Food, Water, Writing.

Dear Wii Fit: Thou art mine enemy

2010-09-29T10:59:00.000-04:00

For my thirtieth column, I wanted to do something worthy of what, for me, is a huge accomplishment. Writing this column (more or less) consistently since last fall is a major feather in my consistency cap - one of only a bare few. It can sit right alongside the feather that represents my unquenchable love of mystery stories and the one that symbolizes my tendency to be awkward in public.

Initially I thought, “Thirty columns? Oh yeah, I got this. I’m making a list.” It turned out to be a list of the top thirty reasons why that idea was lame. Then I started working on a more introspective piece that reflected on all the things that have happened since I embarked on chronicling my journey almost one year ago. That piece instead ended up chronicling my ability to write something with about as much life in it as a fillet of dead carp and all the appeal of a flaccid piece of wet cardboard.

In fact, I wasn’t fired up to write anything until two days ago when I had my second encounter with our Nintendo Wii Fit.

106 days ago, according to the reproach I received from the modern-day Hal perched in our living room, was my last session with the Wii. The Wii was something Andrew had bought “for both of us,” though admittedly I was pretty indifferent to the idea. I can’t explain it, but somewhere along the line my interest in video games went out along with my ability to give a crap about professional wrestling. Admittedly, some of the Wii games can be fun, but most of the time I am trying so hard to handle the controller the right way that focusing on the coordination needed to expertly wield a computer generated golf club escapes me completely. I mean, I gave up trying years ago to beat the final level of Bowser’s Castle in "Super Mario World," so wherever the place is that resides between that and a good old-fashioned river fording on "Oregon Trail" lies my skill level for video gamery.

Then came the Wii Fit.

In a gesture that smacked of affection and personal bravery, my boyfriend bought the Wii Fit in an attempt to make it easier for us to squeeze exercise into our lives. It would be fun, he told me, after seeing my eyebrows reach skyward with skepticism, and we could exercise in smaller time increments whenever we could fit it in. And while I feel a pang of guilt for my aversion to that small, sleek, white machine because he bought it for us as something to help, I will not abide getting aggro from a video game machine. There, I said it. Now if the Cylons really do take over, I’ll be in trouble. (Battlestar geeks holla if you hear me.)

So Wii Fit, how did we go so wrong?

Well, for starters, you’re never going to get a girl if all you do is make fun of her all the time, call out her faults and then rub it in when she fails to meet your expectations.

Here’s the thing: When you want to use the Nintendo Wii, you need to create an avatar called a Mii. Essentially you create the computer equivalent of yourself that has all the fine attention to detail of a Lego person and is meant to superficially resemble you. You can make it look like anything you want, but this is the idea - i.e., it sports a certain hairstyle, color of clothing, etc., that you choose for it. But the Wii Fit takes this avatar building business a few steps further than having a baker’s dozen of different eyebrow sets to choose from.

You have to enter certain other personal details in order for the Wii Fit to allegedly help you realize your fitness goals. So now the damn thing knows your height and weight too. However, instead of leaving your Mii alone, thank you very much, the Wii makes your Mii fat too.

Yep. In much the same way that Mario has excited little sparkles burst out of him when he runs into a mushroom or a raccoon tail that gives him special powers, I watched my Mii go through a fun transformation too: the out-plopping of my spare tire - and I could have sworn there were computer-generated sparkles when it happened.

One might think for a video game suite that was designed to help people get in shape, maybe they would give the user a regular Mii, a thinner version to look forward to, or even just the option of not having a fat avatar, right? I mean, it’s entirely possible that I reached my ideal calorie-burning heart rate “zone” by standing on the scale/Wii Fit board and having my blood pressure escalate at the sight of my Mii’s mid-section expanding with a “pop!” as it shrunk me vertically and stretched me sideways.

Then, as I fought to regain control over my volcano of rage, the Wii Fit asked me to enter my weight loss goals. “Okay,” I thought. “Just enter what you want to lose and get it over with.”

So, a), when you enter the number of pounds you want to lose, you have to press the button on the controller each time for each pound, exacerbating an already tedious process; b), apparently no one creating this software could fathom anyone needing to lose more than 20-plus pounds.

Seriously, it literally stopped letting me enter how much weight I wanted to lose somewhere in the 20s.

I don’t know what enraged me more, the fact that clearly it was ludicrous to the Wii Fit that anyone could possibly be that overweight, or the fact that I couldn’t gain some exercise points by throwing the vile thing through the window.

That was roughly 106 days ago. Then, about a week and a half ago, I started Weight Watchers. Lord knows I need structure. I’m not down with the whole low-fat/no fat foods stuff or anything like that, but good foods that are naturally low in the bad things - I can deal with that. However, you need to weigh yourself weekly to chart your progress.

I was all prepared to go out and buy a scale when my boyfriend reminded me that the Wii Fit doubles as a scale. I had preferred to leave it shoved under the chair in the living room, forgotten and alone, but I didn’t want to shell out for a scale if we already had one in the house.

So I got myself up on the Wii Fit board, and braced myself to see if I had lost anything in my first week on the WW plan.

Reasons why trying to do a simple task like weighing yourself on the Wii Fit is maddening:

a) It takes forever just to get to the weighing point. I dig the old-fashioned bathroom scale of the ilk that my Grandma had - step up, the numbers spin in front of you and in less than 20 seconds, voila! You have your weight - and it is not saved in some computer’s memory for future judgment.

b) You have to turn the machine on, wait for it to load, then select your Mii, which brings back all of the lovely memories you have of creating it, and then it tells you how long it’s been since you’ve deigned to work out with the Wii Fit.

c) Then it doesn’t just let you weigh yourself - it has to assess your balance first…

d) After which it has to berate you about your need to disperse your weight more to the right (in my case anyway).

e) Once you’ve been told that your balance is for shit, then it asks you to stand and be weighed.

f) Ah - and here’s the best part: If you’ve gained weight since the last time you stood on the scale, in my case 1.5 pounds, it condescends to tell you that maybe next time you shouldn’t set such lofty weight loss goals.

g) No, I’m not kidding.

However, according to my WW online tracker, I have lost 1.5 pounds since last week, and Myrtle made a good point: Maybe since 106 days ago I had gained weight and then lost it from there, so my Wii Fit weigh-in might not be as horrid as it seems.

Regardless, I found myself nearly brought to tears of incredulity after realizing that a computer had just worn away my defenses with its snide commentary on my weight-loss efforts. My boyfriend, who was making dinner in the kitchen, looked into the living room and saw me sitting on the sofa.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

(My responses have been made PG with the aid of "Battlestar Gallactica" euphemisms):

“I hate that fracking thing.” I responded. “I’m sorry, I know you bought it to be helpful, but I hate that gods-damn fracking thing.”

So tonight, after my eye appointment, I am going to the store to purchase my own, low-tech, no frills, Grandma-style old-school scale. Preferably something in gold or powder blue - an echo of a simpler time when the scale I knew matched the color scheme in my Grandma’s bathroom and hadn’t yet gained the awareness to talk back.

You can find all of Elizabeth's adventures in being a Curvy Girl at: http://www.annarbor.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-search.cgi?search=Curvy%20Girl&__mode=tag&IncludeBlogs=1&limit=20&page=2

Curvy Girl #29: To veg or not to veg, that is the question

2010-08-24T10:52:00.000-04:00

Anyone who has followed this column has probably read one or two of my rants on veganism. Most of these stem from my staunch resistance to being restricted from eating anything I choose. However, in light of some recent health issues and the heart gripping fact that I am not getting any younger, I've decided to approach investigating the vegan diet from the viewpoint of some of its potential benefits. There is obviously the fact that the vegan diet puts a much lighter footprint on the earth, that it definitely reduces your cholesterol intake (which for me is a huge thing) and that it often incorporates better food choices, like organic foods, into its repertoire. I'd been thinking about this for a bit, trying to adjust my thought process to one that would in some way welcome such a big change, and then, from an unexpected source, a book literally fell into my lap.

If your mother is anything like mine, there are moments when she is gripped with such fervor that its intensity can only be explained by it having been ignited by her drive to protect whom she loves. Once the spark is lit, she may as well be on a mission from god.

In my mom’s case, I’ve seen this phenomenon occur most frequently when there is a potential risk to someone she cares about. This includes the risks of poor health and its effect on the body. If something will make you healthier, than you just need to carve out the time and energy to do it. Rarely have I encountered anyone who takes her health more seriously than my mother. She wouldn’t agree with me on this; she would say that she tries but doesn't always succeed. However, she’s just being humble. It’s not like she is a marathon runner or into extreme sports, but she exercises the vigilance necessary to keep potential health risks at bay when she is aware of them. It has always been one of the things I admire most about her.

So, it turns out that Type 2 diabetes has started to rear its ugly head in our world and it is affecting people we love. You guessed it: that equals a very serious risk.

And now, a brief jump into the “way-back machine”:

In another life, I was a medical photographer. For six months in Chicago I photographed skin cancers, and then for a year after that in Detroit I was an ophthalmic photographer. I took photographs of people’s eyes. We had imaging equipment for all the parts of the eye, but the most common (and the most fascinating in my opinion) was the fundus photography.

Say it with me: “fundus.”

Webster’s on fundus:

“Main Entry: fun•dus

Pronunciation: \ˈfən-dəs\

Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural fun•di \-ˌdī, -ˌdē\
Etymology: New Latin, from Latin, bottom
Date: 1764
: the bottom of or part opposite the aperture of the internal surface of a hollow organ: as a : the greater curvature of the stomach b : the lower back part of the bladder c : the large upper end of the uterus d : the part of the eye opposite the pupil”

In our case, it was definition d.

Fundus cameras are designed to photograph the retina. Standard fundus photos are taken in color, but if a patient has diabetes, frequently, the doctor will order flourescein angiography. This study produces a series of several photographs that are black and white, and I don’t want anyone to fall off their chair here, but it actually shows the blood flow into the back of the eye in real time. The flourescein dye is injected into the patient's arm, after having taken control shots, and then under certain filters in the camera, the photographer can actually image the dye in the blood as it flows into the eye and lights up all of the blood vessels.

In a healthy eye, these images will just look like crisp, high-contrast images of the retina, with the veins bright white against the dark grey backdrop of the densely pigmented retinal layer. In an unhealthy eye, specifically one that is afflicted with diabetes, depending on the extent of the deterioration of the blood vessels, will start to light up in the back of the eye. These bright spots are the places where ophthalmologists focus their laser treatments. The goal of these treatments as I understand it is to preserve the patient’s central vision for as long as possible by cauterizing the leaking vessels. In general, patients with diabetic retinopathy tend to exhibit blood vessel leakage first on the periphery, and then as the condition worsens, the leaking vessels get closer and closer to the avascular foveal zone, i.e., the sweet spot for your central vision. Eventually, this can lead to total blindness.

My reason for giving you this unexpected (and most likely uninvited) lecture on fundus photography and diabetic retinopathy is that I wanted to share my experience, limited though it is, of diabetes with you. Most of us know someone in our lives who is affected by diabetes. In an unexpected turn of the screw, my mom has known an increasing number of people in her life who have been diagnosed with the disease lately. And it’s because of diabetes she recently called me up and subsequently thrust a copy of a book about following a vegan diet into my hands.

Now, I don’t have diabetes. I’m not pre-diabetic either, but it appears that I do have a familial predisposition to develop diabetes judging by some recent diagnoses in my greater family. In addition to that, it seems like there are more and more convincing arguments out there for being vegan. Most of these stem from the health benefits that can occur from following such a diet. Particularly if your vegan diet includes organic foods, and you keep the super sugary things in check, you’re going to be in pretty good shape. Also, I think it’s safe to say that most people agree that a B12 supplement for those following a vegan diet is a must.

At any rate, the book my mom gave me is a pretty good read. For something I initially rolled my eyes at reading, Dr. Neal Barnard’s Program for Reversing Diabetes was a surprising page turner. It advocates a diet that has complex carbohydrates and whole grains, organic foods, minimal oil used in the preparation of food, a reduction in the naturally fatty foods like avocadoes and olives and sticking to foods low on the Glycemic index. Oh yeah, and of course, it completely tosses out meat, cheese and eggs.

It actually sounds pretty good.

There are plenty of naturally scrumptious foods, and many recipes can be adapted to a vegan version without a ton of extra work. It also apparently does what it alleges to do. It lowers people’s sugar profoundly in lots of cases. In addition to that, there have been other benefits cited by people who have used this diet, such as improved sleep and higher energy levels just to name a couple.

However, I don’t agree with everything in the book, as in, I’m still completely unconvinced as to the virtues of soy in general, and I’m not sure what is actually in fake meat alternatives, but I’m not really drawn to eat those things anyway. My thinking is: Why would I want fake meat? If I can’t have the real thing, what is the point or trying to choke down a substitute? It’s not my style.

Anyway, the best argument for any food in my book is that food is always at its best when it is allowed to shine for what it is. For me, that means largely organic foods that are full of flavor, recipes that use the natural complementary nature of different foods to bring out the best in each other and not flubbing it up with weirdness like meat-free “sausage crumbles” (my deepest apologies to the die-hard sausage crumblers in the audience).

Dr. Barnard offers soy and meat substitutes as potential tools you can use to help maintain a vegan diet. For me, a week of step-down with lots of peanut butter and jelly rice cakes turned out to be what was needed (though I am still struggling with deviations). I just couldn’t go cold turkey … or cold kelp loaf (yick).

So I had this book and my mom, who beat me to veganism (and is loving it by the way except for its distressing lack of cheese), was starting to convince me that maybe it was worth a real shot. Also, a little over a month ago, I was stricken by some (still) inexplicable severe chest pains and had to go to the ER. This on top of everything else really has given me pause. I’m not even 30 yet, and this year constitutes my having the most issues ever with my physical health. It’s not been fun. I’ve been really grumpy, seriously funky and profoundly tired. Trying the vegan thing has helped a bit. Also, in an unexpected benefit, cutting out the dairy particularly has had a startling effect on my chronic acid reflux. It’s almost gone when I follow the vegan diet. Even if I eat slightly more spicy foods, my body can all of a sudden handle it better. That being said, when I deviate, I know.

To add to the knowledge I had been amassing on the virtues of veganism, the other night, my boyfriend and I watched a documentary called The Beautiful Truth. It was about a few things: mercury poisoning, toxins in our food, but ultimately, it was about the Gerson Therapy.

The Gerson Therapy advocates a strict organic vegan diet as a part of their treatment for cancer. It involves some other things as well, the least appetizing of which is regular (no pun intended) organic coffee enemas, but diet is the main significant change. Also, they appear to have had astounding success rates in treating all kinds of cancers, as well as some other illnesses, with this therapy. From what I could tell, this therapy also does not involve a plethora of drugs that can potentially make you as sick as the original disease. As I watched this documentary unfold, all I could think was that I sincerely wished I had seen it before my uncle passed away last Thanksgiving from esophageal and liver cancer.

Now, before everyone writes in - I know that this is a controversial topic, and that the lines are drawn quite decisively on both sides. I find it a compelling possibility though, in a world ever more put upon by cancers of all kinds, that there is a treatment option that suggests, we - good god the gall - go back to eating unadulterated foods as the main crux of its argument. The more I learn about the mainstream food industry and about the abundance of toxic things we are exposed to every day, I’m finding myself more and more invested in making the healthy choices. So I am sort of giving it a real go, though I am loathe to admit it. (Once I put it out there, I’m sure to fail at it.)

However, I have to reserve the right to eat whatever the hell I want at any time. Will it help me lose weight? In theory, but maybe not. It's more of a health choice at this moment than anything else.

With that in mind, making healthier choices becomes almost effortless, because then I am not being restricted.

...At least that’s what I tell my brain.

How are you planning to spend your Nikola Tesla Day?

2010-07-10T16:29:00.002-04:00

As it happens, it would not be uncommon for you to answer that question with, “Wait, spend my who day?”

I mean, unfortunately, Tesla’s name has largely been shoved out of the common vernacular in this country. Aside from an offhand reference to the 80’s hair band (who, incidentally makes an brief appearance later in this story) or the occasional mention of a Tesla Coil, there isn’t much out there to draw our attention to this incredible, mind-bending scientist. Oh wait. There was that movie The Prestige, but how many of us actually thought that mad scientist out west was actually based on a real man? The man, who as it turns out, lassoed the power of Niagara Falls and will forever be associated with the robotic ship?

I suppose a more accurate title for this article would be, “How will you celebrate the functioning electricity you enjoy today?” or “How will you be acknowledging the power that we take for granted that enables us to move forward with nearly all life-advancing technologies?” Subtitles could range anywhere from, “Nikola Tesla: The man who gave power to the people” to “Tesla: brilliant scientist who changed the very nature of our lives who died penniless and alone.” A bit too wordy I know, but it needs to be said, and when I was listening to President Obama’s speech on immigration the other day and he mentioned the great inventions of Nikola Tesla, it reinvigorated my interest in the man and his work.

Born in 1856 in what is now Serbia, Tesla immigrated to the United States in 1884 and gained American citizenship. The work he did here would go on to change the entire way we communicate and operate globally, and yet many people have never even heard of him. Part of this is due to the fact that Tesla, unlike some other scientists of the day, was not one to showboat or pursue profit in place of working to prove his theories and create real, functioning electricity that could be brought large-scale to the people. He died in 1943 alone, riddled with depression and destitute. In fact, the circumstances in which he died could not provide a starker contrast to the richness and life that his work breathed into our scientific world.

It is one of the greater intellectual crimes of history that the father of polyphase alternating current (AC, the power that brings life to our computers, power stations and has influenced all of modern electrical science) and the father of radio, Nikola Tesla, continues to largely fade into the shadows of the annals of science education and appreciation in modern society.

A simple Google search revealed that in some places in the world, there is a Nikola Tesla Day, celebrated every year on his birthday, July 10. I thought, “Perfect. Now I just need to find a timely link to Ann Arbor so that I can write about it.” As it turns out, I didn’t have to look that far. You may be interested to know that our very own Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum has an exhibit of Tesla’s “Egg of Columbus” on display, a recreation of a model that Tesla had constructed to showcase his discovery of the rotating magnetic field principle at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.

However, once I jumped into the Tesla rabbit hole, I discovered a lot more. It turns out that the predominant champion for bringing Tesla into elementary education and the man who has spearheaded a campaign against the Smithsonian Institution for not properly recognizing Tesla in their displays and publications on the history of electricity lives in, of all places, our fair town of Ann Arbor.

I was also in luck, because he was happy to make time for an interview with me.

What struck me first is that John W. Wagner is first and foremost an educator. What struck me as an immediate second was the fact that he is easily one of the most passionate people I have encountered in researching Tesla. In fact, his website is one of the most comprehensive sources around for Tesla’s life history and his contributions to modern electrical science. Wagner is very clear in giving credit where it is due to the other scientists who have contributed to electrical science, such as Oersted and Faraday, and is just as clear about exposing the often unpopular truth about Edison and others such as Marconi, who, though they made contributions, appear to have been much more concerned with capitalizing and monetizing their (and others’) work than they were with bringing these life-altering technologies to the common people. In fact, after years in court over patent battles, the court finally ruled in Tesla’s favor over Marconi, but the ruling was bittersweet, as Tesla had already passed away.

I asked John several questions, but mostly I just listened. The man is wealth of knowledge on the subject. As a third grade teacher required to teach his students how to write in cursive, Wagner not only drilled the students in how to master fine penmanship but also harnessed their imaginations and unbridled sense of youthful curiosity and justice.

In a letter writing and t-shirt selling campaign that lasted many years, Wagner and his students raised money for bronze busts sculpted by a former student’s father to be placed in universities all over the country. In fact, if you feel like seeing one in person, the University of Michigan has one on display in the Atrium in their EECS building. At this point in time there are 19 donated bronze busts of Tesla in universities all over the United States. In fact, at the time on a tip from his younger son, Wagner contacted the band Tesla, and they ended up donating $1,800 to the cause.

Notably, one of the first places Wagner went to donate a bronze bust of Tesla was The Henry Ford Museum, but was told that they “had no use for it…at the “Edison Institute.” Wagner ran into a similar situation with the Smithsonian Institution. After offering a bust to the Smithsonian, accompanied by a student letter, a week later they got a letter back saying “Sorry, we have no use for it.” In spring 1989 they went to Washington, and saw that there was a bust of Edison sitting right next to an exhibit of one of Tesla’s inventions with no mention of Tesla, even though his patent number was right on it. If anything, it’s snubs like these that seemed to have spurned Wagner to work all the harder to bring education about Tesla to young students.

In fact, one of the things that I found most interesting about Wagner’s work involving Tesla awareness in elementary-age students are the two children’s books he has written about the inventor. The first one is already out, complete with a wide array of color illustrations, and the second book is due out later this summer. These books are the culmination of 27 years devoted to making knowledge about Nikola Tesla easily accessible to young minds. In 2002, Wagner was awarded a lifetime achievement award for his work in education of Tesla at the Telluride Technical Festival.

According to Wagner, in 1896 when Tesla electrified the power of Niagara Falls, the “…world exploded with progress…and [then] the world promptly forgot about Tesla because they had gotten what they wanted…people don’t realize how important polyphase electric current rotating until they don’t have it.” Essentially, we take it for granted until the power goes out.

Do you like the fact that your laptop works and you can Skype with your friends overseas? Thank Tesla.

Are you a fan of the Information Super-Highway? Thank Tesla.

Do you love (as I do) your NPR “driveway moments?” Thank Tesla.

At it most elemental, Tesla harnessed the power to make all of those things possible for us to enjoy. He created the stepping stone into the 20th and 21st century of technological discovery, all powered by an imagination and understanding of the world and how it works that comes along once in a lifetime.

Tesla was a unique human being, and one who was also deeply plagued with depression, severe obsessive compulsive disorder and a fight for his life and discoveries against far more well-funded opponents seeking to capitalize off of new scientific discoveries (think Thomas Edison) that chased him essentially all the way to his grave. On his Web site, John Wagner describes Tesla as the man “who invented tomorrow.”

So, the last question I asked John Wagner was, “How will you be spending Nikola Tesla Day?"

His answer was this:

“…I consider everyday of the year Nikola Tesla Day. In short, July 10 for me is no different than any other day because I am 'on the job' celebrating and promoting him everyday.”

You can't really hope for a better celebration than that.

Morning Thoughts: Bon Jovi can still make me cry - May, 2010.

2010-07-02T15:30:00.001-04:00

I recently came across my old Bon Jovi greatest hits album. This is a) totally awesome, and b) dangerous. Because here’s what happens to almost-thirty-something’s when they get a hold of some rockin’ Bon Jovi: they go into their regular morning haunt and sit there, eyes looking out from the world of the ipod, and they start uncontrollably fist pumping and singing along like they’re in some kind of misguided karaoke competition, contestant count one. “Livin’ on a prayer” comes to mind as perhaps one of the best righteous ballads with which to rock out.

Before we get halfway there, I am living on a prayer. And then we get to “Always” and I, an intelligent, independent woman well past the “Untamed Heart” 14-year-old pining stage, begin to have trouble stemming the tide of just a really, really, really good cry. :)

It’s amazing how some songs have the ability to instantly transport one back to the sixth-grade roller skating party at the Shores roller rink, standing on the sidelines inwardly convulsing in sobs because the “couples skate” is happening and Whitney Houston is singing the theme from “The Bodyguard” and you are alone, gripping a carpeted wall. “You give love a bad name” comes on in my headphones just in time to bring me back to the present with its defiant anger and prevent a full-on emotional collapse. My mind drifts to the skating rink again…It’s okay that at the end of the night when you go over to the rounded couches to take of your brown suede rental skates you will be doing so alone. It’s okay that no boy ever gets up the courage to say “Hi”. But hey, sixth-grade self, it’s okay, the guy you want doesn’t even exist yet.

