Hair

OK, so I got this great haircut on Wednesday, so I instinctively wanted to dye my hair to go with the new “look.”

But luckily, you need to have clean hair to dye, so I jumped into the shower only to discover that the process begins with dry hair. Then I thought about it some more, and I realized that it was certainly laughable that I was dyeing my hair, when I have so few hairs that I could pluck out the offending parties.

So I have my dye, but I really don’t think now is the time.

I imagine there will be some morning where there’s more grey than I’m comfortable with, and then I’ll do it. It’s difficult, trying to understand the ageing process. Wow, all these words that end in “eing.” It’s making me uncomfortable.

Had a good weekend, saw “Be Kind Rewind,” a silly Jack Black film, but one that actually left me with a tear in the eye. Mowed the lawn — at our house at this time of the year, that’s an achievement, let me tell you. Last spring, we put it off so long that we literally had to scythe it down in May. It was an unfortunate situation. So getting the lawn done today was a major achievement. And hubby did all the dishes.

While I made a yummy mango-blueberry-blackberry-strawberry-banana smoothie. Sounds great, huh? I buy frozen berries so I get the insta-cold temperature. And hubby is trying to eat more calorically-nutritious things, so I added a scoop of soy protein powder, vanilla flavored. You wouldn’t believe how delicious it smells!

So I had lots of salad greens, after making my favorite Jamie Oliver Asian salad. Delish!

And we had a wonderful not-Easter brunch of:

two egg omelettes: mine with zukes, pepper, and cheese

hash browns from fresh potatoes

Kona coffee

fresh orange slices

It was a simple day full of simple food, but it was far from ordinary.

Back from the Big Island

Sigh….I have the post-vacation blues.  However, I am fortunate enough (and grateful) to have a day of transition before it’s back to work for me.  We saw everything that I’d hoped to see, except for rainbows.  That was because of the haziness caused by the volcanic activity that was going on right then.  In fact, the day we arrived, the rental car shuttle driver announced that residents of a subdivision in the path of the lava flow had been evacuated.

I vacated…my body & mind from home.  I was immersed in Hawaii and transported via my senses: the bright-yellow birds we encountered before we even left the rental car lot,  the sound of the palms swaying in the breeze on our lanai, feeling the searing heat of the lava as it flowed six feet away (and what a difference it made, just stepping back a foo or two!), the neon-turquoise beauty of the shallow water contrasted against the deep blue of the deep water.

I like that the Hawaiians refer to lava flow as the goddess Pele, and the metaphor continues as they describe the viscous flow as fingers, reaching out.  Standing next to Pele and seeing the bright-orange lava with its quickly-cooled black crust on top, I felt her slash away at my beauty, drying up my lips with her searing heat; she is one hottie.

Waking up the songs of rainforest birds when we stayed in Volcano Village, I didn’t know where I was, they were so unlike anything I’d ever heard before.  They seemed particularly beautiful and especially trilling, but it may have simply been my state of mind.

I had worried that my husband would be swept away by the beauty of Hawaii (and consequently ignore me) but I realize now that I was the one who was transported.

After eight focused weeks of weight loss through exercise (swim, bike, yoga) and sensible eating (no sweets except for fruit and Valentine’s Day truffles and many meals of beans& rice  broken only by homemade and vegetable-laden homemade soup) I arranged my storming of the Kona coast carefully the night before through Google maps: arrive at airport, proceed to Costco for bulk water supplies & bulk macadamia nuts and then quickly in succession — Kailua Candy Company and onward to Mrs Barry’s Kona Cookies!

The only disappointing thing about going to Kailua Candy was that it was our first day on an 8-day vacation, one that would include lots of driving around in a car; there was just no way that anything we bought would survive the trip.  We bought a low-priced sample box and vowed to return before we went off-island.

And Mrs Barry — oh, she did not disappoint.  Crisp cookies that were perfectly browned, butter-licious coconut shortbread (oh, I still regret not buying more when we had the chance), and new-on-me coffee cookies with chocolate chips. We were the only people in the store at the time and liberally sampled from the Free! dish.  I still can’t believe we only bought a dozen.

