Delilah’s nose began twitching so much when this came out of the oven that I began calling her “Bewitched.”

I had a hankering for my curried lamb shepherd’s pie last Wednesday.  After finding the original post in my recipe archive, I looked over the ingredients and found myself severely disappointed.  They seemed to be lacking.  In everything; Amount, depth, taste, fat.  I immediately grabbed a pen and began erasing, recalculating, recording, and repeating.  By the time the egg timer was sounding its alarm, my oven had birthed a curried lamb shepherd’s pie quite unlike its older brother. My original recipe has now been revamped – and in the very same way that I’ve been revamping Desi, no less.  More amount.  More depth.  More fat.  I’ve needed it.  Over the last year, you might have noticed that my blog posts have been few and far between.  My absence was due to looking over myself; erasing, recalculating, recording, and repeating.

When you have unexpected health problems, and you want to cure them naturally, it usually means making lifestyle changes.  I fully support this.  Unfortunately, there are many people like me who are going to over-dedicate themselves to this challenge, thereby sacrificing a certain balance that is CRUCIAL for good health.  I learned this the hard way.  After being diagnosed with serious intolerances to gluten, dairy, and eggs, I laughed.  I’d spent my entire life as a human vacuum specifically designed to dispose of gluten, dairy, and eggs.  I eliminated gluten, dairy, and eggs, but I didn’t stop there.  Eliminating these foods made the daily headaches I grew up with never return.  Eliminating these foods cured my lifetime affliction of poor digestion.  I figured, with some twisted logic, that if eliminating these foods made me better, eliminating more would make me best.  When I found myself facing highly-distressing skin problems two years ago, a doctor advised me to cut out even more foods – entire food groups, in fact.  ”Carbohydrates? Eh… Just a macronutrient you don’t really need.”  I figured there was some perfect way to eat and I didn’t know what it was.  I figured once I found out, I would never suffer from health issues ever again.  Consequently, I have lived in extremes over the last few years.  I’ve been vegan, raw vegan, sugars/fruit-free, low-carb, low-fat, anti-candida, SCD (which is very similar to GAPS, Paleo, Primal), calorie restrictive, and some at the same time.  What I have learned is that the cons of any restrictive diet – no matter how slight – far outweigh any benefits.  With all of these diets, I (and many others) found that there is certainly a “honeymoon” period, in which you feel better and you’re convinced this diet is turning your life around.  But once that period ends however many months or one year later, the repercussions begin setting in.  My body withered 10 to 15 pounds lighter, which on an already small person is quite a lot.  I had adrenal fatigue.  I was hypothyroid.  My hormone levels mimicked those of a woman post-menopause.  My digestion was awful.  I was constantly racked with fear and anxiety.  Many people told me I looked “great.” My doctor told me I was fine: “You’re not clinically underweight.” She didn’t think to consider eating more food and more variety would fix all these problems, which it ultimately did.  It wasn’t the 20+ supplements I’d been taking for a year.  I knew better.  Of course, I can speak for only me… and the countless other individuals who are desperate to recover from innocent diet attempts to better themselves.

What changed, you ask?  I’m a pretty darn self-aware lady, if I do say so myself.  And although I am grateful for that self-awareness, I occasionally covet others’ ignorance.  Isn’t it easier sometimes to simply be incapable of seeing your flaws, your battles, and what you resist?  When you have the awareness, you are always staring a choice in the face: to sit uncomfortably with whatever aspect of yourself that longs for a makeover or to be brave and act on it!  And when you have the awareness, you also have no excuse.  Awareness propels you into change.  It’s usually extremely scary.  It’s usually extremely painful.  I call it the growing pains of spiritual puberty.  Lucky for us, spiritual puberty can visit us many times throughout our lives.  This particular case began for me one year ago when I started asking questions.  The type of questions a part of you doesn’t want to even ask.  The kind of questions Awareness voices quietly in some corner of your brain that you usually ignore or dismiss with some defensive regurgitation of excuses.

Desi, is this doctor’s regimen hurting you more than it is helping you?  The human diet is incredibly adaptable and there’s simply no reason to demonize perfectly good foods like fruit, rice, potatoes, beans (etc.), all of which have been part of the human diet for thousands of years and have played key roles in our evolutionary development.

Do you really believe you need to exercise religiously for the rest of your life in order to be “healthy?”  The concept of “organized exercise” is relatively a new-born against the span of human history, as is “obesity.”  

Will you live the rest of your life fearing that different foods could worsen your symptoms?  Couldn’t the fear itself be creating the problems in the first place?  

Why are you so quick to place all your trust in whatever MD, ND, or alternative health professional you see?  Why do you invest your fate into a Google Results page?  And the worst of all: Why do you give away your power so easily?

Of course, I can speak for only myself… but that’s the very beauty of what it’s taken me 26 years to learn. The Disney movies actually were right: The answers that I need might actually all be inside myself.  I, Desi, might actually be the best authority on Desi.  Perhaps I know deep down – only beyond ego and fear and denial – better than any doctor, any blog, any professional, any loved one – what the state of my physical, emotional, psychological health is, and how to remedy it if necessary.  My beliefs might be unconventional, but that doesn’t make them wrong.  What if “conventional” is wrong?  What if “conventional” is nothing more than a challenge for each one of us to overcome in order to reveal our own Truth?

