Lifestyle can be a Piece of Cake – Page 29

Take Candy from Strangers, then Why Not Juice?

Since we’ve broached the subject of taking food from strangers, I’d like to share another recent travel moment. Two weeks ago, I traveled to Raleigh, North Carolina where I took these photos of Historic Oakwood Cemetery.

My flights in both directions were rescheduled, rerouted, and delayed by several hours. As you may have guessed from reading our Travel Tips, for convenience I always carry gluten-free food with me when I fly.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve had to move my meals closer and closer together in order to keep my hypoglycemia in check. I can no longer wait until I feel hungry to eat, but have to consume at regular intervals in order to maintain my energy level and feel my best. This requires that in addition to carrying food, I must look at the schedule in advance so I’ll know if I need to eat a snack on the plane in order to keep my blood sugar level even.

On this trip, I followed my normal procedure and arrived at the airport feeling prepared. I sailed through security with my plastic containers of food and headed for the gate. As a flight delay led to late boarding, followed by sitting on the tarmac for an hour, followed by taxiing back for more fuel, I found myself captive on the plane without enough food to last until we reached the next destination.

As we began our descent, I was hoping to avoid the point at which my blood sugar drops so low that my hand starts to tingle, my lips get numb, and I feel overwhelmed and groggy. I started a mental inventory of my options. Was there time to investigate and consume the $11 snack boxes sold on the plane? Should I ask for a coke? I could already feel the anxious tension creeping from my shoulder blade to my neck. My mind was whirling.

About that time, a young man sitting across the aisle and one row in front of me opened the can of apple juice he’d been staring at for almost an hour. He filled his plastic glass then looked at me with a knowing look and asked if I wanted the rest. His offer was unexpected and the perfect solution at the perfect time. I accepted with a nod and a smile. He smiled back. I quietly offered a thank you.

That was the extent of our interaction. We had not been conversing and we didn’t begin to at that point. This man was simply attuned enough to recognize my need and I was willing to accept his gift. It was the kind of powerful everyday moment that can feed our hearts, mind, and spirits when we allow our minds to be open and our hearts willing to receive.

Taking the apple juice from a stranger allowed me to finish the flight with no ill effects. For that stranger, I am grateful. For that juice, I am grateful. For that moment, I am grateful.

Travel Tip #6 – Go Ahead…Take Candy From Strangers!

So how many of you tell your children to never take candy, or food, from strangers? I’ve said the same thing…many times. The thing is, when I’ve said it, I wasn’t really thinking about the food. I was concerned about some deviant using food as a bribe to get my child to do something he wouldn’t otherwise do. Now that we’re all adults, I say, “Going on a trip? Forget that old rule. Take food from strangers”!

I realize some of you are thinking I’ve lost my mind, so give me a moment to explain. I am not encouraging you to eat off a stranger’s plate, drink out of the same glass, or consume any item you do not feel complies with your necessary medical restrictions. With that in mind, let’s explore some of the opportunities travel offers for a change in menu.

When traveling to a foreign country, you may have no choice but to vary from your eating norm. If this is the case, there are many treats in store. First there are local people who may want you to sample their dishes. While they may be strangers, please consider the offer. This is the absolute best way to experience local food.

Next are the grocery stores or markets. Shopping in a different environment with unfamiliar products can be an adventure in itself. I often browse the aisles taking in the packaging and shelf arrangement as if perusing an art display. I spend a moment contrasting the number of items that look familiar from the number that seem different. I watch the shoppers. I try to grab a sense of their lives and develop a list of questions I may want to research about local eating habits or food culture.

In Australia, I find the packaged foods more familiar than foreign. Many of the brands are the same as those at home and the boxes vary only slightly. In the Netherlands, I am struck by the abundance of dark, heavy breads and the frequency with which our hosts offer us a stop for food. In New Zealand, I find the roadside fruit and vegetable markets a delight!