But then you begin to hear the strains of “Patience” by Guns n’ Roses as the lights turn on and as the few lingering couples do the last few loops on the baby blue skating rink floor your heart swells for a love that you long to know one day.

And then “Bed of Roses” begins on your ipod, and there you are: 28 years old and crying openly in Sweetwaters. Wiping away your errant tears under the scrutiny of a semi-concerned look coming from a frat boy sitting near you, you hide behind the bangs that you are shaking in front of your eyes in a lame effort to disguise the fact that Bon Jovi can still make you cry.

It’s enough to make you want to run over to where your man is working, take him in your arms and lay him down in a bed of roses.

You ankle it out the door and down the street, stepping in time to “Blaze of Glory”, your hips swaying to the dulcet tones of that kid from New Jersey with rock and roll dreams and what sounds like an entire gospel choir singing behind him propelling you onward.

Confessions of a (very) curvy girl: Part 27: Endurance in dieting not the easiest thing

2010-06-25T09:56:00.000-04:00

The other day, I changed my gchat status to, “Am now officially girl who sits at desk eating baby carrots.” Because honestly, keeping up the low-calorie eating throughout the days that I am stuck to my desk is difficult. I like to have something to chew on while I consider, ponder, work. It’s more of an unconscious habit, and instead of doing that with a candy bar, I’m just putting something more healthy conveniently within my grasp.
OK, so the U.S. team just won a big game in the World Cup; if they can do that, then I can keep on with my plans to get and stay healthy. I’m not even a soccer fan per se, but I do love rooting for the home team, especially when they’re the underdog.

So maybe I’m the underdog in the losing weight game. Discipline and routine are things that I really need to concentrate hard on or they won’t happen. I have still been meeting my calorie goals daily (except for a little deviation on some weekend days), but I’ve gone from working out every day to every other day or so, and I really feel the difference. It’s definitely time to go back to once a day on the exercises. I have lost a little weight, and being in that position, where the proverbial tread on the shoes holding me up from sliding right back down into the blubbery chasm makes me feel like I have a little wiggle room, I need to make myself grip the hilltop all the harder lest I slip altogether (and yes, I just used the word “lest”)

“Don’t slip, Liz.” That should be the mantra. “So you’ve lost a little weight, but that does not mean that if you drink two beers and eat a bunch of cheese that it won’t show. You’ll just be back (and bloated with heartburn) where you started.”

Not this time. Not this time, I say! You hear me self? You hear me irrational cravings? You hear me skewed sense of accountability and personal physical appearance? Can you smell what I’m cooking?

That’s right. I’m getting all drill sergeant on my own ass.

Hence, the baby carrots…and the raw broccoli, though both are great with hummus, and what’s a little hummus between friends?

I mean it’s fascinating to learn about what comprises ones daily caloric intake. It’s also a rather rude surprise to realize how little it takes to fill it. For instance, today, my calorie tracker goes something like this (and keep in mind these are only approximates in many cases):

Breakfast:

¾ cup milk: 120 calories
Cinnamon Cereal: 290 calories

Lunch:

Amy’s Paneer Tikka: 320 calories
Annie’s Bunny Grahams, Chocolate: 215.8 calories

Total: 945.8 calories according to the free tracker I use.

However, this tracker also allows me to track mundane and unavoidable daily doings in my “burned calories” column. I often track these to feel better about munching on the chocolate bunny cookies and perhaps the occasional assignation to The Cupcake Station for minis.

For instance, today’s burned calories at the moment (until I go home and work out) are:

Typing, 240 minutes: 501 calories burned. And yes, I know it’s totally lame to track one's clerical duties as exercise. I also know that it helps me feel accomplished when I see that little “calories” bar jump backwards when I enter in how much typing I do in a day. It’s more for show to myself than it is a genuine accomplishment.

Something in my methods must be working though, because this past weekend, alarmingly aware that I had no summertime work attire, I drove myself down to Target and did some shopping. You know what? Homegirl fit into a size medium dress. We are back in the green hanger zone! It felt good. I wore the dress to a baby shower on Saturday, and I didn’t feel uncomfortable in it at all. (Insert happy dance here.) As more of the things that have been gathering dust in my closet slowly slide back into focus and fit, I’m excited to keep working on the progression.

More Confessions of a (very) curvy girl will come out every other Wednesday.

Limp Handshakes

2010-06-15T10:43:00.000-04:00

If there's one thing I can't abide, it's a limp handshake. There's really very little in this world more creepy and offputting when you first meet someone than a clammy, uncommitted, timid greeting of the hand in which the other person simply sets their fingers in your hand and you begin to squeeze, a socially requisite action during which you find yourself feeling slightly nauseous as you try and find the least awkward way to relinquish the overwhelming feeling of a fistful of gummy pasta in your hand. You feel the distinct need to wipe and wash your hands directly afterward lest the slimy fish guts feeling remain emblazoned on your skin.

Am I right or am I right?

Confessions of a (Very) Curvy Girl Part 26: Eating less is like quitting smoking

2010-06-11T14:23:00.000-04:00

Posted: Jun 10, 2010 at 6:00 AM [Yesterday]

A couple of (very) curvy girls having a (very) good time.

*Note: There is a slight schedule change. New installments of “Curvy Girl” will now come out every other Wednesday.

Recently, I’ve had a revelation of sorts. When I lived in Chicago (2000-2005), there was a period toward the end of my time there when I got incredibly skinny, skinnier than I had been in high school. I mean, I actually lost my Murray behind (and by this I mean the posterior characteristic that unites all of the relatives on my mom’s side of the family whether we like it or not. Male or female, it does not matter. Gain enough weight and the Murray behind will follow you everywhere - literally.)

I didn’t have saddlebags, my thighs didn’t touch and I zipped a zero at Banana Republic. I couldn’t breathe, but I zipped a zero. At the time I wasn’t as concerned with health as I was concerned with being depressed. I was thin, but I was miserable. Granted, that misery was due to a number of things, but that was the situation nonetheless.

When I moved home and eventually gained a little weight back, I began to ponder whether being thin for me was synonymous with being horribly depressed, which, in itself was a depressing thought. I should have reminded myself that when I first started college and put on a lot of weight that I wasn’t that happy either. Then I was eating because I was lonely and didn’t give half a rat turd what people thought of how I looked. I was a heavy smoker, I drank tons of coffee and I could fall asleep at the drop of a hat. Greasy and fatty foods were cheap, too, and everywhere. I think the whole spring semester of my sophomore year I subsisted on the yogurt-drop trail mix from the school vending machine and the occasional candy bar. Even then, overweight. I was not healthy at all either though, and when I did lose a ton of weight later on, I was still extremely unhealthy.

I quit smoking somewhere around 5 or 6 years ago; I can’t remember. It was about a year and a half before I moved back to Michigan. Sometime in the months following that was when I decided to trade in the habitual ritual that I had enjoyed so much in smoking and turn it to something just as odious but not quite as harmful: counting calories. I also turned to the diet “food” the so-called neutraceuticals: the low-fat no-fat world. It left me with a void. I felt awful most of the time, but I kept eating the horrible stuff in what I’ve thought since was some sort of self-torture. I suppose one woman’s low-fat low-sugar miracle diet shake is another woman’s cry for help.

I can remember feeling so weak at the time and being worried about what was actually in these foods that I was eating. I did some light exercise, but other than that my days were consumed with worry (about, well, you name it - everything) and calorie counting.

It would be great understatement to say that I wasn’t happy. The funny thing is that all I got were compliments. “Oh you look so thin!” and “I mean you can tell, in your stomach!” This was in sharp contrast to a couple of years later, when I was at my cousin's wedding wearing a cotton, somewhat clingy dress and my aunt asked me in the buffet line (I was of course loading a plate for my dad as well) if I was eating for two and then looked pointedly at my stomach.

At that time I would say that I weighed 40-50 pounds less than where I am right now and I wasn’t fat at all. I thought that I was a little heftier than I wanted to be, but looking back, I really wasn’t. Not for what I want my body to look like.

The revelation I’ve had lately though is that I can start anew. From here I can formulate a plan that is healthy that will keep me in good shape long term. I’ve always thought of weight loss as an exercise in self-deprivation, and in some ways it can be, but thinking about it like that is quite possibly one of the biggest reasons for my failures in weight loss up until this point. Now I’m starting to really come to terms with the excesses I’ve become used to and the difference between that and what is healthy. Daily life has become a practice of overindulgence.

Why? How did it get to be this way? I don’t know. I’m literally not sure when it happened. I suppose somewhere between having no money in college and a reinvigorated interest in good food those things led to me wanting a whole ton of it, but I think that’s relatively normal. The real problems come with portion control and frequency. One croissant is lovely, but perhaps two and a muffin on top of all the other meals of the day is not the best course of action to propel yourself on your way to wellness.

One of the hardest things that I find about losing weight is that food I want to eat is everywhere. I’m not just talking about crappy food either. I have been willing to shell out for some wonderfully sourced, excellently prepared and highly caloric meals … often. And then desserts, and drinks, etc.

So much in the manner that I quit smoking, I am attempting to quit overindulgent eating. The past few weeks I have been getting used to working out nearly every day. I have slowly but surely been weeding out the worst food during that time as well. Now in this past week I have set strict calorie goals each day and exercise goals as well and I have been making myself meet those goals. Of course there are always exceptions, such as our good friends are getting married soon (a big what up to Nat and Leigh here, congratulations you guys!), and I am not going to curtail my merriment too much by calorie counting. The calories will still be there to count on the day after (I wonder if all the ibuprofen I’ll be taking that day will have a lot of calories? Just kidding folks.)

Also, a positive side effect of working out regularly and eating less in general is that I am not really able to eat the big meals like I used to. I have to stop a lot earlier into the plate if you know what I mean. Last weekend I was up on the Leelanau Peninsula with a group from my grad program (EMU HP - hay-ay! Raise the roof, push the walls, push the floor) and we were invited to be the first group dining at a new heritage bed and breakfast, the Hillside Homestead, run by wildly knowledgeable food historian Susan Odom.

This food was … magical. Her pickles really are the bomb, I mean to die for. In fact last year I had some of her pickled asparagus, and anyone who knows me will tell you I haven’t shut up about it since. I could only eat so much that night though, even though lord knows I tried to overcome my shrunken stomach for the spread that lay before me. Staring forlornly at my dessert, which was, if memory serves correctly, a brandied apple cake with only one meager bite out of it. It was a crying shame, but I just couldn’t shove it in. But I sure did finish the rest of everything put in front of me. (Come to think of it, I did have some room left for the hard cider from Tandem Ciders … maybe I had just reached my “solids” limit.)

Every dish on the table was made to be authentic for the region at the turn of the last century. And I’ll tell you what - early 1900’s Leelanau must have been a freaking delicious time to be alive.

I took away a feeling of some encouragement that even when faced with probably some of the most perfect food I have ever eaten, I still was able to pull away after I was only mildly overfull. A month ago that would have been wolfed down and I would have been trying to sneak seconds.

I think in the end, just as with smoking, for me success has to be framed by wanting to change. I had tried to quit smoking before I actually did, and it hadn’t stuck. The only time I was successfully able to almost completely quell that urge came when I decided I was ready for the change. So too with weight. I haven’t necessarily eaten my last brownie, but instead of something that could have been a biweekly occurrence in months past, maybe it will be a biannual craving. I haven’t been wanting extra sugary things or really greasy things either. It’s funny: Healthy eating perpetuates more healthy eating. It’s just getting on that track that is the hard part.

At long last though, I feel like I’m actually getting there.

Oliverio Sister’s Pasta e Pasta

2010-06-11T14:18:00.000-04:00

Posted: May 30, 2010 at 7:00 AM [May 30, 2010]

Diane Allan and Debbie Moran, the Oliverio twins, at the Ann Arbor Farmers Market in Kerrytown.

Elizabeth Palmer | AnnArbor.com

Well, if the humidity is an indication, we are at long last reaching summertime in our fair state. Michigan has traded in its mitten for a string bikini, the canoe liveries are open and the Wednesday Farmers Market at Kerrytown has started up again. With all the bounty that is spilling from the farm stalls, it is easy to forget that not all that long ago we were still in the clutches of the bitter, frigid onslaught of a Michigan winter.

The throngs of people who attend the Saturday Kerrytown market travel in a different time space than other people. Now being one of them, on a leisurely morning, I can get that glazed look in my eyes and stop abruptly in the middle of one of the aisles as well as anyone else. That being said, woe be tied to anyone who is in a hurry, and I have definitely been one of those people too.

In the warmer months, this phenomenon increases exponentially. The people milling about are packed more densely, and the will and exertion it takes to not become completely embroiled in pedestrian rage is immense. That being said, it is well worth dealing with the crowd to get there. One of the stands that always makes me smile and love the bustling market is the Pasta e Pasta booth run buy the Oliverio twins, Diane and Debbie.

While moving with the tide of other market goers, keep your eyes peeled for them. Having weathered the entire winter season at the market, I am always struck each time I visit by how kind and cheerful they always are - smiles all around.

The history of Pasta e Pasta is a family affair. Family owned and operated since 2002, Pasta e Pasta pastas and sauces were sold only in a few bakeries and Italian food stores on the eastside until last year. The Oliviero sisters partnered with their cousin, who started the business, in August 2009. It was then that the twins began to bring the Pasta e Pasta goods to markets in the Ann Arbor area. They have a booth at the Ann Arbor Farmers Market every Wednesday and Saturday, and they are also at the Northville Farmer’s Market on Thursdays. Recently, some of their frozen items (raviolis and sauces) have also become available for sale at Plum Market.

So what do they make? Well, for starters, they have five different kinds of pasta: spinach, whole wheat, tomato basil, egg and a mixed blend. Each of these pastas also comes in four different cuts: spaghetti, fettuccine, pappardelle and rotini. If you are into ravioli, you’re in luck. Pasta e Pasta makes five kinds of frozen ravioli: pumpkin, spinach ricotta, portabella mushroom, four cheese (quarto formaggio) and roasted vegetable. They also make potato and potato spinach gnocchi. For sauce, you have the choice of either marinara or blush. During the holidays, Pasta e Pasta also sells gift baskets. So if you’re thinking or treating yourself to Italian food, Pasta e Pasta may be just your bag.

Pasta e Pasta's booth at the Ann Arbor Farmers Market.

For inquiries, you can reach Diane at: 248-974-0971 and Debbie at: 734-883-1907. You can also reach them by e-mail at: TheOliverioTwins@pasta-e-pasta.com.

Working out, having fun - and my boots feel looser

2010-06-11T14:11:00.000-04:00

Posted: May 26, 2010 at 9:30 AM [May 26, 2010]

When I was younger, I never thought that the phrase, “Wow, my boots feel a little looser” would be a cause for celebration. Apparently the younger me had a different definition of victory.

From where I’m sitting - I mean standing of course, got to remain active - it’s a noteworthy benchmark when my leather-ish boots almost actually pull up over my calves. Admittedly, when I wore them before, the seal formed by plugging my bountiful and stocky leg into the just-too-small opening in the boot was enough to send me flailing off the sofa with a “pop!” as I wrenched them off my feet at the end of the day. Eventually, I believe that this insistence on wearing ill-fitting boots was what caused my feet some extreme pain and may have curtailed some of the blood flow to the bottommost parts of my understructure over the last couple of months. Not the case today. Today, my boots still don’t completely fit over my calves, but I have some room in the calf area for my leg to move within it and not be stuck in the same position for the entire day. This, for me, is new.

Thanks to the bellydance DVD reawakening that I’ve been experiencing lately, it’s something that I can count as an achievement. I’ve had fleeting thoughts about standing outside at the corner of Fifth and Liberty, working my lungs to shout over the din of construction and yelling, “Hey everybody! The circumferences of my calves are shrinking! How do you like me now? Yeah. That’s what I thought.” And then I would proceed to nod my head up and down emphatically to accompany the wild gleam in my eyes.

This week, I tried to mix it up by throwing the Belly Twins Neena and Veena’s Bollywood Blast and Indy Hop DVDs into the rotation. And though I swear it is just the same twin Photo-shopped twice on to the cover of the Bollywood Blast, it does not diminish the quality of the cardio workout held therein. Sure, I’m awkward with the bouncing and skipping movements, the whole coordinating my arms and legs thing. I also can’t deny that when I don’t move the rug in the living room I see my life flash before my eyes each time one of my feet hits the floor and makes the rug slip, but all in all, the routines are still fun.

Myrtle (my best friend), who reads all of the girly magazines so that I don’t have to, told me about a feature recently published in one of them. The piece paired five women with five different personal trainers in a comparison of how much weight and what percentage of body fat they lost under each different regimen. Apparently the winner in terms of body fat lost followed a regimen of 1,200 calories a day and intensive power yoga five days a week. Now, let me start by saying that at 1,200 calories a day most people would be reduced to the size of a toothpick. What Myrtle and I found interesting though was the percentage of body fat lost, i.e., the healthier the body became, not just skinnier.

The woman who followed this regimen dropped more than 15 pounds and 12 percent of her body fat in 6 weeks. Personally, I know that yoga in general has always made my body feel infinitely better when I keep it up, so that sounds like an additional bonus to me. She loses 15 pounds in 6 weeks. Meanwhile, I continue to slap the underside of my neck in a somewhat vain effort to keep the skin taut.

I know that it will take much longer than I think to really get things in shape, but I’m thinking that slender ankles and more slender calves are, in my case, nothing to sneeze at. I am also continuing to have fun working out, and this past Sunday my bellydance class was awesome. Up on our toes, twisting, shimmying - it was great. I left with my muscles feeling loose but strong and lovely.

For me, whether I work out in the morning or the evening makes a difference. In the morning, if I’ve had to get up before my body wants to, the workout is a stiff and unbalanced performance. To put it another way, in the morning, I’m doing the “modified” version. At night, once I’ve been awake and moving all day (unless I’ve been wearing really uncomfortable shoes), my body is more prepped for a workout. This, however, presents its own challenges:

Generally, evenings are when other people you live with may just want to sit and watch TV without you indy hopping all over the living room. In fact, you may be tempted as well to watching something other than the calories evaporating from your ample gluteus maximus.

The cat may attack you while you are wearing your short pants … ouch.

The cat may interpret your workout as some sort of non-verbal declaration of battle and proceed to bounce off the walls and loll about by your feet while you are trying to perfect your “bolly lift.”

Others in your presence may taunt you and your musical choices by dancing around the room while playing the pennywhistle. You know who you are.

You could reveal to the person you live with that you are, in fact, a head sweater.

Bearing all these things in mind, it’s still worth it. I could go work out in the basement, but it’s just lonely down there with the unpacked boxes of yet more pots and pans and the aromatic hockey equipment.

In order to stay motivated, if I find something that works, I have to just keep doing it. Gaps in performance or doing anything that makes it lose its luster is a no-no. I just ordered a power yoga DVD to add to the rotation, so we’ll see how that goes. Until next week, here’s to more pennywhistle accompaniments (you know I love them) and more cat attacks. Oh, the trials.

Belly dancing, a strategy in action

2010-06-11T12:20:00.000-04:00

Posted: May 19, 2010 at 1:00 PM [May 19, 2010]

Part 24: Shimmy shimmy, burn burn.

Anyone who knows me or has seen me uncontrollably yawning during an elevator ride at noon can tell you that I am not even marginally a morning person. However lately, after only two and a half years of practice, I am finally really getting motivated to become a good belly dancer; it is getting me out of bed in the morning - or in some cases, keeping me up later at night.

I’ve been studying with some great teachers the last couple of years and having a lot of fun, (shout out to Nadira and Unveiled) but I think that it is my recent bout of performing in public in a few student haflas that has been pushing me along to actually be a better dancer. I’m finding that I love performing with all the girls. Getting all dressed up and nervous about going up to perform - for some reason it brings back fond memories of sleepovers from when I was a kid, a group of girls all having genuine fun with each other. Though in that case most of us were nerding out about boys, listening to the New Kids on the Block before they were NKOTB and playing “light as a feather, stiff as a board,” but I digress.

The weekend before last when the Detroit Raqs Convention was in town, I took a workshop with Leilani from the Double Moon Project (an amazing dancer) and it hit home again more than it had in my week to week classes that I could do this if I wanted to, but I have a long way to go. It was a good thing to realize, because it is making me get up in time to do a belly dance DVD on most mornings (I mean, I’ll be honest with you, I’m not getting up right with the alarm clock every morning, but early enough). When I can’t get up in the mornings, this newfound motivation has spurred me on to work out even in front of my boyfriend - a thing unheard of. I am working out with the dance because I love the dance.

Don’t get me wrong, despite writing about it almost every week for the past six months, I hadn’t as yet reached even close to the steady level of motivation needed to really effect some positive change on my body. So I am as surprised as anybody that this is actually sticking and that I am still thoroughly enjoying it. In fact, I am enjoying it more and more the better I get and the more I learn. It doesn’t matter that I was waaay off in my performance last Friday (like when I did a little rendition of the twist instead of the cute little bend and shoulder shimmy that everyone else did, you know, the move we were supposed to do), or that I still can’t manage to get the timing right on my arms. It just matters that I’m doing it.

I’m finding it really amazing, though, that you can do something for more than two years and still be so uncoordinated, but eh, coordination has never, ever been my strong suit. Sometime after the age of 8 I lost my ability to balance well, and since then it’s been all downhill. Prior to that I had even taken ice skating lessons and managed to stay upright, at one point well enough to attempt small jumps. Now nearing 30, if I can just walk up the stairs without my shoe catching on the step and sending me flailing it is a victory. In some cases this dancing thing is an exercise in regaining body awareness for me.

Belly dancing also has helped in terms of the whole weight loss conundrum as well. Not so much in that I’ve lost a ton of weight (yet), but in that traditionally, I tend to not have a realistic sense of anything when it comes to my appearance, much less my actual size. I mean, I am only five feet tall, but I never think about it. As far as I am concerned, I could be eye to eye with Andre the Giant. In some ways that is good, and in other ways it can be slightly detrimental. Dancing has really become a great tool for me to use to just get a realistic idea of what my body is like. Also, dancing has provided me great revelations in terms of how my body moves and how it feels when I move. It’s also making me realize that I’ve been largely inert for the better portion of my life.

The fact remains, though, that I have worked out nearly every day for the past 10 days and I’m still yearning to do more.

Ann Arbor's Harvest Kitchen dishes up convenient, fresh local food

2010-06-11T12:06:00.000-04:00

Posted: May 7, 2010 at 9:04 AM [May 7, 2010]

Mary Wessel Walker runs the kitchen and the stand for the Harvest Kitchen, formerly named the Community Farm Kitchen.

“The goal here is to make it easier for people to eat fresh local food, to make it convenient, to make it easier for people to connect ... to the food and the land.” This is how Harvest Kitchen founder Mary Wessel Walker describes her business.

Chances are that if you’ve wandered up and down the aisles at the Ann Arbor Farmers Market in Kerrytown on any given Saturday, you’ve seen Wessel Walker. A vibrant part of the fabric that makes up our local food movement here in Ann Arbor, Wessel Walker runs the kitchen and the stand for the Harvest Kitchen, formerly named the Community Farm Kitchen.