Most people would not think of my experience as an eating disorder (let alone a reason for concern), and I think that is one of the greatest problems our society faces.  Because no matter how you label it, it is undoubtedly an issue that is causing far more physical and psychological suffering than most people even care to acknowledge.  I would venture to say it is an issue that an alarmingly high and exponentially growing percentage of our society faces.  In my book, if there is ANY form of fear involved when it comes to your relationship with food or if you feel like a slave to your relationship with food or exercise, then I would call that an eating disorder.  I was never clinically underweight.  I was never diagnosed with anorexia, bulimia, or orthorexia.  But that had no bearing on whether or not I had a healthy relationship with food. Just because you may not be obviously anorexic does not mean you are not disordered.  The sad truth is that the anorexics and bulimics make up only the tip of the iceberg.  I see eating disorders everywhere I look, usually disguised as dieting or simply “being health conscious.”  I see them in some of my closest friends and family members.  I see them in complete strangers eating (or not eating) at the table next to me.  I see them in the calorie counters, the gluten-intolerant pretenders, the followers of trendy new diet X.  And sadly, I see the food blogosphere riddled with them.

I have always loved food.  I’m Italian.  But there was a distinct shift in my life when my love for food turned into an obsession.  If this has happened to you, please take note that it’s unlikely that you’ve suddenly discovered your life’s passion.  It’s much more likely that this is a symptom of an undernourished, and therefore, improperly working brain.  As I mentioned before, most people who looked at me never would have labeled me “unhealthy relationship with food.”  In our society, “will power” is admired.  Watching what you eat is respected.  Listening to my doctor and cutting out entire food groups was supposedly “being healthy.”  So, where exactly is the line?  When does something become an eating disorder?  And is anyone brave enough to identify it as such considering the undeniable stigma we’ve attached to the term?  Ironically, I believe most of the U.S. has an extremely disordered relationship with food.  Though only one third of the population is genetically predisposed to being on the Restrictive Eating Disorder Spectrum, a whole lot more still flirt with restriction.  I believe most people in this country have an inaccurate understanding of what determines a person’s size as well as an unhealthy relationship with food, whether it manifests in starvation, exercise addiction, fad-diet-hopping, yo-yo dieting, restrictive and then reactive eating cycling, or by merely harboring the belief that we, humans, were designed with the responsibility and burden of controlling our weights and our sizes.  Guess what?  We were not.  That is a myth.  Each of our bodies was designed with a specific set point in mind, and the more you try to adjust that, the harder your body will fight back to return there – or better yet, keep your weight far above it as a protective measure.  Don’t worry, there are more posts on this to come.

For now, I’d like to invite you to try your own hand at self-awareness.  How is your relationship with food?  Could it be possible that what you’ve always considered to be “normal” is actually not normal at all, but simply the result of being influenced by a dangerously misinformed society?

Is food your friend or merely a cause of stress or fear for you?  Below are some less obvious telltale signs of a potentially less-than-stellar relationship with food.

Mental signs:

1) You spend a lot of time feeling like you’re “waiting.”  You’re not as present as you once were.  In some cases, the moment you finish a meal, you’re already thinking about the next one.

2) You’ve lost interest in things you once loved and replaced them with an interest in cooking or fitness.

3) Your memories are often more marked by the meals or food consumed rather than other details.

4) Even when you’re “full,” you still feel the desire to eat more.  You think you’re developing a tendency to “binge.”  (You’re wrong.  Binge Eating Disorder is a very rare illness and it is not just switched on or off.  It is active from birth until death. You’re simply nutrient deficient.)

5) If sometimes you merely wonder if your relationship with food is strange, chances are: it is.

6) You have a sudden interest in “food porn.”  You’re suddenly reading food blogs or browsing Pinterest for photos of cupcakes.

7) You have a collection of “safe foods,” which assuage anxiety and “fear foods,” which encourage anxiety.

8) You have a strict exercise schedule and it causes you anxiety to stray away from it.

9) You have an emotionally violent response to this blog post.  If I read it two years ago, I certainly would have.

Physical signs:

1) If you’re a woman, your period has disappeared or is irregular.  Even if you’re far from being clinically underweight.

2) Your body temperature is usually below 98.6 and/or you often feel cold when others are not.

3) Your skin is looking more aged.  Your hair is thinning.  Even if you’re in your early 20s.  Even if you’re the only one who notices.

4) You’ve struggled with a spontaneous bout of angry-looking acne.

5) Your doctor has diagnosed you with hypothyroidism, Graves Disease, Hashimoto’s, Adrenal Fatigue, Leaky Gut Syndrome, nutrient deficiency, or some sort of gut dysbiosis.

6) You know you eat under 2,300 calories a day.  Don’t believe you need at least that much?  Perfectly healthy people physically and mentally deteriorated on 1,600 calories a day during the Minnesota Starvation Experiment (more than most calorie-restrictive diet programs that exist today!).