Bakeries and restaurants offer yet another view of both food and culture. There is nothing more beautiful than the fruit tarts displayed in the window of a bakery along Champs-Elysées in Paris. Sometimes I browse the shelves of a bakery even though I recognize I probably won’t be able to eat any of the products. I love to see the offerings, take in the aroma of freshly baked bread, and bask in the warmth of the room. When I can do this with a cup of rich, dark coffee in hand, I am happy to wait for my gluten-free snack.

After browsing, you’ll be ready to consume. Here’s another opportunity to engage a stranger. Ask some locals to tell you what or where to eat, then trust your instincts. If you don’t feel comfortable with a particular person’s advice, ask someone else. If two or three people mention the same hole-in-the-wall, it’s probably good.

When traveling closer to home, the same rules apply. Keep in mind that any time you enjoy a meal at a new restaurant in your city, you are accepting food from strangers so there’s no reason to be hesitant to try something new in a neighboring borough. I ate some of the best hummus I’ve ever tasted at a cigarette/gift store/restaurant with a sliding cage door in Memphis. My son recommends tacos served on the porch of a make-shift operation at a man’s house in Little Rock. A friend’s favorite barbecue sandwich ever was sold out of a Hot Springs man’s back door. People drive for an hour or more for a weekly fish fry on the grounds of a Stuttgart farm. None of these locations employ advertising other than word of mouth and none are to be missed.

Search online, look at reviews, and get an eating plan together, but don’t be afraid to ditch the plan on the advice of someone you just met. When you’re wiling to embrace the food offered by a stranger, you increase your chances of being pleasantly surprised.

Have any surprisingly good dining experiences you want to share? We’d love to hear them.

You are how you cope!

Don’t you mean you are what you eat? After all, this is a cooking blog, right?

Well, yes, Cooking2Thrive® is about cooking, but it’s also about thriving. Don’t worry we’ll tie it all together for you by the dessert course.

Soup

It is no secret that our intimate relationship with food sometimes takes on a life of its own. When we vow to modify our diet, eat healthy, lose weight, reduce our intake of sweets or carbs or protein or gluten, we can suddenly feel out of control, or obsessed. It feels like the vow has taken control of us. Why is that?

Salad

Take a moment to crunch on this idea: Long before we were ready, some of us had to perform tasks that were much too advanced for our age and ability. When things didn’t turn out well, we blamed ourselves or someone else blamed us. Through this process, we learned to cope in a manner that encouraged the overdevelopment of an inner critic. This critic became such an integral part of us that we do not feel like ourselves unless we are thinking: “I’m too fat!”; “I ate too much!”; “I should have eaten slower!”; “If only I had planned in advance, I wouldn’t have had to eat that doughnut at the office, but I was just so hungry!” As we begin to eat more healthily, this monologue no longer fits, but when it’s turned off we don’t feel like ourselves. When we don’t feel like ourselves, we begin to feel anxious. Anxiety leads us to seek comfort. We feel comforted when we eat carbs, so we pick up a cheese roll, criticize ourselves for choosing the food we have vowed to avoid, and breathe a sigh of relief because our familiar coping pattern has been restored.

Entree

Our inner critic may be alive and well and keeping us from doing our best, but it can go relatively unnoticed while our lives roll predictably along. Enter a stressful disruption, and the war we are constantly fighting within can keep us from making changes that are critical to our health and longevity. For instance, let’s say that we’re suddenly served a huge heaping portion of diabetes. Now the carbs we run to for comfort can literally be our undoing. If we continue to cope in our old way, we will significantly decrease our lifespan. And yet, the added stress we feel may pull us even more strongly toward a familiar coping strategy. We want to become more healthy – it just feels as though we can’t. We may begin to feel ashamed or defeated or that critic may pipe up and say, “You’re not worth the trouble anyway, loser.”

Whatever the specifics of your situation may be, when you go back to coping through the use of strategies from the past that do not allow real change, you are stuck.

