my not so blind faith

k’s new and wonderful job is in evenston and i must admit it tickles me pink. ok so actually it brings out the high-schooler in me. evenston was the town my friends and i would go hang out in for lack of more productive things to do. it was far enough away from home (20min drive) to be exciting and yet not going all the way into the city. in fact, evenston is a pretty cute little town with lots of interesting restaurants and coffee shops and was a wonderful place to hang out in as a youngtser.

i hopped a train north to evenston after work one day last week and met k as he was getting off work. then i took him out to dinner at blind faith café. this was the first vegetarian restaurant i ever went too as a young fifteen year-old, newly vegetarian me. i have vivid recollections of reading the definitions  at the bottom of their menu of tofu , seitan , and tempeh. i knew very little about these foods at this time.

needless to say, it has been years since i set a toe in blind faith. from what i remembered, the food was good but a bit on the hearty side and a little bland. how they have changed! they seem to have matured as i have and possess a bit more sophistication in their menu and flavor combos. our dinner consisted of split pea soup, roasted beat and caramelized pear salad ( both good but not mind blowing), kung Pao with baby bok coy (amazing), and peanut butter chocolate vegan cake ( double amazing!). i must apologize for the less then par quality of some of the images. k was a little embarrassed of me photographing all the food and asked that i not use a flash. i really needed a flash though and i won’t let him stop me next time!

 

going to blind faith got me thinking about when i became vegetarian. i was fifteen and my friend dianna carlson had a pamphlet from what must have been peta , and at that moment we decided to become vegetarians. it was such a trivial and nonchalant decision at the time and my mom was sure it was a phase that would last all of a month. It has been ten years and my decision has affected the course of the rest of my life. i am who i am and where i am today because of that little decision.

my moral, ethical, and political views and the way i live my life and the people i choose to surround myself with is all from this decision. it goes far beyond the fact that i do not eat meat or dairy products and do not wear fur or leather, affecting my entire view of the world. it affects how i treat people and everything else around me.

recently i e-mailed dianna (now living in arizona) to see if she remembered this. i was a little sad that she had no recollection of us becoming vegetarians together and is not one now. it goes to show how life’s moments can affect people so differently. things from our pasts that stick with us are funny and strange. i love dianna dearly and still consider her a dear friend and glad she was there when i made such an important change in my life.

i do not intend to make this blog an entire vegan rant, but there are a few issues i would like to touch upon. i invite further discussion from anyone that would like to have one with me.

i believe in sustainable farming practices and supporting local businesses even at a higher monetary cost. today’s american society is so far removed from the production of our food that we eat unknown items created in labs. a great movie to watch is food inc. i support the slow food movement. i like my food natural and chemical free. i also like all my body, bath, and household items this way.

i believe our current industrial farming practices are making people and the planet sick.

michael pollan  is a god amongst men to me. 

i am not a good american consumer. other then food, i buy very little. when needing to purchase things, do lots of research. objects need to meet certain standers for me in order to buy them… mainly vegan, organic, and fair labor; or i go to a thrift store.

i took some of my mom’s friends to karyn’s cooked one time. it was an interesting experience and opened up a lot of good dialogue. one of the ladies said to me “ so if I start thinking about the food i eat, then i have to start thinking about what’s in the air and my water too. it’s enough to drive oneself crazy!” i responded to her by saying that you start by making little changes and things start to come natural as new positive habits form.

please understand that i am not saying everyone has to live the same ways i choose to. i would just like all of us to question our habits and life styles every once in a while, think outside of ourselves and wonder if there is a more, social, environmentally, and ethically responsible alternative.

over the years my mother has been supportive of my vegitarianism and now veganisum. she has always kept soy milk in the fridge for when i come over and has been more than game to try any new vegan restaurant i suggest for lunch. she even indulges me by getting toufurky for thanksgiving. i always appreciate her support and have try not to take it for granted. however, i do not feel she understands why i eat the things i eat, or don’t, and live the way i live. they are hard things to understand. sometimes my mother feels i take things too far and stray too far from the norm. i say that i have not done so enough!

imageless

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chicago is more known for slush then for light, white, fluffy snow. i lived in syracuse, ny when i was little and remember a winter wonderland full of sledding and snowmen. chicago snow is much too wet for a proper snowball let alone a snowman. however, last tue evening it came down, and was glorious, and broke a 125 year record . it came down and settled in a layer 12.5” deep.

at first, like most chicagoins, i was a bit less than thrilled. somehow all the project runway episodes as of late got the better of me and i made a less than sensible choice in footwear for the day. my feet stayed dry on the walk from k’s house, all through the bus and L ride. however, when the red line spit me out at north and clybourn the streets and side walk were nothing but slush and puddles; huge puddles, the kind you don’t even have a prayer of jumping over. needless to say, when i arrived at work my non-waterproof, albeit cute boots were soaked as were my socks and tights underneath. 