If even one single statement from each list applied to you (a total of two), that’s enough to seriously ask yourself: “How is my relationship with food?”  Dig around on 180 Degree Health or Your Eatopia to see how many people struggled with a variety of issues that simply evaporated by “eating the food,” as Matt Stone would say.  It blows my mind how common it is for a person to spend years trying medications, seeing doctors, or settling for less-than-ideal physical or emotional health when most, if not all, their problems would be fixed by simply eating more food.  I’ve never heard a doctor say, “Eat more.”  I want to change that.  I want to hear them say, “Mend your relationship with food, and thereby mend yourself.”

Lastly, if anything in my story resonated with you, consider this possibility:

You are the authority on you.

Stop googling.  Stop placing your hope in diet after diet, whether you have unresolved health problems or simply a poor body image.  Unless what they’re saying resonates with you beyond logic and reason (in other words: IN YOUR SOUL), stop giving your power away to professionals who claim to “know” or to random strangers on the internet.  Including me.  However, if you’re curious about my philosophy and you want more details, keep an eye out for my next post.  If I’d said everything I wanted to say in this one, you’d be reading a novel right now.  In the meantime, have some pie.

I’ve joined the No ‘Poo movement.  Not that kind of no poo movement.  That’s called constipation, friends.  Right now, I’m talking about The No Shampoo Movement.  Why would one quit shampoo?  Um, the bigger question is why WOULDN’T one quit shampoo?  If you find yourself often saying or thinking any of the following statements, then you’ll have convinced me that no ‘poo = no you.

1. “I wouldn’t be even slightly ruffled if Jon Hamm inspected my hair greasiness 24-48 hours after washing it.”

2. “I would be dismayed if my hair were as shiny as puppies’ eyes bedazzled with sequins and polished silver.”

3. “The more shampoo and conditioner bottles I put into landfills, the more my level of contentment in life increases.”

4. “I love my hair to be so unhealthy and over-washed that it breaks off so that I can leave pieces of myself everywhere I go.  It’s like Hansel and Gretel… except with hair.”

5. “I find the act of absorbing anti-freeze (isopropyl alcohol), detergent (SLS), petroleum (propylene), coal tar (FD&C color pigments), and carcinogenic toxins (too many to count) through my scalp truly pleasurable.”

As I said, if any of these statements is a daily affirmation for you, then I suggest you remain committed to your relationship with that bottle that currently inhabits your shower.  That sounded potentially bad… Like I’m encouraging addictive behaviors for people who happen to store some type of alcoholic beverage in their place of bathing.  My bad.  Don’t do that.

Are you wondering whose golden locks are plastered all over this post?  They’re mine… And although they’re an obvious example of bed-head, they’re also an example of no ‘poo hair SEVEN DAYS after washing.  Seven.  I wanted to show how my hair looks these days at its dirtiest and messiest when I’ve done nothing to it.  It wasn’t always this way.  How did achieve it?  I’ll share with you the wisdom of my people.  When I say “my people,” I mean fellow dirty hippies who, ironically, are not so dirty after all.

Step One:  Stop using shampoo.  Use baking soda and vinegar instead.  For your new shampoo, add water to baking soda until it’s a thick goo.  Exact measurements aren’t really important, but it’s better to have not enough water than too much.  For your new conditioner, add 1 to 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar only (no other type of vinegar) to 1 cup of water.  This time, it’s better to have not enough vinegar than too much.  Store your new hair beautifiers in your shower.

• Wet your hair and focus on massaging your new shampoo into your roots.  Let it sit for one minute.  Rinse.  Pour conditioner onto your ends rather than the roots and rub in.  Rinse.
• Practice your new hair care method for at least two weeks.

Step Two:  Stop using baking soda and vinegar.  Use only water instead.  You can do this cold turkey or wean yourself off.  It’s choose your own adventure here.  Just massage your scalp well when you’re in the shower.  That’s it.  This is the critical phase where your body pushes the reset button and finds balance for your hair.  Shampoo strips our hair of its natural oils, so over time your hair becomes accustomed to over-producing sebum.

• Don’t use any styling products or ANYTHING on your hair.  This is important so that your hair can find balance again.
• This phase lasts 4 to 6 weeks.  Your hair will be greasier than usual.  I probably reached peak greasiness at the end of the first week.  I wore it up all the time.  No one really noticed.  My hair looked dirty but nothing more than that.  I stuck it out for the full 6 weeks because I knew my sebum production was pretty off the charts – my hair would be greasy again after 24 hours.  I wanted to go the extra mile to ensure that my body would recalibrate properly.  Trust me: you may feel a bit yucky during this time, but push through it and you’ll be rewarded.
• Brush your hair as often as possible – at least once a day.  I would brush my hair really thoroughly before my shower each day.  This helps move the sebum down the shaft of the hair to protect it as it is designed to do.  Brushing helps keep your hair clean.  This is why Jane Austen’s heroines would brush their hair 100 strokes a day in a time when frequent bathing wasn’t exactly popular.  Just be sure that you clean your brush a few times per week!