Essentially, the Harvest Kitchen provides CSA (community supported agriculture) shares that consist of prepared meal items with ingredients sourced from local farms in the area. Wessel Walker has recently changed the name of her business to Harvest Kitchen in order to reflect the change of the addition of goods from several farms including the Community Farm being included on the menu, rather than sourcing its produce strictly from the Community Farm alone. Right now, the produce is still primarily coming from the Community Farm, but Wessel
Walker is forming relationships with Tantre Farm, Frog Holler Organic Farm and Our Family Farm to name a few. She is also hoping to get more involved with other local farms as well, including farms that are just starting out, like Sunseed Farm, in an effort to further support the local food chain.

The Community Farm Kitchen started in 2007, and now in its fourth year of business, the newly renamed Harvest Kitchen is growing with the same health and vigor as the grassroots local food movement is in Washtenaw County.

Moving forward on the path of providing “convenience and increased accessibility” to locally grown food, the Harvest Kitchen is continually reinventing itself in response to the community’s interests. What began as a totally vegetarian share CSA has now grown to include meat from Old Pine Farm in its offerings this year. Last year, the Harvest Kitchen cooked and prepped for 17 vegetarian shares (approximately enough food for 28 families). This past winter, they tried a 10-share pilot program working with meat from Old Pine Farm and produce from local frozen food CSA Locavorious. The word is that people seem to be enjoying the meat option. This year, the Harvest Kitchen’s goal is to sell 35 shares total (food for about 40-50 families), giving the customer the choice of whether they want vegetarian or “omnivore” shares. According to Wessel Walker, the omnivore shares are not necessarily meat-heavy, but that they do provide a good balance.

The food used for the Harvest Kitchen shares mostly comes from CSA shares that the Harvest Kitchen gets from the farms they utilize. For example, the meat from Old Pine Farm is frozen, as it is picked up every month rather than every week like the produce, and then used throughout the season. A share, to give some perspective of size, is roughly enough for a family of four to five people, and a half share would feed a couple well. Wessel Walker stresses though that this depends totally on the shareholder and that everybody is different. She says that there is “lots of flexibility and people can adapt it to their eating pattern in a way that works for them.”

The recipes for the prepared food items you receive in a share are determined by the food coming into the kitchen from the farms. With the veggies, the dishes will vary throughout the season.

When you purchase a share, you are buying a weekly allotment of food for 25 weeks. The season stretches from June to November, and you can purchase either a half or a full share. I asked Wessel Walker how that varied throughout the season. She said that in June, “the farm is just beginning to go into production…[it] challenges our ingenuity to know what to do with it.”

As an example of one of these early summer shares, she offered the following:

• A nice, green salad
• Dill hummus or salad dressing
• Spinach soup or a spinach bake

Later in the season, the menu changes. For example:

• Ratatouille
• Green salad
• Slaw
• Tomato sauce
• Stuffed chard

Harvest Kitchen aims to make four to five different dishes/items per week. Wessel Walker says that throughout the season, a healthy green salad is generally a part of pretty much every share. Since there are tons of greens throughout the season, they try to mix it up: “We try to do a lot of different things with greens … we try to vary [it] ...” When all else fails, you may just have to enjoy a delicious gazpacho or a savory pesto more than once in a season; poor you!

Another expansion to the business is that Wessel Walker recently brought on a partner, Michelle Hartmann. Until now, it has been pretty much a one-woman show managerially speaking. After having met Wessel Walker and seeing her at the Ann Arbor Farmers Market week after week and through all the cold winter months, I am convinced that she is a model for self-motivation. Bringing on Hartmann this season will only add to the motivation in the kitchen. Hartmann brings a background in business, but Wessel Walker says that Hartmann is “no stranger to farming.”

The plan for next year is to expand to offer shares for the whole year with the inclusion of a full-fledged winter CSA program again incorporating Old Pine Farm meats, and vegetarian shares will be available as well. Though the details for the winter season are “still being hammered out,” Harvest Kitchen is planning to continue their relationship with Locavorious and their tradition of turning out delicious local meals for the convenience of their shareholders.

At this point, Wessel Walker says it’s a good time to “look back, look ahead, [and] see what changes we can make.”

You can still sign up for shares through mid-May, and Harvest Kitchen will keep the sign-up period open until it’s full.

More information about how to sign up for a share can be found here.

What the "Curvy Girl" blog has been missing: measurements

2010-06-11T11:38:00.000-04:00

As Myrtle always tells me, “You have to take your measurements and weigh yourself to see if you’re losing weight. You can’t just rely on whether or not your clothes fit looser when they just came out of the dryer.”

She’s right. I know it. But the thought of actually pulling this nebulous weight problem (it’s nebulous in my head) down into a tangible reality by attaching numbers to it makes me nervous. Generally, when things become so concrete and full of arithmetic something inside makes me stubbornly resistant to conformity. I feel a strong natural aversion to not allowing myself wiggle room. That’s why counting calories for me is like prison. Never any time at all when you don’t have to be tabulating your day, never a time without a constant barometer of failure lurking.

I’m not in the habit of carrying around a tape measure or a owning any manner of scale, so I wonder what people will think when they see me wrapping my silk scarf around my hips and waist, etc., then holding the length up to a 15 inch straight ruler several times. Let them wonder. This is for the purposes of science! Hold on a sec while I do this…there.

The scarf and ruler method has revealed my measurements to be the following:

Bust: 36.5
Waist: 34.5
Hips: 45.5
Bum: 47
Height: 5’1/2”
Self-consciousness after writing this post: Scarf potentially not long enough.

This is obviously a very precise science :). The problem is that I don’t know what any of this means, let alone care. I mean really, all I am concerned about with my size is my health and whether or not my clothes fit comfortably. I don’t like having to buy new clothes to accommodate a growing bootie or a torso that has been known to pop tummy-level buttons. Obviously I have purchased new clothes as the pounds have come on so that I don’t look like a complete maniac with my tummy hanging out and a serious case of plumber’s butt, but I don’t like it. Actually, even telling people I am going on a diet is anathema to my process of success. It goes to the fact that I rarely feel that I ever do what I make a point of telling people I will do; or, at least, I rarely ever do it in the time frame expected. It’s because I rarely (almost never) plan for anything correctly - my sense of time, money and proportion is generally based on a lot of what if’s rather than the certainties alone and that misconstrued conception can lead to overcommitting, overeating and overflowing with anxiety.

This bites me the worst when it comes to time management. As anyone who reads this blog regularly can tell you, there have been several “Wednesday” posts that have appeared sometimes on say a Friday. I just don’t have a realistic idea of how long things will take, and that results in me always scrambling to put things together. You’d think after decades now of being in school of one kind or another and having deadlines all the time that would have changed. Unfortunately, my experience has been that I am more creative under pressure, which exacerbates the whole time management issue. During my undergrad (photography), there was one time that I made a point of doing my research paper ahead of time. I can’t remember even what class it was for, but for all of that plodding and planning what I do remember is that the grade I received on that paper was by far one of the worst grades I had ever gotten in my entire life. In contrast, when I took 20th Century Photography, with the absolutely incomparable and wildly intelligent visiting professor (for one semester and I was lucky enough to have him) from Purdue, Michael Weinstein, my writing was always being done at four o’clock in the morning on the day of class, and I produced some of the best things I’ve ever written. The combo of a teacher that was constantly blowing my mind, tearing down the walls of the narrow paradigm I had lived in before entering the room, and my own mind naturally coming into its zenith during the night created a mixture somewhere near deep philosophical thought.

So when it comes to a personal wellness plan, I hesitate to release any tangible numbers so that they can’t be judged and picked apart. I have always wanted to do things at my own pace and in my own way. I write about it because writing is far and away my strongest method of communication, and it still allows me to feel that sense of security writing offers as a somewhat clandestine medium of expression. Unless I’ve had a sip of wine or two I’m not always the best conversationalist when I’m outside my comfort zone (and sometimes even then), and as a public speaker - forget about it. Not good. Writing allows me to arrange my thoughts and to craft exactly what I want to say and how I want to say it.

Bodies are not so easy to craft. Biologically, we do mold to our circumstances. Everything we experience informs this. The food we eat, the stimuli we come in contact with, the amount and quality of the sleep we get - all of this forms our bodies and our overall health over the long term. The problem with the crafting of the body is that it is such easy work to destroy and such difficult work to find your balance again once you’ve lost it.

Good habits started young can only help us as we grow. When I think of the celery and carrot sticks my Mom used to pack in my lunch when I was little, next to the peanut butter and jelly sandwich that had been squashed and had the jelly had soaking through the bread, it gives me a pang in my heart because I would give anything sometimes to have another lunch like that. Something my Mom packed for me specially. Something my Mom packed for me because she cared about me and wanted me to be healthy and strong. Most of us are given good health when we are young and it is our job to steward it through to our old age. Sure, I resented not having chips and twinkies at the time, but when I grew up and eventually started buying my own lunches, the trays of French fries and ranch dressing and blue slushies just didn’t cut the mustard.

Now here I am, able to make my own decisions about what goes in my body and I find the struggle against the lure of pop and chips and things of that ilk invading my senses too often. I don’t even really like these things all that much, but they are convenient and they are designed to be substitutes for real food, which makes them effective at fooling my system until later in the day when I crash and remember that “food” like that really does only make me feel like crap. Is organic, local food more expensive? Sometimes in the short run it does cost more; that is to say that it can cost more money, but financial concerns are only one factor of cost. Eating organic and sustainable food is definitely less costly in terms of the effect it has on the earth, and in terms of the disease we can potentially avoid. Even just the dollars we can save in healthcare costs by taking care of our bodies the right way now - it’s all well worth it.

Confessions of a (very) curvy girl: Working out, having fun - and my boots feel looser

2010-06-11T11:32:00.000-04:00

When I was younger, I never thought that the phrase, “Wow, my boots feel a little looser” would be a cause for celebration. Apparently the younger me had a different definition of victory.

From where I’m sitting - I mean standing of course, got to remain active - it’s a noteworthy benchmark when my leather-ish boots almost actually pull up over my calves. Admittedly, when I wore them before, the seal formed by plugging my bountiful and stocky leg into the just-too-small opening in the boot was enough to send me flailing off the sofa with a “pop!” as I wrenched them off my feet at the end of the day. Eventually, I believe that this insistence on wearing ill-fitting boots was what caused my feet some extreme pain and may have curtailed some of the blood flow to the bottommost parts of my understructure over the last couple of months. Not the case today. Today, my boots still don’t completely fit over my calves, but I have some room in the calf area for my leg to move within it and not be stuck in the same position for the entire day. This, for me, is new.

Thanks to the bellydance DVD reawakening that I’ve been experiencing lately, it’s something that I can count as an achievement. I’ve had fleeting thoughts about standing outside at the corner of Fifth and Liberty, working my lungs to shout over the din of construction and yelling, “Hey everybody! The circumferences of my calves are shrinking! How do you like me now? Yeah. That’s what I thought.” And then I would proceed to nod my head up and down emphatically to accompany the wild gleam in my eyes.

This week, I tried to mix it up by throwing the Belly Twins Neena and Veena’s Bollywood Blast and Indy Hop DVDs into the rotation. And though I swear it is just the same twin Photo-shopped twice on to the cover of the Bollywood Blast, it does not diminish the quality of the cardio workout held therein. Sure, I’m awkward with the bouncing and skipping movements, the whole coordinating my arms and legs thing. I also can’t deny that when I don’t move the rug in the living room I see my life flash before my eyes each time one of my feet hits the floor and makes the rug slip, but all in all, the routines are still fun.

Myrtle (my best friend), who reads all of the girly magazines so that I don’t have to, told me about a feature recently published in one of them. The piece paired five women with five different personal trainers in a comparison of how much weight and what percentage of body fat they lost under each different regimen. Apparently the winner in terms of body fat lost followed a regimen of 1,200 calories a day and intensive power yoga five days a week. Now, let me start by saying that at 1,200 calories a day most people would be reduced to the size of a toothpick. What Myrtle and I found interesting though was the percentage of body fat lost, i.e., the healthier the body became, not just skinnier.

The woman who followed this regimen dropped more than 15 pounds and 12 percent of her body fat in 6 weeks. Personally, I know that yoga in general has always made my body feel infinitely better when I keep it up, so that sounds like an additional bonus to me. She loses 15 pounds in 6 weeks. Meanwhile, I continue to slap the underside of my neck in a somewhat vain effort to keep the skin taut.

I know that it will take much longer than I think to really get things in shape, but I’m thinking that slender ankles and more slender calves are, in my case, nothing to sneeze at. I am also continuing to have fun working out, and this past Sunday my bellydance class was awesome. Up on our toes, twisting, shimmying - it was great. I left with my muscles feeling loose but strong and lovely.

For me, whether I work out in the morning or the evening makes a difference. In the morning, if I’ve had to get up before my body wants to, the workout is a stiff and unbalanced performance. To put it another way, in the morning, I’m doing the “modified” version. At night, once I’ve been awake and moving all day (unless I’ve been wearing really uncomfortable shoes), my body is more prepped for a workout. This, however, presents its own challenges:

Generally, evenings are when other people you live with may just want to sit and watch TV without you indy hopping all over the living room. In fact, you may be tempted as well to watching something other than the calories evaporating from your ample gluteus maximus.
The cat may attack you while you are wearing your short pants … ouch.
The cat may interpret your workout as some sort of non-verbal declaration of battle and proceed to bounce off the walls and loll about by your feet while you are trying to perfect your “bolly lift.”
Others in your presence may taunt you and your musical choices by dancing around the room while playing the pennywhistle. You know who you are.
You could reveal to the person you live with that you are, in fact, a head sweater.

Bearing all these things in mind, it’s still worth it. I could go work out in the basement, but it’s just lonely down there with the unpacked boxes of yet more pots and pans and the aromatic hockey equipment.

In order to stay motivated, if I find something that works, I have to just keep doing it. Gaps in performance or doing anything that makes it lose its luster is a no-no. I just ordered a power yoga DVD to add to the rotation, so we’ll see how that goes. Until next week, here’s to more pennywhistle accompaniments (you know I love them) and more cat attacks. Oh, the trials.

Confessions of a (very) curvy girl: My width has reached new heights

2010-06-11T11:31:00.002-04:00

Part Twenty-three: My width has reached new heights

I regret to say that it was not with surprise that I greeted the fact this morning that my hips are the exact width across as the distance between the tables at Sweetwater’s. I’ve been getting myself in the habit of waking up early every morning and going there to either read, write or both before I start my work day. It helps me be more productive and focus more attention on my writing, and it also provides me with a somewhat gauzy buffer between myself and the potentially jaw-clenching, teeth grinding aspects of the day to come.

I usually get a muffin of some sort from the Taste Our Goods girls in Sparrow’s Market, and then order a double decaf Americano with lots of room at the top. Once the drink is served, I promptly fill in the gap with half & half and, depending on the quality of the shots, one to four packets of raw sugar. If I wanted to analyze it, I could find many things wrong with this drink, this daily muffin and espresso pilgrimage - but I’d rather do nothing of the kind. To invoke a Kinky Friedman-ism, I am sometimes “a creature of narrow habit”, but not all habits are horrible.

When I lived in Chicago, I used to walk home from work (which I calculated out to be almost six miles) a few times a week. Taking those walks was how I learned the city. My route started at Daley Center Plaza downtown, down by the intersection of Washington and Dearborn Streets. I would usually cut down Dearborn and move south until I hit Jackson Street, then I would turn right and proceed west until I hit Halsted. My route varied a bit from day to day, but the main goal was to get myself down on Halsted, walking through Greektown at lunchtime. I would end up in the Artopolis restaurant and bakery more often than not. I would sit, order the soup of the day and a Greek Island salad and just savor it. It was peace and quiet well deserved after having to rouse myself from bed every morning at 4:15 a.m. just to take a cab in to work at the Starbucks on the concourse level of the Daley Center. All my tips each week went to that cab fare, but without a car and being a lone woman just five feet tall, taking the Red Line into work from the Southside at that time in the day just was not the safest idea.

On the couple of days I had off, I would vary the routine a little bit. I would take the El into town and walk to the Manadnock Building. On the ground level of the Manadnock Building was a Jacobs Brothers Bagels (they are now sadly closed). They had some warm, delicious bagels I’ll tell you, and very yummy veggie cream cheese. I’d order a bagel and a large coffee. While the bagel was being prepared, I would walk over to the coffee counter and fill my cup with decaf hazelnut coffee (with lots of room), milk and I believe at that time, Splenda. I had certain shops I frequented, and people knew me at the bank where I held an account. I had found it very easy for the most part to retain some small town feel in a big urban jungle. Of course it wasn’t all perfect. Walking through someone’s pee every day on my way to school, stressing about each penny I spent on those bagels and Greek salads and being constantly crowded with other people always in my bubble were not fun. All told though, Chicago was a great growth experience for me, and when I think back on it, my solitary habits with food are some of my fondest memories. Not unhealthy or gluttonous in any way, but quite the opposite. It was about taking the time to enjoy different parts of the city at my own pace, and it was delicious.

A side effect of all the walking was that while I was living in Chicago, I was the skinniest I’ve ever been. I walked everywhere, even in the winter. Using public transportation, stairs are just built into your day, and when I was there I was always moving. I suppose my point is that habits are not always bad. In my case, it’s about balancing my edible enjoyment with the right amount of physical activity. As I was saying to Myrtle just the other day, clearly I’m not willing to give up most of the food I want to eat; clearly. So, what level of physical activity do I have to maintain in order to stay at a size that makes me comfortable? I have aged since I lived in Chicago, and I already know it is harder for me to lose weight than it was then, even though it wasn’t easy then either.

So I’ve found the solution: I need to become an Olympic sprinter. Then I can eat whatever I want and it won’t show.

Either that, or I need to put on my big girl pants and make some hard decisions about how I can best manage my time (and motivate myself) to include set hours each week where I work out.

Options for Self:

a) Go to yoga for strength training, muscle health and peace of mind.
b) Take Nia classes at the yoga studio to burn calories, boost that serotonin and sweat like an animal while dancing like a madwoman in a non-threatening environment.
c) Learn Ann Arbor one step at a time vis-à-vis Chicago experience.
d) Expand front yard garden; the bending, stooping and lifting is good for you even if your butt does show from time to time. Those cedar chips have been waiting patiently for a year (seriously, oh god) now to be spread on the ground.
e) Stand in your living room and alarm the cat by going through your own version of a pilates ball and yoga workout.
f) Pop one of the several bellydance and Bollywood dance DVD’s you own into the blue ray machine and get to hippin’ and hoppin’ in the living room.
g) Keep in mind that one day you may want people to be able to see your actual belly roll in the flesh when you perform in the future. There’s only so much you can see in an opaque black dress.

*h) Incorporate Lady Gaga as much into daily life as possible.

Non-Options for Self:

a) Breaking another clasp or tearing off another button on the waistline of any of my pairs of pants.
b) Going through another summer (after this one I suppose) feeling more comfortable with the idea of wearing a burlap sack than a bathing suit.
c) Continuing to have to pry, yank and cajole my meaty upper arms out of short-sleeved shirts that formerly fit.
d) Knowing what it feels like, while wearing a dress, to have my gut literally rest on the top of my thighs when I lean not all that far forward.
e) Defeat.
f ) Getting any bigger. This has to stop. Immediately.
g) Beating up Self. Is it Popeye who said, “I ams what I ams and that’s all that I ams?” He was right. I’m going to try and implement working out regularly, but you don’t get any sort of healthy workout by kicking your own ass.

Caught eating ice cream, stress bubbling to the surface; but still losing weight?

2010-06-11T11:30:00.002-04:00

Part Twenty-one

All right, let’s start with this headline: "Caught eating ice cream...but still losing weight?”

Now, some people might say (maybe even those who see me in my day-to-day life), “Homegirl has clearly lost her mind. She’s not losing weight, she’s losing touch with reality.” They might say, “If she’s convinced that she’s more svelte, clearly her adhesion to lucidity has finally broken under all that strain of new stretch marks and cellulite. That’s it! It’s the cellulite that’s corrupting her brain!”

All that may be true, but nonetheless, I find myself looking in the mirror lately and slowly but surely liking what I see more and more. As I said at the outset of this whole thing, my goal is not to be the skinniest I can be. I just want to get to a point where I feel healthier and look the way I’d like - curvy, but not bulging and burdened by my extra mass. Also, I don’t want to give the wrong impression for people reading this perhaps for the first time: Fat is not a bad word. I love voluptuous, junk-in-the-trunk curvaceousness. I’m aiming to keep mine, I just need a little less and need to maintain my personal wellness in a more productive way.

I mean, I occasionally catch glimpses of myself in the odd mirror or store window throughout the day and think (as Cary Elwes says to Prince Humperdinck in The Princess Bride) “Dear God what is that thing?” and that makes me laugh; but on the whole, the picture has been getting better. I mean, it’s not that bad, and by the way, much of that is in reference to the whole appearance; often with my abysmal hair being the culprit.

Also, more often than not, my motivation for losing weight is less about appearance (although that obviously plays a part, and I don’t deny that) and more about how it makes my body feel. Feeling literally weighed down, stressed and struggling to exist within the boundaries of your clothes on a daily basis (I mean, to actually feel the fabric straining against your stomach, barely being held at bay by the threads - like a sausage ready to burst from its casing) takes its toll (certain garments even as I write this are threatening to cut off my entire air supply).

Also, I am profoundly afraid of death. Chances are that if I continue to put extra stress and strain on my body (both mentally and physically) that I'll not only potentially meet my end sooner than I'd like, but it could mean a worse quality of life for the time I am here. That said, I am perfectly aware of the fact that quality of life can be more affected by worrying and stress, because stress, as we know, tends to exacerbate our problems.

Now everyone is stressed, and many people have every right to be waaay more stressed out than I do. Nonetheless though, I feel stress. All of these health issues I’ve been having can be exponentially worsened by stress - acid reflux, lack of sleep, the weight in my frontal tummy area - but I thought that my stress level was in the normal range.

And then I had to run an errand at lunch the other day.

We’ve all seen these people. We glance at them in that moment when your car passes theirs on your way in or out of a parking lot. They’re going the opposite direction, and you see they appear to be screaming (though you hear no sound because their windows are up) and they are beating their hand, open-fisted on the their steering wheel in a frenzy of hysteria and angst. These are our fellow travelers who are afflicted with road rage, and I am, at times, one of them.

The other day if you were driving past my car while pulling out of the driveway of that particular parking lot, you would have seen me throw the aforementioned tantrum, and if you were able to hear what was going on in my car, the barrage of expletives I uttered would have made your ears ring for days. I also gave the ceiling of my car above my head a walloping right jab (really out of character I might add), much harder than I was expecting to. When I finally pulled into the parking garage and put the car in park, I screamed so loud that when I opened my eyes I saw stars.

Now I am not proud of this, but I admit it to you, dear reader, because it was a moment of awakening for me. I realized then and there just how close to the surface my inner strain was actually bubbling. When you fantasize about shoving people’s faces into their food as you are walking by on the street because you feel cruel and vindictive and you think it would be funny, it’s time to take a step back.

It takes a lot for me to get to that point. I do not fly off the handle easily, and I have never before screamed so loud that I saw stars. I intend to never let myself be worn so thin as to ever let it happen again. Saying that is much easier than doing it though, because how many of us actually can stop all of our stressors? It becomes our responsibility - we are charged with creating and maintaining our own inner harmony. No one is going to do it for us; this is a torch we must carry on our own and keep lit. It comes from the work of learning about ourselves; learning who we really are, learning how to take proper care of ourselves.

So to be lax about this sends us (and by us, I mean me and those of us out there who have, admit it, felt this way once or twice) into a disproportionate feeling of rage because there’s a lot of traffic and people are driving as if they are insane. And that is something that happens every day. People drive like maniacs. So, either we find a happy medium like taking the bus (which takes the act of driving completely, sublimely out of our hands), or we learn to do some breathing exercises and teach ourselves to remember what is really important.

