The foxies (informally known as the young hooligans) are growing and are starting to look sorta like adults, except they’re in perpetual motion. It’s 
a riot to watch them play.
A rare moment of grooming and wuv.
Who’s dat? Foxy baby daddy? or is this momma fox? I’ve never seen an adult who looks like this before, and he’s (she?) isn’t answering questions.
You lookin’ at me?
Need more Foxy? Part 1 is here and Squee Fox from last year is here.
You know, I’m going to le
t thes
e pi
c
t
ures speak for themselves. Brief info at the end.
Yep, our springtime visitors are here. At first I thought there were two parents like last year, but this is more of the single parent deal. These foxies are much shyer than last year’s family, but they were okay with me out walking this afternoon, which was great. I love having them here, yet I love Shirley’s suggestion–to see them as another one of the beautiful seasons, and savor the times we have with them.
And–the important details:
No, we do not feed the foxes. They are wild animals. We do not touch them, approach them, or anything else along those lines. All of the pics are taken with a zoom lens, and I need a better lens so I can be more of a stalking foxy voyeur!
Oh yeah…foxys are back. I’ll post more pictures this weekend, but for now, enjoy this little guy:
He has the sweetest little face!
I’m hosting a (free) meditation phone retreat this Saturday 2pm EST with the lovely Ms.Iris of the Daily Dietribe, who will be leading us in a mini art project afterwards. Wanna join us? Email me offline cheryl (at) eharrishome (dot) com
If you’re looking for a chipper, smiley face post, this probably isn’t the one for you. No brownies, either. Sorry. Maybe tomorrow?
I have a long standing history of swallowing my voice. Refusing to speak, because speaking means exposing myself, being vulnerable, risking the displeasure of others and some unknown other boogeymen. So I stay quiet, suck it up and just work harder.
I’m stressed. I came back from a wonderful retreat, and am faced with a “to do” mound (we’re way past list or pile). I’m faced with an influx of insurance denials for clients and really being pissed that the system isn’t supporting people with real, genuine medical needs and now I have to go chase people around to get paid. I always feel guilty doing that.
I’ve (once again) taken on too many projects. And there are ones that I hate to say no to, and people who need help, in areas that don’t fit my interests. I feel obligated to say yes, and know it’s not the right choice for me.
It makes me feel physically ill because I’m put in that same, familiar place: either go along with it and truly devalue myself and my work, or risk conflict. I will be saying something—it’s non-negotiable. I just hate this running theme where I am frantically paddling to keep up and so very afraid of upsetting others.
Please don’t get me wrong—all of these projects are things I’ve taken on out of love. They’re things that I believe in and care about.
And yet they’re still missing the most important part.
Self-love. Self-worth. The non-negotiable ability to stand strong and let things bounce around however they will.
The ability to say no, fully understanding that it will disappoint others, and accepting that, too.
The funniest part is that on some goofy level I think that doing the polite thing is generous, but that can’t be further from the truth. Not only is it taking away from ME and my life, but I imagine it’s siphoning my energy from other areas and (at this moment) causing me bitterness.
When I give too much out of fear, I cheat myself, and I cheat everyone around me.
At least the maximum bullshit point is a great catalyst for change. The more still I am when I’m meditating, the more motivated I become to bring that peace into daily life, and the less willing I am to tolerate the everyday ways I sell myself short.
I’ve always roasted cauliflower, peppers, squash, and mixed veggies. And for some reason, I always stopped there. How very silly of me. And so the plan is to do a mini series to highlight other seriously yummy roasted veggies, hopefully to inspire you, too! When I posted on Easy G-Free Meals I got a lot of questions about the green bean pic, so that’s a perfect place to start.
I didn’t like green beans as a kid. They were overcooked, yucky looking and generally from a can. No wonder I wasn’t a fan. That changed at the Farmer’s Market a few years ago. Now that I’m always seeing the big bags with the ends pre-chopped at the store, it’s made them much more accessible. As a bonus, I tend to go for a 20-25 min evening walk, so if I put them in before I go, they’re just about perfect when I walk in the door, no stirring necessary.
LOVE green beans? Yes, you can do 2 lbs at once, just use 2 cookie sheets and change the oven position in the middle.
1 lb of string beans/green beans
2-3 Tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon coarse sea salt
1 small handful almonds, hazelnuts or brazilnuts, chopped
Squeeze of lemon
Preheat the oven to 350. Toss the green beans with olive oil and sea salt, and spread them on a lined cookie sheet. Bake for ~22-25 min (they should be browning on the bottom). Stir, add in the nuts, roast 5 min more. Give a good squeeze of lemon, add salt and pepper if necessary and enjoy!