the heaviest snowfall started around the time i was getting ready to leave work. i was dreading going outside. i needed to make the 15 min walk to my place to see if a package from mountain rose herbs  had come and then immediately got on a bus to meet k and will at the music box  to see the imaginarium of doctor parnassus. i should just add that this could be my new favorite movie of all time and really recommend all of you run out at once and see it. no seriously. back to the point, i was not looking forward to having wet feet the entire rest of the evening and was quite cranky at the thought.

the way i take home is a series of side streets running parallel to north ave and half way through the walk is a large courtyard and a church. by the time i reached that place i was already pleasantly surprised at the fact that i was indeed walking on light fluffy snow and not slush. my thin soled boots made quiet and gentle imprints in the snow that were quickly coved by a new coat leaving no trace that i had ever been that way.

standing in the courtyard the stillness hit me. normally busy and bussing streets of joggers and people walking their dogs and toddlers were empty. it was dusk and the tungsten lights had come on from the façade of the church and everything was still. thom yorke’s harrowdon hill came through on my ear buds. to be quite honest, i stood there in the middle of that courtyard motionless until the song finished and then i played it again. i experienced a stillness that is a rare pleasure for a city dweller.

what froze me dead in me tracks was the light on the snow.  i know that photographers are always talking about the light but it is so true. i would have made that image just for the light but i was lacking a camera, which is, honestly, plain stupid. i don’t remember feeling such an urge to create an image in a long, long time and i was caught without the tools. a mistake that shall not be repeated and a good lesson.

there are no word for the image that laid before my eyes that evening. it brought me back to my first color photography class. i was hardcore into b&w and wanted nothing to do with color. boy, did color blow my mind. i learned to see light and color in ways that I feel most people don’t. c printing was some of the most enjoyable times of my life. 

thinking about this now reminds me of a conversation i had with my father around the time I was starting to learn color. i had been explaining to him that colors were more vibrant and saturated under and overcast sky as opposed to direct sun. that would be the reason i would get up at five am to go shoot. this seemed counter intuitive to my dad and he stated that he didn’t know if he agreed with me.

at that moment it was noon and harsh light. i told my father to look at the grass and remember what it looked like. at about five that evening i told my father to look at the grass again. i saw his eyes light up like a child. my father saw a glimpse of what i see and feel a lot of people don’t notice about light. i was happy to open my dad’s eyes to something new and share that experience with him. in addition, i think i was eighteen or nineteen at the time, it was the first time i was able to prove my point in an argument like that with my father. it was the first time that i had more knowledge and understanding about what i was talking about then he did. i remember being very proud of myself on that day. not a selfish pride and not in an “i beat my dad” kind of way but had gained knowledge and experience within my field and could be looked to as a credible source.

in other news:

the other day i started feeling the beginnings of a cold starting to nip at my heels. immediately i craved miso soup. i know if that sounds strange but do have an explanation, i swear. my mother is a nurse and by nature an extremely nurturing person. i had a pretty weak immune system up until i became a vegan and spent most of my childhood sick. however, my mom would always let me have sushi when i was sick (once again before i was a vegan) and to this day, i crave miso soup whenever ill.

it’s no wonder. nori is seaweed and a super food. nori is rich in iodine and iron and quite high in protein. it is also a good source of vitamin c, vitamin a, potassium, magnesium and riboflavin (b2) amongst having other benefits as most algae’s do.

so i came home and made a huge pot!

 

  

  

 

in other other news:

k made wonderful vegan chili, be joy made a wonderful raw salad, and care bear made samosas for our last souper (bowl) sunday and it was wonderful. 

 

  

 

mama be joy

every other sunday k, his roommate joe, and i invite people over for soup. the three of us take turns as the soup masters. this last sunday was mine and I made big heaping batch of minestrone with gluten free rice pasta. the recipe came from a book I gifted k before a winter letting him know how much I looked forward to spending another winter with him (especially if we could make soups all the time)! needless to say the book was Millie Katzen’s Recipes: Soups. 

 you all know who she is duh the Moosewood cookbook. anyways this soup book is just as wonderful and is really cute. it has a built in stand so it stands up so you can see the recipe as you cook all with keeping your hands free!

among our friends that have been making it regularly lately are be joy and catfish and they have been bringing their daughter Azalea Ruby over to our great joy. i have know be joy and catfish for almost eight years now. they are the fist of my friends that i have watched go through the process of having a child. no I don’t mean that in the i watched her giver birth way because i didn’t. i mean it in the way that here are these two people i have grown to know and love and now there exists a third person in this world like them and yet different all in her own right. i have always held a lot of respect for be joy as someone that embodied wisdom, nature, and artistic expression and from the moment i knew she was expecting i was so excited i could have burst. i knew she would be an excellent mother and raise the type of person we need more of in this world.

on top of being super-mom, having a job, and a social life, be joy has started an organic homemade skin care business. she is extremely knowledgeable on how different herbs and essential oils effect our skin and bodies. all her products are all natural and chemical free and produced in a as sustainable and mindful way as possible. what set be joy off on this path you might ask? well she asked why if we eat a diet of organic food and try to take care of ourselves then why should the things we put on (and then are absorbed by) our bodies be any different? in addition she found information he learned thins like the fact that we absorb more chlorine when we shower then we do drinking the same water. now if our skin operates in those ways image what we do when we put toxins on our skin. one thing that had always put a knot in my stomach is when I see people putting chemical loaded sun block on their children. it breaks my heart because obviously these parents are trying to do what’s best for their children by protecting them from harmful sun rays but all those toxins are quickly absorbed by the child’s pores as they open due to sweating. 