In essence, we learn how to cope with our own particular stressors. Obviously, when it comes to road rage, it’s never really about traffic. In my own case, I am learning the important lesson of how to say “no” to the things that I don’t really need to devote time to right now. But in the recent past, my inability to decline any offer of work has left me profoundly overcommitted. There are always additional personal stressors for a myriad of reasons; but as I tell my Mom, “Those will always be there when you get back. Take some time for yourself.”

Stress exacerbates our weaknesses, so it is imperative that while I work toward a healthier body, I also work toward a healthier mind and attempt to rid myself of superfluous worry. Working toward that goal has manifested itself in a few different ways lately:

1. After visiting the book shop subsequent to seeing a bit of the movie adaptation of Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt, I bought the book and also his second book, 'Tis, and I now find myself obsessed. After having visited Ireland for the first time (hopefully the first of many times) last May, I felt more drawn to these books than ever. I find myself mentally transported and inspired by these books that are, at the risk of sounding cliché and cheesy at the same time, alive. In fact, on the whole fear-of-death-front (which has been known to wake me in the night), reading McCourt’s words gives me hope that I, too, if I’m lucky and work hard, may continue to live on through my words. While reading my mind is engaged in imaginative learning. For that reason and many others, books are sacred to me.

2. I have been trying to get myself up earlier in the mornings (not too successfully yet) by telling myself, particularly since it is getting warmer, that this is my time. Before the day starts, I can take a walk and read on my way to work, I can fully utilize the Ann Arbor District Library's audio book collection for Agatha Christie mysteries and I can think - unfettered - in the morning before my day begins and the other demands on my time win out.

3. Attempting to garden. Never would anyone accuse me of having a green thumb, but between Andrew and I, we are determined to have some sort of a successful home garden even though we are restricted on space and sunlight. We learned a lot last year from our failures and minor successes to a point where this year, we feel we can order from the seed catalogue with some expectation of success. Last night, when it was beautiful, I went out and tried to pick up where Andrew left off, weeding the front yard and raking the dead leaves. Other than a run-in with some sort of unidentified petrified mammal poop under the house by my lavender bushes (yay for gardening gloves), I was able to clear things out in roughly half the yard relatively quickly. At least it’s to a point now where my terra cotta pots are primed and ready to receive the seedlings we’ll hatch in the house in the coming weeks.

4. On the food front: as I mentioned in the headline, I was caught this week eating ice cream. I say caught, but I don’t deny it or hide it - I wanted ice cream, so I got some. Then a friend came in and saw me eating it and called me on the fact. "Hey! You're eating ice cream!" Later, he said he just wished I had had an extra spoon. I think sharing in the comedy of life is essential. So, friends, now I'll always have an extra spoon.

The Hafla

How did the hafla go? Great. I actually thought it went fabulously. Myrtle (my best friend) feels that the first hafla we did (this being the second) was better, but in my opinion, this one was awesome. We danced to a drum solo, and I really loved the choreography. There was some cute stuff in there: shimmies, hip drops and sassy head slides. It was really fun. Also, this time I was in a much better mood. I looked at myself in the mirror before performing; “Not bad” I thought, "I look all right." My hip scarf couldn’t have slid much farther down on my bum without falling off (those silk ones just slip, it’s hard to keep them up); but that night when I danced, I actually smiled.

In fact, we may be performing the choreography at Detroit Raqs, a local bellydance conference happening in May, because it was so cute. If that happens, you can be sure I’ll tell you all about it right here.

You can follow Elizabeth on Facebook and on Twitter!

Perfecting the art of eating - one bite at a time

2010-06-11T11:28:00.002-04:00

Part Nineteen: “Serve It Forth.” Preach on sister.

One of the last books I bought from the Shaman Drum bookstore when it was still open was a copy of M.F.K. Fisher’s Serve It Forth. I had come across Fisher not through my passion for food, books or history, but rather through my love for the comedy duo Frangela. The team, Angela V. Shelton (born and raised in Detroit and went to college at our very own U of M) and her best friend Frances Callier (from Chicago) are hilarious, intelligent and self-proclaimed Rubenesque women (ho, holla if you hear me) whose audio would be the only thing I would listen to if I were marooned on a desert island.

I listen to their podcasts (as they both now live in L.A. and the time difference can be a killer) whenever they are available, and when they are not on the air I find myself starved for Frangela. They just speak my language. While most of their work is political satire, poking fun at inane crime or (my personal favorite) their “idiot of the week” segment, somewhere woven in the discussion of one of the episodes, Angela mentioned How to Cook a Wolf by M.F.K. Fisher. Naturally, because I would love for these two ladies to adopt me as their younger, also Rubenesque sister, I was rapt with attention. Who was this M.F.K. Fisher? I could ascertain that she was writing about cooking on a lean budget, but not much more, and I was very intrigued. So naturally my next step was to go online and put all of her books on my Amazon wish list.

Generally impatient when there is something out there with pages full of information, a front and back cover and a table of contents that I want and don’t have yet, I decided I would hunt her books down at my local bookstore. As anyone who ever went into Shaman Drum when it was around could tell you, it was a magical place packed end to end and rafter to rafter with books on what seemed to be every possible subject of interest. Amongst these many, I found and selected Serve It Forth, as it was M.F.K. Fisher’s first book in her Art of Eating series, and I figured I would start at the beginning.

There is something so delicious about her acerbic wit and descriptive power that adds to the already satiating act of reading. Somehow she crafts her work so that it mimics the satisfaction of eating as you experience each turn of phrase; a bite in themselves, each one. The book is laid out as a series of short, expertly crafted essays, which makes it a very quick read. Just as it is when you savor a morsel of truly great food and find yourself content with a small portion, so too are M.F.K. Fisher’s words. As I read through the pages, her philosophy on food and eating cut through a lot of the crap that we find ourselves inundated with in our industrial food system. She also cut through a lot of the crap I have been letting myself get away with.

In the interest of specificity, here are some quotes that spoke directly to me during my reading of the first essay in the book, When a Man Is Small:

“We sink too easily into stupid and overfed sensuality, our bodies thickening even more quickly than our minds.”

“Whichever school [of eating] a man may adhere to…he continues to eat through the middle years of life with increasing interest. He grows more conscious of his body as it becomes less tolerant. No longer can he dine heavily at untoward hours, filling his stomach with the adolescent excitations of hot sauces and stodgy pastries - no longer, that is, with impunity.”

“Most of us, unhappily, shudder and ache and rumble as secretly as possible, seeming to feel disgrace in what is but one of the common phenomena of age: the general slowing of all physical processes. For years we hide or ignore our bodily protests and hasten our own dyspeptic doom by trying to eat and drink as we did when we were twenty. When we are past fifty, especially if we have kept up this pathetic pose of youth-at-table, we begin to grow fat.”

And the zinger:

“But men [she refers to the collective everyone as men it seems] are thoughtless and they are habit-followers. They have eaten meat and starches for years: they see no reason for stopping when they are old, even when they think enough to realize that every function of their bodies is carried on more slowly and with more effort than ever before.

They go on whipping up their blood with “well-done” roasts, which travel haltingly through the system to the final colonic decay that makes one of the great foes of senescence - constipation.

They are floated to their coffins on a river of “stimulating” infusions of beef extract and iron, usually fed to them surreptitiously by well-meaning daughters.”

With everything that has been coming to light through the work of people like Michael Pollan and the creators of Food, Inc., and the trends that we can see in our own lives and experiences, I find Fisher’s frankness on food timely and as refreshing as any book being penned now by contemporary authorship. The words that she wrote to capture her opinions and feelings on the subject of food in the late 1930’s and on through the late 1940’s, are as germane and salient today as ever. We see the correlation with our own eyes and through our own lives, and in some of our cases (ahem, yours truly) in our own waistlines, between the ingestion of "...the adolescent excitations of hot sauces and stodgy pastries..." and our current national trends of epidemic levels of Type 2 Diabetes in adults, childhood obesity (and adult obesity) and general bad health and lack of awareness at what we willingly stuff into our bodies.

As I close the book, I see the slender young woman on the cover and I think: Here is a woman who has transformed our entire biological requirement to eat into a thing of such beauty with her words that we then go into the world after having read them burdened with the knowledge that we must do the "art of eating" justice; and isn't that a wonderful thing?

The La Rochefoucauld quote Fisher employs in Serve It Forth encapsulates this philosophy: "To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art."

As for my art project, it seems to be in an ongoing state of evolution. It has grown out of its macaroni-glued-on-paper/Mario PaintTM-like infancy, on through the velvet unicorn painting/poster of lightning and wolves high school stage into what is now I think is starting to resemble a respectable, if not elementary, self-portrait of the artist as herself (the self she wants to be).

I’ve cut out almost all of the refined sugars, all of the intermittent snacking, most of the meat (I am trying to be a good vegetarian :) and most heavily processed foods. When I’ve gone out to eat, I have done my best to make the best choices available, and I’ve tried to pick the eating establishments that let me do this when I have some control over the choice.

Also, I went to the doctor on Monday, and he actually listened to me (new doctor), which was very helpful. He has me on a homeopathic remedy called Calc Carb 30, and it does appear to be doing something positive. Also, they are testing my thyroid, sugar, etc. to make sure none of those factors is the culprit.

In other news, next Friday is my next hafla…tune in on Wednesday for my unpreparedness fears, wardrobe malfunction woes and assuredness of bad hair for the performance!

Part Seventeen: Self-Imposed Veganism is Killing Me

2010-06-11T11:27:00.002-04:00

*Disclaimer - this is only my opinion and is based solely on what works for me. I have great respect for you, veganism, but we need to talk. I think we should both just call this what it was: a fling. A stupid fling that didn't mean anything :).

Here’s the thing: I hate this.

After being rear-ended (ha ha ha) last week, I took a week off from inducing this self-imposed “six weeks of veganism” experiment. I should also add that it is not just veganism that was part of the plan, it was also refined sugars that had to go, as well as pretty much any heavily processed foods and any other foods that I know full-well irritate my acid reflux like tomato sauce, chocolate candies, etc.

Knowing how hard it would be for me to get over the vegan hump though, I was willing to cut myself a little slack with the sugar thing, but I really wanted to stick to the other guidelines I’d set up for myself (particularly not eating foods that are heavily processed - that is more important to me than pretty much anything else; organic, local and minimally processed by industrial means - and I’ve been very good on that front to tell the truth). In addition, I have been trying to learn more about soy and how it is incorporated into our food. Not only is 90 percent (or more) of the soy planted in the United States GMO (genetically modified organisms, i.e., modified seed), but the health benefits of soy are debatable, and I’ve learned some things that make me rather uncomfortable about turning to soy as a viable alternative in my food substitutions even as I transitioned into this vegan experiment.

This week though, I was determined to start it. It had been like pulling teeth. Not because I wanted steaks and pork sausages and shrimp or anything, but because I miss the following things (in moderation of course) in a physical way; and my body does not feel better at all. If anything, I am feeling worse and my stomach just hurts and I have that starving feeling all the time. Plus it is causing me to fantasize about terrible food that I can still eat because technically it’s “vegan”, but that I wouldn’t be making the choice to eat if I were just a vegetarian, because then I would feel satiated with my breads and cheeses :). In fact, my perspective on being a vegetarian, having restricted myself to a vegan diet for the past couple of days, is that I could be a superb and devout vegetarian! I don’t have to give in to the occasional burger or piece of bacon, but god, please don’t make me give up my yogurt, honey, butter, eggs and cheese. Please. It makes me feel empty inside. Literally.

As you might imagine, I am now re-evaluating my plan and seeing several flaws:

1. Flaw #1: It is physically painful for me to be vegan. Since making myself eat only vegan fare, I have become extremely distracted (to an unfortunate degree) by the feeling of outright starvation happening in my stomach. I am eating regularly, but my stomach feels painfully empty. This may also have something to do with my acid reflux, but what always helps, at least in some estimation, is bread. Unfortunately, there are quite a lot of bread and carby-type things that I can’t have on a vegan diet.

2. Flaw #2: I am now eating worse. I have been planning and cooking as much as I am able to make this whole thing as easy as possible, but it hasn’t mattered. I could eat lentils and carrot apple ginger salad (which I have been eating this week and they are both extremely delicious) ‘til the cows come home, but it isn’t going to fill me up. So I find myself wondering what is so bad about eating the chips with guacamole and salsa from Seva for lunch? I mean, it’s all vegan right? I need something substantial, both in flavor and in actual substance that has good mouth-feel to get me through this, and I’m already annoyed by the salads. Already.

3. Flaw #3: I am very distracted by the gnawing feeling in my stomach (see Flaw #1). I have a ton of work to do for several different things, and I feel like I am only half there focus-wise because I am so distracted. My brain and body feel like they’re not getting some vitamin or substance that they are accustomed to.

4. Flaw #4: I really don’t agree with this. As I have said before, I have incredible respect for vegans, but I don’t necessarily agree with every one of the tenets of veganism. I think that in our current food system and considering the plight we are facing environmentally, that vegans may very well be the vanguard in terms of eating to save the environment; but that does not necessarily hold the same water when you leave the confines of the industrial food system.

Local agriculture and local meat and dairy make it possible for us to get to know our farmers and learn exactly who is growing our food and how they are doing it. In many instances this food is organic, hormone and antibiotic-free, not treated with pesticides and more delicious than anything you can find in a run-of-the-mill supermarket. It brings back the local economy and makes us healthier naturally, so I can’t see the down side there. If I know that my eggs are coming from Abe Schwartz, an Amish farmer from the area, (who is often at the Kerrytown Farmer’s Market on Saturday’s and sells delectable eggs) then I know those eggs are coming from chickens that are not engineered in any way and are not injected with antibiotics or anything else. I don’t feel bad about that choice. Quite the contrary in fact.

For me, sustainability in our food system needs to include our farmers and local food producers; those who are committed to growing food for us to eat that retains its nutritive value and makes us healthier people, and that includes the farmers who humanely raise livestock and produce dairy. Though again, I really do very much respect the choice to be vegan, I just don’t share it. I believe that organic yogurt, eggs and butter (amongst other things) are good for us to eat in healthy doses; simply put: I believe we need balance in our diets that I am not sure (as someone who has no nutritional training at all, mind you) exists in a strict vegan diet.

5. Flaw #5: This doesn’t feel healthy or natural to me. I am Greek, German (lots of Prussian, Bavarian, and some Polish in there because of changing borders), Irish, a smidge Scottish, and I have even heard French somewhere along the line; what constitutes a traditional diet for me? I’m serious. I begin to wonder why my body and mind are so violently opposed to even trying veganism for a short while. It was tantamount to going for a run (which for me is pure torture.) I began to have the same feelings as I had had when I was working as a medical photographer and overstayed my welcome in terms of my own “ick” threshold. I should have made a career move long before I did, and I suffered the consequences in that case for not listening to myself and to how my body was responding. Continuing to stay in a job that was unhealthy for me at the time was mirrored by the relationship I was in as well. In that too, I remained much too long.

However, what I take from those experiences is that though they were absolutely awful and tortuous most of the time, they taught me to know, without a shadow of a doubt what I don’t want, which has allowed me the freedom to choose exactly what I do want. And though I hate to say it, I am having similar feelings with this attempt at veganism. I am not happy doing it (in fact, I hate it...have I mentioned that before?), and the truth is that I was only attempting it in the first place because I wanted to figure out if it would help my acid reflux, which it did not. Weight loss may have been a side benefit, but I’ve also known plenty of fat vegans. My point is; I need to get back to the basics.

The reason I started writing this series in the first place was to find a system that worked for me. It was not to try all sorts of diets or to deny myself food I believe to be healthy. Above all, this series was definitely not about lying to myself or subscribing to a certain set of rules in an attempt to get thin or healthy for the short term. I need long term solutions that are systemic and holistic in their approach if I’m going to be successful.

So back to good old vegetarianism (with the very occasional well-sourced meat stuck in here and there) and exercise for me then. My tuckus is on the mend, and being well aware that my tuckus and I could have very well been dead (see last week’s post), I’m moving on in the trajectory that feels right to me, and I do feel very good about that.

You can find more of Elizabeth's writing on AnnArbor.com.

An April Fool’s Story

2010-06-11T11:19:00.002-04:00

April Fools’ Day 1985:

I remember the first time I learned about April Fools’ Day. As near as I can peg it, it was March 31^st, 1985. I remember this because I learned about it the day before it happened, and it was definitely before my brother was born. I was totally excited. I asked my Dad, “Can I call YaiYai and Papou for April Fools’ Day?”

“Sure Elizabeth”, I think they thought it was cute. This may have very well been the first time I dialed a number and used the phone “myself”, but I remember the next morning waking up early and asking my folks to help me call my YaiYai and Papou.

My Papou answered.

“Hallo?”

“Hello!”

“Is this Elizabeth?”

“No!” Pause…wait for it… “April Fools’!”

I remember really hoping he would like my joke. I seem to recall some good natured laughing on the other end of the line, and some questions about how many other people I was calling that morning with my joke. I hadn’t really thought of anyone else, just them.

I remember being really happy but also kind of underwhelmed.

They passed away not that long after, in the spring of 1986; 10 days apart. I was five years old at the time, and my Mom was still pregnant with my brother. The Challenger went down that year on my birthday, YaiYai and Papou died, and my parents have often said since that the only good thing to happen that year was my brother being born in November.

April Fools’ Day 1990:

I should start this story by saying that I was not always a nice child. In many cases, yes, I was nice – kind even, when pressed, but in some very elemental way I could be very spiteful and vengeful. When my poor cousin, just two and a half weeks my junior, tried to give me a big hug after each time we had a toddler play date, I had pushed her away and made her cry; this was after having mindlessly hugged her goodbye several times before and then realizing that I didn’t like it – I made the conscious decision to be awful to her… I believe I gave her one hug under great duress after having made this decision and my eyes were rolling the entire time.

One morning before school, it hit me that as a big sister I should really be terrorizing my little brother more. I mean he was getting to walk away really unscathed from his younger sibling position. I should really do something to scare the crap out of him. So I put on one of my Mom’s face masks and convinced my little brother (who must have been about four or five at the time) that we were fattening him up to eat at Thanksgiving as our main course (cliché, I know) and that was why his birthday was so close the holiday. I also told him that if he asked my Mom if it was true, she would lie to him because he was going to be eaten and why would she want to ruin such a nice supper? Anyway, she, Dad and I were aliens. This green face I have now is my real face. That’s how Mom and Dad look underneath too. Eyes wide with horror, he apprehensively called my bluff by beginning to cry in fear, screaming “Mooooom!” This actually almost broke my heart and made me come clean…almost.

I was even known to have constantly tormented a classmate or two, who, for some reason unknown to myself and everyone else, had landed themselves on my list of people to be fervently disliked no matter what they said. My wrath was often directed, unfortunately, toward classmates who were both very nice, but lacked the respond-in-kind self-defense gene, or classmates who thought they were just fabulous; a supposition in direct conflict with my own estimation of them. I was nothing if not judgmental. In fact, there were plenty of times where I was the bully; the aggressor. I would not beat my prey physically, but I would crumple their spirits with a well-timed public insult, like pointing out the fact that their weird underwear was showing, or I would just outright take out my disproportionate rage on them by doing things so unthinkable, so mean and nasty, so truly awful that now I think I may have been partially mad at the time – drunk on the power of not giving a crap and seeing just what exactly I could get away with. The worst part about it was that even though the pace of my heart quickened as I was hurling admonitions at my schoolmates or courting the idea of really putting someone in their place, I also thought most of it was fairly entertaining. Looking back, I suppose it was…sort of…but mean little children who acted like I did always get their comeuppance.

Fourth grade. Mrs. Johns’ class. I was a miniature bag lady in training even then, and I carried a heavy bag, full to the seams with god knows what. Nothing I needed for school that’s for sure. Just before April Fools’ Day that year, I had an idea: torture poor Stacey Vilseck (name changed to protect the innocent – the truly kind and nice girl I tormented for all of third grade, if for some reason you are reading this, and you know who you are, I am truly so very sorry) until she cried. I had made a small career out of making this girl’s life a living hell throughout our entire third grade year up until that point, why not give her a real zinger for April Fools’? Because, past self, it is wrong, and you will learn that the hard way because people will be mean to you too one day and you will give a hoot about some of it – but I digress. Sure Stacey wore weird shiny underwear that came up above her waist and thus, showed above the waistline of her pants, putting them in open mocking territory, but did I have to point that out every single time it happened? Yes, yes I must have, because I did…mercilessly. I made fun of her headbands and her underwear and I scoffed at her continual offers of friendship (somewhere at home I’m sure she had a nice, kind parent who was telling their daughter she’d get more flies with honey and to turn the other cheek with me, even when I would continually slap them both and then drag her head around for more – figuratively of course – but secretly the parent wondered, “Why can’t this awful girl just leave my daughter alone?”) and she didn’t escape me really, until her family moved away at the end of the year. Though, truth be told, even though I couldn’t bring myself to tell her at the time and admit weakness, she was wearing on me. I think we maybe would have been friends once I grew up a bit and got my head out of my behind.

Unfortunately, the maturity of time and experience was not with me on April Fools’ Day 1990.

The morning started out all right. The plastic shark I had yanked from my brother’s toy collection gave her a nice start when she opened her desk, and I was right there, sitting behind her, laughing at her shock. She was clearly hurt. This only made me want to torture her more. My big plan was going to be to wait until a time when she was working on something, a time when she felt safe and unperturbed. Then I would make my strike: I would take the battery operated Godzilla toy I had stuffed in my bag at the last minute before I left the house out of my bag and use its control to make the thing roar and screech right in her freaking ear.

I had not, however, considered the possibility that my teacher would notice any of this. So while class went on and I plotted my attack, something shifted inside my bag.

“Wrrraaaaagh!” howled Godzilla.

“Oh no.” went my brain.

“Wrrraaaaagh! Wrrraaaaagh! Wrrraaa-eee-aa-aagh!”

By this time the whole class was watching me and my feeble attempts (being completely unable to find the thing and make it stop roaring because my bag was stuffed so tight) to smother the bag at the point where the noise seemed to be the loudest.

“Ms. Palmer, what is making that noise?”

Mrs. Johns had locked me into her bloodshot, blinkless gaze; she was mad as hell.

“Nothing!”

“What is that noise it keeps making? Can’t you shut it off?”

At this point I am trying like mad to excavate my bag in an effort to find the roar button and release its source of constant depression. I was digging things out of my bag like a dog digs to find a bone.

“Turn it off!”

Where the hell was the thing? Then finally, hands trembling, I found it and fumbled for a minute under Mrs. Johns’ admonitions, and finally, it was off.

Did I detect a faint glimmer of a smile on Stacey’s lips? I hope so. I deserved it.

Mrs. Johns kept my bag, such as it was, for the rest of the day. When I collected it after class, she was clearly already done with me, and I believe a dismissive head shake was the long and short of our exchange. She had already yelled at me in front of the entire class earlier about not bringing those types of things to school and how it was inappropriate (god how I still detest that word!) and on and on and on.

“Score one for you Vilseck” I thought, “but this isn’t over.”

Then as I said, she moved and I, humbled by my utter failure to torment her effectively, left her, for the most part, alone.

Back to present day:

I find myself still humbled by the whole Stacey Vilseck incident, and truth be told I have not seriously thought about taking part in an April Fools’ Day ever since.

