just after I moved back to DC a few years ago, and as a $19 Wal-Mart purchase, it has served me well.  But the finish is coming off -- and I really feel that, as a (somewhat) functional adult, I probably shouldn’t have a decaying desk.

Similarly, the bookshelf was another Wal-Mart purchase that I picked up just after Hubs and I moved in together.  I was, shall we say, financially constrained at the time – so I bought it because it was cheap and functional. However, it’s ugly as sin.  There’s no escaping that fact.  It looks like something an old, cheap, curmudgeonly dude would buy after yelling at the neighborhood children to get off his lawn.  The only redeeming qualities about this beast are that it’s still standing and that the shelves haven’t split under the weight of all my books. 

It was supposed to be an interim bookcase.  My plan was to use it until I could afford a better piece of furniture that doesn’t reek of aesthetic ruination.

Two years later, it’s still here.

And I’m kind of starting to resent the shit out of it.

I get annoyed every time I look at it.  I’ve started mentally spewing vitriol at it, so now whenever I walk into the study, my inner monologue sounds like “Time for brain candy!  I can’t wait to check TMZ for some celeb gossi – GOD F*CKING DAMMIT, THAT STUPID BOOKSHELF IS SO F*CKING UGLY!”

I have less hate in my heart for the desk, since it’s less heinous than the bookshelf.  But still.  I’m not really a fan of either one these days.

So, I’ve decided to embark on a project to reclaim my little workspace.

I figure that I want to be writing more and that, hopefully, I’ll be spending more time at my home desk once I begin seeing clients as a health and wellness coach.  One shouldn't go about setting up a business if one hates the space from which she'll do that, right?

Seriously, I figure I probably shouldn’t loathe the workspace with every fiber of my being.

My mother-in-law just happens to have a background in interior design, and she also just happens to be fabulous.  She introduced me to apartmenttherapy.com – for which I’ll be forever grateful – and through the epic amounts of time I’ve spent on that website, I found this example of reorganized bookshelves. 

OMG.  Lurve.

I have plans, my friends.  Plans for a matching (!!!) desk and bookshelf, both of which are made of real wood.  Plans for colorful organizing accessories.

Now, this will have to happen in phases – after all, money doesn’t grow on trees, and I’m trying to pay off my student loans as fast as possible – but just the act of developing a strategic plan is enough to make me feel a teeeeeny bit less hateful towards my home office space.  Someday, with enough TLC and improvement, I might even love it.


For now, though, I'll just try not to scowl so much at my bookshelf.

The Best Ever Mother's Day Gift

I suck at buying gifts.  I’ll sit there wringing my hands for weeks before any gift-giving holiday or birthday, fretting about what the hell I’m going to get for someone. 

This becomes particularly acute on both Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.

Since they’re both gift-giving holidays, I know that I want to get my parents something – but what to get is always an epic challenge.  I don’t want to get something as meaningful as what I’d get them for Christmas or their birthdays, since I like to reserve the big gifts for special occasions, but I don’t want them to go giftless either.

Thus the quandary: how to say “thank you for being an awesome parent” without getting something generic and lame?  In the same way that I hate – hate! – the idea that every woman wants and loves candy, stuffed teddy bears, and red roses on Valentine’s Day, I can barely stomach the idea of buying perfume for Mother’s Day or neckties for Father’s Day.

My Mom has plenty of perfume, and my Dad needs another tie like politician needs a scandal.

So, imagine my relief when last year around Mother’s Day I read this column by Nick Kristof.  Kristof is one of my favorite New York Times op-ed columnists, and and he along with his wife wrote the book Half the Sky -- which is one of the most astounding, educating, and infuriating books I’ve ever read.

In his column last year, Kristof wrote about a program called the Mothers' Day Movement.  The Mothers' Day Movement collects and matches donations in honor of Mother's Day, then gives the proceeds to a grassroots organization benefiting women and children.  The movement is designed to breathe life into Kristof’s call to action from last year’s column:

“It’s time to move the apostrophe so that it becomes not just Mother’s Day, honoring a single mother, but Mothers’ Day, an occasion to try and help mothers around the globe as well.”

As soon as I read about the Mothers' Day Movement, I knew: this is the right thing.  This is something my Mom will appreciate more than perfume.  This is something she’d be thrilled to be part of.