Step Three:  Add the baking soda and vinegar back in once per week.  You’ve made it through the toughest part and now your hair is soft and lovely.  Depending on your hair, you can adjust this weekly use to twice weekly or every ten days if you’d like to instead.

Step Four:  Flip your gorgeous locks around like a Victoria’s Secret model and wax poetic about what a total ninja you are by saving money, the environment, and your youthful glow.  This applies to men, too.  Do it, please.

Troubleshooting:

• Hair getting too frizzy?  Use less baking soda or don’t leave it on as long.
• Hair getting too greasy?  Use less vinegar or switch to lemon/lime juice.
• Hair getting too dry?  Try smoothing a bit of coconut oil or olive oil on your ends.
• Are you dying during the 4-6 week waiting period?  Sprinkle a bit of baking soda along your part and comb it through.  It will absorb some of the greasiness.
• Still need to use hair styling products after this whole ordeal is over?  I suggest looking into the most organic and natural products out there.  The fewer the ingredients, the better.  The more ingredients you recognize, the better.  The best option of all would be to google homemade styling product recipes and do it yourself!

Rather than a lovely little anecdote or passionate rant, I have something different for you today:

A video.

Take it as my addition to the popular “S**t ________ Say” movement on YouTube.

Just click on my extremely focused-looking face (below) and then make fun of me to your heart’s content.  Side note: I’m playing a character.  This isn’t actually how I act.  Or sound, for that matter. :)

Also, these cookies are really good.  They are the EXACT texture of true shortbread, but they’re a bit lighter and healthy and RAW! :)

Raw Cocoa Shortbread Cookies

1/2 cup raw almond butter

1/2 cup almond milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup raw coconut flour

1/2 cup raw almond flour

1/4 cup cocoa powder

vanilla liquid stevia (To taste – I strongly advise taste-tasting the dough)

1) Mix all ingredients well in food processor.

2) Roll into log with diameter of 3-4″ and place in freezer for an hour.

3) Slice log into 1/2″ thick shortbread slices and place on dehydrator tray.

4) Dehydrate for 7-8 hours at 103˚

I think it’s funny how many people believe that as time moves forward, we are somehow “moving forward” as well.  Somehow, we are becoming more civilized, smarter, better.  Somehow, a touch screens equal advancement, and skinny jeans with matching legs are worthy of higher merit than what was once considered attractive.

I don’t fall into this belief group.  There are things that have changed, and there are things that haven’t.  There are signs that show we’ve become a more loving, accepting species, and there are signs that indicate the opposite.  How do we even know what life truly was like 200 years ago?  500?  1000?  We have clues in the artifacts we find, but they’re no more than that: mere clues.  They’re a tiny fraction of a collection of facts that make up a forgotten culture.  I think it’s a bit naive of us to assume we know what life was like during a time in which we have not lived.  One thousand years from now, people may look back on us, look at our materialistic culture and make assumptions about us.  All of us.  Large, gaping assumptions based on, say, the underlying messages that our media bombards us with daily.  Assumptions that erase the billions of differences between each of us as individuals and reflect only what certain people of certain power have deemed worth remembering.  Hey, someone has to write history, and it isn’t God… just usually someone who thinks he is.

I often wonder if, as time goes on, we are wandering further and further away from a part of our humanity that is essential to our survival.  Community.  There is something incredibly appealing to me about living in a village in which everyone knows one another, everyone plays a role, everyone shares everything.  We barter and trade our services and creations.  What I want most in my life right now is a sense of community.  I want to be a part of something greater than myself.  I want to feel a constant flow of love amongst the people around me.

I wonder – if we truly wish to move forward – whether we must move backwards in order to do so.  I ask this because it seems to me that there are so many facets of our modern society that do not seem to encourage community.  More and more of everything is becoming individualized, from gated property to personal pan pizzas.  Ideas of separateness covertly poison our lives by making us believe that there is more power in the words “mine” and “yours” than in “ours,” and that when someone else succeeds it somehow takes away from our own success.

I’m not a fan.

Raw Rosemary Olive Flatbread

3/4 cup sunflower seeds, ground into a fine flour

3/4 cup flax seeds, ground into a fine flour

1 cup chopped celery

3/4 cup chopped yellow onion

1 1/2 cups filtered water

1 Tbsp chopped fresh rosemary

2 Tbsp chopped salt-cured olives

3 Tbsp olive oil

3 Tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp himalayan pink salt

1) Blend all ingredients in a high speed blender or food processor.

2) Spread thin layer onto dehydrator tray.  Dehydrate 104˚ for 4-6 hours.

3) Flip bread and dehydrate for another 4-6 hours.

I have this fantasy about twins.  Yes, a twin fantasy.  Be forewarned… it’s racy.

It unfolds like so:  I stroll into a quaint North Carolinian bakery stocked with organic, gluten-free goodies.  One bite of a rapture-inducing raw cardamom almond biscotti sends me into a frenzied fervor.  Tickled by my outburst of admiration, owners Lori and Michelle ask me to taste test one of their latest creations they have yet to release to their bakery’s public.  It’s something too delicious for me even to imagine.  I happily agree and we bond over our love for dessert, everything green, skin care, fitness, and the magic of superfoods.  They say, “Desi, you are our long lost triplet!”  I casually (but happily) respond, “who would have known?!” (When, in fact, I’ve known since the day I discovered their blog.) Then we frolic and make raw dream cakes and lick the batter off of our spatulas and giggle.  There’s also some hugging.  And maybe friendship-necklace-making.

