"I could do that"

I am a collector. I don't collect stamps, I don't collect movies, and I don't collect coins (Well, I've got this thing with pennies, but that's another story). I collect hobbies. I've had tons of different ones over the years and I pick up a new one with six months to a year in between. I did Chinese knotwork, rice drawing, wire working, chainmaille, paint, polymer clay jewelry, steampunk accessories, and so many others that now simply reside in boxes in my basement. Of course, I can't bring myself to throw any of these things away because as soon as I do, I'll feel the innate urge to cut a piece of paper into a flimsy, see through representation of two mockingbirds on a branch. Lucky for me, I've never been at full tilt when I got bored with a hobby. I've been at the point where all my base material stocks are depleted and I either need to buy more, or quit the hobby.
The point of this rant is this: I'm bored.
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I have found a new hobby to play with. I saw it, as with the rice drawing, on a street corner at an outdoor mall. My mum, brother, and I were strolling along 16th street mall in Denver last Sunday and among the afro robots and cowgirl carriage drivers was an artist in a gas mask painting with spray cans. I've seen these before, but this guy was good. He painted a bunch of colors down on a piece of paper, placed three round containers on the paper, and proceeded to paint the whole thing black. This seemingly random placement became clearer once I glanced at his finished works, mostly of planets and space. He then sprayed white paint on cardstock and started flicking it onto the paper. Stars. And once he'd removed the circular objects and sprayed a crescent of black around one side of it, he also had planets on his page. Good ones, not just a single color of paint. And if that weren't enough to make me willing to pay for art (and I never pay for art), he then took a palette knife and scraped away layers of black and color to create a mountain in the foreground. It reminded me of those black pieces of paper that you get a thin, empty calligraphy pen with to scrape at in an attempt to make a picture. Only good. As we walked away, I started thinking to myself about what it would take to create that kind of art. And my family laughed as I mused, as I always do: "I could do that."

Mushrooms

So, I have a friend who delivers mushrooms to our kitchen once a week. Last week, there was a problem with a box of mushrooms that couldn't be taken back to the storehouse. Given that we are friends, I ended up with this five pound box of GORGEOUS mushrooms. Lion's mane, oyster, they're awesome. Mushrooms don't last for a very long time, they're pretty much a "use within four days" kinda deal. So, I need ideas. I've used mine up by now, so anything I make with them goes on here.
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As a little bit of a plug: I'm also going to be working on the last Saturday of the month at the Boulder farmer's market for Hazel Dell mushrooms. I'm not sure exactly what I'll be doing yet, but it may or may not include sauteed mushroom samples. Again, not confirmed yet. But I'd appreciate people coming to see me, I always love the company. And clearly, I love to talk food. Come, talk food with me.

Yogabody Naturals

Okay, I'm aware of how this looks. The banner is hoaxy, and some of the stuff seems a little hippyish and newagey. Don't care. This site gave me some VERY valuable information, never contradicts itself, and the products work. IF you want to buy anything from them, please click my link. I'm directly affiliated with the site now and I get a little kickback for referring you.

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I use chia seeds. I have a post on that. They absolutely work. They are some of the best dieting without dieting things I've ever found. The yoga trapeze is flippin amazing, and cheaper than anywhere else I've ever found. Wanna do aerial yoga stuff? That's the trapeze (Although Lucas promotes it more for inversion therapy). And the supplements are not some crazy chemical steroid, they're made from plants, they're natural, and they are complete. They are SUPPLEMENTS, they are designed to enhance your current diet. Plants these days are pretty nutritionally drained, they just don't get what they need from the soil, so neither do you. The yogabody stretch is designed to help with that. The protein is good too, better than whey in my opinion, and I've been using whey for a very long time (it um, gives you gas and sometimes stomach pains from said gas). He has a lot of very useful, natural, normal stuff that I absolutely love. And I don't care if you mock me for it. Please take a look at what he's got, it's good info if nothing else.

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http://www.1shoppingcart.com/SYS/?m=160706&c=l

Gluten free crackers

1 c. tapioca starch

1/3 c. potato starch

2/3 c. brown rice flour

2/3 c. sorghum flour

1/4 c. ground flaxseed

1/4 c. cracked black pepper

1/4 c. herbs de provence

2 ts. salt

2 ts. sugar or other sweetener

1/2 c. butter

1 c. water

Mix all dry together in a bowl. Use a fork or a whisk. Break the butter into the mixture in small pieces, so it looks like rough cornmeal. Mix in water until it holds in a ball. Roll out and use cookie cutters to shape. Bake at 425 F for about seven minutes, based on thickness. Make sure they are starting to brown at the edges. Makes about 50 crackers.

Gluten

I have a gluten free friend. And she doesn't let it run her life. I'm not trying to lecture, I'm just impressed. I can't personally say that I wouldn't let something like that affect every eating experience I had. If someone hadn't told me, I'd never have known. So being a cook, I view this as a challenge. I have to make her something. And it has to not taste anything like gluten free.

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This is easier and harder than it sounds. Yes, there are mixes. But I'm a professional cook. I refuse to use a mix for ANYTHING. I won't do it. So I bought amaranth flour, rice flour, brown rice flour, xanthan gum, guar gum, etc. I have a crapton of gluten free stuff now, and a SINGLE gluten free friend. So now I'm absolutely determined to make it taste distinctively NOT "gluten-free". There is a feel to it, it's called dry and tasteless, it's easy to do. First, a lesson.