On fools in general:

The best mention of a fool that I have run into yet is The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship, A Russian Tale, retold by Arthur Ransome and illustrated by Uri Shulevitz. This book is a winner of the Caldecott Medal.

Bellydancing in a bowling alley...again.

2010-06-11T11:18:00.000-04:00

Part Twenty: Bellydancing in a bowling alley...again.

*Note - the following is to the best of my recollection and yes, I am aware that I sound like a very articulate 4 year old in this story :)

There’s a decent chance that if the hafla weren’t in a bowling alley that I might feel a little better about it. There’s a chance that if I were on stage in the dark and couldn’t see my audience that I might be able to overcome my wretched and nearly paralyzing fear of performing in front of people. There’s a chance, but it’s a slim one. As I alluded to in a previous post, my fear of performing in dance recitals has been with me for a very long time. Let’s take a look back (insert dreamlike fade to the past here)…

Tap/Ballet, Age 4

My favorite part of tap dancing class, aside from the shoes (love the shoes with their clack, clack, clackity clack) was watching myself in the mirror. My Mother used to do my hair in locks, and I loved jumping up and down and watching them bounce - it could literally have occupied me for hours - and because I was distracted by this, it allowed my psyche to gloss over the fact that I hated recitals with a passion and did not relish being constantly corrected by my teachers for paying more attention to my hair and making faces in the mirror than I was to class. Tap was fun. Then somehow I caught sight of a ballerina one day, or maybe it was a friend from tap class who also took ballet - at any rate, somehow one day the ballet bug was planted in my brain.

So when tap class was over, I asked my Mom if I could take ballet the next time instead. She agreed, and so it was set. To be quite honest with you I don’t remember the details of what I was required to wear to tap class, but what I do remember is being distinctly aware of how uncomfortable I was in what I was required to wear for ballet: black leotard, pig pink tights, pink slipper shoes. I think in tap we were allowed to wear shorts or something over our leotards, so you can imagine how appalled my 4-year-old self was when on the first day of ballet I walked in and saw all the big girls (this was kind of an open all ages class) in their leotards, unabashedly fine with it; apparently feeling no shame at being what I equated at the time to nearly naked in public. I remember being in the hallway about to walk into the class when I was arrested by witnessing this scene through the door. My eyes widened with horror, my pace began to slow, and...

I don’t remember exactly how the tantrum started, but there it was raging (for everyone to see much to my Mother’s chagrin) in the hallway outside of my would-be new dance class. “Don’t make me go in there!” I remember saying. “No! Nooooooo! I don’t want to!” and when my Mom tried to reason with me, to remind me that I had chosen this, I would desperately cry “I’ve changed my mind! I’ve changed my miiiiiind!” I mean, that’s how I remember it. To my Mom I’m sure it looked and sounded to her like her little girl had just lost her grip on reality, screaming and fighting and in sheer terror over a dance class. “E-liz-a-beth!” she said, “What is the matter with you?” And I couldn’t explain. I still cannot explain my irrational horror at that moment. What I can tell you is that it multiplied many times over in the following few moments during which my Mother lost her patience with me and began forcing me to go in. Making several futile efforts to escape, I was inched ever closer to the door. When the teacher said I had to take off my sweater, that was it. I looked at my Mom, and, recognizing my panic, she took me out in the hallway to talk with me again. She said as she held me by the arm and bent down to look me straight in the eyes, “Elizabeth, you know that if you make the decision to not go in there today that this is it. We won’t be coming back.” I nodded my head vigorously in relief. I believe afterwards the owner of the dance studio and my Mom worked something out and I was back in a tap class again soon thereafter, in my comfort zone; or so I thought.

I imagine that my fear of performing in public in any even slightly saucy manner is rooted in the following: I had been in tap class long enough and was now old enough to be a part of the dance school recital. I greeted this prospect with suspicion and animosity from the start.

“Oh no, it’ll be cute. The girls are going to be doing a little can-can dance and they’ll have big poofy skirts as costumes. It will be just adorable, and she’ll look so cute on stage.”

I assume it was something of this nature that was sold to my Mother by my dance teacher, but it wasn’t going to work on me. I had to ask questions. I liked the idea of the poofy dress, and I was actually surprisingly fine with the prospect of doing some tapping in front of people, I mean, after all, tap is probably one of the least revealing dances you can do, right? No. Not right. Apparently to end the show, the can-can girls were all going to turn around, bend over, and shake their bustles at the audience. The teacher let this little nugget of information slip while I was in earshot - big mistake.

I lobbied for my position, “So you mean I would have to shake my butt in front of the audience?”

“Well, technically yes.”

“Absolutely not.”

“But -…”

“No way. No…no. No. No. No. No. No.”

And then, in the air three feet above my toddler head, the dance teacher and my Mother discussed something I couldn’t quite hear.

The teacher turned her head down to address me, “Well, you can dance with the other class of girls your age instead if you want to do that. They are going to be poodles.”

“Great”, I thought. I was going to trade being a cute little can-can girl for being a poodle because I had standards. “Fine. I’ll be a poodle. They don’t have to shake their bustles at the audience, do they?”

“No.”

Of course poodles don’t have to shake their bustles. Why would you when you have a tail instead? When the day of the recital came, this same teacher told us right before we went on stage, “Now remember at the end, turn around, bend over, and give your tails a good wag at the audience.”

I’d been duped - but let me say this: such tail wagging before had never been seen! Once trapped, I figured that I’d better give it my all. I couldn’t let anyone see that I was embarrassed. If I was up there and all of my lemming-like classmates were going to shake their tails, I was going to do it the best. My competitive nature has come out at the weirdest times now that I think back…

Present Day: Age 28, Hafla the day after tomorrow…in a bowling alley.

Do I know the dance? Sort of. Do I have confidence that I can do it without mistakes in front of an audience of my peers and strangers? No. Do I think I’ll enjoy it this time? I can hope, can’t I?

The piece we are doing is a drum solo, and the choreography is actually pretty cute. It involves a lot of turns and shimmies and accent moves, and by the time I’ve given it one run through I am sweating, so it is a good workout. In fact, my best friend Myrtle and I practiced it in my living room for three hours last Sunday (and I don’t mind telling you that by doing so we seriously weirded out the cat and got on her last nerve because from the look on her face I guessed we were interrupting her nap time.) We even videotaped ourselves dancing for the first time, because it is one thing to dance the dance but it is something entirely different to witness yourself dancing it.

All in all, I think it looked pretty good, but as Myrtle said upon reviewing the video in further detail, “we’re gushy.” It’s true. Myrtle and I, if nothing else, are gushy in our performance. I like the dance and Myrtle will be there by my side. What could go wrong?

Tune in next week to read about the aftermath…

Kiss me, I'm marginally Irish

2010-06-11T11:15:00.000-04:00

A rainbow in Ireland. Photograph by E. Palmer/A. Wilhelme.

Well, if you’re anything like me, you spent most of your weekend avoiding work and getting drawn in against your will to a horrid interpretation of the Robin Hood fable from the BBC because it has the instant play option on Netflix and because the actor who plays Guy of Gisbourne (Richard Armitage) is alarmingly hot. It’s okay, don’t be ashamed. He’s gorgeous (I recommend Episode #3 from Season 2 in which Guy of Gisbourne is seen shirtless when trying on a suit of new armor). Also, you wouldn’t have slept well this weekend either, and have been out of the groove of exercising for a couple of weeks now because you are recovering from getting hit by an SUV.

Tonight I go back to bellydance for the first time since the accident, and I have to say that I feel ready…for the most part. If, by chance, you have been reading this series since the beginning (or are going back and reading the earlier posts), you will recall that in December (Dec. 18 if painful memory serves) I danced in my first hafla. Being a novice bellydancer and someone who fears the performance stage in such a context, it was not an easy undertaking to do it even once, and now it’s happening again.

The one major difference this time around is that I will only have two classes of practice in learning an entirely new routine before taking the stage to embarrass myself and my classmates. This is due to the accident, and is in stark contrast to the several weeks of training I had before my first hafla. I am going to class tonight to learn for the first time this routine that my best friend (you all remember Myrtle, right?) has warned me is insanely difficult already, and according to her, the instructor is going to start teaching us the “hard part” tonight. So as you can imagine, I am excited. Thrilled and excited. This time I may really fall on my ass and this time there won’t be EMT’s on scene within minutes. Even if they were, EMT’s can't fix wounded pride.

On St. Patrick’s Day though, I am inclined not to worry. I want to grab a pint and a whiskey chaser and listen to the Pogues and the Cheiftains and attempt to do some ill-fated Irish Set Dancing. I have always loved the idea of Ireland and St. Patrick’s Day, and I have fond memories of my Mom saying over the years (the only time she suggested that I drink other than church wine), “Have a green beer, you’re Irish!” It’s true, somewhere back there in my genealogy there is a great-great-something grandmother from Ireland, and there’s probably more where that came from. My mom’s maiden name is Murray, and I’ve been told before that it was originally O’Murray, and that when they came to the States they dropped the “O” (though to my knowledge this is only family hearsay). Part of me wants to start my St. Patty’s Day celebrations before dance class; who knows? It could make me better.

An Irish landscape. Photo taken by E. Palmer/A. Wilhelme.

Last May, Andrew and I took a trip to the Emerald Isle for 17 days and we have wanted to go back ever since we landed here on the continent. It was incredible. We spent time in both the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland. We visited Derry (we went on a walking tour offered through the Museum of Free Derry and it was one of the most moving experiences I've ever had - we loved Derry) and Doolin and Galway and saw the Giant’s Causeway, the Cliffs of Moher, walked across the Carrick A Rede Rope Bridge and hiked all over Glencolmcille. The beauty of Ireland is really something to behold, and it gets into your soul.

The fairy tale picture. Photo taken by E. Palmer/ A. Wilhelme.

The pubs and people were unforgettable; in fact, we got to see the Chieftains play live the night before we flew home in a church that had been erected in 1884 (newer architecture in the context of Ireland’s history) in Ennis. We ate delicious food (I had to try bangers and mash at nearly every restaurant) and drank often, but we were so mobile that I actually lost weight on the trip, which makes me seriously (amongst other reasons) consider that experience in terms of weight loss. The food quality systemically is better there than it is in the U.S. (not just in Ireland, but in several other industrialized nations), and it just wasn’t a concern. The ways we got around were healthier, and being in another country just forces you to slow down to that pace, and it is a good thing. Experiencing this day here at home just makes me long (all the more) to go back, grab a pint of Bulmer’s (or Magner’s depending on whether you’re in the Republic or Northern Ireland) in a pub and sit there with my Andrew, both of us warm and drunk, listening to traditional Irish music performed by local musicians and loving every bit of it.

An Irish scene. Photo taken by E. Palmer/A. Wilhelme.

Here are a few not-so-well crafted limericks that I wrote when I initially attempted to craft this whole post as a series of limericks in honor of the day:

St. Patty’s Day is quite an occasion,
One that tests our digestive fortification,
Between cabbage and meat
We in vain try to defeat
Succumbing to overwhelming inebriation.

So what has happened this week?
Not to be too tongue-and-cheek,
Weight was lost, though so slow as to give me an attack cardiopulmonary,
And the speed creeps on and on like molasses being poured out in January,
Slow and steady these results that I seek.

Today I do dream,
Of imbibing Guinness and Bailey’s Irish Cream,
Smooth and delicious, this stuff
It seems there’s never enough
Lucky there’s whiskey to round out the theme.

Down this weight-loss road I still putter
Using apples as means to eat peanut butter
Protein without meat,
It also counts as a treat,
And will not throw my plans in the gutter.

A limerick or two,
From this (very) curvy girl to you,
On this day of St. Patrick,
When we all drink ‘til we get sick,
And may lament having had more beer than stew.

Erin Go Bragh, everybody. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

A family of sheep in Ireland. Photo by E. Palmer/A. Wilhelme.

Confessions of a (very) Curvy Girl: Part Sixteen

2010-06-11T11:12:00.000-04:00

*The following is the most recent in a series I am writing on AnnArbor.com

Ode to My Boot-tai

*Disclaimer - the conversations below are to the best of my recollection.

This past Sunday, I finally found the answer to the age-old riddle, “What’s large and white and dangerous and makes you more thankful than you’ve ever been for your overly plump, well-endowed bebadonkadonk?” I’ll tell you. It turns out that the answer is a giant white SUV barreling into your right buttcheek at an alarming speed, sending you and your ample behind flying into the air.

So it finally happened. After all of those times I’ve said, “I can eat that. I mean, life is short. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow,” it finally happened. Except it wasn’t a bus and it didn’t kill me.

What did happen was this:

On the eve of my self-imposed six weeks of veganism, I wanted to do it up. I’m talking a huge-ass burger with bacon and cheese and truffle fries from the Jolly Pumpkin (I’ve had lots of personal issues with the service there, but most of their food is consistently delicious) and that exquisite little ramekin of truffle aioli that comes with it, mmm mmm mmm! So I called ahead to the restaurant and placed my order. They said it would be 15 minutes. I got all set and went downtown. Parking, as always, is at a premium down there, so I drove around for a little while until I found a great spot - kitty corner from the restaurant pretty much, just on the northwest corner of the intersection of Liberty and Main, on Liberty, right outside the Greek restaurant there. So I pulled into the spot and a police car pulls in behind me.

“Oh crapturdles,” I thought (or some vulgar equivalent).

I checked my rearview a couple of times. Their lights weren’t on, but then again they weren’t really in a spot…were they just giving me a warning? Did this have absolutely nothing to do with me? (Let me just say for the record though, that never before in my life had I had a police car pull up behind me and not proceed to legally admonish me in some way, so naturally, I assumed - even though I couldn’t think of anything - that I had done something wrong). Well, the next move some of you who read this will no doubt characterize as one of the lamest moves of all time (but I was raised largely Roman Catholic I tell you, and even though I was fighting from the age of seven to not go to church, I assure you that the guilt still seeped in to my being - oh god the guilt - anyway…), I got out of my car and walked up to the window of the police car to ask if they were pulling me over.

The officer rolled down his window. “Are you pulling me over?” I asked. “No.” he said. “Unless there is something you’ve done that you want to tell me about.” I opened my mouth, ready to give a witty (or more realistically, probably a decently socially awkward) retort, and then I think I remember one of the police yelling something, but I was too distracted by the headlights and the sound of acceleration coming up on my right. By the time I started to turn my head, I only had time to make out a headlight, and the white paint surrounding the right front end of an SUV before it jammed into the upper right quadrant of my patootie.

I don’t remember being in the air, but I do have a vague recollection of one of the SUV’s headlights smashing on impact, and my arm kind of brushing the back of my car as I came back down to the pavement; right on my tailbone. It felt extremely unpleasant, like a robot knocking you off stage with a well-timed steel hip in some ill-fated musical number, or the worst bumper car crash you’ve been in times ten. I never lost consciousness and I did not hit my head, but I was shocked as hell. It was surreal.

I landed on my tailbone, with my hands down, and I remember my ankles hurting because they had been suddenly thrown off-kilter. The instant I realized what had happened and that I had a rip-roaring pain in my tailbone region, I remembered all of my training from years of watching television cop dramas and ER and I was like, “Okay Palmer, wiggle your toes. If you can wiggle your toes you’re going to be OK.” So I wiggled my toes, and it was good.

I had landed pretty much right between the police car and my parked car, but I was still sticking out into the street a little bit. However, if I’ve learned anything else from my cop drama schooling, it was that if you suspect a neck or spinal injury, you shouldn’t move. So, doing my best impression of someone who was in a full body cast, I reached out for my phone (which was, much to my surprise, still intact) and said aloud to myself and the officer who had gotten out of his car to block me from traffic and call the ambulance, “Oh my god, I need to call Andrew.”

One of the police officers had gotten out of the car and asked if I was “OK,” while his partner rocketed down the street once he cleared me, with his sirens blaring, chasing the person who had hit me and had kept right on going without even slowing his roll one iota. (And I’ll tell you what, the look I caught on the officer’s face as he sped away was so determined that I wanted to raise my arms and yell “YEAH!”, but instead I just sat gingerly on the pavement and tried to assess the damage between spurts of inane laughter and saying, “This is surreal. This is so surreal!) I answered that I didn’t really know and in response to being asked where I was hurt, I knew without a doubt that my tailbone was the epicenter of my trauma.

I mean, I was still kind of laughing a bit - it seemed so utterly absurd and surreal, and kind of like something out of a Muppet sketch. Strange to not be split open on the sidewalk or dead after an event like that; once I took a measure of the situation though, my main concern was swelling, and I said as much to the officer and Andrew on the phone - what if something swelled on my tailbone or in my back, what if I lost the ability to feel or wiggle my toes? What if, what if, what if? Pushing those thoughts aside for the sake of comedy though (I have, pretty much no matter what, always been able to laugh at myself and the absurdity of situations), and seeing as I wasn’t dead and had not hit my head or lost any limbs, I started immediately cracking jokes. And I’ll tell you what, the officer and I both got a laugh when he heard me tell Andrew, “Baby, I’ve never been so happy in my whole life to have some junk in the trunk!”

You see I was aware, even in these first few moments, somehow, that my bootie had, in some estimation, saved my life.

I don’t know how, I don’t know why, because if things had just been minutely different it could have gone in a much, much worse and potentially devastatingly permanent direction, but the patron saint of big butts was apparently smiling down that night. I’m not religious really at all, but my Mom’s whole side of the family really is (this is the aforementioned Roman Catholic upbringing), and I admit, I don’t mind the good vibes. I think if your heart is in the right place, and you don’t hurt yourself or others, than it’s all good baby. So when my cousin called me later on Monday after it happened and said, “Thank god for the Murray butt, right?” I couldn’t have agreed more.

As my cousin Alice says (a different cousin; on my Mom’s side I have 26 first cousins alone; as I said, very Roman Catholic :) they have a term down under in Australia where she lives for women shaped like we are, “We are a family of barge-arse women”, and she’s absolutely right. Even the men in the Murray family are barge-arse women. (From the back we can all tell who’s related, let me just put it that way; come on, you all know who you are and you all know it’s true. And honestly, I couldn’t be prouder! The Murray clan just has those child bearing hips and a badonkadonk to match, and after many years, I’m going to go ahead and own that. Wear my pants proudly even though they never have enough fabric in the back - holla if you hear me - but I digress…)

So back to the tale at hand: I was telling my boyfriend over the phone that I had just been hit by a car. He said, “Wait, your car was hit by a car, or you were hit by a car?” I replied, “My body was hit by a car.” He wanted to know if he should meet me at the hospital or pick up the car, and I had no idea. “Well, are they calling you an ambulance?” he asked. I turned to the police officer, “Are you calling me an ambulance?”

The officer: “Oh yeah.”

“Well, honey, they’re calling me an ambulance. You should probably come pick up the car and then meet me at the ER.” He was going to call me back, and within two minutes it seemed the ambulance (and a fire truck, and another police car) were there at the intersection. All of a sudden, I was in the camera’s point of view on the cop dramas; getting the neck brace on, being slid on a count of three on to a back board, having six faces over me in an oval lifting me up onto the gurney. It was bizarre. Andrew called back as I was being put in the brace, and I shot my hand out toward the officer who had stayed with me and was now holding my wallet - “Can you answer it? It’s my boyfriend.” He very kindly did and saw that my wallet and keys got to Andrew as well. He also made sure to give me my phone back before I went off to the hospital.

Then I was in the ambulance. The whole time on the street and in the ambulance I had a wonderful paramedic with me, talking to me the whole way, and I didn’t get his name. (I wish I had because my Mom and I would like to send him a thank you. My Mom also wants the names of the police who helped me, and she and I will be thanking them too. They were wonderful. I will be trying to get all of their names so we can follow through with the thank you's.)

Andrew got to the ER shortly after I did, and then it was roughly three hours of being on spinal precautions, having x-rays taken to make sure I didn’t have a fractured pelvis and having my urine checked to make sure that the hit hadn’t ruptured my kidney. Throughout this entire time, we kept hearing a rather rough-looking gentleman in the main corridor demanding, amongst other things that I cannot mention here for they are far too lewd - and far too hilarious to be FCC friendly - chicken soup and crackers. We were both completely grateful for the comic relief. It kept us laughing up until the doctor came back in and informed me that my official diagnosis was, “a severely bruised buttock.”

When I asked the doctor about going back to work, he recommended that I sit on a pillow and walk as much as I can. When I asked him about when I could start bellydancing again, he said through a congenial snort of laughter, “Well, do you need the income?”

All in all, it could have been so much worse; wow. I still can’t believe it actually happened, but I am reminded every time I try to lift my arms above my waist or attempt to turn too far to the right…or sleep, or go to the bathroom…pretty much when I am just breathing, but anyway, I have never been so grateful for my big butt in my whole life, and I said as much to Andrew as we were walking out of the emergency room.

And he replied, “We are all very grateful for your big butt honey.”

Getting healthy in Michigan: Confessions of a (very) curvy girl: Part nine

2010-01-15T20:32:00.000-05:00

Part Nine: Is it me?

I’m either getting a bit thinner, or the reduction in my daily calorie intake is making me delusional. I am entering that stage of my weight loss adventure where my body is starting to feel a bit less burdened on the inside (most of the time) and, as a result, I am starting to question whether my pants are marginally easier to zip because I am, little by little, shedding some millimeters off of my circumference, or if it is because they haven’t seen the business end of a dryer recently.

It’s not a bad place to be, in my opinion, considering that a couple of weeks ago I was thinking that I had made a horrible, horrible, horrible mistake by deciding to write publicly about something that I was increasingly not sure I could actually do. I now find myself in the position of thinking that I can do it, but of really needing to bring more physical activity into the mix if I’m going to be successful. I have yet to order my sassy boots to help get me out of the house and walk to work every day, so that has been a nonstarter so far because as fun as it is to walk several blocks in the snow with leaky shoes, I don’t find it ample incentive to get out of bed. But I am totally cool also, as an alternative, with the idea of waking up early enough to do a workout in my living room to one of my many bellydance-inspired workout DVD’s; alarming the cat and getting in shape all at the same time. The problem is: I don’t want to get out of bed that early. Never have, and probably never will.

I am not a morning person, and frankly, I don’t want to start being one now. I find myself grumpier when I wake up too early most days, and it lasts throughout the entire day. Then that day becomes a week and that week turns into months, and pretty soon there I am, a grumpy little curmudgeon, taxed and angry with the world and willing to give up all of the work I’ve done so far for one of those giant walnut brownies from Afternoon Delight. The distraction of my very heavy head feeling like it is separating from my body distracts me and breaks down my better judgment. All I can think about is sugar, desserts, and passing out in my bed…and maybe some really good chips…

But, if I don’t work out in the morning before my day gets rolling, then when can I? There is no other time. My days and evenings are packed with work of every ilk, and when I do have a minute to calm down, I generally prefer to spend that time with my boyfriend, my best friend, or my cat (or all three), while eating, watching Criminal Minds, and waiting for the new season of Lost to start. And then before I know it, it’s time for bed. I wake up in the morning, another day having been churned out by the universe, and I wonder when I’ll ever find the time to actually write (not just think about and scribble notes about) my book.

When it comes to compromising my sleep in the name of getting more in shape, I have a hard time buying it. Sleep is one of the most important rejuvenating things we do for our bodies. It is hard-wired into our brains because we absolutely need it. It is essential, and frankly, making sure we get enough sleep is indivisible from the maintenance of good health in our bodies. So, what do I do? I could split the difference, get up a half-hour earlier than I need to to run out of the house and catch the bus, but not quite so early that I have an hour-and-a-half to putz around and spend minutes at a time starting into nothing, willing myself to wake up. Or I could split the difference in another way - maybe I could get up and work out three times a week instead of every day…that might be more plausible. We’ll see.