I warned you.

Saucy, unrefined, and obscenely raw.  I know.  I shouldn’t be having such thoughts.  But how can one resist this pair?

Not only do they dream up the most yummy recipes, but they write openly and honestly, a credit to their quality of character and their genuine desire to help people take better care of their bodies and well-beings.  In the cyber land of Pure2Raw, “pure” describes more than just their recipes and wholesome ingredients.  It encompasses their beautiful spirits.

I’ve been addicted to Lori and Michelle’s blog for too long not to celebrate it through my own words and pictures, so I’ve used this month’s Adopt A Gluten-Free Blogger, hosted by Sea at Book of Yum, to whip up one of their little delicacies, document it, and set it on my unsuspecting readers like a tastebud attack of joy.  Weapon of choice?  Coconut Lemon Bars.

I can confidently guarantee that if you follow their recipe exactly as I did, you may begin entertaining a certain twin fantasy of your own.

Don’t feel embarrassed.  It’s only natural.

Sometimes I think of myself more as an animal than a human being.  No particular animal.  It changes.  As a kid, a pair of tights on my head would instantly become floppy rabbit ears and a yard of toilet paper tucked into the back of my pants would transform me into a ferocious feline.  Though to the untrained eye, the first costume might suggest a half-committed bank robber, and the latter a victim of unfortunate restroom proceedings.  Nonetheless, I’ve always found it easier – even more natural – to just not be human sometimes.

In fact, I tend to see most beings beyond their mere species – or rather, I see in them all they are besides their obvious appearance.  Take my dog, Delilah, for example.  She is everything but a dog.  Seriously.  I never look at her and think, “dog.”  When she’s curled up into a tight ball in the corner of the couch?  Mouse.  When she lets out that strange bark as someone cautiously approaches the guarded pink chew toy in her mouth?  Chicken.  When she purrs and claws at me to continue rubbing her tummy within one second of stopping?  Lion cub.  When she prances through the living room as if springs are attached to the soles of her feet?  Deer.  When she is perched statuesquely with her front paws outstretched?  Sphinx.  Heck, Delilah even transcends the animal kingdom… I’ve been known to call her “Jumping Bean,” “Pumpernickel,” and “Stick of Butter.”  That’s besides the point.

Nothing has really changed since my youthful days of “playing pretend.”  I still tend to fold my knees into my chest and crouch atop a chair like a jaguar as I write at my desk.  I flow fluidly through sun salutations on my yoga mat to feed my addiction of feeling supported by all four limbs rather than just the boring two.  I collect and guard my nut stash more fanatically than a squirrel.  Maybe the most obvious of all my animalistic qualities: I migrate.  However, I don’t know if that makes me an African Swallow or a tumbleweed.  Do I actively decide to globe-trot as often as I do?  Or do I simply let the wind toss me, a rootless thing, around and about?  I don’t know.

I do know that I love it.  I love traveling.  I love the way in which it makes me feel impossibly both fearless and fearful at the exact same time.  With more of the unknown facing me, terror begins to nest and whisper in the corners of me, while the autonomy that accompanies the terror reminds me that I am the hero of my own story.

How often we forget that we are the protagonists of our own lives.

Once I’ve spent too much time stationary, the air begins to taste stale and I itch to meet my mysterious friend, The Unfamiliar, once again.  This time when we meet, it will be more terrifying and more fortifying than ever.  My destination will not be simply the other side of the country.  It will be the other side of the ocean.  I got a gig in London!  I could not be more excited.  Or scared.  Or breathlessly eager.  Or nervously timorous.  Mostly excited.

Now is probably one of those times when not being human would come in handy.  Animals don’t intellectualize or analyze.  Their minds do not entertain the “what ifs” or the “hows.”  They just do.  They just are.  They live.  They be.

I am going to London.  And I plan on leaving behind a piece of human.

Don’t worry, I’ll replace it with some hippogriff as soon as I step on UK soil.  And as a semi-hippogriff, it won’t be long before I stop “stepping” and start flying!  I wonder if coloring outside the lines of our humanness may mean overcoming our greatest limitation.  Hippogriff or not, what if we all can soar?

Our bodies are our own personal zoos.  Have you explored your own yet?

Toasty Sesame Chard

*I submitted this recipe to Diet, Dessert and Dogs’ Wellness Weekend

1 bunch Swiss Chard, Red Chard, or Rainbow Chard

2 Tbsp filtered water

1 Tbsp lemon juice

1 clove garlic, minced

1-2 Tbsp sesame oil (I used cold-pressed and raw!)

Himalayan pink salt, to taste

Sesame seeds, for sprinkling

1) Chop chard, remove tough stems.

2) Place in sauce pan with water and garlic.  Heat over medium  heat, covered, just until the chard turns bright green and begins to wilt.

3) Stir in sesame oil, lemon juice, salt, and sesame seeds.  Be sure to coat leaves evenly.