for the winter holidays i knitted Azalea Ruby leg warmers. i was very careful to get the correct gage for a child her age. however as we tried to put them on I realized that I should have been a little smarter and made them are little bigger for a baby girl that was almost 10 pounds when she was born. now at six months Azalea is 23 pounds, the average weight for a 15 month old. needless to say i needed to make some new leg warmers! I have since made two pairs and when Azalea Ruby showed up on Sunday to my great joy she was wearing a pair! 

don't miscount the lives of spoons

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after four years of photography school and three years of watching k go through grad school, i am sad to say that i have lost my taste for art openings. in fact, i relate heavily to Ellen Cherry Charles in Tom Robbins Skinny Legs and All. she fought her entire life to be a recognized artist and make it to New York City and her not so smart boyfriends puts metal wings on their mobile home and turns it into a turkey and suddenly he’s an art genius.  i related desperately to Ellen Cherry and clung to her for all my life as I walked on egg shells in the world that is fine art. much like her i had to give my romanticized vision of what the art world was. i felt her heart break of shattered dreams and she felt mine.  if you have been deprived of reading this book or any Tom Robbins for that matter please deprive yourself no further and fallow this link http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780553377880-0 . my favorite is still life with woodpecker. i still have my copy, a much  treasured gift from k.

stay with me dear reader for I do have a point and a happy one at that! on the eve of last Saturday the  23^rd i went to an opening and had a splendid time. the show was at Barbara&Barbara http://barbaraandbarbaraloveyou.com . i enjoy this space, it is too laid back to be formal and stuffy and not laid back enough to feel quite like a hipster party. otherwise it’s a profoundly good mixture for professionalism as well as nice time to spend with friends. good conversations to be had and good art to look at. this particular show features the work of Helen Maurene Cooper, Jennifer Ray, Grant Ray (no relation) and Eric Bessel. Grant was in k’s year of grad school and somehow surviving that the two remain close friends and colleagues.

as always Jennifer Ray’s work was captivating and intriguing http://jenniferray.net .  i have always found her landscaped both mystical and taboo and calling into question what we find to be natural. please have a look for yourself.  

it must be said though, Grant’s images captured the heart and imagination for the gallery going crowed that evening. no I am not tainted by the fact that he is a friend it is just simple truth. http://www.grantray.com his work is highly intellectual as well intriguing and i will not be the first to admit that it goes over my head at times. however instead of that fact pushing me back it draws me in making me want to know more. the images become precious objects that communicate all on their own to me just as the object within them do.

oh the secret lives of objects like the  Can o' Beans, Dirty Sock, Spoon, Painted Stick and Conch Shell. for those of you that have read the above mentioned book there is your tie in to start of this blog. now it all comes together now and my story is done.

little green seeds

my sprouts fill me with wonder as if they were my own off spring. they sit happily in a jar soaking up sunrays and waiting for their baths twice a day. i coo over every new speck of green that is produced by the seeds. the birth of life. it’s quite magical and i somehow feel as if i’m in a fairy tale when i look at the little guys in their jar.

these particular sprouts are Sunflower seeds. they are rich in vitamin E, are anti ageing, and also help with nerves and sight. different seeds will have different sprouts with very different health benefits. a wonderful list can be found at : http://www.andreajenkins.co.za/article002.html

to be quite frank i am a new sprouter with tons to learn. i’m excited to investigate and learn how to work on my own immune (or lack there of) system and K’s. he is recently recovering from an outbreak of Shingles. we are baffled at what caused his immune system to drop to the extent that he was even susceptible to Shingles. we put the Er doctor at Skyline Hospital in his place after he made the assumption that K was anemic from his vegan diet. why do people assume that the only way to get protein is from meat? Oh right back to topic…. Sprouts.

as much as i have been enjoying the aesthetic and romance of sprouting in jars, i would like a larger production. i have a keen interest in sprouting trays. there are so many types to choose from! i wonder which work best and why. luckily they are not expensive. they are plastic however, and in a lot of them i wonder what kinds of plastic are used and how they are produced. also, i really need to figure out a great place to order seed from. thus far, i have been purchasing organic sunflower seeds from Whole Foods and that is so not the way to go!

once those inquires are solved my next move is to grow wheat grass. not that i can afford a wheat grass juicer at the moment. Margaret of Mother’s Marketplace in Hoodriver advised me to incorporate more wheat grass into my diet. she is a gem to humanity and one of the wisest women i have ever met.

in other news my wonderful grandma has sent me a box of lemons and tangerines off the tree in her back yard. i was as giddy as a little child with these gifts. my grandma said to me that her tree is so ripe with lemons that she doesn’t know what to do with them all. imagine they joy of walking into your back yard and picking fruit! i feel so far removed from such an experience that it really kind of blows my mind. should i make lemonade or lemon tarts?