I’m adding this to Iris’ 5 ingredient Mondays and Ricki’s Wellness Weekends.
I’ve been baking. And cooking. Honest! I just haven’t been posting as much. Generally I try to make a new recipe a few times to make sure it works, and, well, even as much as I love something, I’m generally not motivated to make a bunch of batches in a row.
But I have been making a gob of fun stuff:
Normal people say “thank you”. Bakers say, hey, why don’t I make cookies, brittle and choc covered orange slices and send them as a gift? Pretty please tell me I’m not the only one. So I made Double Choc Cherry Cookies from The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook, Pecan and Cacao Nib brittle and Choc dipped candied orange peels, because the recipient is gluten, dairy and egg free.
Paleo, vegan almond crackers from Carrie’s new cookbook, the Everything Gluten-Free Baking Cookbook which will be out soon. I really, really like these. They’re really rich, satisfying and delicious.
Shirley’s Crustless Apple Pie was absolutely fantastic. I made it with a chia egg, less oil and maple sugar and it was simply delicious. The topping was like buttah–rich, delicious and EASY. I brought it to a family gathering and the next I knew, my aunt was handing me an empty pie plate. I had been angling for a second piece…alas.
Shirley’s Crustless Chocolate Fudge AKA Clark Kent Pie was also in the lineup. As you’ll notice, I do have a pathological need to deviate from recipes. And I couldn’t find the 1/4 cup measure, so I used 1/3 cup cocoa and adding in 1TBSP of liquor. It worked with Irish creme and with Frangelico…so my bet it would work with whatever booze de jour you’d enjoy. But Shirley’s warning about it being so rich you only need a tiny piece? Not so much. Mr. Dude was rather efficient at polishing off a big chunk of the pie with great gusto.
And Ooh Ooh looky here! I made my first (successful) batch of sauerkraut! Okay, I understand that’s easy to do. But I have an extreme phobia of mold (and that isn’t in any way, shape or form an exaggeration. Mold sends me screaming and I tend to drop the moldy thing in question. My poor college roommate and E have been so patient with me.) So whenever I’d read a recipe and they’d say, don’t worry, mold is n
ormal, just scoop it out, my eyes would bug out of my head and that would be it. But I finally did it. The first batch went terribly wrong, but this was delish!
It’s no secret that I’m an advocate of fish as part of a healthy diet. And, of course, as more people eat fish, we risk depleting these resources.
And yet…I truly believe that the new genetically engineered salmon that are up for approval by the FDA are the wrong way to go.
Just like with GM crops, there hasn’t been formal study of long term impacts on humans. And there are a lot of people with very strong opinions about GM foods overall. But just for fun let’s just table the debate over the health consequences of GMOs for a minute, and consider the rest.
These GM salmon grow many times faster than regular salmon, which will certainly have an impact on their environment because, well, they’re eating much more. Gotta love the environmental impact assessment…essentially, there isn’t one. These fishies are set to be grown in Canada and Panama. And in their infinite wisdom, FDA wrote:
As the proposed action would only allow production and grow-out of AquAdvantage Salmon at facilities outside of the United States, the areas of the local surrounding environments that are most likely to be affected by the action lie largely within the sovereign authority of other countries (i.e., Canada and Panama). Because NEPA does not require an analysis of environmental effects in foreign sovereign countries, effects on the local environments of Canada and Panama have not been considered and evaluated in this draft except insofar as is was necessary to do so in order to determine whether there would be significant effects on the environment of the United States due to the origination of exposure pathways from the production and grow-out facilities in Canada and Panama.
Yep…since it’s not happening in the U.S., we don’t have to figure in the environmental concerns of local ecosystems. Because our environment is so very smart, there’s an imaginary line and net between the U.S. and everywhere else that keeps us insulated and safe.
*sigh*
And, one thing keeps kicking around in my head. To keep the GM fish them under control, all these GM salmon will be female and kept away from normal fish.
The FDA writes:
“…there are no specific data demonstrating that triploid AquAdvantage Salmon are indeed sterile, that is, incapable of producing viable offspring; however, as discussed below, there are several reasons why this is believed to be the case.”
And they do go through a bunch of scenario of why, on paper, this shouldn’t be a problem.
Great. Except we’ve already seen that frogs can change gender when exposed to certain pesticides. To be totally clear, that obviously doesn’t mean the same thing will happen here, and yet it also means that we can’t know for sure how something will play out, if the fish escape or if there’s vandalism. Even if an accident happened once, normal salmon could well be a thing of the past.
