Now that I'm done with Jack, I've gone back to Patricia A. McKillip. I was re-reading one of her books before the Jack teen books and now I'm starting on a new one of hers called The Bards of Bone Plain.
What I like about McKillip's books is the feeling of being lost in her fantastical worlds which is like being lost in a dream. I dream a lot and wake up sometimes feeling as if I haven't slept at all; the dreams are so active. Her dreamlike worlds always involve a huge aspect of nature which really appeals to me. Like in Winter Rose or The Book of Atrix Wolfe - upon meeting the Queen of the Wood with a crown of antlers and eyes that you stare into and see nothing or nature scenes, you try to talk or scream and leaves come out of your own mouth. So magical, lyrical. And I like the fact that these woodland people look like animals in disguise and they don't care anything about the mortal world. They're quite indifferent to it. At least, the Queen is. And yet, sometimes they mate with humans and produce offspring that carry the magic that pulls them to discover the realm they don't know about. Interesting...
After my delve into green smoothies and raw food, I started trying to read a couple of travel books. My sister recommended I See by My Outfit by Peter S. Beagle (author of The Last Unicorn). The "special" banter between Beagle and his best friend was annoying and a total turn-off. I consider myself a hippie at heart (at least when it comes to music), but this hippie road trip just wasn't doing it for me. So I tried a recommendation from my supervisor at work called Ghost Train to the Eastern Star by Paul Theroux, after a short discussion of her train trip across Russia to Vladivostok peaked my interest. The places he visited were interesting, as were his comments, but his at times snooty academic tone turned me off enough to just set aside all 496 pages of this ramblings. Guess I just wasn't in travel log mode... I finally settled on re-reading The Book of Atrix Wolfe by Patricia A. McKillip (which is sitting on my shelf). I was enjoying it quite a bit when a bunch of books I'd put a hold on came in. And here I am again reading about Repairman Jack, except this time he's a teenager.
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I read the first teen Jack book last year and now I'm reading Jack: Secret Circles. Although I'm well beyond my teens, I'm enjoying the easy flow of the story. It's like the books I read in my late childhood/early teens. The author's voice is believable as a teen. The characters are familiar yet new because it's a different time in their life. I'm halfway through, then comes Jack: Secret Vengeance and then I'll be officially done with Jack.
I guess I'm on a health kick for the new year... I signed up for a 6 month unlimited yoga pass at my yoga studio 17 days ago and I've been going 4 to 5 times out of the 6 times I can go in a week. I've gotten a routine down where I do vinyasa 3 alternating days a week with a stretch class 2 days a week and a hatha class on Sunday. If I was going all 6 days a week, this is how my schedule would work out. So naturally as I get back into an exercise routine, I'm starting to really look at my diet again.
Recently I've been reading books by Victoria Boutenko that I picked up at TPL. I recently finished Green Smoothie Revolution and now I'm reading Green for Life. Next I'll look at 12 Steps to Raw Foods just out of interest and Raw Family Signature Dishes, cuz I'm always on the look out for easy recipes. Her writing style is not particularly good, but she mixes in scientific research with her observations, experiences, and the experience of others to make a very convincing argument for getting more greens into your diet. I wasn't crazy about the recipes in Green Smoothie Revolution (some of them had way too many ingredients). I'm hoping the ones in other books will be more interesting.
I'm really interested in how feasible it would be to live on a raw food diet. I'm all for not having to cook my food. I bet once you're on it and try to eat cooked food again you feel like crap. I used to eat a lot of greens and raw veggies when I was younger but no one in my family was really into eating that way. Boutenko reiterates the importance of having family support in being able to stick to their raw food diet. I've been concerned about blending non-organic produce, which is what we usually buy because it's more affordable. We buy some organic foods, such as sugars, flowers, nuts and seeds and other products. My sister recently told me to buy some organic produce to try the smoothies. If they like it, it might be easier to make the transition to more organic foods. I'm really looking forward to the spring and being able to grow greens to make smoothies myself.
I really want to buy a Vitamix blender, which these authors I mention boast to be the best blender for making green
smoothies. I have an older blender that I've never used so I should probably try that first. I also want a food dehydrator cuz I figure it's probably more
affordable to dehydrate your own fruits.
I came across the Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen blog in November or December last year, probably while looking up recipes for soups (I usually go to Allrecipes.com). What I liked best about the recipes on the blog are that they are based on whole foods; the same cannot be said for all of the recipes on Allrecipes.com. I also like the fact that most of the recipes are easy because I don't really like to cook :). I stick to the recipes that don't call for gluten-free flours or other weird things like xanthan gum, however if I had celiac disease and needed alternative flours and such, Whole Life Nutrition would be a valuable resource. I was lucky that TPL had just ordered the book so I put a hold on it and got it relatively quickly.
This is a great book! It was laid out very well, with background chapters on such topics as the basics of eating a whole foods diet and your diet in relation to global warming. I really liked the introductory chapter on stocking your pantry - all the different types of gluten-free flours, sugars, and grains; nuts, seeds, beans - what a list! The only disappointment was the lack of pictures, which was what drew me from the blog to the book.
Grinding the almonds for the Raw Energy Balls in my food processor created quite a racket (I'm surprised the blade and bowl survived based on the amount of noise it made) and I was surprised to find that all the ingredients came together in a way that nothing was left back in the food processor except oils from the ingredients. Clean up was a breeze. I had to grind a whole cardamom pod because I didn't have ground cardamom (I had ground cinnamon though) and this accounted for an initially overwhelming cardamomy taste. Everyone got used to it though and my family loved them. I'll be making them again. I'm looking forward to making some of the soups, nettle tea, and the Winter Green Smoothie.