4) Serve as a side dish, snack, or meal in itself!

We need to talk about chocolate.

The longest love affair I’ve had has been with chocolate.  I wonder if, as a toddler, I actually realized I loved those nice people taking care of me as solidly as I knew my taste buds loved the cacao bean.  What?  Relationships are complicated enough for a full-grown adult, let alone a toddler who doesn’t even have a grasp on language yet.  But chocolate?  You don’t need a language for chocolate.  There’s nothing cerebral about it.  It’s instant gratification.  Instant love.  I don’t think this is uncommon.  It is much more rare to despise chocolate than to love it, no?  To love chocolate so deeply is to count oneself in the majority.

However, how I eat chocolate?  There may be some discrepancies here.  So many people seem to take their good old time with it.  They buy a bar, break of a piece, let it melt in their mouth, maybe take another square, and then wrap up the rest for LATER.  Seriously?  In college, I would buy a Cadbury bar from CVS and bite into it as aggressively and passionately as one would a crisp apple.  Not sliced, skin on.  Not sliced… but yes, okay, wrapper off.

You know those Dove Chocolate commercials? The ones in which the girl takes a bite so small it probably requires her six bites total to eat one tiny square?  She always eats in slow motion.  What are the people in the chocolate business trying to tell us?  Eating in slow-mo somehow means you’re savoring this cocoa luxury more than you would if you ate it in real time?  Um, I disagree.  I savor my chocolate with the zeal of a lion taking down a zebra.  I think that means my love is true love.  It also means I could never be in a chocolate commercial.

The first time I tried this approach with a white chocolate Easter bunny, I think my teeth began to weep.  My taste buds might have begun having suicidal thoughts.  This wasn’t chocolate.  It was illegal amounts of cane sugar and milk parading as one of the world’s most beloved heroes.  I’ve never liked white chocolate.  In fact, I’ve never even tolerated white chocolate.

I know what you’re thinking.  It’s something along the lines of, “You chocolate racist.”  Rest assured: I’ve seen the light.  The white light.  No, not that white light; Trust me, I’ve learned that tunnel vision isn’t my cup of tea.

I’ve been converted: I love white chocolate.

It was not the instant gratification I spoke of before.  No instant love.  No love at first sight.  It was not flirting-turned-fervor in a romantic comedy sort of way.  It was not sentimental or stylized.

It was an odyssey.  Like building any relationship – romantic, platonic, or familial.  I think we fail to see that Love takes root everywhere in our lives.  It takes root between ourselves and the people to whom we show our soft underbellies.  It takes root just as equally between ourselves and the people to whom we do nothing more but offer a daily “hello.”

The concept of  having one day devoted to Love (and primarily only a certain type of love!) seems silly to me when the fabric of our every day is Love.  I guess it is much easier to forget and simply make one mid-February day our yearly alarm clock to remind us.  But what if we didn’t need a reminder?

How about making tomorrow morning the beginning of a lifetime rather than just the beginning of a day?  It could be the start of always taking time to notice the Love growing through the cracks of the sidewalk, and consciously choosing to help it flourish.

White Chocolate Hearts (without sugar!)

I know this probably goes without saying, but this white chocolate can be made into any shape, any time of year!  Try a white chocolate bar or white chocolate chips!

Also, you may want to make your hearts thinner than I did.  Not only did I make them a bit thick, but I went a little wild with the vanilla powder, meaning it all sunk to the bottom in the hardening process.  Don’t worry – this won’t happen to you.

*Note that I submitted this recipe to Diet, Dessert, and Dogs’ Wellness Weekend!

1/4 cup raw cacao/cocoa butter

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1/8 tsp ground vanilla bean (optional – I like the look of vanilla flecks in my chocolate!)

3 Tbsp coconut flour

pinch himalayan pink salt

6-7 drops vanilla stevia (I can only attest to the deliciousness of NuNaturals Alcohol-Free Vanilla Stevia)

1) Place raw cacao butter in double boiler (or a homemade one – glass jar in a small sauce pan!)

2) Heat the water over medium heat so that the butter begins and continues to melt.  Simmer until fully melted.

3) Measure out 1/4 cup of the butter if you haven’t already done so.

4) Mix cacao butter with remaining ingredients in a mixing bowl.  It will look yellow – do not fear, it will lighten as it hardens.

5) Line a pan with wax paper, and place cookie cutters or chocolate molds on the wax paper.  Pour white chocolate into the cookie cutters or molds to desired thickness and then immediately put into freezer to avoid leaking!

6) Remove from freezer after at least 2 hours and DEMOLISH.

I have had enough dreams about my teeth falling out to recognize when I’m having one, as I am having it.  I had one such dream last night.  It was a doozy.  It involved a lot of blood, which is very uncommon among my fantastical tooth-losing adventures.  It also involved a cat, and somehow, the cat was directly correlated with the catastrophe happening in my mouth.  She was staring at me, her nose inches away from mine, and I was pulling teeth out of my mouth, strung together like candy necklaces.  Way too many teeth.  Way more teeth than I actually have.  The experience lacked any sense of pain whatsoever, nor did it affect my usually weak stomach even slightly.  In fact, it felt more like I was scooping the seeds out of pumpkin.  But the pumpkin was my mouth.