This is a good read from Marion Nestle
Am I the only one bothered by this? Hopefully not. The FDA has a comment period that is open until April 26th
There are also a bunch of sites with petitions so you can just sign your name rather than write something in depth.
I usually only write about health news and concerns on my other website and keep this for recipes and such, but I feel it’s important for people to be aware.
My inner nerd and inner baker tend to collaborate to celebrate Pi/Pie day. For the record, when Mr. Dude turned 31.4 he did get a pie. Not 10.
I’m trying to figure out what’s on the menu here, pie-wise, but may I tempt you?
Chocolate Banana Mousse Pie (GF, CF, EF, SF, sugar optional and vegan)
Chocolate Raspberry Pie (GF, CF, EF, SF, sugar free and vegan)
Pecan Pie (GF, SF)
Ooey Gooey Chocolate Chip Pie (GF, CF, EF, SF, sugar free, vegan)
Sweet Potato Pie (GF, CF, EF, SF, sugar free and vegan)
First, quick fun stuff—I am really excited to see my new article on Mindful Eating out in Today’s Dietitian. I’m proud of how it turned out, and of course, this is a major passion of mine. I also posted on my other website on a Gluten-Free Passover, because many traditional foods are gluten-free.
And the changes…
For better or worse, I’ve always had the mindset of being wary around money. I don’t like the idea of being pushy or forcing or using people (duh) so instead overcompensate and to run too far in the other direction. I’ve had the endless debate about “monetizing” my blog. It’s such an unappealing term. And yet the idea of making money for doing what I like to do..well, that has its appeal. I would never do ads for random companies because I’d lose control of the content and the feel of my blog, and that would make me extremely uncomfortable. I tried doing blog posts for a company that will remain nameless, and yet that went nowhere because they objected to my comments that people ideally would be mostly eating real, whole foods. Sorry, certain things are just non-negotiable.
The only thing I’ve seen that I am comfortable with is the Amazon affiliate links. They’re on a few of my more recent posts. I tend to link to give my input on products and books anyway, and people aren’t charged more, I just get a few pennies when people click through and buy stuff. Maybe at the end of the year, I’ll have enough to get a gourmet chocolate bar. 😉 If the links make you uncomfortable, by all means, just open another window!
I’d love to hear any feedback people may have, because this is new to me. I blog because I like to, and I think this is something that will work without making me feel squicky.
And as always, I appreciate you all.
Every time I see “guilt-free” descriptions on recipes or blogs, I’m amazed and sad. I have a strong dislike of the whole guilt thing.
It just makes no sense when you think about it. Why should eating make us feel guilty? Why should enjoying food be a source of guilt? Because when we talk about “guilt-free” desserts, it usually implies there are foods we feel guilty about eating. Foods that are bad, foods that WE’RE bad for having. SINful foods. Prime example: the slutty brownies recipe that was making the rounds earlier.
Do you remember Snackwell cookies? I was talking about them with my hubby, and he had the best take on them. “Those things were gross. You’d eat the whole box, and then get desperate enough to try the cookies that came inside the box”. The only reason why people at them was they were “guilt-free”. No, I’m not saying your guilt-free cake isn’t delicious, but the mentality behind it remains the same.
Usually right after someone talks about making a “guilt free” dessert, invariably the next 
comment is: “Since this doesn’t have (sugar, gluten, fat, etc.) I had 2 big pieces!” or “so I didn’t feel bad about eating half of it!” etc.
I think that’s the problem. We eat more than our bodies need or want of foods we’ve identified as freebies. After all, they don’t count.
And we generally enjoy them less, too.
*Sigh*
It’s food.
Just food.
Not a matter of personal virtue.
Why give your power away to a piece of cheesecake? Or your scale, for that matter?
Some foods have more nutrients than others. Some foods that make you feel well and foods that make you feel poorly. Honestly, that’s a different conversation. It’s wise to eat in a way that fuels us and give us the energy to enjoy life.
So as a super-special request, please ponder it for a minute.
Think back to the last food you labeled “guilt-free”. Did you eat more simply because you labeled it as a “good” food? If so, why?
And think back to the last time you ate a food you labeled “bad”. Did you feel guilty? Ashamed? Angry at yourself? Or did you simply enjoy the tastes, textures and flavors?
You and I, we create our norms based on the ways we speak and what we see and hear from others. What think and what we say matters. Bloggers, authors, teachers, parents, nutrition professionals…our words ripple out and influence our definition of normal.
I know this may sound like making a lot out of nothing, but I wish we could stop normalizing disordered eating.
I’m getting off my soapbox now…
And happy National Eating Disorders Awareness Week.
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