Once or twice a year, I have a weekend get-together with some friends from summer camp. We met in junior high at Fowler Camp & Retreat Center, a Christian camp in the Adirondacks that we all attended until we graduated from high school, and then most of us went on to volunteer as camp counselors or work on staff.
If you know me in real life, you know that I have a thing for flamingos. I have a flamingo tattoo on the back of my neck, and own flamingo-themed t-shirts, jewelry, glassware and stuffed animals. The reason is these amazing women who I count among my oldest, dearest friends.
At Camp Fowler, the boys’ cabins are named after woodland animals (though some of my bad teenage poetry graces the walls of said cabins) and the girls’ cabins are named after woodland birds. One year, a new cabin was built, and was to be named the Owl cabin. Abby, Amanda, Holly and I (and the fifth member of our group, who defected and therefore shall not be named) decided that, since there was no sign affixed to the cabin yet, we’d take some creative license and call ourselves the Flamingo cabin. We annoyed the crap out of the camp staff and volunteers, refusing to answer to “Owl,” and finally, everyone relented and started referring to us as the flamingos. And it stuck throughout our remaining years at camp, and beyond.
Despite living in different cities and states, and weddings, moves and babies, we still manage to get together every year. This past weekend found us in Nashua, NH, at Holly’s house. Our weekends tend to revolve around food, and eating at Holly’s was a treat, because she has an amazing garden.
Here’s the lunch spread from Saturday:
Believe me when I say I could eat bakery-fresh bread, garlic scape hummus, pesto, raw milk cheese, avocados, carrots, fresh edamame, tomatoes, cucumbers and herb butter every day. All the produce was from her garden, and we found the plums on a tree outside her office. I couldn’t eat plums every day, though, as I’m not a big fan of raw fruit.
Lest you think we eat like total hippies all weekend, you should know that we also drank a whole lot of wine and ate a whole lot of candy, and went out to a pub one night, where we consumed a whole lot of fried food. And there was ice cream, too. I like to think that this lunch, and our breakfasts made with fresh eggs from Amanda’s chicken coop, balanced everything out.
And here we all all dressed up for our big night out. From left: Abby, Holly, Me, Amanda
If no one has any more babies, the next reunion’s going to be in Brooklyn. Let that be a warning to you, NYC.
Yup, that’s the nerdiest food headline I’ve ever written. Way to go, Me.
If you live in New York City, or on most of the East coast, you know it’s hot this summer. So, so hot. So hot, in fact, that it’s making me rethink that whole moving to New Orleans someday thing. And that makes cooking a challenge.
Bulgur is something that I’ve eaten many times in restaurants, but never really made at home. It’s not a particularly sexy grain. When I need to make a grain, I tend to either go with something fun like millet, quinoa or polenta, or stick with my old stand-by, brown rice. But a few weeks ago, I had a ton of leftover parsley and mint and immediately thought of making tabbouleh. So I went out and got some bulgur.
Here’s the thing I discovered about bulgur. You don’t have to cook it. At all. You can cook it, but a good soak will make it perfectly edible. The water doesn’t even have to be hot. With constant 95 degree, humid weather, bulgur just got a whole lot sexier.
There’s my aforementioned tabbouleh. It’s not as herby as the traditional version because 1) I made it to use up leftover herbs, and buying additional herbs would have left me where I started — with leftover herbs and 2) I find the classic tabbouleh recipe a little overwhelming, herb-wise. I mean, I like herbs, I even love them, but sometimes when I order tabbouleh out in a restaurant, I feel like I’m just eating a plate of fresh herbs. And the mint is often aggressive, which makes me sad.
The thing I’m really liking about bulgur is that it’s a great vehicle for using up any kind of fresh produce. I can just chop up whatever I have in the fridge, toss it in with a little lemon and olive oil, or a vinaigrette, and I have a healthy meal. And I don’t even have to light a burner on the stove.
We can survive global warming if we have bulgur, people. Remember that.
I recently looked up all of the cosmetics I use on Skin Deep, the Environmental Working Group’s database of safety reviews. I was surprised and horrified by how toxic all of my products were, even the ones that I’d bought at health food stores labeled “paraben-free” and “organic.” I decided to make some changes. My first one? Give up the moisturizer.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve had terrible skin. It’s always been the one thing I wish I could change about myself. I have large pores, and when I say “large” I mean “vast caverns of crater-like pockets covering the surface of my face.” I’ve also historically been prone to breakouts. I thought the latter was something I’d grow out of, but the joke was on me. I didn’t.