You see, as surely as I know certain things about who I am, I am even more sure of who I am not. So the following list, (and I am passing no judgment here, just simply saying that the following are not for me) illustrates some of the things that I am not and, I can say with a good amount of certainty, will never be:

•A runner. Avid, avid walker yes, runner, no. I don’t care how many times my brother, who I love, trust, and respect, tells me that I just need to start slowly and build up a tolerance (apparently after which I will start loving it) to it. It ain’t gonna happen. Hell to the no. When I start running, it will be for my life, not for the sake of burning calories. I have been known to chase some people playfully around from time to time in my life, and that could be construed as running, technically, but when faced with the prospect of running to get in shape, it isn’t me. It just isn’t me. When I try to run, at some point my quads will start to hurt (if I get that far), but I am too distracted by the sharp pain of the air being forcibly ripped from my chest with each rasping, gasping, harsh breath that I am forced to take when putting my lungs under such duress. My throat gets dry immediately, and within seconds a pain akin to swallowing a handful of thumbtacks starts to take hold, more directed and poignant at that moment than the worst sore throat. And then comes the point where I get my feet under me again as I stop running and remind myself that this hellish torture is optional.

•A gym goer. Don’t get me wrong, this blog may be evidence enough that I appreciate a little self-embarrassment as much as the next person, but I can’t abide by paying to do it in a gym setting. Of all the establishments to enter, a gym is, as I imagine jail would be, a place that I always enter with a certain amount of trepidation and raw, unadulterated fear. I view the gym as essentially one large building outfitted with machines and tools and instructors who are there to engage you in a very private and intimate process - the process of molding your body from the soft, gelatinous mass that it has become (often due to your own personal negligence, which the trainers always seem to be all too aware of) into their version of firm and sculpted - so why would I want to go through that process in front of a lot of other sweaty people, all huffing and puffing in their gym shorts and (I tend to feel in my more paranoid moments) all looking at me like I don’t belong there? It is not a place where you can be alone or private at all. It is not a place where I feel comfortable enough to experiment with different equipment or exercises. All of those machines look unsettlingly like they could kill you with the wrong movement (I imagine it being like when someone accidentally gets folded up inside one of those hospital beds…though after writing that it doesn’t seem like that ever really happened, but the visual is all the same), and let’s face it - gyms are essentially large, expanded locker rooms. And they bring to my mind all of the same pitfalls associated with that atmosphere: slapping people’s butts with wet towels excluded, in a gym, like in a locker room, you still feel exposed, you still have to deal with the lovely smell, and if you’re me, you still have all the anxiety that goes along with it.

So yeah, the gym and I - not friends. *One caveat to this rule however for me is going to yoga classes at a yoga studio, particulary in my case, A2yoga (a yoga post is forthcoming). The vibe is so much more welcoming and I really feel absolutely un-judged and comfortable twisting myself into all sorts of different contortions and dancing all around the space with my yoga peers. Ooh, and I know I’m going to get a lot of flak for this, but I think one of the reasons that I am so much more comfortable at the yoga studio and doing bellydance is because they are very feminine environments. I don’t have to worry about any body embarrassment problems at all there, and it is actually fun, while I feel that the elliptical machine breeds a form of oppression and torture unnatural to the world: it seems to have the ability to physically slow down time. Whenever I have gone to a gym and gotten on to a machine, those are the longest timed intervals of my life.

•A Vegan. Here we go - I will eventually publish a post that encapsulates all of my opinions on veganism, but this will be the condensed version. While I respect and understand the standpoint(s) of veganism, and while I may eat vegan dishes by chance more often than not, at the end of the day, I just don’t wanna. I don’t want to be a full-on vegan, and I reserve the right to have free will. There are a lot of great arguments out there that promote veganism, the most compelling one of which that I have heard recently is from a reader who is a nutritionist and teaches classes on how to cook vegan dishes and how a vegan diet may help to fight cancer. In fact, if any of you are interested, there is a series of four classes going on right now, and you can find more information here.

I admire the track to wellness being marked with simple, clean food. For myself however, the reason I am writing this series is to find a way that I can eat the things I love in a way that is healthier and more sustainable for myself, for the planet, and for the welfare of the plants and animals that make up the food that I am eating without editing down my food to vegan fare. That being said, I have considered recently trying out a vegan diet for a couple of weeks to get myself back to a baseline from which I can begin to add different foods back to my diet, therefore isolating the foods that irritate my digestive system and body in general. I signed up for the vegan 21-day Kickstart, but I didn’t get past Day 1. Also, I find that when I look at diet plans and things to get an idea of what is being peddled out there, that the vegan diet guides are among the best in my opinion because they innately possess far fewer processed or altered foods. The major exceptions to this would be the vegan cheeses of the world, or the vegan “meat”. Something had to happen to that soy or that rice or that [insert your favorite non-animal based food here] to make it into these things. So, while I have mad respect for my vegan brothers and sisters, where the line is drawn in the sand, I walk on the side of cheese.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not hating on these things. In fact, I respect people who love running, people who are dedicated to going to the gym, and vegans; but I respectfully decline. As diverse as we all are, so too are our ways of keeping healthy, so let’s all find what motivates us and celebrate it.

*Also, I have had a lot of questions about bellydance and where to find good classes, so I wanted to post some upcoming sessions in case anyone is interested:

•Nadira is offering a few new sessions coming up in February at Kenville Studioshere in Ann Arbor, and also at the Dance Pavilion in Ypsilanti. You can register online for the Kenville sessions here, and for more information, follow this link.
•A new session for Unveiled Bellydance is starting this week. Check it out!

Also, I know this is a blog about a curvy girl, but whatever type of body type you have, it’s beautiful. Know that and you’re on your way to wellness.

Getting healthy in Michigan: Confessions of a (very) curvy girl: Part eight

2010-01-15T20:29:00.000-05:00

Part Eight: Getting Back in Focus

I won’t lie to you; this past year has been one large, teeming mixed bag of grief and gratitude, loss and reinvigoration, humor and self-discovery. It has been both long and concurrently the fastest passing year that I can recall. So I find myself at the start of this new year with a great desire to bring things into a streamlined focus and get done what I set out to do.

On roughly December 29th, I started making a real conscious effort to eat significantly better, and to follow a certain set of guidelines for myself in regards to how I eat and what I eat. Here are some of the things that I have been doing in no particular order:

• First, I’ve begun to make myself eat breakfast. This is something that is usually pretty difficult for me since it is supposed to occur much earlier in the day than 11:00 a.m., and though I may be awake by 7:00 a.m., nobody seems to have told my appetite or my digestive system that.

• Second, I have significantly cut down on the sweets. I have not cut them out completely (I haven’t gone completely mad), but my sweet treat intake has been drastically slashed.

• Third, I have made myself pack a mid-morning snack for work every day, and I am slowly but surely getting to the point where I am prepared enough at home to bring my lunch every day as well. However, bringing it twice this week has been better than not at all.

• Fourth, I have been scouring all of our cookbooks (oh, and we both got some great new ones for Christmas!) and the great inter-wide web to find recipes that incorporate the foods that I am attempting to incorporate more in my diet. These include, but are not limited to, different varieties of beans, more varied vegetables, lentils, vinegars, rice, mustards, and grains.

• Fifth, and it’s really hard for me to do this, but I am stopping my eating before bed habit. In what is amounting to a Herculean effort, I am trying to not eat anything at least two hours before I go to bed. It sucks. Because if I’m awake, chances are I’m thinking about what would taste really good and what I can do to make that happen.

• Sixth, and this is a biggie, I am getting back to being conscious about portion control. And let me tell you something: I like to eat. A lot. Both in quantity as well as times per day, but I have been retraining my body lately to only eat when I am actually hungry and to choose healthier things to quell my ravenous nature. This requires that I sit and think about it sometimes. Stop for a minute before ordering or cooking that next meal. More often than not, I find that I am not as hungry as often as I am habitually looking for something to chew, taste and enjoy because I find that act in and of itself pleasurable and satisfying. When I do eat, I also realize that I am eating less to get full, and the result is that by taking more time to really enjoy what I’m eating and to think about each meal, I am tending to eat less in quantity but doing so at more times during the day.

• Seventh, every so often, I stop into Sparrow’s or Border’s and buy the three-for-a dollar-or-so chocolates conveniently located next to the register to stop myself from going completely bat-crap insane.

Other parts of my over-arching plan are starting to come into place as well. My boyfriend and I are taking on the house together and doing some major reorganization and rejuvenation of the space. This is a huge deal for me because not only will this assist us in having a more pleasurable place to live, but there is something very significant to be said for not being bombarded with disorganization and clutter everywhere in a tangible way.

My brain and schedule are always filling up with crazy plans and work keeping me busy in every which way and it is nice to be able to enter your dwelling ensconced in the comforts of an inviting home that you have created for yourself. In fact, it makes all the difference in the world, so I am very happy about that.

Also, bellydance is starting up again, which I will be featuring in this series more and more as time goes by. I am excited about getting back into the swing (or shimmy) of things with dance, and I am also working my way into a normal work-out routine again. My tentative plans are to have bellydance class at least twice a week and to augment that by practicing at home, do yoga at home most days and go to classes one to two times a week, and then to drag myself out of bed every morning to walk to work. I think that if I start maintaining that level of activity or something close to it, it would be a major step toward the achievement of my goals.

And I have, for the first time in my life, been writing for an audience. And that, you dear, dear 5 people who read this series, is one of the greatest feelings I’ve had as a writer. Sharing my (very) curvy journey with you is something I look forward to every week.

It has also prompted me to have more confidence in my writing, and I’m telling you, this is the year I am writing my first book. I truly think that a gigantic portion of the whole body and mind harmony/wellness pie is being persistent in pursuing your dreams. For me, there is no other dream so sweet as being a real, self-sustaining author… living in Europe with Andrew and our cat and having our friends and family nearby and happy… perhaps even getting my work on the New York Times’ Best Seller List…traveling the world and tasting all kinds of regional cuisine…but I digress. The first step is to write the book; I can’t really thank everyone who has said such kind things about my writing enough, but thank you just the same. You are all fabulous.

Part Eight.Five: How was the Hafla?

I have had a few requests to talk about how the hafla went, so where better to recount your most recent adventure in public embarrassment than in an out with the old, in with the new post? For those of you who are new to this series, by hafla I am referring to a bellydance performance that I participated in on December 18th - my first public bellydance performance in front of people that I still wanted to know afterthe show.

So here’s how the hafla went: fine. It went fine if you consider that I was so insanely nervous that night that I was rude to everyone I care about who came to see the show. And if you count that I was so petrified and embarrassed that when I had a tiny drink to calm my nerves before the performance, my racing heartbeat made it go through my system so fast that toward the end I nearly fell over. And if you count me catching a look at one of my instructors during the performance and it making me so much more nervous that my timing in a very obvious part of the dance was well off from the rest of my class as fine, then it all went fine.

In all sincerity though, I was a wreck. The evening was great, and it was a good thing for me to do considering that continuing to perform is probably the only successful way for me to manage my stage nerves, but I was a nervous, rude, sarcastic wreck to all those around me. I was not graceful and I was fresh out of pleasantries, but all in all it went well, and I can concede that I didn’t mess up too badly. Though, in careful review of the video by my best friend and myself, we were both mortified by several various aspects of our all-told just-over-2-minutes-long performance, but, such is life.

We could have been much worse. And as my best friend said, one of our other instructors offered to have us dance under her tutelage at the next hafla after seeing us perform, so that must mean that we aren’t so bad that she wouldn’t want to be seen having us represent her teaching in the future…we hope.

We wore black and each of us had beautiful, colorful hip scarves on, accenting each punctuation of hip up, hip down, hip curving all the way around. Eight sassy ladies rocking it out to Beats Antique in a bowling alley in Saline. Ahh…memories.

Getting healthy in Michigan: Confessions of a (very) curvy girl: Part seven

2010-01-03T23:14:00.003-05:00

Part Seven: The Beginning of the Beginning

Well, it looks like I’ll begin the New Year with a large deficit in my bank and a large surplus in my person. I’ve never been good at making resolutions, and much like Lent, where for the past several years not being religious myself, I have taken to giving up giving up things, New Year’s Day for a long time now has been a day where I either make no resolutions at all, or I resolve to do one very big important thing that I keep under my breath and under my Stetson.

This year though, I’ve been hit with an unavoidable trifecta to reconcile:

• One: I need to (with the help of my better half of course) reorganize and refresh our house and make it into a home; a place where we want to be.

• Two: I must, against all odds, learn how to budget my meager financial existence cleverly enough to start paying down some of my very significant (mostly educational, but alarmingly present nonetheless) debts - because god almighty, I don’t know if I’ll ever know a time when I don’t feel that I owe.

• And three: I must organize and refresh my body, and learn how to budget my calories and start trimming down some of my very significant (mostly indulgence-based) areas - because god almighty, I don’t ever want to know a time where I have reached the point of no return and can never go back and do it right when it comes to health.

Let’s face it. One of the most substantial accounts we are given to manage in our lives is our health. If we are fortunate, we start out with a certain amount of good health in this life - a stock if you will; a store of goods. As with anything else, it seems to me that this stock can get depleted or be diminished based on how you take care of it. And, like most things, this store comes complete with a variety of items, each with their own expiration date. And, as we are well aware, we are dealing with perishables here :)

So we start out with our stock of health items, and as we get older, these are tapped in to, and in some cases are only replenished with diminishing returns. I broke my right wrist in two places when I was about 11 years old. Is that wrist as strong as the other? Probably not. I was a heavy smoker for roughly five years of my life. Are my lungs as shiny and pink as they once were? Probably not. And what of the food? The food that we put into our bodies is one of the most significant variables that affects our health. So, even putting the overindulgence aside for a moment; what of the bad choices? What of the non-organic canned vegetables, the reduced-fat mass-produced pastries and the non-dairy creamers of the world? What of the nutraceuticals? Fat-busting this, energy boosting that? What of the pizza, the hot dog, those little “fruit” filled pies that they sell for 39 cents at gas stations - all these things that are considered “food” in this country? How do we even know what all of these things are doing to our bodies? Was my body healthier five years ago when I lived in Chicago and was thinner than I was in high school? I doubt it, because that weight loss, while fast, was largely aided by fat-loss shakes, and I’ll tell you what: drinking that pink sludge made me feel like I was dying. Yeah, so I could zip a size 0, but my quality of life was bunk.

So on New Year’s Day, I will know my enemies. All of them. I am in the process of amassing an arsenal of knowledge and preparation to fight my tendency to make bad food and nutrition decisions, and I am finding new ways to get myself in the habit of exercising a bit each day, and doing some significant moving around 3-5 days a week. I am going to be presenting the things I am learning about food and wellness to you, dear reader, both good and bad, as they come. I plan on launching a couple of new supplemental series to the curvy girl confessions that will profile my findings, so look for those coming up.

And now, a couple of short, incomplete lists:

Five things I want to lose in the New Year:

1. A generous smidge of my love handles, saddlebags, tummy, extra chin and bootie.
2. My inability to keep up on a simple haircut.
3. My general disorganization and haphazard method of keeping my house, finances and body in good order.
4. The bad habit I have of often eating too much and doing so before bed.
5. My general avoidance of fixable unpleasantries.

Five things I want to gain in the New Year:

1. Advanced bellydance skill (while maintaining a good amount of the curvaceousness it takes to really work it.)
2. Better friendships and relationships all around.
3. A better understanding of my body and how it works.
4. The ability to wear my old jeans again without it cutting off my circulation.
5. My first published novel. (We’ll see about that one.)

This week I’ve started slow - the last couple of days really not eating more than I should and when I do eat, trying to prepare things that are good go-to’s, not just fatty, synthetic tasting edible nonsense. I made some semblance of black beans and brown rice last night, and tonight I am making curtido. Thank you Pilar’s Tamales for peaking my interest in El Salvadorian cuisine. Yum! They are good for you and absurdly delicious. And for people like me who may buy too much food and have it go bad on them (another thing I am trying to improve), vinegar salads like curtido are great, because they get better the longer they stick around. Score one for me!

Anyway, the point is, I’m making steps towards this goal. Baby steps, but steps, and that’s where it starts. And you know what? I’m not above incentivizing the process at the moment. In fact, I think a great way to motivate myself to walk to work every day is to buy those pretty reasonably priced boots I’ve had my eye on Zappos.com, and when I reach my goal weight, I think I am going to get a tiny, tasteful, glittery stud pierced in my nose, so there.

Happy New Year! More confessions of a (very) curvy girl will come out every Wednesday.

Getting healthy in Michigan: Confessions of a (very) curvy girl: Part six

2010-01-03T23:12:00.001-05:00

Part Six: ‘Twas the Night before a (Very) Curvy Christmas
‘
Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a garment would fit, not even my blouse;
The stocking size said large, but buyer beware,
It doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be able to fit into there;

My rolls were nestled all snug in their threads,
While visions of baklava danced in my head;
I put on my ‘kercheif, and donned my winter cap,
And I tried to put on my coat, but the buttons wouldn’t snap,

The realization of which made me make such a clatter,
An adult tantrum in response to myself getting fatter.
Away from this pretense I flew like a flash,
And I took a big breath and loosened my sash.

The dawn on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the luster of mid-day to my belly below,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But the presence of hope, and eight mighty things I hold dear.

And with a little self-humor, so as not to be sick,
I knew in a moment that my new plan would stick.
More rapid than eagles my intentions they came,
And I whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;

“Now, Laughter! Now, Dancing! Now, Friends and Conviction!
On, Self-Esteem! On, Confidence! On, Real Foods and EATING!
From the tops of my thighs! To my saddlebags and jowl!
Help this excess fat dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”

As my heart filled with promise and the new hope to try,
I finally saw my shape as a bonus and let out a cry;
It wasn’t I that had the problem with it, as some other people do;
I liked my trunk full of junk; my confidence born anew.

Understanding how long it might take to see proof,
I endeavored to preserve my ability to goof.
As I made my intention, life was turning around,
Down the road I could see it; goal met, my slenderer self very svelte, very proud.

So today’s journey begins, and it all starts with one foot,
And though my clothes may be strained, I’ll stay true to this root:
Moving forward there is no sense to look back,
And resent self control and its obvious lack.

Though the road will be long, and my sizes may vary,
I’m determined to get moving, and I will not tarry!
With the holidays here, the temptation will grow
To eat with abandon, ‘till my movements grow stunted and slow;

But with the grit of determination set hard in my teeth,
I’ll eat and enjoy it, just not down to the wreath.
So I have a fuller face and a little round belly,
And it does shake when I laugh, like a bowlful of jelly.

This Christmas I don’t mind being chubby and plump,
And I do laugh when I see it, in spite of myself.
A good glass of wine and a warm crust of bread,
Homemade stuffing, spinach pie, and bowls and bowls of salad

Will make short, short work
For my knife and my fork.
And laying aside the calorie counting woes,
I will enjoy what is in front of me, and just pace myself as it goes.

So on Christmas, this girl does not think of total calorie dismissal,
But rather a compromise between sinew and gristle.
And I still will be heard, toward the end of the respite,
wishing a “Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!”

Happy Holidays to all of you and yours! More confessions of a (very) curvy girl will come out every Wednesday.

Getting healthy in Michigan: Confessions of a (very) curvy girl, part five

2010-01-03T23:09:00.003-05:00

Part Five: For the love of God it isn’t working!

Pulling on my pants over my backside and trying to find tops that sufficiently conceal my belly this week has really taken its toll. Yes, I had a cold and wasn’t feeling well for a couple of days and missed one of my bellydance classes and one of my yoga classes. Yes, I drank some out-of-date-no-refrigeration-needed-creamer (in my coffee or course, not straight :) and it made me feel so weird that I had to call Poison Control. Yes, I have been eating sweets with an uncontrolled, insatiable appetite. But do I really have to be gaining more weight? Again?

As my Mother is always saying, “Why is it so hard to take off, and so easy to put on?” Well Mama, I don’t know. I do know, however, that I seem to have mastered the art without fully understanding the process. So now all of the clothes that I bought to accommodate how full my figure was becoming in the last installment of clothes is being challenged. I find that more than mildly annoying. Don’t most people lose a little pudge when they get under the weather? Not me, clearly. It isn’t quite that I’m plump that’s the problem - it’s that I have crossed my personal threshold of where I want to be...again.

So what do I do? Where is the lost connection? What was missing this past week that has caused me to lose ground in my battle to just be slightly less dimply? Well, what happened this week is not so strange. If fact, it happens every week - I have little or no time to accomplish any of the things I want to do and as a result things pile up. Everywhere. My room is full of clothes, my living room is full of books and piles of paper, and my body is full of goo.

Things I am nervous about:

The hafla is looming on the horizon, and my belly roll is looking more like a jelly roll.
That I am on slippery ground when it comes to being able to have any self-control at all when it comes to food. I can justify eating pretty much anything by telling myself, “well, you could get hit by a bus tomorrow.”
I am craving sugar like I never really have before and it is making me nervous, especially because my body is very sensitive to things like sugar and caffeine already.
Will I ever have the time and energy in a day to get as organized as I need to be to live the life I want to live?

Things that give me hope:

My self-esteem is better than it has been in the past by far, so this little setback is only that - little.
I have support from people who love me.
I don’t have to stop eating whatever I want altogether, I just have to be more selective about how I do it and how much I do it.
I am reaching my personal threshold of self-annoyance with this whole personal wellness effort. I need to get it together and I am getting fed up! There is no motivator quite like anger.

Things I plan to do (I’m on the rampage now):

Carve out a cupboard in my kitchen that is solely dedicated to things that I need to eat to be healthier. I absolutely can’t stand looking around for something to eat in the kitchen and feeling like I can’t eat any of it.
Reacquaint myself with our cookbooks and commit myself to making more complete meals that have higher nutritional value. There needs to be a full-flavor option in what I prepare that will keep me full for a longer period of time then my usual carbohydrate crutches.

Flavor matters. When I worked at Zingerman’s, part of my orientation was to take classes, and many of them had to do with learning why their food was so good. I believe it was in a class with Ari that I heard this thought: that we eat so much (particularly in this country) because so much of what we eat is poor quality food and thus leaves a lack of real flavor and satisfaction in our mouths, so much so, in fact, that we are driven to shove more and more of these foodstuffs into our mouths to compensate for the lack of quality and flavor. On the flipside, when we eat spectacular food, we don’t have to eat as much, because we are satiated with less. Do we want more because it’s so good? Sure. But I can personally attest to the fact that I can eat far less of something divine and be satisfied than I can, say, a bag of Better Made potato chips (which, don’t get me wrong, on the right day can be fabulous, but I digress.)
I also am committed to getting my derrière up and moving in the morning and more so in the evening than I have been. It may take some self-created incentives to get motivated, but I need to put my foot down. Something has to change.

I believe it was Gandhi who said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” I’ve come back to this quote over and over again during my lifetime, and it has applied to almost every facet of life that I can think of - so why not harness the passion I have for the sentiment and intention behind this statement when it is applied to civil rights or environmental justice and make a version of it my own as I formulate an effective approach toward personal wellness? I think that unless I keep up the intensity of my goals in this venture to a point where I am compelled to care enough to make those changes on a daily, hourly and long-term basis, I won’t be able to. If only someone could make a gripping movie trailer each day, capturing the epic struggle of getting in better health to keep me motivated (and frankly, it could be done every few hours to keep me interested.) It turns out that person is me. I must take up the pen and author the revolutionary story of my own life and the journeys I take. Not just in terms of personal wellness, but having that be a part of it. I need to weave all of the story threads in my life together and realize in a very real and tangible way that they are all part of the greater tapestry of my story, my adventure.

