All my life, I thought you had to be a member of some-sort of secret society in order to make delicious pies.  It just looked so mysterious to me.  I mean, really, how on Earth can someone take ingredients as unappealing as vinegar, shortening and flour and make something as delicious as pie crust?  I just knew pie-bakers were either alchemists or magicians.  Since I took myself as neither, I settled for making pies made out of Marie Calendar frozen crusts and Eagle Brand Milk.

For some reason far beyond explanation, last Fall I began to notice in me the stirrings of a desire to become “one of them”…one of those mysterious, seductive, secretive pie-bakers!   

My first attempt yielded an absolutely horrendous looking blob on a cookie sheet.  I was so intimidated by the whole idea, I didn’t even get out a pie pan and just wrapped the filling in the crust.  The problem was that the crust was so impossible to work with, the shape I ended up with looked more like a ink blob than anything else. The good news on that attempt is that there were pockets of it that tasted pretty good….you just had to get past its’ abject homeliness.  The secret society of pie-bakers had clearly rejected me.

Attempt Two yielded a lattice top rhubarb pie that actually looked like a pie.  Unfortunately for my boyfriend who had waited hours for it, it was absolutely uneatable due to a member of the pie-baking-cult setting me up with woody rhubarb. I’m telling you, only wood peckers would have found this pie appealing.  It just wasn’t fair and, once again, I was deemed novice and unworthy of my sought after membership.      

Bound and determined, I rented a Martha Stewart baking DVD and watched it twice – taking notes both times.   I finally got my courage up to try again KNOWING that the third time is indeed the charm.  Unfortunately, the elders in the secret order still weren’t smiling on me and if something could have gone wrong making the elusive crust, it did.  

Normally, I would have “called it quits” after the fifth time the pie crust stuck to something and ripped but I went ahead and filled it with Cascade Berries, Bartlett Pears, sugar & lemon zest then covered it in a mixture of brown sugar, spelt flour and butter crumbles and gently put it in the oven for what seemed like an eternity.

Much to my surprise, it actually turned out.  Down the sides and across the bottom was a wonderful, flaky, perfectly done crust, the filling was the perfect tartness to stand up to French Vanilla and the entire thing worked together in a way that was nothing short of sublime.  I felt like an alchemist!  I understood the word “synergy”.  I had done it – made a pie that both looked and tasted sort of like what it was supposed to!

I may still not be a member of the secret order of pie-bakers but I did make one special guy pretty happy with my pie-baking prowess, finally.   Now, there’s no reluctance to my pie-baking.  In fact, I may make my first public debut at the Crescent Lake Fire Circle in two weeks.  I’m taking requests….if you’ll vouch for me on my secret order of pie-bakers membership application! 

Who is she?

I look up from my place at the table and see her….

She’s staring right at me.

There’s something about her I sort of recognize.

BUT…the hollowness, the lines, the distant eyes are so out of place

She looks tired…no, weary.  Like she carried a heavy load for a long way.

I can’t stand the sight of her.  She’s supposed to look different. 

A muse…THAT’S what she’s supposed to look like.  Blushed, vibrant, beautiful.

I wonder if she knows music.  I wonder if she knows laughter.  I wonder if she knows love.

Relieved to have been seen, she smiles.

I turn away.  Meeting her is not yet an option.   

After 42 years of living on this Earth, I decided it was high-time I bake a “real” pie.

Oh…several months ago, I had came to the same decision and then chickened-out and made a “galette” instead.  A Galette is sort like a big turn-over.  It’s no-where near the same as a pie – it doesn’t even use a pan.  Sufficient to say, making my galette was not a fun experience.  If you want the full picture of just how bad it was, check-out the post:  “Adventures of a Reluctant Pie Baker”.  My parrot, who helped with the process, learned a few new “choice” words that day…it was that bad.

So tonight, feeling delirious from a fever, I decided to try again and this time for real.  I Googled “Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie” and this wonderful recipe popped up.  Had I printed it, it would have been at least 40 pages long.  Suffice is to say, it was a detailed, step-by-step instruction of how to make the perfect pie and during the course of almost three (yes, 3!) hours, I followed it to the letter.  I even used the dreaded measuring cup and hated measuring spoon.

If you ask me, it turned out quite pretty – (okay, so maybe beauty is in the eye-of-the-beholder).  It’s a heck of a lot prettier than the sad looking galette was, that’s for sure.