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Gluten is what holds stuff together. It's the glue of the pastry world. It keeps structure in baked goods. When a bread dough is elastic, that is gluten. Without it, you still get rise (sort of) and you still have something baked, but it crumbles into nothing. So anyone who can't have this unique protein structure has to find another way of replicating gluten. This is where xanthan gum, guar gum, and starches come in. Xanthan is my favorite. A couple teaspoons and voila! Instant mock gluten. It takes more starch to do this. (Potato, tapioca, and corn starches work fine, but it uses a cup or two) Guar is pretty useful too, but again I have my favorite. Plus it's fun to tell people what's in it if the gum is unpronounceable.

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Cupcakes. A simple, quick baking bread that generally has too much liquid in the base. They were the most tasteless, horrible cupcakes I've ever made. Ever. I'm sorry Laine, really I am. Of course, miss "I haven't had cupcakes in a year" didn't even notice. But I'm a perfectionist, I had to try it again. I put blueberries in it this time, a syrupy, sugar heavy liquid trying to moisten the batter. It was better, but still not GOOD. I still haven't gotten it perfect. I like adapting my own recipes too, I feel accomplished for it. But if anyone has a good recipe, I'll try it and post the recipe here, full credit to the sender.

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My next attempt was a birthday cake. Of course, no mix. My first idea was a red velvet, since they're moisture heavy and they're pretty much just chocolate cake with a ton of color in it. Laine hates red velvet cake. So...yellow cake was my next idea. With a heavy chocolate ganache to moisten. I needed a bunch of stuff I didn't have at the time, so I went to Whole Foods. I'm not paying eleven dollars for a five ounce bag of xanthan. I ended up, as a last resort, going to Vitamin Cottage near my house. Two dollars for a five ounce bag. Two! It was beautiful, that place is so inexpensive it's now my favorite shop. The cake was perfect. It came out moist and tasting like a real cake. I was so happy, given how much I was worried about the BIRTHDAY CAKE not coming out right. Oh, and my friend Miyoko did a great job of doing ganache for me, so I had one less thing to worry about.

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Most recently, I've tried to make crackers. I had some hummus that'd been on sale at the store and I wanted to bring them to bible talk, but given Laine's gluten issues, I didn't want to just bring any crackers. Holy flippin crap, gluten free crackers are expensive. I am not paying six bucks a bag for something I can make. So I made the gluten free cracker dough and realized they were also vegetarian. Remembering an old birthday gift, I dug out my cookie cutters. That's right, pig shaped vegetarian crackers. They have herbs de provence and cracked black pepper, and they taste like normal crackers. I'm getting better at this.

Yoga and chia seeds

I know not everyone is convinced chia seeds work, but they are awesome. See, they gelatinize. When something gels, it fills an area more easily without adding any additional calories. Chia seeds gelatinize with warm water. And while I still have a little trouble just swallowing a gelled water drink, even with lemon, they work wonders in a smoothie. Drinking one of those in the morning makes it easy for me to forget eating while I'm at work. I can go for about four hours on just water. And still have plenty of protein and nutrients, they're seeds after all. I'll post a link, but I did find these through the Yogabody Naturals site.

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After starting strength training, I wanted to go onward to flexibility too. That's what led me to the yoga sites. It's probably one of the best sites I've found so far. It doesn't support some super expensive miracle cure, you're still gonna have to do something for it. There are things that make it easier, but in general? Hard work pays off.

Food and Exercise

I realized a few months back that anyone who is around food as often as I am could easily be one of those fat TV cooks. This is of course, before I remembered how little I eat and how often I forget to. But this didn't deter me from what I'd decided to do.

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I have skinny arms. Well, I did. I felt weak, and I'm unhappy being weak. So I decided to start working out. The amount of contradicting, useless, irritating information readily available with one Google search is overwhelming. I found programs for eating every two hours, I found ones to not eat for two days, I found programs that supported not eating anything but spinach or grapefruit for months on end. USELESS! So I decided to start testing. If you're gonna find any information, you have to figure it out yourself. There is no one true way to go at it from what I've found. Different things work for different people. Some recover in a day from a workout, some recover in a week. The only steady thing I found was this: Make sure your daily output is higher than your daily input. Or eat less than you work off.

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I started with a "don't eat" program. Yeah, I work in a kitchen. I have to test my food products daily to make sure everything is still up to par. I tried the "eat every hour" thing, and yeah, I forgot. During this time, I was working out. Heavily. I had not quite followed the every other day rest period rule. And it didn't matter, I recover fast. I have a high pain tolerance (I didn't even feel it when I cut the tip of my finger off) and I heal faster than most people do. I didn't even feel sore the next day when I killed myself in the gym. What I noticed then was that no matter what my diet of eating or not eating was, it didn't really affect anything. I gained muscle and I lost fat. My intake was lower than my output.

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Lately, I've been trying to go with healthier food. I'm still not cutting out meat entirely. I'm sorry, I was raised a bloody carnivore, and I'm going to die as one. But I won't be eating red meat every day. Yes, it's healthier to eat it a little more sparingly. I'm eating more fish, and a TON more veggies. A bit of fruit for the sugar, but my snacks are mostly dried veggie chips and greek yogurt these days. Which is having an interesting effect actually. I tried a soda the other day and I can't do it now. I've not had soda for about six months, maybe more. It tastes like chemicals. I've been eating only natural, not boxed, no corn syruped items and now I CAN'T eat them. They taste horrible. That, plus chia seeds have been the most effective things I've found in my nine month search for muscle and strength.