Many of us remain stuck for a very long time while our health and quality of life slowly deteriorate. We begin to believe that we’re destined to be sick and then sicker. We focus on alleviating symptoms rather than controlling, healing, or curing an underlying disease process. This seems sane and normal because we’re surrounded by a host of other people who are following a similar path. But if sane and normal actions cause us to live more limited, painful, or shorter lives, how sane and normal can they really be?

A part of us may sense that this is a question worth asking, but when we are in a weakened or pain-filled state the asking may feel beyond our reach. Without a side dish of support and encouragement, we may be left to cope in the usual manner.

Dessert

Now for the sweet part! Cooking2Thrive can help support healthy change. Don’t feel like challenging the status quo? That’s okay; we love a good challenge. Don’t feel you can make progress because you don’t have enough support? That’s okay; we’re here to encourage you. Know where you want to go, but don’t know how to get there? Don’t worry; we will provide a roadmap of practical tools you can use in order to progress.

At Cooking2Thrive, we believe that good health begins with nutritious, fresh food. We believe that with proper nutritional and emotional support, many disease processes can be reversed. We also believe that we all need encouragement and practical tools to develop new ways to process our feelings so that we can discard the coping mechanisms that hold us back in order to live a more rich, full life.

If you currently feel stuck and can’t seem to avoid your inner critic, don’t worry. Things can change. You can heal! We can help.

Strippaggio – A Tasting Adventure!

My first experience with Strippaggio turned out to deliver unanticipated excitement. Strippaggio is both the name of a local retail establishment and the Italian word for the process of filling your mouth with oil and then slurping so air spreads the oil up your nasal passages coating the taste buds with flavor.

I love any shopping experience that involves tasting something exotic or unusual, so I decided to make Strippaggio the first stop in an evening of birthday dining. My friends Chris and Heather joined me. The boutique offered around 50 varieties of fused or infused olive oil, roasted oils, and flavored vinegars.

Neat rows of stainless steel jugs with spigots sat atop counters that conveniently contained small plastic cups, rolls of paper towels, and a waste bin along with already bottled portions of the top selling varieties. Each jug was labeled with a description of the contents and flavors letting us know what to expect before choosing our next taste.

We began with a lime infused olive oil that was bright and fresh, then followed it with infused wild mushroom and sage. The wild mushroom variety turned out to be one of my favorites and one that I had to take home with me. After a few more slurps of infused oil, I was ready to mix it up with some of the vinegars.

Our host cautioned us not to slurp the vinegars, just to taste them. We tried white pear and cranberry, blueberry, chocolate, espresso, fig, maple, raspberry, and a spicy serrano honey vinegar. After three or four sips, we returned to the oils. Then back again to the vinegars lingering over the sweetness and dessert appropriate chocolate balsamic and pondering a pairing of raw pecans with the maple balsamic.

Things were going well until Chris slurped a vinegar, coughed choked, cried, and laughed. I felt for him, but I was laughing too. One more caution from the host and we resumed our tasting by buying a package of pecans and dipping them in maple, blueberry, and chocolate balsamic. The maple was definitely the best.

Finally, I was ready for one last review of my favorites so I could decide which to purchase. After a quick taste of roasted sesame oil, I returned to the serrano honey vinegar. While I can’t tell you for sure what I did, I assume I slurped it as I swallowed. The vinegar burned the back of my mouth and my throat immediately closed. I could not move air in or out. It was as if I had something blocking my airway, but there was nothing there. I paced, Heather worried, the host asked if I was alright, Chris stood in the back of the room and waited to see if laughter or 9-1-1 was the next appropriate move.

After a few seconds that felt like an hour, I was able to loudly force air back through my throat. I sounded asthmatic. A few more breaths like that and I could cough, cry, then laugh. Everyone laughed. I felt glad to be alive.

I wasn’t willing to buy the serrano honey vinegar this time, but I will. Instead, I went home with two other varieties and a survival story. I wouldn’t have missed the experience for the world. I highly recommend the tasting – just make sure you pay close attention to whether you’re tasting vinegar or oil. If you don’t, you may get an unexpected adventure as well.