After three hours of toiling in a kitchen that was nearing 80 degrees while I was sick as a dog, when the thing finally came out of the oven, I was over-joyed.  I had made a real pie!  Completely from scratch!  Finally I could check “make pie” off my Life List.

Here’s the sad part…(do you have a tissue – this is really, really sad).  My beloved pie was un-eatable!  The rhubarb made wood-chips look  tender!  Can you believe it??  Of all the injustices in my life that dang recipe didn’t say anything about not ringing the water off the rhubarb and putting a mixture that resembled a watery-soup into the crust.  How was I supposed to know that in order for rhubarb to cook right, it needed to be swimming?  Geeze!  Talk about learning the hard-way!

All I can say at this point is I really and truly hope the “third time will be the charm”. 

It’s actually more like ten days.  Strange for a girl who, not-so-long-ago, had a hard time imagining even one night without it.  The part that is even stranger is that I haven’t missed it. 

In retrospect, the first week of my month-long experiment of not eating processed foods and meats unfolded with a grace and ease that astonished me.  I had so many epiphanies and got clear on so much regarding my food during these past ten days that it’s hard for be to believe I haven’t always eaten this way.  It leaves me wondering whether this is a temporary honeymoon or if it’s the “real deal”.  Time will tell.

Below is a list of some of those learning along with detailed information as to what I consumed, just in-case you’re wondering what someone who doesn’t eat meat and processed foods eats.      

1)  Food really does grow on trees!  Who knew?  There is such a thing as a “fruitivore” but they have to eat enormous quantities of fruit to survive.  I’m not quiet there yet but I am averaging -- get this – five servings a day.  Costco now carries organic apples and pears.  I’m not all that happy with their non-organic oranges but at 15 lbs for $5 bucks, I like the price.  I’m also buying non-organic kiwi there and their frozen mixed berries.  Bananas are from Trade Joes – organic & fair trade!  Jicima is from Fred Meyer:  not organic and imported from Mexico.

2) One absolutely MUST HAVE a well stocked organic, vegetarian kitchen.  I read, yet another,  book – this one on “the anti-inflammation diet” – and it gave me a grocery list which I took to the store and followed to a great extent.  I purchased three types of “different” Bob’s Old Red Mill organic flours (Spelt, Barley & Brown Rice), four different types organic beans, coconut oil, all sorts of raw organic nuts and dried fruits.  It wasn’t cheap but I’m feeling confident that I’m well stocked for the rest of the millennium.  Now, all I have to worry about on a daily basis is the fresh stuff.

3)  For vegetarians, AMERICAN FOOD SUCKS!  If I am going to be vegetarian and still be a foodie, I have to look to other cultures.  When I think “American” I think of hamburgers and fries, steak and mashed potatoes, Bisquick pancakes, peanut-butter & jelly on white bread….None of which sound remotely appetizing to me at this point. Other cultures such as the Italians and Greeks, the Japanese and Chinese, the South Africans, the Middle Easterners and Indians still consider meat “special” and have perfected so many wonderful recipes that don’t include it.  

4)  Some things are worth the extra money.  I like knowing my red-leaf lettuce is local, not coated in pesticides and didn’t have its’ genes screwed with.  Plus, it tastes better….more flavor, more crunch, less wimpines.  The Raw Milk Cheese I purchased the other day was about the best cheese I’d ever eaten.   You should try it:  Greenbank Farms Monterrey Jack.   Flax oil is not cheap AND it is the best and easiest source for those precious Omega Threes (not to mention that it has an incredible flavor in salad dressings). 

5)  Left-overs aren’t just for lunch the next day.  (Another, who knew?)  What is it about our culture that tells us it’s not okay to make a big batch of something and eat on it for a week?  Nobody does this and it just doesn’t make sense to me any more.  My big batch items this week were a pot of chili-beans (yummo!), a pot of vegetable soup (so-so) and a pot of a Indian dish I know as kichadi that has mung-beans, lentils and basmati in a home-made curry.  I also made-up some Orzo that I mixed with artichoke hearts, sundried tomatoes and kalamata olives (all of which come from Costco in giant jars), feta cheese and toasted pine-nuts.  Now that was good. 

6)  Who misses meat, anyway?  I had two wonderful friends over for dinner Sunday night and made home-made crepes stuffed with baby portobello mushrooms, organic leeks and spinach with white sauce (butter, brown rice flour and white wine), topped with mozzarella.  I mean, really, who would miss meat in a meal that has a main-dish like that?    