See? Now I’m all motivated to go out and hike through the woods, have a late lunch at an Indian restaurant, and end the day by working on my life’s dream: writing a novel. Now if I only had the time…

Getting healthy in Michigan: Confessions of a (very) curvy girl: Part four

2010-01-03T23:08:00.001-05:00

Part Four: Public Embarrassment

As my childhood fear of dance recitals sets in, I am beginning to think that the decision to perform my bellydance “skills” publicly may have been ill conceived.

I have been studying bellydance for a bit over a year now, and having no self-discipline, I lack all of the additional skill that someone who would have been religiously practicing during all of that time would have. It’s a shame really, but I have been beginning to turn the tide recently. Much like this blog, the decision to publicly expose myself doing something that otherwise would make me much more comfortable if it were to have remained relatively private, is a decision that was made under the auspices of the “this’ll be good for me” self-justification clause. And slowly but surely, it is getting me to do more of the things I want to accomplish.

I was drawn to bellydance in the first place for the reason I think most people are: it is intensely seductive. But once I started to do more investigating, more and more I became drawn to it as a natural fit for the way my body wants to move, and also for its (as it seems to me at least, though I know there is a raging debate about this amongst the bellydance-savvy) many cultural variations and derivations, and for its beauty and interpretative quality in each of these. Bellydance also celebrates the woman, and I don’t know about you, but the celebration of the female form in all her forms was a concept that resonated deep inside me and seemed to say, “finally.”

You may not think to look at it, but Michigan actually has quite a large bellydance community, and also a wealth of diverse and amazingly talented instructors. In my case, my best friend and I had been talking about starting bellydance classes seriously for a little while, and between the two of us, we had amassed an almost embarrassingly large collection of various how-to bellydance DVD’s. We always knew that we wanted to take classes, so we began to look around for something that would fit for both of us, as we live about an hour apart but wanted to do this together. Since then, my bff and I have become quite the connoisseurs, though I must admit she is far more educated than I in the styles and sub-styles and musical arrangements. This is great because we are both learning together and she can forward me all the great stuff she finds ☺.

As we were beginning our research, I enrolled in a class being offered by Ann Arbor Red and Ed. The class was good for me to start with, but was extremely basic. Afterwards, I heard from a friend that there was going to be a 6-week open level bellydance course starting at A2 Yoga. I had gone there a couple of times by that point, and felt comfortable to let my freak flag fly there so to speak (I say that with GREAT affection by the way), and it is rare to find an environment that is so welcoming of all people no matter who they are or where they are at in their lives, and I wanted to be a part of that. So I took the plunge. I enrolled, and began training my flesh and muscle on how to shimmy, figure eight and undulate its way into the ranks of talented bellydance. I found right away that my body responded to this kind of exercise in a way that was both more natural and more beneficial to me than any of my preconceived expectations.

For example, throughout the years, I have dealt with a number of semi-related issues that many women do; chronic abdominal pain and cramping, etc. - things that aren’t quite wrong but things that can make life very uncomfortable nonetheless. I have found for myself that the combination of bellydance and Anusara yoga (more to come on that in future posts) has been the only thing that has helped my body feel better. Both specifically and systemically, my body is feeling far better than it has maybe ever in my adult life. Also, I might add that for me, and I am not a medical professional in any way, but for me, this is the only combination I have found to alleviate many of the symptoms I was suffering when quite a few doctors and just as many prescriptions couldn’t. However, it does seem for my body to be the combination of the two things, the bellydance and the yoga, that are bringing about this change in my body. Alone they feel like two halves that are desperately missing each other. So I do them together, and voila! An exercise plan that doesn’t make me want to barf that will hold my interest. Sure, it’s not all a big calorie burner, but for toning, flexibility, and balance, this mélange of movements does it for me. As far as the cardio fat burning piece, that will come. This is where I’m at today.

Also, for any of my ladies out there who wish to celebrate their curves and keep them even as they drop a little weight, bellydance is a wonderful way to go, and it will enrich your life. I wouldn’t have thought it, but opening myself up to this way of moving has allowed me to see my body in all of its rolling glory as a beautiful thing. It has certainly contributed to my having much better self-esteem where my weight is concerned. It was in bellydance class that I first began to look at myself as I am now and think, “You know, I’m not the one who has a problem with this.” I don’t have to be the one at the table saying, “Elizabeth, should you really be eating that dessert?” That I can leave to those who will think that no matter what I say. Denying myself the pleasure of eating good food while I am still on this earth to enjoy it isn’t quite my plan - however, it does not mean that I have to eat it in giant quantities anymore (just in case you are wondering if I am negating my entire argument and reason for writing this blog.)

Back to the main thread of the piece - now that I have been taking classes for about a year-and-a-half, it has come time to perform with one of my classes in our winter hafla. A hafla is a celebration of belly dance in which bellydancers come together and all perform for each other in groups or by themselves. It’s like a dance recital without the stage Moms, the spandex, and the rigidity - okay, there may be some spandex depending on how you roll, but I digress. My best friend and I are doing this together, and it should be fun - but this is the first time I will have taken the stage in front of people I know, really trying at dancing since roughly the third grade. I did dance in the Ann Arbor Rec and Ed recital, but my justification for that was that there are some things you can only do in front of a stranger, and I didn’t know anyone there outside of my class. This will be different, not only will people I know be there, but I want to be really good. I find that I am holding myself to a higher standard now, and I have also been practicing - in fact, my best friend and I are getting together to have an all-day practice fest soon, because, well, we need it. And, let’s just say that if there are security cameras in the elevators at work, I’m in trouble, because someone has been having to watch me practice my ¾ shimmy all the way up and down that building each time I get the space to myself. Practice, practice, practice. Hopefully it’ll make perfect, but I’ll definitely keep you updated.

In the future, installments of Confessions of a Curvy Girl will be published every Wednesday, this has changed since the last post due to unavoidable rescheduling.

Getting healthy in Michigan: Confessions of a (very) curvy girl - Part Three

2009-12-07T14:59:00.001-05:00

Join me for a series of honest, hopefully funny, slightly more than half-hearted attempts at getting myself into shape.

Part Three: Edible Indiscretions

Well, I’ll call it like it is: It’s slow going on the home front.

As I stood stuffing an almond croissant into my mouth in the kitchen while cooking dinner for myself and my boyfriend who was sitting in the other room, I thought, why is it taking me so long to get it together? What is the hold up? Why does it always take me so long to get myself organized enough to move? Why aren't I sharing my pastry with my boyfriend instead of shoveling it into my mouth with the ferocity of a lioness who is luxuriating in her coveted kill?

I entered the living room, sure that there were some errant flakes of croissant clinging to my dress; unmoved by the ceremonial brushing of the flakes, a ritual I need to go through any time I eat something without the aid of a table under me. Generally, bits of crumb and dustings of whatever my more buxom bits have brushed off the counter while I was cooking populate the front and hips of my dress; most seeming to congregate on the hilly curvature of my belly. This happens nearly every time I cook, and has since I first developed hips.

But the question remains, why in the world do I feel the need to get everything all set up just so before I can embark on making a life change? Would I feel better trying to get healthier if my house wasn’t so cluttered? Yes. Would I feel more equal to the challenge if I could get myself to go to bed earlier so that I could get up early enough in the morning to practice my belly dance or walk to work? Yes. Would I feel better if I felt encouraged by all the other things in life that I need to get it together on being gotten together? Yes. Of course. But I live in a real world with real consequences and real constrains on my time and on my mind. I need to adapt. Adapt and learn the real nature of the limitations on my time and on my attention.

I realize that in this struggle, organization is my friend. But I also realize that my personality tends to also make the inability to find the time to organize a pathway to procrastination.

So, little by little, I have started to get my butt in gear. Naturally, there is nowhere to start but at the beginning. For me, the beginning was this past week when I actually dragged my patootie out of bed and made it to yoga on Sunday morning, and the Monday evening previous. This is in addition to the belly dance classes that I take twice a week. It’s not all I need by far to get back in my groove with the cosmic rhythm of the universe, but it was a major step for me, and I’ll tell you what - the two go hand in hand, and their ability to make my body feel better and make me feel better about my body are virtually unparalleled.

Truly, the mental process it takes to culminate in me just getting my body moving is…extensive. But once I’m up, we’ve got momentum, see, and that’s the goal. So I may be the tortoise winning the race, but believe it or not, I have lost a bunch of weight before and been even skinnier than I was in high school. That’s not what I’m after here. Losing weight is not my goal per se. I just want to treat the body I have with respect and have it be as healthy as possible - and that is a battle that for me will be long and hard won. My budget and my temperament won’t allow for a personal trainer or life coach, but if that’s your thing, go for it. For me, I can’t take all of the pretense and the judgment that goes along with American culture’s preoccupation with radical weight loss to attain some bizarre cultural “norm” that frankly in most cases is unhealthy and doesn’t exist. I’m trying to find my happy medium: normal weight loss brought on my being healthier, while maintaining my personal shape that I’ve come to love. There is more work ahead obviously, however, this time I’ll have you all along for the ride. Stay tuned for belly dance practices, yoga class thoughts and my general debauchery with food.

In the future, installments of Confessions of a Curvy Girl will be published every Tuesday.

Elizabeth Palmer is a community contributor for AnnArbor.com. She writes about food and food traditions, sustainable development and her experiences as a curvy girl. She has a bachelor’s degree in photography and is finishing her masters in historic preservation.

Being thankful for sustainable development and biomimicry

2009-12-07T14:55:00.000-05:00

I am using this Thanksgiving season to launch a new series of weekly articles on a movement that I am very thankful for: sustainable development. This is intended to be a platform for information and discussion regarding sustainability and the myriad of problems we face today that living more sustainability could help heal.

I wanted to start the series with one of the most mind-blowing fields of sustainable development that I have come across to date. I really hope you read this - it's an incredible thing that these people are doing...

"BI-O-MIM-IC-RY [From the Greek bios, life, and mimesis, imitation]"

"Nature runs on sunlight.
Nature uses only the energy it needs.
Nature fits form to function.
Nature recycles everything.
Nature rewards cooperation.
Nature banks on diversity.
Nature demands local expertise.
Nature curbs excesses from within.
Nature taps the power of limits."

Janine Benyus from her book: Biomimicry, Innovation Inspired by Nature.

Behold, one of the most amazing movements of our time that you've probably never heard about: Biomimicry.

For me, biomimicry is the natural balanced response to the systematic industrial devastation of nature we have been experiencing since the world became more "civilized". So much of what we face today environmentally is wrapped up in this relationship, and it is all coming to a head, making climate change the defining struggle of our time.

It is time to face up to the fact that the world will no longer be the same. Every country, every plant and every animal, every season you have come to love on this planet has suffered and continues to suffer the chilling degenerative change brought about by climate change and the circumstances we have created that perpetuate it. Those who argue over whether or not this is happening slow our process of disaster prevention to the detriment and potential peril of us all. And those who prefer to take up their time making us listen to their versions of the whys and wherefores of how climate change is a myth not only ignore science but any and all good biological and ecological sense. Think: you may feel it in your bones as I find myself doing these days - the earth is changing and the lines we have drawn in a nature that was not ours to own are coming back to haunt us and all those species linked to us in this place; our home.

How are we supposed to handle this? Is there anything we can do in the time we have left? I need to tell you that from my perspective, it seems awfully bleak at times. When I am blatantly honest with myself, our prospects of trying to stop everything harmful that is happening quickly enough and completely enough seems impossible. We have so much to change and an ever-shrinking unknown span of time to do it in. Meanwhile, we reach ever-higher crescendos in our points of no ecological return, and at the end of the day, we really can't fix it all.

But biomimicry gives me hope.

Biomimicry is a discipline that flows from the wisdom of the earth, the plants, of all the animals and sea life, and takes a cue from the wisdom of Indigenous peoples who have long known that the only way to survive in harmony with nature is to have enough humility and respect for it to listen.

In her seminal text on the subject, Biomimicry, Innovation Inspired by Nature, Janine Benyus quotes Vaclav Havel, the now former President of the Czech Republic to illustrate the theme of the text:

"We must draw our standards from the natural world. We must honor with the humility of the wise the bounds of that natural world and the mystery which lies beyond them, admitting that there is something in the order of being which evidently exceeds all our competence."

Then Janine Benyus writes this in the first chapter, really putting it in a nutshell:

"After 3.8 billion years of research and development, failures are fossils, and what surrounds us is the secret to survival."

What are the practical applications of this wizardry you ask? Well, luckily for us, there are some very good internet resources that can help advance your biomimetic knowledge. These sites will show you how Indigenous African architecure and termite mounds in the desert have inspired a building that heats and cools itself by responding to the outside temperature. They will also show you how abalone shells are being used to make the next generation of body armor. They will show you a new way to feed the world. Take a look for yourselves:

Look around you. Our path to the future has always been here all around us. I know that we can all move toward a healthier future together if we listen to each other and re-learn that we are no less involved in the cycle and consequences of what happens to this earth than the flora and fauna, or the Indigenous peoples who have always known this to be the truth. We are of nature. It's time once again to think of all parts of nature as our own family; as related to us indivisibly. And we need to re-evaluate and re-invigorate our relationship in it in a way that will heal the wounds and make the whole balanced again.

Check back for more upcoming articles on sustainable development.

Elizabeth Palmer is a community contributor for AnnArbor.com. While she usually writes about food, she is also passionate about living sustainably, and is teaching a course at Eastern Michigan University on sustainable development. She believes that this information should be available to everyone, which is why she is writing this series.

Thanksgiving: a story of giving past recipes new flavor

2009-12-07T14:47:00.000-05:00

In general, I celebrate Thanksgiving because I celebrate the food. I celebrate the food, the time I get to spend with my family cooking and eating and talking, and I celebrate the yearly hope that this day will be accompanied by something like Ben Hur or Spaceballs playing softly on the TV in the background.

These are the parts of the day that I wish wouldn't change. I want to wear my slippers and jammies as I cook, split up the food to-do's with my Mom, and I want to see the pots of yams and cranberries boiling over on my parents' flat top range; the liquid from each simultaneously creating bursts of steam and splattered puddles which crust over as they singe onto the stove surface.

We'll whip the potatoes, skins and all, and my Mom will insist on making a fruit salad, no matter what else we've made or how late we're running (and I will thank her later in the evening for that fresh reprieve from an otherwise very rich meal) and I will work the pieces of phyllo dough for our spinach pie like delicate ivory bed sheets; wrapping them around my Yaiyai's traditional mixture of spinach and cheese and covering it all in a warm dripping of melted butter until it resembles very much the size and shape of a comfy bedroom pillow - nothing smells quite like the baking of my Yaiyai's spinach pie. It's a smell, that along with that of a roasting turkey, has come to be synonymous with all of my Thanksgivings growing up (truth be told, spinach pie is made for every special occasion at our house, but I digress.)

And while there are many things about this holiday that I would rather not change, there are definitely things that could benefit from a fresh touch. I've started doing little things at home in recent years to break with the traditional foods and preparation methods we generally employ for Thanksgiving, like making another Greek dish to go with our regular meal like keftedes perhaps, or trying a couple different kinds of stuffing or a new dessert; but while my Mom and Dad welcome invention in the kitchen as long as it tastes good, we still always make the old stand-bys - just so we have them.

This year, my boyfriend and I each pitched the idea of serving individual stuffed Cornish hens at our Thanksgiving dinners rather than the giant turkey - and we were both promptly shut down. It seems that while we may have some wiggle room with the side dishes, there is no getting away from the space-hogging, all-day cooking, potentially very dry, dry, tryptophan-filled prospect of turkey. There appears to be no way around it. It was essentially the same answer from both my parents and his: don't mess with our turkeys.

Okay, okay. This year, your turkeys stay (and don't get me wrong, I like a good turkey as much as the next struggling vegetarian), but we are going to rock the pants off those side dishes. To start, let's run down the list of the usual suspects:

• Whipped potatoes
• Green salad
• Fruit Salad
• Yams
• Green beans
• Spinach pie (insert your family's traditional specialty here)
• Bread & butter
• Gravy
• Cranberry relish

Barring a few personal revisions that will vary from household to household, the dishes listed above generally comprise what one would recognize to be the side dishes at a traditional Thanksgiving meal.

From this list, I realize that I will have to pick my battles. Compromises will have to be made. I understand that there can be no errant bananas showing up in the fruit salad (even though I love them) at my Dad's request, and that the green beans must remain pretty straight-forward as they are my brother's favorite. But as I scan this list, I find myself drawn toward tackling what is generally the most underappreciated yet stubbornly present offering at the Thanksgiving table: the cranberry relish.

Yes, I will bring local Farmer's Market greens and vegetables to the table to invigorate our green salad, and I will buy at least one loaf of cranberry pecan bread from Zingerman's to add some life to our bread and butter selection, and I will probably even threaten the sanctity of our potatoes with fresh garlic and herbs (and don't think I've forgotten about you, yams), but the cranberry relish really does need all the help it can get.

Much like the clarinet in musical arrangements, the cranberry relish in a Thanksgiving Day spread goes underappreciated and often unnoticed as its steadfast, comforting presence is in many ways overshadowed by the more flashy attributes of its tablemates. Who notices the cranberry relish anymore these days? Well, me.

I started noticing the cranberry relish the first time that I took it upon myself to make it. Using a well-worn, well-loved recipe that my Mom had gotten from my Aunt Debbie, I ventured into the world of cranberry cookery. The recipe calls for apples and orange zest, cranberries and sugar, and it's not really something you know how to alter to fit your taste until you've made it once or twice. Now having done that the past couple of years, I am going to attempt to perfect something I tried for the first time last Thanksgiving: making this recipe my own.

Am I talking about a completely new approach that shuns the past and ditches tradition in the pursuit of something hyper-new a la molecular gastronomy like cranberry foam or a liquid nitrogen infused cranberry ice? No. I think that as with any step forward in the great continuum of change on this planet, we must be wise enough and humble enough to learn from those who have come before us. My Aunt Debbie is an excellent cook, and so, I am going to use her recipe as a template to pair our traditional cranberry relish with my new addition: the elegant flavor notes of the vanilla bean.

Not being trained as a chef, I do not have a history on call in my mind for the past pairings of the cranberry and the vanilla bean, but the idea of the union came to me last year, and it just seemed, well, natural.

So, for a family of four like ours, half of the original recipe would work, and I encourage you to play around with your own ideas of what the greatest cranberry relish in the world for you would be when making this at home. Please keep in mind that this is a work in progress, so make at your own risk, but what is cooking if not an exercise in experimentation?
Here is the general template for my version of the recipe:

• 1 bag of cranberries (you can find local ones this time of year)
• ¼ - ½ tsp. of orange zest (more to taste if you prefer)
• 2 apples, diced (the only stipulation here is to not use any red delicious)
• ½ - ¾ cup of sugar (this can actually get very sweet very fast - test it)
• The insides of 2 vanilla beans
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• A pinch fresh grated nutmeg

The process after that is simple:

Rinse the cranberries and pick out the "nurds", which are the white ones and the rotten ones, etc. Combine the cranberries and orange zest in a saucepan with water to just cover the cranberries (some may float up as you cook, and oftentimes they are the bad ones, so it makes them easy to pick out.)

Bring the cranberries to a boil, then put the apples in the pan as well. As the concoction is boiling, you may have to add more water at times. Just keep an eye on it as it cooks.

Add the sugar after and stir constantly.
This is also where I add my vanilla bean scrapings.

Next, my Mother made a notation on my Aunt's recipe to add "1 whole teaspoon of cinnamon" at this point, and I would add to that the slightest bit of fresh grated nutmeg.

Turn the heat down to a simmer and let it reduce a bit until it becomes more syrupy. The cranberries will split open while cooking, and once this has happened to all of them, you'll need approximately 1 more minute of cook time, then the cranberries can be taken off the heat.
The mixture will thicken as it cools, so bear that in mind, but you want to cook it enough to where it's the consistency of warm honey before you pull it off the heat.

It feels like I am coming to a point in my life where it is time to start new traditions, but as always, still honor the ones that I was raised with. Creating my own cranberry relish may be a small step on the way to culinary change on the big family holidays, but who knows? Maybe next year we'll have Cornish hens.

Getting healthy in Michigan: confessions of a (very) curvy girl - Part two

2009-11-21T14:36:00.001-05:00

Part Two: Education and Digestion, the crux of the situation

When people talk about educating themselves before they embark on something, rarely does this include self-education.

Know thyself.

Does it sound simple? I suppose it might. But for me, it is a constant, ever-evolving process that is informed as much by the passage of time as by experience. And there are so many facets to one's self. First, let me start by way of introduction:

Hello, my name is Elizabeth. I am 27 years old, of mixed Greek and Western European heritage, and I was born and raised in southeast Michigan. I am almost 5 feet tall exactly, and I weigh somewhere near a buck eighty. This makes me, depending on the cut of the clothes, somewhere between a size 12 and a size 14. However, I can often get away with smaller tops and dresses, as it is my badonkadonk and thighs that have the widest berth. Pants are a whole other universe. When trying on pants, my best friend and I (who are both lovely curvy girls with some very similar body issues) run into problems when we find pants that are big enough to fit our thighs and bootiays, because they are almost always so loose at the waist end that plumber's butt syndrome is nearly unavoidable. Now, for girls as lovely as us, plumber's butt is not very comely...though I am hard pressed to think of a situation in which it is.

What I want.

I am defiant of all of those critics who say that you have to eat low-fat foods to lose weight, or that if you eat full-flavored real foods you have no hope of not becoming an uncontrollable blob. Since when did eating whole fat foods become the issue? In my opinion, the answer to our love/hate relationship with delicious food here in the U.S. goes a long way back, and it involves learning about a lot of things; how the quest for the almighty dollar empowered corporations in this country to trump the nutritive value of our foods in the name of "progress", agricultural revolutions, genetically modified organisms (GMO's), and the deluge of highly processed, 108 ingredient "foods" available to us in this country at the lowest prices and any time we want them, just to name a few. It also means that we have to research the other side of the history of food in this country - there are survivors from this gluttonous industrial wreckage, and if you've been listening lately, you've been hearing about more and more of these refugees of the corporate food system. Whispers offarmer's markets and artisan food producers have grown into full-blown hollers of jubilation as the local and sustainable agriculture movement continues to gain more and more momentum, from the grassroots on up to the shoots.

So, the "foods" I won't eat are many, but I certainly have not weaned myself completely away from all mass-produced foods, however I do watch it very closely and try to learn more about it every day. And it is not all the fault of artifical foods that I have gained this weight...and yet - do we really know how these foods effect our bodies long-term? (More to explore on that later.)

Those of us who live in Michigan are incredibly fortunate. We are geographically and ecologically located in a plentiful site and situation to produce our own healthy, complete foods. That being said, with the constraints of a real-life budget, both with time and money, it's not always easy to feed ourselves in a beneficial way.

Personally, I also have some clear issues that I think are directly related to my edible input and could potentially be solved or put substantially at bay by me doing a better job of regulating what goes into my system. My quest in this series will be to find what works for me and the issues I am having, but it's all going to be trial and error, and what works for me probably won't work for everyone. However, this is about documenting the journey.

Some of the problems I have been having are: acid reflux, heartburn, low-grade chronic fatigue, imperfect sleep, and I also seem to have an extreme sensitivity tocaffeine and a moderate sensitivity to some forms of sugar. So for me, this journey is going to be one that stubbornly proclaims, "I will not go quietly into that good nighthaving only eaten boiled brown rice for the majority of my life because I didn't want to do the work!" I will find some way to bridge this gap and eat delicious food, because I love food, there just has to be a smarter way to do it.

