Lemons and Anchovies

"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade."

Whoever said that the first time was an idiot.  Seriously, when life gives you lemons?  What's wrong with lemons?  I like lemons, I buy them on purpose.  I squeeze them into water, use them when I cook.  I know exactly what do with lemons, the possibilities are endless.  Lemons are that perfectly acid citrus that adds life to everything it touches.  Lemons are awesome.  Life can give me as many lemons all it wants, I'll make shrimp scampi or lemon bars or lemon ricotta muffins.

I can handle tart, acidic surprises that can add flavor and brightness to my life.  I'm OK with those kind of changes.  Give me a rainstorm when it's supposed to be sunny, change up the plan and make life interesting.  I can handle a temper tanrum in a grocery store.  I can roll with a sudden change in direction.  As long as it's minor, as long as it's a lemon.

What I've been dealing with lately are not lemons.  They aren't bright and acidic, they are dark and pungent, like anchovies.  Some people might be able to easily adjust and roll with this, but I can not.  These new ingredients are a total mystery to me.  What to I do with an anchovie?  Throw it on a pizza, top a Greek salad?  I don't want my pizza or my salad to be covered in anchovies. And yet I find myself holding these metaphorical cans of anchovies, completely at a loss as to how handle them, how to work them into my life. 

So I've become obsessed with anchovies.  My life has so many other things in it, I should set the anchovies on the counter and let them be, focus on the other things I've got going on.  But I can't.  It's all I think about, all I pray about, these cans of anchovies that I don't know what to do with.  I don't know how to handle them. 

It's a lonely road, there are only a few people I can talk to about my anchovies right now.  Those few people haven't heard about anything but anchovies for a month at least.  I know I should talk about the weather or the positive things or even the lemons, but I'm always preoccupies with the anchovies.  I say the same things over and over again.  I share the same fears, I tell the same stories, I can't be distracted from the things I can't figure out. 

I'm still standing in the kitchen with my cans of anchovies, wishing I could chuck them out a window, but knowing that they are in my life now and I have to find a way to work with them. Give me lemons any day of the week.

I wish it wasn't like this

On Friday afternoon my mom came over to watch the kids while I disappeared into the horizon, not stopping until I hit the beach.  I stayed there until Saturday evening, with friends at a women's retreat.  It was awesome.

Back to reality.  Since moving from processed food to Real Food I have been trying to read one article or post on the subject every day and my DVR has been bogged down with documentaries for Earth Month.  Last week I watched the film Bag It, which is about plastic bags (and other plastic products) and their effect on the earth and out personal health.  One statement that was made has been driving me nuts all week.   It went something like this:

Chemicals have the same rights as people.  They are safe until proven harmful.  That shouldn't be.  We should have to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt that a chemical is safe.  We shouldn't have to live with chemicals that have never been safe but haven't been proven harmful yet.
-Bag It (paraphrased)

What?  Wait a minute, that makes no sense!  I should have more rights than BPA and phosphates, but they were used in our plastics for years before they were found harmful enough to be taken out.  I shouldn't need to look for a BPA free label on my plastic cups, the chemical should have never been in my plastic.  It's ridiculous!

What's worse, I think, is that we have been taught as a society that progress is good and wanting anything but that is abnormal.  You want to drink raw milk?  Why?  We have pasteurized milk from genetically altered cows right here.  It's cheaper, faster, and you're weird to question it's effects on your health. 

I remember the first time I heard a mother of an autistic boy talk about diet, food dyes and her sons health.  I was 12, and she was so excited about all the changes she saw in her son by changing his diet.  I thought she was crazy.  What does food have to do with anything?

I remember the first time someone questioned the use of chemicals to clean.  It was Gloria, a 50 year old natural-food freak who smelled bad and didn't like to do anything helpful.  She worked for me as a Barista at Starbucks and freaked out about cleaning the bathroom with bleach.  She had beaten cancer 10 years prior and was crying about not wanting to get it again.  From bleach.  Because it's a toxic chemical.  I thought she was nuts.

It's unfair that we can't just live.  That we can't just wake up, go about our day, trusting that everything we come into contact with is safe for us to touch, safe for us to eat.  That it won't effect our health negatively down the road, that we won't see the chemicals come back up in the forms of disease and cancers.  And most of the time most of us (including me) like to live this way.

I don't want to be that crazy person, who freaks out about food dyes and bleach and plastic cups.  I don't want to worry about BPA or phosphates or growth hormones.  I don't want to second guess a natural label as a marketing ploy instead of truth.  But the more I read, the more I watch, the more I see, the more I'm convinced I don't really have a choice.

I wish it wasn't like this.

Real Foods, like real life, are kicking my butt.

Once upon a time in the lovely state of Virginia I was introduced to the concept of eating real, clean, whole foods.  The ideas and philosophies behind it are simple when you boil it down to one phrase.