Are you throwing up right now?  Sorry about that.  I have heard that dreaming about any dental catastrophes – teeth falling out, crumbling, feeling loose – all boil down to the same issue: lack of or fear of lack of control.  About three minutes deep into it, my dream self thought, “Oh, right.  This is a dream.  Hm.  In what ways do I feel out of control in my life?”  I then realized I could probably do this soul searching while awake, without the Pearly Whites Parade marching past my lips, so I decided to wake up.  And I did.

What about the cat?  I don’t have a cat.  In fact, I’m not usually a fan of cats.  If there’s ever a question of cats vs. dogs, I will always choose dogs.  But this cat didn’t seem like just any cat.  She knew me.  There was someone behind those eyes that I recognized, and I can’t place who it was.  Any ideas what this could mean?

I could use some Jungian insight right about now.  It might help to know that I’ve found myself at a precipice in my life on which I never expected I’d be balancing.  Over the last month, I’ve had so many curveballs thrown at me that my body is black and blue.  I must confess this to be the reason why I haven’t written in over a month.

I apologize.

Rest assured: I’m back.  In truth, this little blog may benefit me more than ever at this point.  My love affair with food, my play time with words, and the warmth of your comments could very well be my power cord.

Please stay plugged in.

I’ll feed you if you do.

And I won’t tell you about any more gory nightmares.

Creamy Seaweed Salad

1 cup dried wakame

1/3 cup chopped scallions

1/2 cup chopped celery

3-4 Tbsp raw macadamia butter, cashew butter, or tahini

2 Tbsp coconut aminos

1 Tbsp lemon juice

1Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 cup filtered water

sesame or hemp seeds for sprinkling (optional)

1) Place dried wakame in filtered water.  Mix until all pieces of wakame are wet.  Allow to sit in water for 5-10 minutes to absorb.

2) Add remaining ingredients.  Mix well.

3) Allow flavors to meld in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.

Scott and I are out west again.  We can’t seem to stay away from the open road, the blanket sunsets, the landscape swirled with mountains like mounds of thick frosting.  We’ve now resumed our place on the Oregon Trail, after spending one heavenly week in Montana with Scott’s family.  I could not have asked Santa Claus for a better week.  Nor a better addition to the dear group I consider my own family.  The whole experience was infinitely greater than the sum of its parts, and that is exceptionally difficult to believe considering how exceptionally great the parts themselves were.  We skied in powdered sugar.  We lived in a beautiful, ski-to-the-door, rustic lodge featuring a kitchen with whom I wanted to have babies.  The golden-hearted Cath and Larry covered all resort expenses for everyone.  I cooked and fed homemade pumpkin curry to all.  We designated one certain morning as our own Christmas Day; Candace and Cynthia gave me a Cuisinart ice cream maker without even knowing it had stolen my heart months ago.  We slurped hot soup, bundled at the bottom of the slopes.  We collectively screamed and cursed as we ran barefoot on the snow-carpeted porch to the bone-melting Jacuzzi.  We choked with laughter for hours on end, playing games, swapping stories, filling seemingly insignificant moments with purpose.  The kindness I experienced was beyond anything I could have dreamt up.  As was the laughter.

The night we played Cranium, I found myself wishing the game would never end.  Abs sore and laugh lines engraved in my cheeks, I noshed on macadamia nuts, soaking in their flavor and all flavors surrounding me, believing life could not be better.  Then I had another thought.  Um, it was about food, of course:

Removing sugar from my diet has been the greatest kindness I’ve ever done for my taste buds.

Maybe I was simply drunk with joy, and everything tasted better in my drunken stupor.  But maybe not.  As each buttery nut passed my lips, it tasted different from the one that came before.  One would taste sweet and ripened like a fruit.  The next would meet my bite with a crisp snap and a salty kiss.  These macadamia nuts were completely raw, with no other ingredient added.  How was it possible for me to register so many contrasting flavors, to discern the slightest differences in each individual one?

It made me wonder if the American palate is normally so cluttered that we’ve become desensitized to true tastes.  Perhaps we’ve overwhelmed our taste buds with so much artificial flavoring, so many unpronounceable ingredients, so many laboratory-concocted, barely-edible Frankensteins that we’re missing out on the natural miracle of truly tasting our food.  Savoring what Nature has given us to eat.  And if our palates are so cluttered, what’s to stop us from assuming that everything else is as well?  Our minds?  Our lives?

I’ve been spending time uncovering what lies beneath the Facebook status updates, the strangely ego-driven tweets, the routine, the game we live, the things we do because we feel we should do them, the things we do because they give us the “gift” of feeling “normal.”  And in sorting through these ideas, I’ve started clearing away.  Clearing away thoughts.  And clearing away things as easily as if they were mere thoughts.  I’ve cut my closet in half, given away trinkets I don’t use, books I don’t read, memorabilia that no longer serves me.  I’ve embraced Minimalism.  Things: They are what most of us use to define ourselves.  They’re a language.  They’re a value system.  But what happens when we don’t have them?  What remains?  We are not a pair of suede boots.  We are not a stellar resumé.  And as much as I hate to admit it, we are not even our Cuisinart ice cream makers.

