Where Does Your Turkey Sleep?

Well life recently has been an exciting and eventful.  Nothing to write home about really, unless you are a blogger, then you can write about anything and someone will find it amusing :)  So this is what happened last night...

It's gone.  But coincidentally enough I am going to see my peanut butter source on Sunday, so hopefully I will not have to go without it for long.  I probably have not even used it for the last 2 weeks, but the idea of living in a house without it is sad.

Luckily this is what it turned in to:

Yummy Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Dough Balls inspired by (but tweaked a little) this post I found here.  These were baked in celebration of a good friend birthday.  Delicious, but certainly needed some kind of liquid to go along with them or your mouth ended up feeling like you ate a pound of peanut butter.

Joel scored this off of the free table at work:

Who knows what we will use them for, but it's fun to have a few options around, especially when they are free.  You mean I've never told you about the free table either?  It's better than the thrift store.  You take what you don't want anymore at your house and set it on the free table.  Other people are doing the same and you know what that means...  "One man's junk is another man's treasure!"  and it's free.  So much fun.

And today, when it is my last chance to clean up my house and kitchen before embarking on the adventure of hosting Thanksgiving Dinner, I spent the morning chasing down this item.  I even called the grocery store yesterday to see if they had it.  They said yes.  So I drove the half an hour down just to discover someone was playing a funny trick on me, they had none.  So I stopped at another grocery store, a library and finally the health food store where I found it and bought it for 8.99 because I was not going to be picky about price when I just spent my morning looking for it:

"Ode to your grandmother" as Alton Brown calls it.  But also apparently a key ingredient to Baklava which Joel and I are going to attempt to make tonight for dessert tomorrow.  This is the only ode to my grandmother tomorrow, because I don't think any pumpkin products will be on our table.  But we are eating a turkey.  I am excited about it to because it is a happy turkey.  Not labeled organic by the government, but bought from a family farm I know and trust.  And my mom and sister named him Hector when they picked him up from the farm for me.  This is where Hector has been living because our fridge is not big enough for his turkeyness:

We had been putting him in the car at night to stay cold and swapped out a few bags of frozen vegetables over the past few days.  But I think he is thawing nicely.  Well, now that I am home from my morning adventures I guess it is time to face reality and start cleaning up the kitchen so we have room to cook Hector tomorrow without running into dirty dishes.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone.

It's About Time

I am not sure how I have been blogging now for almost three months and have not mentioned Joel and my deep love for all things Alton Brown.  My dad is probably rolling his eyes right now, but seriously, Alton Brown is amazing.  Watch an episode of his show "Good Eats" for yourself and you will see.

This is a good clip from hulu, click here.

I was never big into the food network or cooking shows but this one caught my eye.  Joel and I like science and as our friend Richard (who we now have hooked on good eats as well) says, "he's like the Bill Nye of food!"  Explaining the how and why of making great food it a scientific way that makes sense.


It's funny because Joel and I will often find ourselves saying, 'I wonder if Alton Brown has a recipe for..."  or "I wonder how Alton Brown stores..." And we will often look up new recipes online by typing into Google what we are interested in with Alton Brown's name next to it.  Of course substituting some of my own flair sometimes.

Things that I have made of his recently: Gingersnaps, Chicken Soup, Beer Bread, Broiled Sockeye Salmon, Granola, french toast, pancakes (THEY ARE AMAZING), mashed celery root, peanut butter fudge, watermelon sorbet, chocolate brownies, just to name a few :)
 

I have briefly thought about cooking through his show "Good Eats" and blogging about it, but I don't think our lives have enough in common to make a movie about it.  "Chelsie and Alton" or even "The Varga's and Mr. Brown" do not have quite the same ring to it.

So now you know the source of some of my/our culinary inspiration.

I'm not payed by Mr. Brown or Food Network to endorse anything here.  Although if you know how I could be, let me know...I totally would.   

In the Spirit of Thanksgiving

I am currently busy packing for our trip to Ohio.  We will leave today after lunch and be back sometime on Monday.  But in the spirit of thanksgiving I wanted to quick share that I am so thankful for all of you that are being so supportive of my decision to be at the Institute of Integrative Nutrition, of this blog, and as friends in general.
 
I have been missing a lot of people recently now that things are starting to slow down up here in the Poconos.  I went to Eastern University yesterday to take my sister on her official college visit (so honored that she asked me to go!) and spent a good portion of my day being a little nostalgic over the relationships that have been neglected over the last year and a half or so.  It was the first time that I was back to Eastern since graduation in the spring of 2009.  I have been writing recently about being intentional and doing instead of just planning.  So yesterday evening, after being with some good friends that are still at Eastern, I was motivated to do just that.  I swallowed my unfounded dislike of the telephone and I made a few phone calls to people that I have been missing.

It was so wonderful to hear the voices of my friends who I certainly have not been doing my part to keep in touch with.  Most of them are in different states, different time zones and are busy people, so I usually make many excuses to not call them in my mind.  And there is something hard about picking up the phone and calling someone after not seeing them or hearing there voice for an extended period of time.  Your mind plays tricks on you.  But when it comes to living an intentional life there is no need to mourn the loss of relationships that you think will never be the same.  It might not look the same again, but it certainly is not worth living in the past.  My friends are doing some cool things now in their lives today that I would not want to miss out on simply because we do not live on the same plot of land.  It was totally worth it.

