A lot of food talk lately

Morning darklings,

Today is a multi-part share today (otherwise known as a long one), so before we get to the mood board let’s chat food.

I’m reading a book called Ultra-Processed People. This comes only weeks after reading The Secret Lives of Groceries. Reading about food has been a trip. It’s not just because I can’t eat 99.9% of the food they’re talking about, it’s because I’m learning why I couldn’t long before I went on a blended food diet.

Every page feels like the most enticing clickbait. “What’s in most food and also looks like the slime from inside your washing machine?” I mean, well done, Chris Van Tulleken. I would have read all the way through either way, but I’m hooked now.

The Secret Lives of Groceries was a book that had me thinking about how I shop differently, being disappointed in our fish industry, and having nightmares about assembly lines. What will Ultra-Processed People give me?

Meanwhile, the hubs plucked the first few pea pods and basil from the garden. I made a cauliflower pasta and served up a French-inspired simple butter sauce. It was hard on my body, making the following day filled with some swelling and allodynia. But nothing too horrible.

Almost two weeks later, two lovely friends came over and we ate from the garden again. We had salad with butter lettuce and nasturtium (which I found out is pronounced: na-ster-shum). I bought some romaine to heft it up. I made a salad Greek yogurt dressing with garlic chives and lemon verbena and dill. There was a mountain of Parmesan cheese to go around. Then I made that pasta again, with two kinds of peas and two kinds of basil. To top that off, the friends brought a 2-tiered marble cake with frosting (all approved ingredients). And you know, it was forking delicious. I was a normal person having a three course lunch with her friends, spending 4 hours slowly eating three food stuffs, and it was divine.

But darklings, that’s a whole meal! You caught that, right?

The next day, the temperature rose to 92. The heat gave my whole chest and stomach a rash. I lost energy and time, and everything itched, so I don’t know how the food faired. But fine, I think. I’m trying more new things soon, so I guess I’ll find out.

Trial and error seems to dictate I can solid-ish food once or twice a week. And I’ll take it!

It’s been a year and almost three months since I started my blendie journey, and this progress feels like bliss. Some say too slow, I say whatever my body needs.

After all, just thinking about the basic consumption of food takes up at least two hours of every day—between body checking, planning for the next meal, making sure I have enough but no so much that I’ll regret it the next day, eating, but not too quickly, deciding if it’s an okay day to branch from my recent go-to blendies, packing my food to go from Point A to Point B, and so on, and so forth.

Which leads me to some big news…

My cookbook is out as of today!

I have to say, I’m very proud of the exhausting, complicated, emotionally-charged 100 pages entitled So Simple Soft Foods. There are 49 recipes in total, 47 that take place in a blender. Shall I tell you about it?

synopsis

Sometimes, you need soft foods. Whether your gut is acting up, your jaw is aching, you want a quick soup, or any of the other myriad reasons that could lead you to drinkable or smooth and creamy meals, the result is still the same: you want your food to taste good and be nutritious.

In this nightshade-free, corn-free, soy-free cookbook, you'll find 47 recipes (with 2 slightly more complicated bonus recipes) for meals such as Peanut Butter & Jelly, Chicken Pot Pie, Mac & Cheese, and Liquid Marshmallow. They range in texture from thin smoothie to mashed vegetable. Alongside the breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and desserts, there is a wealth of information gained from doctors and nutritionists to help you create even more that fit your dietary needs and tastebuds.

The most time-consuming recipe involves peeling, baking, and measuring before blending. The least only involves measuring.

These truly are so simple.

*The direct paperbacks will ship out early July.

Speaking of buying direct—website and shop system have been updated. So have a look around, if you’re up for it. Claw Machine is now available on there as well! ❤️ As is a new section for imperfect books (ones that were messed up in transit or bent at events, so I’ll be selling for cheaper).

*Some of the places it will be available, like Kobo and Apple Books, haven’t populated a link yet, but they will by the end of the day! Sorry for the hold up. <3

The journey from my organs beginning to fail and talk of a j-tube to sharing these delicious recipes that have brought me back from the brink has been wild. It’s nowhere near done. I still don’t know everything that’s wrong. The tests are still being put off constantly because scheduling or “missed texts”. I keep getting inconclusives or it’s this one thing, but that doesn’t affect that other thing. I could have had a baby that’s 5 months old since the day this started, and no one has found answers. No one but me.

I found what I could eat that would keep me alive. I found how much I could manage without getting sick. I found a nutritionist that didn’t suck. I found out that I had a hernia and am pushing the doctors once again to get me tests they claimed I didn’t want. I found out that some of this was deeply rooted in trauma I couldn’t place because it didn’t seem relevant. I am doing the work.

Is it all too late? I don’t know. But at least I have delicious blendies to get me through. And as long as the hubs keeps growing fresh foods, I’m more likely to be able to try new things.

A quick reminder:

Claw Machine is having its second and final event!

This time, it’s online and hosted by Vintage Books, a local Vancouver, WA bookstore. At the in-person launch, they read each other’s stories. But this time, they’ll be reading their own! So you don’t want to miss this! It’s the first time some of them have read their own work ever, and that’s huge.

I wanted to do it this way for a few reasons:

In-person readings need shake-ups sometimes. If you’re going to spend physical energy to leave the house, there better be a good reason. A miniature claw machine and prizes were good enough, but I knew that would be better. Also, I knew everyone couldn’t attend. After all, one of the authors doesn’t live in this state, the hubs can’t do big and loud events, a few people weren’t going to be free, etc. So what better time to play with format. (More on how the event went soon, too much to share today to get into that.)

But to get anyone to watch an event online, after our pandemic decade, is hard too. So why not have it be a Big Fucking Deal? More authors can attend, they’ll all be reading their own work, and I hear tell we’ll be answering a question of some kind tossed to us by the bookstore owner.

It may work, it may not. We may have an audience of 1 or 40. I just know that I tried. And that’s all one can do in this life. That, or run over people and become a billionaire.

I choose try.

And now, the mood board.

questions of the week

1. What spice have you been into lately?

2. Do you use cookbooks?

3. What’s been your favorite smell this week?

my answers of the week

1. Using that beautiful leaf nasturtium as pepper in blendies is really doing it for me.

2. Yes, definitely. I’ve transcribed my favorite recipes into my own personal cookbook that one day I’ll definitely print out. But now that I know the how complicated the tiny tweaks are… it’ll probably way more basic of a book than I’d planned.

3. The hubs and I take walks around the neighborhood, and we stumbled on a stretch where star jasmine, heliotrope, and roses waft in on the wind all at once. That was by far the best thing. To note: those three scents are in my top ten scents of all time.

Until next time.