When we clear away the things we think make life sweet, what remains?

Life unsweetened, unsalted, raw.  And it is infinitely more flavorful than the sweetened version.  Just like those macadamia nuts.

I poured my life through a sieve in Montana.  The kindness, laughter, and human bonding that remained is enough to satisfy me for the rest of my life.

Whether you celebrate or not: Merry Christmas.

For me, you remain too.

Cardamom Rose Pistachio Butter

This rich, festive nut butter is perfectly suited for the holidays… And though its color matches the Grinch’s complexion, my heart grew three sizes upon the first bite.

*I submitted this recipe to Diet, Dessert and Dogs’ Wellness Weekend

1 1/2 cups truly raw pistachios

1/4 tsp himalayan salt

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/8 tsp rosewater

1/4 tsp cardamom

16 drops stevia (or to taste)

1) Place pistachios in food processor and grind until a fine flour.

2) Add remaining ingredients to food processor.

3) Process until a smooth butter is created.

So I might have recently likened myself to a Buddhist monk.  It might have been a stretch.  The only trait I can confidently say I mirror to that of a monk is the desire for people to give me food.  Except that probably doesn’t even count because I will gladly beg.  No shame.  Hm.  I should have likened myself to a dog.  Oh, and also there’s been this mystery animal living in a tree outside our front door that I’ve wanted to violently silence.  And that’s not very Buddhist either.

Mystery animal squawks deafeningly like a big old eagle with the disposition of an angry Italian grandmother.  Or a misplaced tropical rainforest parrot trained to act as a neighborhood alarm system.  Mystery animal squawks in said manner all the live long day.  After much consideration, Scott and I settled on what Mystery Animal must be: a baby pterodactyl.  Without a doubt, that is the prime explanation for what could possibly create such an ear-splitting noise.

Then Scott witnessed an incident that took place in a tree he often passes on his bike route.  The incident involved our familiar squawk ringing aloud and a squirrel mouthing the lyric.  A squirrel.  Um… since when do squirrels make sounds?  Squirrels squawk?  Oh, and I suppose rabbits bark?  And deer roar?  Great.  I’ve lived my whole life until now believing that some animals are just mute.  My entire understanding of the silent animal kingdom has been contradicted.  Invalidated.  Demolished.  Look. Delight your eardrums by clicking on “Eastern Grey Squirrel.”  Yeah, it’s official: I fail at squirrel facts.

But Buddhist monks?  They would know about squirrels.  Considering all that meditative observation of the world around them, I bet they see squirrels shrieking away every day.  I’ve got a long way to go.  Still, do I believe I’m evolving?  Yes.  I’m no guru, and I’m certainly not becoming any more “saintly.”  I’m just changing.  Evolving.

The craziest thing is that my evolving hasn’t meant gaining any information or knowledge I didn’t have before.  If anything, the opposite has taken place.

I know less.

I don’t even know what sound squirrels make.

I know very close to nothing.

And I’m actually, weirdly, really okay with that.  In fact, I actually, weirdly, really love it.  I love living having relinquished any expectations of what living should be for me.  I love not knowing what is coming next for me.  I love not even planning what is coming next.  I love being so lost that I’m driven towards adjectives rather than nouns, eclectic bouquets of words rather than career-related labels, to unearth what truly makes me Me.  And of course, I love having my pterodactyl theory be so wrong that the mystery squawker turns out to be not even a similar species.

I’m not going to claim that this newfound peace and joy means I know anything at all.  That’s the number one mistake we all make, I think: trying to make intellectual sense of something that is not meant to be understood intellectually at all.  So instead, I’m simply going to continue not knowing.  Not knowing is good.  Not knowing is my new safe haven.  It’s scary at first, but I invite you to give it a try.  Why?  Here’s the coolest part:  Not knowing includes not knowing limits.  And no matter how “open” you’ve believed yourself to be, you’re still closing yourself off to potential miracles, joy, light, opportunity, and love if you claim to “know.”

Take it from me.  Except: don’t.  Because what do I know?

Raw Stuffed Peppers

makes 4 pepper halves

*I submitted this recipe to “Diet, Dessert and Dogs’” Wellness Weekend

2 red bell peppers, sliced in half down the middle (Optional: dehydrate at 105˚ for 4-6 hours to soften slightly)

1 1/2 cups raw walnuts (I use soaked and dehydrated!)

2 Tbsp coconut aminos

1 Tbsp filtered water

1/2 Tbsp fennel seeds

1/4 cup spinach, basil, or parsley (or combination), finely chopped

1/4 tsp crushed red pepper

1/4 tsp garlic powder

pinch of himalayan pink salt

1) Process raw walnuts and fennel seeds in food processor until it resembles finely ground meat.

2) Add remaining ingredients to walnut “sausage” in a bowl and mix well.

3) Fill red pepper halves with walnut “sausage.”

4) Refrigerate for a few hours to allow flavors to meld and settle.

5) EAT.