6)  The effort and mess are worth it.  Take these incredible toasted almond and cherry scones I made Sunday night.  Now, they are a mess to make but the pay off is worth it.  Next on my hit-parade are home-made tortillas.  How hard can they be?  I’m finding that spending more time in the kitchen has become part of my life and on the days when I don’t cook or bake, I miss it.

7)  Some “from scratch items” are just easy.  Take salad dressings as an example.  Pretty much any dressing with the word “vinaigrette” in it is easy-shmeezy: honey-mustard, raspberry, balsamic to name a few.  I use the absolute best quality vinegars (red wine, white wine & balsamic), shallots/garlic, mustard and flax oil in most “recipes”.  Each takes only a few seconds to whip-up and knocks-the-socks-off any purchased dressing.  Haven’t mastered a ceasar yet, though. 

8)  Hunger is not my friend.  I do best when I eat consistently about every two and a half hours during the day.  Fruit is the only quickly digesting food I can eat without freaking out my blood-sugar levels. I spent lots of years bouncing from hypo-glycemic to hyper-glycemic and feeling terrible.  That’s just not the way I choose to live any more so I eat small portions of complex foods frequently and my pancreas likes it that way.  Those five servings of fruit I mentioned normally come around 10 AM and 3 PM.  And, I’m one of those who believes breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

9)  Digestive Enzymes, Probiotics, Vitamin-Mineral Supplements and exercise truly make a difference.  Right now, so much of this process is about getting my metabolism kick-started.  I think years of eating “normally” has dulled my digestive process and that it now needs a serious boost. When food is cooked, it destroys so many of the vital enzymes in it that there are none left to replenish the body’s supply.  Stress, antibiotics and an over-cooked, meat-laden diet kill off the probiotics which are vital to good digestion.   Due to modern farming practices and use of synthetic fertilizers, food today only has a fraction of the nutrients it did just fifty years ago.  Once I understood that, supplements no longer seem like just a good idea.  And, exercise for the sake of exercising, is not my favorite thing but it is necessary to get oxygenated, life-giving blood to my cells.

10)  The words I choose when I think and speak about my process is as important as anything else.  So far, my languaging has been full of labels (such as vegetarian) and has indicated hard, definitive stances on things (such as I am NOT eating meat during January) and I question how intelligent it is to frame this process like that.  I’m thinking words that are softer such as usually, sometimes and rarely would be more supportive in the long-run and give me the flexibility to go with the flow of my life. Besides, knowing me, they’ll turn out to be much more accurate.  I haven’t eaten pork in up-teen years except for the time it was in the green-chili and I didn’t know it and the time I was back-packing and the neighbor’s bacon was irresistible.   So the truth is not that I don’t eat pork but that I rarely eat pork.

Preface: I just returned from visiting my parents and sister in the land of processed foods. While I was there, surrounded by all food boxed and wrapped in plastic, I read most of a book called The Way We Eat which is about why our food choices matter and the ethics of those choices. The book opened my eyes to so much about the international food industry and the impact it has on the various aspects of life on Planet Earth. It was a fascinating read that seems to have left me with a desire to do more to bring my diet into alignment with love. This post has been a difficult one to write because I want to tell everyone all the things I now get but it comes out political, preachy…and…angry. Perhaps the anger will be the catalyst that gets to me to love?

Late last summer, I came across the idea of “Meatless Mondays”. At the time, it was almost unthinkable to have a “real” dinner that didn’t have meat in it and my partner, Blaine, was absolutely opposed to the idea. I’d have a meatless meal and he’d have my meatless meal with a pork chop. His ardent belief that he needs meat every single night got us debating and the debating got me reading everything I could on the subject so I could crush him. All the reading did, however, was turn my own life upside down by forcing me to question my own beliefs about food (which weren’t so far from Blaine’s). It also dug-up a enormous desire to find out where my food comes from, how it is made and what the hell is in it because most of what I was reading horrified me.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided I’d give up meat for the month of January just to see how I feel without it and to see if that belief about needing animal protein is correct. I had tried vegetarianism years ago and it almost left me hospitalized from malnourishment so I have my doubts about whether or not I can actually survive a month. I also have my doubts about whether I can survive the cravings for a dark-beer and burger after a good cross-country ski.

Here’s the preachy part I warned you about in the preface: I may have my doubts about whether being a vegetarian (verses a conscious omnivore) is healthy for me but there is not a single doubt left in my head as to whether or not it is a much better choice for the animals and for the planet.