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." -Michael Pollen

The idea is that there is a big difference between food, straight from the earth and what we commonly eat, food-like substances created by food scientists using chemicals in a lab and mass produced in a factory.  The later isn't good for you, try not to eat it.

So I would frequent our amazing farmers market, shop at the local foods co-op, and buy my meat at a pretty awesome store, Ukrops, that is like a Kroger and Whole foods in one.  I cooked from scratch, baked muffins and breads, and we ate great.  Then we had to cut out cost, so I started couponing and introduced processed foods back into our lives.

Recently I have started feeling pretty convicted about what I feed my family, so slowly but surely I am cutting processed foods out of our lives again.  I found a local butcher that has good, local meat without additives or hormones.  I have been frequenting Sprouts, our one and only "healthy" grocery store in the area.  I've significantly increased our fruit and veggie intake and cut our most processed sides and snacks.  It helps that I've done this before. It feels a bit like riding a bike or going back to an old habit.

Honestly, I love spending time in the kitchen.  I enjoy cooking and baking and being connected to my food.  I'm not a huge fan of the clean-up, but that's the nature of the beast.  However, with a pair of almost 2 year olds and a 4 year old, sometimes the joy of cooking gets sucked right out of it and all I'm left with is more work.

Last Tuesday while I was making homemade granola, Cadee climbed a shelf and got a bottle of nail polish and painted her toes.  Since she is not quite two, she also painted her feet, legs, arms, and face and dripped all over my bedroom and living room.  It was awful, and while I got most of it cleaned up, there will forever be pink spots on my couch and my bedroom carpet. I suddenly remembered why I like processed food so much.

I want to do what's best for my family, but I forgot how much extra work it is to make everything from scratch.  There's a big difference between popping open a can of green beans and cleaning, slicing and steaming the real thing.  Not to mention it takes effort and convincing to get your kids to give the real food a chance.  My normal veggie eaters have been avoiding the roasted summer squash I've been serving.

I recently read The Hunger Games , which was nothing like I thought it would be.  I was surprised how big a role food played in the story, how much time and effort the author spent talking about and describing food.  I know, the title should have tipped me off.  Anyway, one of the things that resonated with me was the main character’s view of food.  She spent all her free time hunting and gathering so her family could eat.  When she went to the capitol, food was available at the push of a button.  If you didn't need to spend all your time on food, what would you do?  Where would your time go?  It hit me like a ton of bricks.  In truth, we are supposed to spend time, and a large amount of it, providing food for ourselves.  But as a society, we have gotten so lazy, so disconnected from our food.  We’ve gotten used to opening a package and consuming food-like substances instead of real, nutritious food.  It's not really a good thing.

So real, clean whole foods are what my family is eating as much as possible.  The amount of time and energy it takes to achieve this is a pain in the butt.  However, it's important, so I'll keep working on it.  Meanwhile, I hope my kids don’t completely destroy my house in the process.

Our AWESOME family photos

Taking a family photo is always a fun event.  We tried to get a good shot at Easter. 

First we have See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil.  I have no idea how this happened, but it's funny right?  I might frame it, just for the heck of it.

The next semi-usable shot.  Don't we look happy?

Yeah, that's our Family Photo.  Why yes, I did edit the colors on this photo and add a frame. ;)

As the shoot starts to fall apart...

And it's over.  Yup, that's my family.  They may not be framable, but at least these photos describe my real life?  It's not pretty, but it sure is real!

Playing Catch-up. Forever, probably.

People, life is happening fast again.  The days are speeding by so quickly, I feel like shouting, "NO, slow down!" but it doesn't work that way.  At the end of the day I look around my house and wonder, did a tornado hit?  No, it's just that my kids are moving so fast, I can't keep up.  I'm trying, but I'm behind on everything.

I can't believe that April is almost over.  Next month the girls turn two.  I'm trying to get a jump on it and completely plan their party before this month is over.  Three days after their Birthday we are on a plane headed to Michigan for vacation.  I'm excited, but I'm trying to prepare for that as early as possible too.

I have been trying to get back to a clean, whole foods diet.  Basically, I'm trying to cut out as much processed food as possible.  I had forgotten how much time I save with processed foods.  I feel like I can't catch up, I'm constantly in the kitchen.  I know it's the best thing, to feed my family food that's good for them instead of Mac N Cheese, but it was so hard to walk past that isle 2 weeks in a row.  I'm so tired of scratch cooking.  I'm really tired of the dishes I'm creating.  Ugh.

I'm still feel like I'm playing domestic catch-up in the new house.  It's still blank, empty and unorganized.  I'm trying, but it's hard with 3 littles.  Pintrest isn't any help, I just feel like a domestic failure.

Seriously, I'm pretty sure I will never catch up.

On the bright side, it's time to go in the kitchen and make dishes.  I mean dinner, make dinner.  Ugh.