All this to say that I am thankful for my friends.  Friendships are a part of what, in my classes, we call primary food: food that is good for your soul.  It is important to surround yourself with friends that are encouraging and uplifting and love you for you.  It is so great that working on maintaining my friendships is a part of my schoolwork.

disclaimer:
no offense if I did not call you- it certainly does not mean we are not friends.  I only had so much time 
 

Pumpkin Cake

I woke up this morning to an e-mail from Wee Folk Art saying that they were going to feature the pumpkin cake recipe that I submitted for "spreading pumpkin cheer."  This is exciting! 

Click here to check it out: Wee Folk Art

 

Welcome to those that are stopping by for the first time today, feel free to look around and enjoy your time here :)

Julie, Julia and Me



I started reading Julie and Julia in May I think.  I got about two chapters in, life got busy and I decided I did not feel like finishing the book, it had not yet caught my attention.  Needless to say I had no interest in watching the movie.  How great could watching a lady cook through a cookbook be (yawn) zzzzz....



picture thanks to Amazon.com



Last night I sat down and gave it a chance and to my shock, can honestly say I was inspired on many levels.



1. Amy Adams (also Gizelle in Enchanted) and Meryl Streep along with everyone else in that movie do a fantastic job, a really well done movie in my opinion.



2. Julia Child as the person depicted through the movie: 

• She is a lady who is not afraid of a challenge and also a lady that does not want to just sit around and let life pass her by.  She has a drive to find a passion and really engage in something she loves, no matter what. 
• Her husband's work took her to Paris, so she had to find something to do instead of sit around the house and sulk about having nothing to do.  I admire this since right now I am living where I am living simply because of my husbands job.  It is the ideal setting and where I feel God is calling us to be right now, but I am at a lack of clarity at what I am to do during the months that I am not managing the kitchen at Wilderness Camp.  What I am good at is sitting around and thinking of all the things I could be doing if I lived somewhere else.  What I need to be better at is just doing things and not being afraid to try different things, myself.  Julia Child was not timid about walking down the streets of Paris, taking classes and embracing life for what it is.
• She woke up in the morning and jumps out of bed, not snoozing five times. 
• Also she was very tall and wore heels.  I am timid about wearing heels even though I think they are adorable because I do not like to make myself taller than I already am.  Bottom line: embrace life with confidence.   

3. Julie Powell as the person depicted through the moive:

• A late 20, just turning 30 women in New York City.  I resonate with her desire to have something to do that gives her a challenge, and the idea of having a deadline for some motivation. 
• Also the movie is about blogging and that whole phenomenon (of which I am now participating).  To see her start her blog on a whim, get her first comment and learn to live life while writing a blog to a community she will never meet while still being fully present in her real life, it all connected with me. I understood it and apreciated it more than I would have 3 months ago before I started writing here.

4. It left me with a wonderful feeling and hope and inspiration.  It may just be where I am at in life, but maybe it would do the same for you too.  Give it a shot- and if you do watch it, let me know what you think.

I am starting to feel like this blog is becoming a bit more about my life than I originally set out for it to be, but I am okay with that.  I wanted this to follow my journey of being in Integrative Nutrition.  But it makes sense that it is becoming more than that.  Integrative Nutrition focuses on wholistic living and changing, so I guess my time there is really going to be a wholistic journey, not just about nutrition.  So adjusting my focus leads to just what my title states: SIMPLY SEEKING LIFE.

So I jumped out of bed this morning (only snoozed once), did 15 minutes of yoga, put on my pearls (fake but inspirational) and decided to seek life to the fullest today.  Life is what you make it, right?
              

Intentionality

It is incredible how quickly time passes by, especially when it seems there are a lot of things you would like to do.  I have thought to myself numerous times in the past week how I would like to sit down and write again, but I kept filling up my time with other things.  I was struck by this putting "other things" first mentality when I read in one of my textbooks for class the following statement...

"Throughout the years, we have seen many students who come to class, learn all about nutrition, improve their own health and plan to do health counseling after they graduate.  But this plan rarely works.  These people end up putting off getting clients and never get around to it."

                                                                                                                               -IIN Fast Track Workbook

KEYWORD: Plan.  But then they get distracted by "other things."  That explains it.  I can plan all I want, but if I am not intentional about actually getting things done my life will get swept away by the planning stages, never truly following through with anything and putting "other things" in front of important things in my life.

I can think about blogging, but if I do not sit down and do it I will never gain any more readers.

I can plan to get some physical exercise in the proverbial tomorrow, but if I never roll out my yoga mat, or put my sneakers on to go for a walk, my muscles will not be getting any stronger.

I can think about opening up my Bible, but if I do not make time to do so my personal relationship with God is not getting any deeper.

The point here is that I have to stop planning and actually start doing.  And this goes for my schoolwork too, in which I am no longer in the fundamental stages, it is time to get working.  I often have a lot of good ideas and a lot of well thought out plans and schedules, but if I do not put them into practice my preparation time was in vain.  I need to be intentional about how I spend my time.

I.N.T.E.N.T.I.O.N.A.L

I have to face the fact that I will not have a normal routine schedule possible ever again like I did when in school (under which I function the best at managing my time) and take each day as its own.  Not every Tuesday is going to look the same. I need to re-learn how to manage my time in this set-up, where I am not working with deadlines, but instead going with the flow of daily life.

But I can talk about being intentional with my time all I want, now I need to do it.  Okay, we have come full circle now.