We sat in the car to munch on cookies while we planned our next move…and in that time a guy (obviously a local) had parked & had made his multiple-bag purchase (a dozen per bag) who joked on his way past, “Are you two going to sit in your car and eat all your cookies?” and we responded in unison, “Yup.”  It made him chuckle.

Poor Jeff was in his jeans (I hadn’t thought to tell him to wear one of the pairs of SPF pants with zip-off legs that we had bought expressly for this trip) and was quite uncomfortable in the sun’s mind-staggering heat.  He was ready for a shower, so we decided to hightail it to the B&B.

I had been a bit unsure about the quality of this B&B, because its price had been so low.  I still don’t know why they charge so little, but for three wonderful nights we had a gorgeous, extremely spacious, well-appointed one-bedroom apartment with a giant picture window and lanai facing the ocean.  Though I didn’t notice, Jeff realized the only thing missing in the kitchen was a stove/oven, but they had helpfully given us use of an enormous gas barbecue, complete with a side burner.

The funny thing is that while trying to decide which “suite” to book, I had read that the one we stayed in was suitable for four people, so I had dismissed it as too large for our needs.  [Passable for four, as two would have to sleep on a full-sized futon in the living room, but fantastic for two].

Fortunately for us, the other two suites were already reserved, so we had to take the larger one.  I couldn’t be any happier about it.  The next-largest didn’t have a private lanai and the smallest didn’t have an ocean view at all (it was the apartment below ours).

We had freshly-ground Kona coffee and a freshly-baked loaf of bread placed into a basket with assorted breakfast stuff delivered to our place every evening.  But later in our trip, we’d have Kona coffee beans to grind every morning in our coffee maker!

On our three breakfasts there, we had one loaf of banana bread & two of pineapple-coconut — just heavenly.  And Jeff ate his first-ever papaya and mango while there, too.

We caught every sunset except for the two while we were on the other side of the island in Volcano Village.  Our first night in Volcano, it was gently misting, and the second, it was overcast.

Though I remembered from my last trip to the Big Island the necessity of changing from my NoCal clothes stat at the airport, I couldn’t imagine how much I wanted my clothes off.  It was like my feet were suffocating in my sox & shoes (I knew better than to fly with flip flops & Hawaii wear — it just gets too darn cold at 35k feet) and it felt so good to take off my long-sleeved t-shirt layered over my black tank top.  Phew!

As Jeff remarked after I peeled the layer off, “You already look more Hawaiian.”  We had only disembarked and walked down the stairs to the tarmac at that point — another 50’s style relic that lives on in Hawaii, like the entire city of Hilo.

By the time we arrived at our B&B we were stuffed with cookies, which meant that it was time for macadamias.  Oh, I go through this every time I go to Hawaii…I consume so many macadamias in my first 24 hours that I simply don’t want to eat any more for the remainder of my trip.  This time was no different.

Our B&B hostess must have laughed when she saw our two enormous boxes of six-pack Mauna Loa macadamia nuts, because they were the exact brand that she left in our breakfast basket.  I guess we’re lucky she even left them, since she knew we had them.

Jeff read the nutrition label on the side of the nut can tut-tutting over the fat content.  “Don’t be a killjoy,” I pleaded, “I only eat them in Hawaii.”

So we showered with the coconut-mango shower gel and shampoo, and  moisturized with the coconut-mango lotion.  Everything associated with body products smelled like dessert.  I warned Jeff that he might be awakened by me licking his arm.

Then we just rested in that beautiful bedroom, listening to the birds flirt and luxuriating in a king-sized bed.  Then our thoughts turned to sex.

Then we went to Hapuna Beach for the sunset, one of the prettiest beaches on all of the Big Island, and turned in for the night.

The flight over had been interminable, so when we finally touched down, it felt like we had time-traveled when we landed around 12 noon.

Russian, da

Oh, one of Sasha’s patients is Russian and recommended a Russian restaurant to her locally to dine at.

The weather’s been hella cold and extra humid, which makes it that much more cold. My fat’s been screaming out for reinforcements like the next Ice Age is coming around the corner. Let me tell you, I’m well-prepared for an Ice Age.