In my quest to have smooth, poreless skin, I’ve tried just about every moisturizer on the market, with mixed, but mostly underwhelming, results. When I first decided to go 100% natural, I tried both aloe and coconut oil. Both helped with the breakouts, but did nothing to improve the look of my skin overall.
In Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen by Ani Phyo (I am such an Ani Phyo fan-girl), she mentioned using hemp oil as moisturizer. I was intrigued. After scouring Brooklyn and asking for help on Facebook, I found a health food store within walking distance that had one bottle left that they couldn’t move and would give to me at a discount.
When I opened the bottle, I was skeptical. Hemp oil is thick, green and smells like freshly-cut grass. It seemed way too heavy for the skin on my face. But I applied it, and within minutes, the wrinkles around my eyes diminished. I decided to apply it a couple of times a day and see where it took me.
It’s been over a month now, and my skin has never looked better. I haven’t even been wearing foundation, because I don’t need it. My skin tone is even, my face is clear, and some sun-damage spots have lightened up. Evan has remarked on the change in my skin several times, and when I went to my brilliant hairstylist Amy Gerber for a haircut last week, she exclaimed “Your skin is glowing! What are you using?”
It’s pretty safe to say that I’m never going back to store-bought moisturizers again. And as an added bonus, it’s done wonders for the psoriasis I have on my elbows.
Some fun facts about hemp oil: (Well, fun if you’re a nerd like me and get into that sort of stuff) it’s the only oil that has the perfect balance of Omega 3 and 6 essential fatty acids. Plus, it has a natural SPF of 6, which I discovered after a day out in the sun sans sunscreen, when I burned everywhere except my face. It should be bought in small quantities and stored in the refrigerator, because it only has a shelf life of about three months once it’s been opened. You can even eat it, and while I have yet to do so, the Internets tell me it’s very good for you. I’ve been meaning to make a salad dressing with it — when I do, I’ll post the recipe.
Next up: Later, Shampoo.
Do y’all read Seriously Soupy? You should! Not only do I know Serena personally, and she’s lovely, but seriously, it’s a blog about soup, which rocks.
Anyway, I’ve got a guest blog post up there, and you should check it out. And if you’re a soup enthusiast, she’s looking for contributors.
I’ve got a new project in the works for PhoebeTV, and I need your input! If you don’t cook, or if you don’t cook as much as you would like, why not?
I’m looking for something a little more in-depth than “I don’t have time” or “I’m really tired when I get home from work.” Here’s some examples of reasons I’ve gotten from my friends, after no small amount of badgering:
- “I don’t know how to cut vegetables, so a recipe that would take you minutes in prep would take me an hour.”
- “I don’t know how to make healthy food taste good, so I end up buying a boring salad for lunch every day.”
- “Whenever I buy fresh produce, I don’t end up using it all before it goes bad so I don’t bother.”
- “I hate following recipes, and I get sick of making the same three things I know how to make over and over.”
So tell me, what keeps YOU from cooking for yourself? Leave me a comment, or use my handy contact form. I’ll solve your kitchen dilemma AND give you an on-air shout-out! Double win!
Before I learned how to cook healthy food for myself, I was something of a fad diet girl. I’ve never been what anyone would consider fat – expect for Brandon at What Would Tyler Durden Do?, who thinks anyone over a size 0 is a whale — but I have, at times, been carrying around an extra 5 to 10 pounds that I’d rather not be.
When I was in my South Beach Diet phase, I became enamored with their recipe for mini-frittatas. I would make a cupcake pan’s worth of them, freeze or refrigerate them and then chow down on two before leaving for work in the morning. (Seriously sad confession — I used to put shredded cheese and bacon bits in them, but in my defense, I was like 24 and completely clueless about nutrition.)
I’m no longer a low-carb girl, or an extreme dieter, but I do still love me some frittatas. They’re economical, delicious and a great way to use up leftover produce. I try to make a big kitchen-sink one every Sunday morning, and then have the leftovers early the next week.