So what are the next steps? As always, building a strong foundation is the key to any successful structure. As such, my next steps are these (and they will all be explored in their own posts):

1. Get organized. There is nothing worse (trying to lose weight-wise) than opening up your fridge or your cabinets and feeling like you can't eat any of its contents. It's time to claim my own cupboard and get exicted about planning what I eat.

2. Get moving. I have all sorts of creative ideas about how to exercise in a way that will hold my interest and my motivation. From bellydance to long walks in the woods, I'm going to explore it, learn it, live it, love it.

3. Get eating. The holidays are coming, so there's really no time like the present to start eating better, right? Well, exactly. There is no time like when you are surrounded by exquisite food to really savour it, and to take your time savouring it. My goal this holiday season will be to not immediately shovel everything I see on the table on to my plate and into my mouth. I'm going to try a slow down...and enjoy it... And that goes for the time I get to spend with my family as well. Talk with your tablemates; it'll help aid in your digestion, and it will allow your body to catch up with your hunger so that you can feel satiated without eating the entire turkey.

Check back soon for part three of confessions of a (very) curvy girl: The Plan. Also, for a daily journal, visit my personal blog.

Curvy girl Journals: Day one - almost lunch

2009-11-19T10:52:00.001-05:00

I am now staring at the clock every few seconds when I get the chance waiting to see when it's lunchtime...this is not about starving oneself in the least, but I do need to plan on getting some healthier snacks around me for when these hunger pangs start to rumble.

Curvy girl journals: Day one - breakfast

2009-11-19T08:24:00.001-05:00

And time marches on...

They say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so naturally, I usually skip it. This week, and today is no different, I've been making a point to eat something before I leave the house for work. Now, there are a couple of things I should explain:

1. In general, eating prior to like 10 or 11 o'clock in the morning usually makes me feel a little queasy. It may have something to do with having GERD issues, but having this problem, I realize I need to work with my body on this rather than just ignore it.

2. I can't even think about eating eggs this early in the day, eggs, or for that matter, anything that is not carb-based and saltine-like in its effect on the stomach is out.

3. It has to be relatively quick to make and easy to clean up, because I have found that it's quite easy to make myself late by not budgeting my time well. Being late stresses me out a lot, so I think that part of achieving wellness is knowing that in your body as with the planet everything is connected.

So, this morning I made a toasted piece of farm bread with organic butter, organic peanut butter, and Irish honey. Calorie fest? Maybe, but this has enough protein to tide me over until the afternoon, and it won't make me want to hurl.

I am working on phasing myself into a healthier breakfast option, but part of this project is that I can't lie to you about what I ate or didn't eat.

For more background on the dietary issues and goals that I have, check back for part two of Confessions of a (very) curvy girl: Education and Digestion.

Getting healthy in Michigan: confessions of a (very) curvy girl – Part one

2009-11-18T16:42:00.000-05:00

Join me for a series of honest, hopefully funny, slightly more than half-hearted attempts at getting myself into shape.

Part One: Sir Mix-a-lot wrote that song for girls like me

I have been feeling my own mortality a lot lately. It seems like I am hearing more and more instances of people getting really ill, and in an uncomfortably ever-increasing number, these are people who are close to me; my friends, my family. It occurs to me more often than not that the gift of good health is something to be guarded, protected, and held on to. I admit that I haven't done the best job of it. I'm not horrible, but acid reflux, heartburn, and never quite feeling like I've gotten enough sleep - all are little postcards from my body telling me that everything is not entirely well on the home front. I could feel a lot better if I am willing to put in the effort.

Will there be pitfalls and perhaps some (hopefully very entertaining) flat out falling on my face? Of course. But traveling through life on the path of constant health is not always an easy journey. If you're anything like me and have minimal self control when it comes to eating, a general disinterest in drilling oneself in monotonous exercises, and a willful stubbornness that drives you to live in the moment of the meal rather than heed the trouble extra calories can cause in the future, then perhaps you and I can take this journey together. I admit that I don't know if this will work, this experiment of writing about my attempt to get it together full-body wellness-wise in order to help really get it done, but as I get older, I realize that the time in my life I have been waiting for is here, and (not to sound way to cliché here, but) if I don't grab hold of the possibilities inherent in that, here in the present, then I may not ever. If I can't get it together now for myself and all the days of my future, I guarantee the major debilitating health problems can't be far behind. The reciprocity of my youth and the resilience to bounce back seem to be ebbing away under the continuous undulation of time, and I want to weather this storm well. So the time has come for me to defer to the wisdom of nature and learn to revel in the power of limits.

It won't be easy for me, and I won't lie to you about that. I will be as painfully honest in this series with you, dear reader, as I am with myself - but reader beware - I'm not a Type A, perfect, self-motivated get-in-shaper; I am, frankly, stubbornly reluctant and I like to eat cookies. So I need to find creative ways to get motivated and healthy. Luckily, I have a very active imagination and next to no ego regarding my personal appearance, which makes it easier to try all sorts of potentially embarrassing things to better myself...like certain exercise classes I have attended...

And I have something else to say: I love curves. I LOVE them, and I actually love having them. All I want is to lose the extra-extra curvage going on in the front belly area and the saddlebaggage hanging out elsewhere on my person. I'm not knocking anyone's body type at all - I think we should all celebrate the human form and be true to the nature of our bodies. I was born curvy and I will always have some junk in the trunk and that's where I like it. A slightly smaller trunk; maybe more of an attaché case perhaps, but I want to keep it. It's what I like.

This effort to gain full-body wellness might make me very cranky personally for a while, but once the work is underway (I hesitate to say "done" because it is a constant process) it will be all for the better. Our bodies give us the incredible ability to self-regulate and heal if they are treated well - as does, come to think of it, any relationship. So why should the relationship I have with my body be handled any differently than I believe relationships between all people should - with respect, honesty, and humor? Why should I not extend the same courtesy to my own flesh and blood that I would to every laborer and animal and plant that make up this world of ours? Why should genuine human kindness not work in the microcosm of my body? It should - it'll just take practice.

I need to get healthier, and I'm going to write about it, honestly, with humor, and with lots and lots of personal research. You can probably tell, but I'll say it anyway: I am not an expert on health and wellness, and I generally do not lead an overtly active lifestyle, nor am I a nutritionist. But this will be my story, told from my perspective.

Check back soon for part two of confessions of a (very) curvy girl: Education and Digestion.

Capturing the world in paint: the art of Katie Halton and Theresa Rojas

2009-09-16T21:20:00.014-04:00

How does the world present itself to you?

For those of you who dwell in the world of numbers, as in business or statistics, perhaps the trees appear to you as mathematical equations. Maybe for you the rock on the ground is the convergence of a formula involving circumference and depth, and the nautilus that lives at the bottom of the ocean is an organic representation of the Golden Mean.

Should you live in the food world as I do, more and more life begins to present itself to you as a series of meals and recipes prepared and eaten to the music of life. It becomes a world in which the most pungent memories are triggered by the smell of Chicken Divan, or the texture of phyllo dough.

But how many of us have the gifts necessary to actually visually communicate our response to the world we live in with each other effectively? After attending an art opening last month at Bab's Underground Lounge, I can safely tell you that I have found two people who share this ability.

Entering the world of local artists Katie Halton and Theresa Rojas is to take a walk through the world and see it animated through the lens of vibrant imagination. Though their styles are markedly different, each has its own mastery in translating the scenes of life into stunning art.

Halton's work at once for me brings back to my mind the illustrations I loved the most as a young girl: those of Ludwig Bemelmans' Madeline. Something about Halton's ability to create these elegant yet explosively vivid pieces triggered the memory of seeing Bemelman's darkly lit charcoaled Paris streets at night, and the plate of Miss Clavel getting up in the wee hours of the morning, hearing her girls weep in anguish from the next room.

Halton's work also brings to mind a more contemporary reference: that of Eric Chase Anderson (noted filmmaker Wes Anderson's brother), who's work can be seen adorning the walls of Etheline's house in The Royal Tenenbaums and throughout his brother's entire catalogue of films, like Rushmore and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

Halton's style is in some ways where Bemelman and Anderson meet, and yet it is altogether more refined and elegant in its simplicity and directness than both. And while these references may seem obscure to some readers, Halton's work can also be said to be influenced by artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Alberto Giacometti; in fact, her work can be said to be the ultimate compliment - the work of a humble yet exceptional student who has been inspired to create a style all her own in some estimation as a result of the work they spent a lifetime creating. Taking the pure form of what she witnesses in life and putting it down on canvas, Halton defines the source of her inspiration in her artist statement:

I paint things in the world immediately surrounding me, whether it be a scene on the street, a portrait of a dog, or a logo off a bottle. I am inspired by these things and take them from everyday life and place them in new, vibrant spaces of color, shape and pattern. These environments are built using geometric lines and shapes, emphasizing composition. I use bright colors and playful patterns, inviting the viewer into this imaginary space.

It is a rare treat to interact with art that has such a profound ability to suspend the disbelief of its viewers and own the stage, speaking for itself, in strong, clear tones. In the opinion of this author, we should all look forward to what will be coming out of Katie Halton's studio next.

Theresa Rojas, Halton's partner in the show at Bab's Underground Lounge, creates organic, flowing forms that are at once as reminiscent of Matisse as they are of Dali.

Rojas is self-taught, and a relative newcomer to the art world, though you wouldn't be able to tell from looking at her incredible body of work. A native of San Francisco who has now relocated to the Midwest, Rojas too uses the world around her for inspiration. By mixing an appreciation of ancient cultural symbolism and natural elements, she creates pieces that seem to be emotions given life in paint.

The inspiration that Rojas has taken from Ann Arbor is evident in her many interpretations of trees, and where many would struggle to constantly find new ways to express different points of view on a particular subject, she clearly has not. From the sun that feeds the trees to the buds they produce, Rojas captures the magic of nature with her brush again and again.

While writing this, it has come to me over and over again that we in this town - let me rephrase that - we in this state are incredibly fortunate to not only live in an ecologically bountiful and beautiful place, but that we have those among us, our artists, who are the human equivalent of the wonder held in nature. If you are enticed by the work of these inspiring women artists, please rush down to Bab's' Underground Lounge before October 3. Engage in the beauty they have created face to face and you will be richer for it.

*All images have been borrowed with the artist's permission.

Farmer's Market pick of the week: Mill Pond Bread's Kalamata Olive Twists

2009-08-13T20:33:00.003-04:00

Let's take a walk. It's early, it's crowded, and everything is going at farmer's market speed. You know what I mean - the slow shuffling of pairs and trios who abruptly stop right in front of you and block the entire path; the lingering, dreamy-eyed saunter of those intoxicated on the vibe and bustle of the Kerrytown market; and, well, everyone else, myself included, whose presence helps bring the simulation of clogging arteries to life each week when the farmer's market is in session.

The fact is, I love being at the market but I sometimes have a hard time waking up to get there in time for the most plentiful produce. Coffee you say? Coffee would help me wake up and take in the atmosphere of Kerrytown at its best? For you coffee lovers, maybe, but not for me. Now don't get me wrong, I love the flavor of a truly great coffee, (and if you're looking for one I recommend the Roos Roast stand at the market or Zingerman's Next Door just across the street) but in my case it has to be decaf because otherwise I'll be up for three days. Straight. So what can a girl with a caffeine intolerance do in such a situation?

I'll tell you what I do. I drag myself, groggy and bleary-eyed, over to the Mill Pond Bread stand. As my hands work a little harder than I feel should be necessary to grasp my money (but such are things early in the morning), I order one singularly divine kalamata olive twist from the polite people behind the table.

Though I always think that they look mildly concerned at my appearance and inability to speak above a mumble in my freshly-awoken-to-the-world and weary state, it’s most likely that I am just super sleepy and that everything and everybody looks suspicious some mornings before you have really woken up. I hand them my money and they hand me a bag. I take the bag with both hands, and then I bite down on the bread held within it and wrench away a bite and begin chewing. By the end of it, I feel like I've earned something. The bread is not tough, let me be clear, but the French sourdough does require a rather satisfying albeit minor bit of work to enjoy, and I love that. As you are well into your second bite, you will have woken up. The only difference being that today you woke up through an active engagement with your breakfast rather than the more often used a.m. accelerant of coffee.

The reward for all of your efforts? A sublime marriage of olive oil, sunflower seeds, parsley, roasted garlic, sauteed onions, and just the right amount of those salty spots of mediterranean sunshine known as kalamata olives. If you are steadfast and stubborn and unwilling to give up your morning coffee or at the very least an eye opener that is liquid rather than solid, you are in luck: bread from Mill Pond Bakery in Chelsea, Michigan can be eaten at any time of the day.

Now let me tell you now a little bit about the people who make and sell this artisanal bread. While doing research for this article (because, well, you deserve only the best), I called Mill Pond Bakery. John Savanna, the owner and founder of Mill Pond Bread answered the phone himself, and was unbelievably accommodating from the get go. Before I had even introduced myself or told him why I was asking what must have seemed like some rather odd questions (i.e., "I know that your kalamata olive sticks come in two different sizes, how long is the bigger size?") he was eager to answer and extremely pleasant (in fact, when I asked him how long the kalamata twist was, he ran and got a tape measure and measured one for me right away; FYI, the bigger breadstick is approximately 16 and a half inches, and the smaller one is roughly half of that - how's that for amazing service?).

I learned while speaking to John that he has been working on the recipe for these twists for quite a while, "They're constantly evolving - I mean, I've been working on them [for] about 15 years." He told me that the kalamata olive twists are made by applying olive oil both before and after the baking process, and that they only use colossus olives from Aladdin's Market in Ann Arbor.

So how did he come up with the idea to wrap all of the lovely flavors of the mediterranean into these divine twists? Well, in a way, it was due to our American predilection with hand-held food - so Savanna united his family's century-old sourdough starter with the age of modern convenience as it relates to food. Now that makes for some pretty tasty irony. It also helped his business. "It was really the boost the bakery needed", John shared when we spoke on the phone, and it doesn't stop at just kalamata olives. Mill Pond Bread twists also come in two other flavors: roasted garlic with cheddar and jalapeno with cheddar. Now, I can only assume that the two other flavors are delicious as well, because as yet I haven't been able to wean myself away from the kalamata olive variety to actually supply definitive data on the subject. However, I've known about these twists for over a year, and if just one kind has ensnared my tastebuds so effectively, that probably bodes pretty well for the others.

Right before I got off the phone with John Savanna, he told me to stop by the booth at this week's Wednesday market. So yesterday, I wandered over there, more awake and put together than usual, and I bought a sinful looking pastry. Then I introduced myself in person, and John sent me away with an armful of kalamata olive twists - I feel it was an experience equal to Christmas.

Thank you to John Savanna and all of the lovely ladies who work with him at the Kerrytown Farmers Market and at Mill Pond Bakery; the care and craft you put in to your sweet and savory wares has made life all the more scrumptious.

For more information on where you can purchase Mill Pond Bread, please follow the link!

Food for the soul: a simple gift from our neighbor

2009-08-07T16:55:00.001-04:00

A couple of days ago I had a very, very, very long day. I mean, by far it wasn't the worst day I've ever had or anything, but after sleeping for only two hours before having to get up at 4 a.m .... well, let's just say it was a day.

So it already was a day, and when I got home much later in the afternoon, I couldn't find my headphones. Usually this wouldn't even be a blip on the radar, but when you are deprived of sleep, even the most minor annoyances can send you into quite a state. In my case, the product of this was engaging in a rather animated rant that was witnessed only by myself and the cat, who, by the end of this interaction had left the room after looking at me like I was a complete lunatic.

Such was my life two days ago at about two o'clock in the afternoon. Then, I opened the front door and it all changed.

Sometimes the kindness of an acquaintance or relative stranger can really touch you in a profound way. It didn't seem fair because she probably had just spent 10 minutes listening to me through the walls having a minor adult tantrum about not being able to find my headphones, but my sweet and lovely neighbor had left me a gift. On my doorstep was a glass jar full of fresh parsley in water, a paper bag containing four luscious tomatoes, and the lid to the glass jar, upturned, holding many tender leaves of purple basil. There is no way for me to really convey the wave of gratitude that swept over me in that moment. Here, on my doorstep were the fruits of her labors, and she wanted to share them with me.

We had started talking just when she was passing by on the way to her house as I worked with my boyfriend throughout the spring to bring our small front yard to fruition through the aid of many terra cotta clay pots and several blooming contributions from the Kerrytown Farmers Market. She was always full of compliments and would share tidbits of her wisdom with me concerning invasive species and her thoughts on what we were growing.

I am a firm believer in the power of food and the growing of good, healthy things to bring people together. Here we were, my neighbor and I, rebuilding the bits and pieces of that old societal relic known as a neighborhood. We are lucky in Ann Arbor to be in a place that has retained its strong sense of community, but in most other places I've lived, that is not the case. It can take a thing like food to provide a vehicle for building relationships with each other.

Food is where we shine. No matter our culture, no matter our beliefs or differences, food has the power to build the bridges we need to reconnect with our communities and with each other. As a woman I once met while waiting to catch a train back to Michigan at Union Station in Chicago told me, "...you get all the people in the world together and you have them come sit at my table, and we can work some things out." We had started talking because she had asked me where I had gotten my dinner. We ended up talking about how to solve the world's ills by giving everyone a piece of the pie; literally.

Food and the relationships tied to it at any time in history accounts for so many of the world's greatest stories and most memorable events. It also is one of the most compassionate exchanges we can have with each other where we elect to share and love, rather than to discriminate and demean.

So here's to my neighbor for bringing it all back down to the real.

Greek black cherry spoon sweet: glyko kerassi

2009-07-25T23:03:00.003-04:00

Glyko Kerassi - On the path back home: following a trail of cherries

*Note - to clarify, in step 6 of the recipe, the "impurities" referred to exist in any situation where sugar is boiled with water. This is absolutely not a comment about the quality of Tabone Orchards' cherries. Their cherries are fabulous!

For me, tradition has always been rooted in food. In my case, those roots extend all the way across the Atlantic and back to the island of Evia in Greece. My Father was borno how do I trace my own roots? What is left for me to explore when my main connection to this history is more interested in reading Consumer Reports than in sharing the little he does remember with me? Well, as with most situations in life, I’ll start with the food. That is a part of Greek culture where, despite his usual reluctance, my Dad and I meet eye to eye.

Though my own memories of my Yai Yai and Papou are few, I do have a vague recollection of a very sweet, port-colored syrupy dessert being given to me in what must have been my Yai Yai’s kitchen. Its flavor lingers somewhere on the borders of my memory - nearly out of reach - but what I do remember was delicious; the essence of black cherry with a flavor as deep as its history. A few years ago, I asked my Dad if he remembered this concoction, and - wow, did he light up! He was all about it, talking about how good it was, on and on. Inevitably, this discussion ended in me wanting to recreate it and him wanting to eat it. However, when I asked him how he thought she made it, his answer was, “I don’t know Leebs. I think she, like, just stewed some cherries or something.” Thank you Dad, descriptive as always, but I love you anyway.

So this year, for the man who doesn’t have everything but still manages to be the most difficult person I know to get gifts for, I chose to think outside the box. This year for his birthday I decided to make my Dad this mysterious black cherry spoon sweet. Luckily for me, I live in Michigan where the cherries are plentiful and divine in the summertime, so I went to the Kerrytown Farmers Market in Ann Arbor and had at it.

I tasted cherries from the three orchards that had come to the market last Saturday. Each had its own appeal, but I decided on going with a quart of sweet cherries from Tabone Orchards, located on Old Mission Peninsula and around Petosky. Northwestern Lower Michigan is of course famous for its cherries and for the unique microclimate that exists in the region that makes it possible for cherries to grow.

The recipe, and the process of learning

I came home with my cherries not really knowing where to start. I had been researching recipes for sweet cherry spoon sweets for a couple of weeks, and due to my own ignorance and the idiosyncrasies of the Google search engine, all I had found were recipes that expressly called for the use of tart cherries. My instinct said sweet cherries, as did my memory, dim though it was, and my Dad said sweet cherries (he has a likes-a-little-tea-with-his-sugar type of palate; not too big a fan of the tart or sour flavors that one).

Bearing that in mind, I looked for recipes that were simple; ones that let the flavor of the black cherries come through. After sifting through many pages of recipes online and in my Greek cookbooks, I decided on adapting the recipe for triantafillo glyko (a rose petal spoon sweet), showcased in Eva Zane’s Greek Cooking for the Gods. Her book has always been a good base from which to start when it comes to me and Greek cooking, so I went with it.

Here goes:

First: Wash the cherries by giving them a gentle rinse in a colander.

Second: Remove the pits and stems from the cherries. Not knowing the common wisdom on how to pit cherries by hand, I developed a method of my own. I rolled each cherry with the fingers in my right hand while squeezing the fruit, and then picked out the pits as they popped out with my left hand. The process was relatively simple once I got into a groove. *Note - if you are anything like me, this is also the step that will pepper the pages of your cookbook with beautiful garnet sprinkles of cherry juice.

Third: Bring 1 cup of water to a boil, along with 1 cup of sugar and squeeze of lemon juice. I would recommend using a large (not huge) pot for this, something that allows you easy access for stirring.

Fourth: Stir in all of the cherries. Once they have cooked on their own for a couple of minutes, stir in 1 more cup of sugar. Mine seemed to dissolve instantly, but make sure it dissolves before you let it simmer.

Fifth: The recipe for rose petals suggests that this concoction be boiled for 10 minutes, however, with cherries, after looking at more recipes and now that I can add my own experience to this, I recommend that after about 8 minutes, start taking a little out with a spoon and dropping it on a dish to cool. After it cools, feel the syrup with your fingers and bring it to your desired consistency. From what I remember, it should be roughly the consistency of a nice simple syrup; lighter than, for example the hot fudge sauce you might get on your ice cream sundae, but slightly heavier than what commonly passes for maple syrup.

Sixth: Once this is done, you will see that there is a whitish foam that has risen to the top. This is all of the impurities from the ingredients you have put in the pot. Skim as much of it off as you can, and store your glyko kerassi in glass jars (there are many who process this to preserve without refrigeration, but I refrigerated mine being that I am still building my canning skills). Then, enjoy when you are ready. From the flavor I remember as a child, I was just shy of the mark, but all told that is fine with me on a first try.

Today, I was turned on to some fellow Greeks writing about food, and I found a recipe that I think will hit it on the head, so I defer you to an someone who has made it more than once if you are interested.

*A version of this story can also be seen at AnnArbor.com and at www.michivore.com.

My Bio...

2009-07-16T14:18:00.001-04:00

Born and raised in southeast Michigan, Elizabeth Palmer possesses an avid hunger for the history, traditions, and flavors of the fairest necessity in life: food. Having been writing since she could hold a pencil, coupled with her life-long love of all things edible, Elizabeth has recently begun to forge a marriage between the two by writing about food. Her passion for the culinary is matched only by her commitment to local producers, and to sustainable agriculture and the preservation of traditional foodways in Michigan. Elizabeth works for Zingerman’s Catering and Events as a member of the events staff, and is a member of the Culinary Historians of Ann Arbor. She is also a Bioneer. Elizabeth is currently completing her Masters in Historic Preservation at Eastern Michigan University, and will be teaching a Sustainable Development class that she helped to design at EMU starting in January 2010. Elizabeth also holds a Bachelors degree in Photography from Columbia College Chicago.

Coming soon...

2009-07-09T00:48:00.001-04:00