For the animals: Four years ago, I saw a clip on the evening news that I couldn’t watch. It was of a giant diary cow being pushed around by a fork-lift as she struggled to get-up. Turns out, that is nothing on the inhumane treatment scale that food animals are subjected to. It also turns out that meat from those animals and that system is easily contaminated and full of unhealthy antibiotics, hormones and bacteria. If you want to see for yourself YouTube CAFO, rent the fictional movie “Fast Food Nation” or the just-released DVD of the documentary “Food, Inc”.

For the planet: Get this: on an acre of land planted with food crops, one could grow food to feed ten times the number of people that same acre could feed if it was used for animals; a 1,000 pound steer takes over 800,000 gallons of water to raise and a pound of hamburger uses 84 times the amount of water that a pound of tomatoes uses. In my last post, I wrote about how if all Americans ate three fewer hamburgers a week it would off-set the carbon emissions of all SUVs in the country.

As for me, I have all sorts of weird, chronic “issues” (such as swollen joints in my hands), often could be called anxious and sleep horribly and I want to know how eating meat impacts not only these things but all aspects of my mental, emotional and physical health and there’s only one way to find out: to stop eating it.

Right now, vegetarianism is a novel experiment and I’m my own guinea pig. I’ll keep you posted as the month progresses. Today is Day 2 and so far, so good.

PS:  I started my experiment December 28--the day after my father "insisted" I eat filet mignon.  He went to Costco and spent over $50 on the filets and then barbecued them to absolute medium-rare perfection.  The meal was completed with mashed potatoes I made (from a big bag of potatoes he also purchased at Costco) and a bottle of Bogel Old Vine Zinfindel.   For Dad, it was a meal intended to say "thank you for coming home".  I bargained with myself that I would eat it if I made it my farewell to meat for a month meal.  That night, both Blaine and I hardly slept.  I woke-up at 2:00 AM just sure my greatest fears were coming true.  It was horrid.  Perhaps it was just coincidence but I have noticed that I sleep better on the nights I drink very little wine and don't eat meat. 

Have you ever seen a vegetable that you thought was truly beautiful?  Such was the case with these enormous poblano peppers Blaine brought home from Food 4 Less.  No, they weren't organic AND they were still fresh and strong with skins so green they were almost black.  I literally couldn't wait to get them on the grill and between layers of pepper-jack and tortillas de maize.  I was almost giddy at the thought of my special poblano tostados...

Have you ever opened-up Yahoo and had the head-line forever change what you will and won't eat?  Such was the case this past Thursday with a headline that said something like "Seven foods the experts won't eat".  Out of the seven, only farmed-salmon and microwave popcorn were already on my "no how, no way" list.  Corn-fed beef, non-organic apples and non-organic milk were on my list of "things I'd really prefer to avoid".  Canned tomatoes and non-organic potatoes were things I had never even thought about.  (Who knew that potatoes are sprayed with something nasty to keep them from sprouting and that the acid in tomatoes causes the aluminum of the can to leach out?) 

How about mushrooms?  How much have you contemplated the extreme mystery of shrooms and what they do for the planet?  Towards the end of Omnivore's Dilemma, there's a whole chapter devoted to mushrooms and, as someone who spent hours hunting Chantrelles over Thanksgiving, I was blown away by the depth and fascination of the topic.

So I guess this is the way one evolves from a person who hates to feed herself (either out or at home) to someone who loves and honors food:  one recipe at a time, one bit of new information at a time, one understanding at a time.

It is in this spirit, I offer the ten things I learned about food (and myself) this week:

1.  What a flavoring agent is.  This sounds relatively simple but it's anything but.  These nasty-little toxins trick the brain into perceiving flavors that really aren't there.  The bullion which (up until this week) I would use to make all my soup stocks with is one example...there's nothing that came from a chicken or a cow yet the flavors of the stuff it provides are enormous.  

2.  MSG is a flavoring agent, it is toxic, it very likely could be causing some of my health issues and the labeling of it is extremely confusing.  MSG could be included in the words "natural flavors", "spices", hydrolized protein or autolyzed yeast.  "No added MSG" is not the same as "No MSG".     

3.  A week or two ago, I posted a learning along the lines that soup is pretty dang easy to make from scratch and this week I learned that learning was a crock.  Soup is easy to make from scratch when one uses bullion or a store-purchased stock but now I get that's really not making it from scratch.  Duh.

4.  Kneading bread is a blast.  Who knew?  

5.  When making something completely unfamiliar, it's truly okay to trust and follow the dang recipe.  In some cases, recipes really ought to be more than mere suggestions.  