I’ve been cutting down on the carbs (been trying generally to eat a diabetic diet, low on carbs, high on whole grains and legumes) but this past week I’ve been dying for anything baked: brownies, cornbread, muffins, cake, you get the idea. And I don’t find it coincidental that all the above require using an oven, which would also make my house feel warmer. It’s all related.

It’s like when we went to Dublin last year, and I was cold to the bone. To my very marrow. I couldn’t get warm, it kept raining which only made it feel colder, I had a crick in my elbow from holding a damn umbrella everywhere we went….for the first time in my life, I understood the siren call of tea and soup. When it’s that cold, you want steaming hot liquid in your body, not food.

I just want something with lots of flour & sugar that’s been leavened. And, oh yeah, I miss baking. It’s one of the best chemistry experiments ever.

So back to Babushka from last night. Oh my lord! Chicken Kiev, perfectly prepared. A tender and juicy breast of chicken stuffed with cheese, breaded and baked.

I read the biography of famed pairs skating champ Sergei Grinkov (written by his wife, Ekaterina Gordeeva) and she tells of going to a skating competition in Kiev, her first time ever. She had the “famous chicken” from that city every night they were in Kiev, and her coach was angry at her for putting on extra weight as a result. I have wanted to eat an authentic Chicken Kiev since I read that biography in 1996. Seems like a situation ripe for disappointment, eh? I was not!

Sadly, the stuffed cabbage was sold out, so we opted for beef-stuffed blintzes. I love that spiced ground beef the Eastern Europeans do so well…but the blintzes didn’t come close to how expertly prepared the chicken was.

I could not stand the veggie side dishes of pickled carrot and cherry tomato. I was looking forward to the crunch of a green salad and just couldn’t stomach the veggies.

Just went to the grocery store and I picked up some heavy whipping cream, in preparation for potato gratin. Am I shooting myself in the foot, just as I am noticeably losing weight and all my clothes feel looser? Do I have fear of success? Does some part of me want to remain overweight? If I don’t peel the potatoes, will that make it better?

Maybe I should just go to the gym and figure it out later.

Romanesco

Fractal vegetable! I bought this at the farmer’s market because it was beautiful and I had just learned about what a fractal was mere days before.

Isn’t that great about life? I remember as a kid that things like that happened to me all the time; I’d learn a new vocabulary word, and then read it in “Time” magazine later that afternoon. It was part of constantly being exposed to new things, which was a daily experience in my excellent public school system.

It tastes & is white on the inside like a cauliflower, so I roasted it in the oven like I do my cauliflower. Yummy! The sugars inside it carmelized like a cauliflower.

Soups, Glorious Soups!

My dad detested soups, thought it was a waste of stomach volume which could have been filled with food instead. Soup was for poor people who couldn’t afford food, in his mind. So my mom, who was a fan of lightly flavored broths, gave them up. It was one of those Sixties marriages, where it isn’t worth the work and effort to make two dinners if the wife doesn’t like what the husband wants for dinner.

So early in our marriage when my husband told me how he loves soups in the winter months — lentil, butternut squash purees, split pea, minestrone, chicken with egg noodles, French onion, cauliflower — I realized there was an entire category of cooking in which I was completely unschooled. And I had to admit that accompanied with the right bread, it was a filling meal.

Then I remembered all those cooking shows where the vegetables are sauteed then finished in a Cuisinart, or with a hand mixer right in the pots. That seemed kind of neat, trying something higher on the difficulty scale and with so much flair!

I’ve mastered quite a few now, and they are all tasty. One reason I wasn’t interested in soups was because it seemed I’d never had a good homemade soup. In many kitchens, the soup literally is the previous day’s leftover vegetables thrown into a pot with water and salted. There wasn’t any effort, but there’s an entire world of soups and cooking techniques and flavor mastery out there.

Tonight I’m making what’s modestly called “Hearty Lentil Soup,” when I think it’s the best lentil soup I’ve ever had. It has lots of flavors layered on top of each other, and on a cold evening like tonight, I can’t wait to tuck into it with some toasted Dutch Crunch bread with real butter. (I only indulge in real butter from Thanksgiving through the New Year).

Bon Appetit!