So, Hubs and I decided to make donations in honor of both our amazing moms – and they couldn’t have been happier about it.

We've made donations in their honor again this year.  I’m particularly excited about this year’s selected charity, Saving Mothers, because it directly addresses one of the issues I feel so deeply passionate about: reducing infant and maternal mortality rates in developing countries.

When I was studying in Israel, one of the most eye-opening courses I took was a class on the political economy of the Middle East.  It sounds heinously, painfully, “stab out your own eyes with your pen” boring, but it turned out to be amazing.  I learned an incredible amount about the importance of women’s roles in economic development – and, by extension, the many issues surrounding inadequate family planning and maternal care services.

The fact is, more than half a million women die each year in childbirth.  That’s about one every 90 seconds.  Think about that: in the time it took me to write and edit this post, 15 women died while either trying to give birth or while in recovery after delivering their baby.   

What's worse is that almost all of those deaths would have been entirely preventable with access to proper obstetric and post-natal care. (A series of Washington Post articles from 2008 does a fantastic – and heart-wrenching – job of illustrating just how perilous pregnancy and childbirth are for many women in the developing world.)

Given this year’s charity of choice for the Mothers' Day Movement, I’m extra excited to make my donation.  Unlike flowers (which will probably set off my mom’s allergies) or chocolate (which will definitely set off her allergies), I know she’ll be thrilled with this gift.

All moms deserve a shot at the safe delivery of a healthy baby – and there’s no doubt that both my mom and my mother-in-law will be honored to help make that happen.

How the Times Totally Reaffirmed My Decision to Attend IIN

I occasionally stumble across articles that really get me thinking (ok, by “occasionally,” I mean “every damn day”).  This usually happens while I’m at work, so my ability to really ponder the contents and implications of any such article is usually ridiculously limited – unless it’s the sort of article that resonates with me so deeply that I know, instinctively and with every molecule in my body, exactly what I think about it.

Today I found one of those articles.  In this New York Times “Room for Debate” series, a series of columnists discussed whether people need more advice about eating well.  Many of the columnists presented totally valid and well-reasoned arguments (especially Marion Nestle, whom I now officially adore), and much of what they said totally reaffirmed my own stance on the issue: 

in my social circle – which is made up of professional, highly educated, busy women – people don’t eat well not because they lack the knowledge, willpower or resources to do so, but rather because they lack time.

For many people the idea of cooking fresh, wholesome food seems incredibly daunting.  Many people feel like it’s going to be either time-consuming or labor-intensive, and the fact that the term “slow food” is used so prevalently doesn’t help matters much.  (Yes, I know it’s the opposite of McDonalds and other forms of fast food, but people who are pressed for time are seriously not enthralled with even the mere suggestion that dinner might take a long time to prepare.)

As a result, one tour of downtown DC at lunchtime reveals a huge swath of people who are eating lots of burgers and fries, lots of street meat, and a whole ton of vending machine fare.

This dilemma (food or time, time or food?) is one of the main reasons why I decided to start training to be a health coach.

The fact is, most people don’t need to be told what to do.  A lot of people already know: they need to eat better and exercise more.  Most people could list a litany of the things they know they should be doing – so what they don’t need are lectures and exhortations about how they ought to change.

What most people do need, however, are strategies.  They need game plans and practical tips to help them implement those plans.  They need support.

Around this time last year, I started to realize that I could actually help people with these things.  I’ve been preparing dinner four times per week and bringing a fresh, healthy lunch to school or work every day for 15 years (this started when I was in high school, since I was given the task of cooking dinner).  

During those 15 years, I've learned a thing or two about how to save myself time and effort during the week.  I've learned how to whip up quick and easy dinners from fresh, healthy ingredients. I've learned how to ensure that I can pull together a wholesome lunch in under 10 minutes.

Then I realized that I could help people reach their health goals by sharing what I've learned and giving them the suggestions, strategies, and support they need.

When things started heading south at work last summer, I started thinking about this more and more.  I wonder if I could make a job out of this, I asked myself.  Could I actually do that?

Fast forward one year: I’m enrolled at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, and I’ll be in training (which is all done remotely and after work -- it's awesome) until December. 

I now feel certain that it's possible for people to eat well and achieve their health goals without losing their minds or losing time out of an already packed schedule -- and someday, I hope to help them do that.