There was a time, about 9 years ago, when I thought all beef hot dogs were healthy. I was recently married and now had an infant to love and care for. I also had a new understanding that what I did and ate affected other people directly.
There was a time I ate fresh broccoli mushroom tofu with garlic and ginger while nursing my newborn in the hospital then came home with him and ate Aldi corn beef hash and eggs with whole milk and soft whole wheat buttered toast.
There was a time when I ate 3 snickers bars a day, but that was long before all beef hot dogs were healthy.
There was a time I thought a little sugar would be okay after I had given it up "finally" after one bite of a cream puff caused a buzzing vibration in the back of my head. After I ate that little bit of sugar in a chocolate chip scone with morning coffee I did not know how to deal with a minor adversity with out feeling angry and agitated (the kind of minor challenge that I had grown out of feeling upset by). I got the message. Some can, some can't. I would not.
Shortly after that, David and I went in to The Zone, the place of "I'm gonna try this healthy food thing and see how much ugly green food I can make taste good for friends who don't care if their hot dogs are all beef or all unidentified other."
We kept matches in the kitchen from then on (air quality control).
We ate a lot of split pea soup and I was under the mistaken impression that the "healthy" version of a dish had to mimic the popular version,which for split pea soup meant thick with fake ham in it. Pea soup has gotten easier and is ready for consumption with less time stirring and no blops of glops on my shirt in the making. Now it's full of garlic, potatoes and carrots.
We switched to fancy milk and organic whole wheat flour. We ate sucanut sweetened sweets (a lot of them), ice cream, chocolate, lots of cookies, brownies. (The non damaging sweetener allowed me to get crazy again -- the yummy kind. Good thing I haven't found an alternative to snickers yet, but if you know of one do tell!)
We also made cooked broccoli mushroom tofu, homemade french fries, and um, many brown bumpy entrees. One friend went to Subway after declining our offer to feed him; he admitted that our food had just gotten too weird. This was all some time ago, when we lived in a little house in Central Illinois with a fenced back yard and nice neighbors we made friends with. At that time we all still ate wheat, soy, and dairy.
Times change. Slowly. One insight, one learning experience, one eye opening book at a time.Skip to 2009.
We've lived in three other states since then, cooked and baked A LOT, and somehow, all in divine order, we are back, six houses and one cross walk away from that first house by the corn fields. We have a fenced yard and neighbors we are friends with. But thankfully we make prettier food now, healthier, and I'm at ease with the cooking/baking process.
The other night we celebrated our new floors with a gluten, onion and sugar free, goat cheese pizza that was good enough to market! Yeehaw!
It's OK if you don't believe me, I wouldn't either if I hadn't been at this the whole time. I make gluten free, non white sugar, delightful chocolate cake with traditional frosting (except for some of the ingredients), fruity breakfast muffins, almond butter cookies, still lots of homemade french fries, easy split pea soup, fresh garlic salsa that gets great reviews, and a lot more I can't think of just now. People ask for the recipes. I've been encouraged to sell at the farmers market and local stores. And it's our main stream now, not our experiment. I've had people over to learn how-to and I've encouraged others to experiment.
Many people say that they couldn't do what we did. I couldn't either if I thought I had to do it in a few weeks. We spent 9 years making messes, mistakes, enjoying victories, making faces and getting out the mixing bowl, the cutting board and the soup pot again and again. Because we had to.
And because I SO need to --- can you teach me how?
Tell David hello for me. Love.