6.  It's okay to use the dishwasher.  I've become so frugal with energy I recycle paper-towels and, in-spite of reading about the efficiency of energy-star appliances, rarely use the dish-washer.  In all the cooking and baking I did this week, I came to the conclusion that out-dated belief needs to be thrown right out the window. 

7.  A lot of people I know can.  I always thought canning was something completely old-fashioned that only boring people do.  Wrong.  I hope next year, I'll be graced with a garden bountiful enough to justify doing it myself.

8.  The box that breakfast cereals come in is more nutritious than the cereals themselves!  (Let me know if you want my sources for any of this)

9.  Making food with the "N factor" used to take a lot of effort.  Now, even though it still takes about the same amount of time, it feels like I'm only putting a fraction of the effort out.  I think a huge part of this is that I've become accustomed to spending that much energy preparing food so my perception of what "a lot" is has changed. 

10.  The pursuit of the "N factor" is more than just a fad in my life.  I just keep getting pulled deeper and deeper down the rabbit-hole.  (The "N factor" is my made-up term for food that feels like it really nourishes my entire being.)

I'm sipping a cup of tea on a snowy, windy morning.  I'm all by myself (except, of course, for the dog asleep at my feet and the parrot preening herself on my shoulder) and I want to share with you...whoever you are.

I want to tell you about me and what's really important to me right now -- perhaps, in making this declaration, you will find similarity in your journey and join me or you will feel called to share your "been there, done thats" and help me navigate this transition with more grace.

I'm new to blogging and have been reluctant to freely post about the journey I'm on right now because of a lovely little voice in my head that keeps saying "other people got all this long ago...you should have too". So, at the risk of the voice being able to say "told you so",  the central theme of my life right now (and what I really want to share about) is my relationship with food. 

All my life, I've been taking side-paths to feeding myself better but now I am on a super-highway of exploration and change.  This journey is about moving from the typical American-diet of processed foods (all the stuff in the stores and at most restaurants) to one that is more alive, conscious and nurturing.  For me, this means a whole lot more than shopping at Whole Foods and not eating meat (for, right now, it is my opinion that industrial organics aren't all that conscious and not all meat is sinful).

I changed my bio to be more reflective of this process.  What the bio doesn't say is I am challenged by chronic illness and it is my sincere belief that fixing my food, will fix me.  I have tried vegan-ism and all sorts of restrictive, food-as-medicine, diets.  What I haven't tried is being informed about where my food comes from.  And, I haven't consistently listened to my body/psyche as to the impact that food has on me (something I've coined as the "N Factor"). 

In ways, this process is about slow food.  It's about pastured food.  It's about moving beyond organic.  It's about really getting that all eggs aren't created equal.  It's about protesting the in-humane way most food animals are treated and choosing quality over quantity.  It's about being fearless in the grocery store and in the kitchen, open-minded and creative, and willing to use my head, hands and heart in way I'm simply not accustomed to.

And, you know what I discovered yesterday?  It really isn't all that hard.  I used to buy potato soup mix in big containers from Costco.  You'd take the powdered-mix, add water to it and simmer it for about 30 minutes.  Well, yesterday, I made potato soup from scratch, and, boy, was I surprised to find out how easy it was.  Except the "from scratch" soup tasted a thousand times better than the dehydrated stuff.  And, since I grew the potatoes, onions and leeks, it was also huge on N factor.

It's in the changing my habits and my beliefs in subtle ways like this where the healing is. It's in the following of my love for life and of really great food where the inspiration is and it's in the conversations around this where the integration is.

So, tonight, it's onto pie crust and apple pie using apples my grand-father equivalent (the grand-father equivalent of my spousal-equivalent) gifted me.  It will be my first pie crust and first apple pie and it's high-time I made a pie without using a frozen crust.  My hands and heart will be happy with the work and my friends with the results.   

Thanks for sharing a cup of tea with me today!

 Tania

PS:  Here's the method for the soup:  slice a bunch of potatoes and chop leeks (and or) onions; cook the leeks/onions in butter until limp; put the potatoes in the pot and just cover with chicken-stock and simmer until tender; mash (in the pot) to desired consistency; add some cream, salt/pepper/herbs; let "mingle" on simmer for about 15 minutes; enjoy! 

PSS:  I share the method with you because I hate recipes and find the best food is creative (a little of this and a little of that) and that intuition is a great guide in cooking something with familiar flavors.  I won't, however, be using intuition tonight when I attempt pie crust.