My Little Hummingbird

This week, I had more indulging on cooked food. Not good. I feel so catatonic, tired, lethargic. Going raw makes me realize what a compulsive eater I am and how I look to food for comfort. The cooked food just didn't taste the same and it didn't even give me the comfort I sought. The bad news is I went and had more the next day. Why? Who knows? It's not like I had one intentionally celebratory meal, I had several crappy processed microwaved meals. Blech! It reminds me of when I went of wheat and every time I allowed myself to have a little cookie, I would remember later, "oh, yeah...I really am wheat/gluten intolerant." It'll take about a week to get back to feeling good again. Summer is around the corner and this year I won't be teaching summer school! Hopefully good habits are coming soon.

Memorial Day weekend was a wonderful chance to catch up on lots of housework. Seattle was very warm. It was a weekend for enjoying lazy hammocks and Sangria and yummy green smoothies, of course. Later, as I was washing dishes, I heard a big boom only to discover Robert dancing wildly with large flames of fire shooting from the fire pit he manicly threw together last week and Rachel laughing hysterically. Nice smokey music on the phonograph, finally painting our back room a rich chocolate brown, and enjoying times with our friends Tim and Xea and their sweet toddlers from Portland made for a packed weekend. Summer is coming...

My husband was very inspired this morning and started reading Dylan Thomas to me. The sad part was, I wasn't awake yet and wasn't capable of thinking deeply about anything. At first, I thought, "Wow. Dylan Thomas is an amazing writer. I'd forgotten." But as my husband continued to read, I got more irritated. I wanted to enjoy the reading, but I still wasn't awake yet and hadn't had a chance to collect my own thoughts and we were going to be late for church. Egads! My brain was overloading. After my husband finished reading, he could tell I was totally annoyed. I don't remember what I said, but it shut him down. Then I wanted to bolt. My husband held his own. Then I wanted to throw something. Why couldn't he have just waited until later? He held his own. Then I felt bad. He felt bad. We both felt bad. After my shower, I offered to make him a SAD breakfast (Standard American Diet) of eggs with cheese & tabasco, toast, and dark dark rich black coffee...his favorite! We shared this non-raw meal together in our new almost finished bedroom and we read Dylan Thomas aloud all morning. Then snow flurries blew outside and we watched from our window. It was a beautiful morning.

The image is a little blurry, but this soup was so good and super easy. The hardest part was openining the coconut which I will need to practice or devise a faster method. I served it with Matt Amsden's Famous Onion Bread from his book, RAWvolution.

Cream of Spinach Soup

1 bunch of spinach
1 small clove of garlic
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 cup of hemp seed, plus some for garnish
Water from one coconut (or coconut water from a tetrapak)
About 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup filtered water

Put all ingredients except water in an excellent blender, add a little bit of the water and blend on high power until all spinach is liquified. Add a little more water if necessary. Taste for salt and creaminess. Next time, I want to add some of the coconut meat and see how creamy it gets. I decided to save it and turn the coconut meat into noodles for another dish. Serves 1-2 people.

I had a great, much needed massage this evening after which I walked out into tiny balls of hail! Even though I'm quite ready for spring and summer, the light hail was fun and felt very refreshing after a massage. I wish I could have one more often...

It's mid-April in lovely Seattle and it's hailing. In the course of a mile drive, the weather turned from hail, to rain, and then to snow. Pictured above are my neighbor's daffodils and my garden gnome Arthur. Oh dear! Spring time snow! It's supposed to really snow tomorrow. Good thing my produce order came in!