Because I rarely plan ahead when it comes to feeding myself (I’m working on it, though), I tend to eat like a crazy person when I’m busy, eating things like popcorn for breakfast, or kimchi wrapped in a tortilla for lunch. Yesterday, I had a late afternoon job interview in Manhattan, followed by a kickboxing class in Brooklyn, and there wasn’t much time for food. By the time I got home, I was starving, but didn’t have the energy to make anything, so I shoved some whole wheat pita and yogurt in my face, and started dreaming about this morning’s breakfast.
Here it is:
1 whole egg, 1 egg white, 1 pinch each of oregano, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper, along with some red onion, garlic, tomato, feta cheese and kalamata olives baked in a ramekin at 350 degrees until set. I served it up with some leftover tabbouleh I had lying around. It was heaven. In fact, I wish I’d made two, because I have another job interview tomorrow and will be, once again, running around and eating spoonfuls of grape jelly in lieu of a meal. Oh well.
Ever since I made food for that Spring Detox Event, I’ve been on something of a raw food kick.
I made plenty of raw food in culinary school, and I’ve eaten at a handful of raw food restaurants, and I’ve found it all to be completely underwhelming. I’ve always assumed that if you wanted to eat raw, you needed a bunch of equipment, like a dehydrator and a Vitamix, and even after spending all of the money to outfit your kitchen, you’d be eating depressing food.
Enter Ani Phyo. Evan randomly got a copy of Ani’s Raw Food Desserts at work and brought it home for me. I started thumbing through it one night, and was amazed by how good everything looked. I wasn’t convinced, though, until I tried a couple of recipes. I then decided that Ani Phyo was a genius (The Mayan Crunch Truffle Balls are particularly epic), and went out and got a copy of Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen. I’ve been working my way through it, and I have to say, every time I look at a recipe, I’m like, “No way is that going to taste good.” Then I make it, and it’s delicious.
The picture up above is of raw oatmeal. It’s the easiest thing in the world to make — you simply soak raw oat groats overnight, then drain them and blend them with water. I like to top mine with goji berries, which I briefly soak first to make them less pungent-tasting. It tastes like regular cooked oatmeal, only cleaner, and I now eat it for breakfast a couple of times a week.
Since I’ve been experimenting, I decided to go back and tweak my raw spinach soup recipe, which I wasn’t 100 
percent happy with the first time around. Here’s the new version, which, in my not-so-humble opinion, rocks the house:
Raw Spinach Soup
Serves 2 as a main dish
Ingredients:
2 cups packed spinach leaves
1 medium cucumber, peeled and cubed
1 avocado, pitted and skinned
1/2 teaspoon chopped ginger
2 large cloves garlic
2 tablespoons nama shoyu*
1/8 teaspoon sea salt
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 cup water
Sprouts, for garnish (optional)
Directions:
Place all ingredients in a blender, and blend until smooth. If soup is too thick, thin with additional water. Serve immediately.
*Nama shoyu is raw, unpasteurized soy sauce. You can usually find it at health food stores. I found mine at the Flatbush Food Co-op, which is just like the Park Slope Food Co-op, only you don’t have to be a member to shop there, which makes it extra awesome.
I haven’t been blogging much because I’ve been working like a dog. I’m not going to bore you with the non-food-related stuff, but here’s some of what I’ve been working on.
TopChefShow.com
This is a Top Chef fan site, and as I am a Top Chef fan, I am more than happy to be on board. Especially since one of my weekly assignments is something I was planning on doing here, anyway, only now I can get paid for it. Each week, I remake the winning dish somehow, whether it’s turning an appetizer into a budget-friendly meal, or giving a kid-friendly meal a grown-up twist. I also do reader Q&As, which are sometimes food-related and sometimes not, but they give me an opportunity to get my snark on, which is always fun. Here’s Week 1 and Week 2.
PhoebeTV
Party In Your Mouth is still going strong! There’s going to be a big announcement on that front soon. In the meantime, here are a couple of recent shows that I’ve been too busy to properly promote:
This spread was worth the trek out to Bushwick. I would have gone anyway, since Marina got engaged to a wonderful man and all, but still. If you ever want me to come to your house, make fried plantains. I’m easy. And hungry. And yes, finally blogging again.