Dancing to Elizabeth Mitchell in the kitchen while Mama makes pancakes (with strawberries and whipped cream!) . . .

Plans for a trip to the library, and to the park . . .

My favorite dinner of Pasta Puttanesca with banana splits (and a candle on top, of course) for dessert . . .

Sounds like a good day to turn three.

Happy Birthday Luke! We love you Mucho!

There is a beauty to crafting beautiful food with your own hands for the people you love.  And it is even more beautiful when you’ve spent the time in the woods, in nature, and prayerfully respect and appreciate the nourishing qualities of a life well and wildly spent.  Certainly it takes a little more time, a little more effort, but it is the food of love.

Michael Psilakis mentions that this venison sausage is a play on a Greek Cypriot sausage called tseftelia.  It is delicious paired on a platter of meze and eaten with one’s fingers.

Venison Sausage

from How to Roast a Lamb: New Greek Classic Cooking
(see my full review here)

makes 9 2-ounce sausages, perfect for meze

2 (1/4-inch thick) slices Spanish or sweet onion

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Kosher salt and cracked black pepper

1 teaspoon coriander seeds

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

2 juniper berries

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

12 ounces ground venison, from the leg

6 ounces fatty, coarse-ground pork or fatback

2 teaspoons Garlic puree (see below)

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon honey

large pinch dry Greek oregano

1 Tablespoon finely chopped parsley

1/2 teaspoon orange zest

About 3 ounces pork caul fat (if bought frozen, soak the caul fat overnight in salted water and squeeze dry before using) or sausage casing

Lemon wedges and Extra virgin olive oil, or Tsatziki

1/4 cup loosely packed, fresh picked herbs, such as dill, mint and/or parsley

Brush the onion slices with a little olive oil and season with kosher salt and pepper.  On a hot grill pan or in a cast iron skillet, grill the onion until tender. Separate into rings and finely chop.

Toast the seeds and juniper berries in a preheated 325 degree Fahrenheit oven for 10 minutes.  Transfer to a spice mill and grind to a powder (you will not use all of it).

In a large bowl, combine the grilled onion, 2 teaspoons of the spice mixture, and the venison, pork, Garlic puree, mustard, honey, oregano, parsley and orange zest.  Season liberally with salt and pepper. With clean hands, combine the mixture evenly, and form 9 football-shaped sausages.

Wrap each sausage in a single layer of caul fat, trimming off any extra bits and pieces.  If you like, refrigerate the sausages on a rack, uncovered, for 2 hours; this will help dry the surface and give you an even better sear on the grill.

Preheat a charcoal or gas grill, or ridged cast-iron grill pan, until very hot.  Brush the sausages lightly with a little olive oil and season with kosher salt and pepper.  Grill until firm and char-marked all over.  Transfer to a platter and drizzle with some lemon juice and extra-virgin olive oil, or top with a spoonful of Tsatziki.  Scatter with picked fresh herbs.

Garlic Puree

(By the way, you really must get your hands on a copy of How to Roast a Lamb: New Greek Classic Cooking if only for the Garlic Confit recipe on page 264.  Amazing.  An abbreviated version is available here, but the recipe in the book goes into a little more detail – and makes a bit more.  Oh, and have I mentioned he also shares recipes for chickpea confit, fennel confit, leek confit and artichoke confit?  I can think of about 427 ways to use those in the kitchen.  Yum.)

Substitute this puree for butter to finish and emulsify pan sauces, in addition to countless other uses.

About 1 cup cloves garlic from Garlic Confit

With a slotted spoon, transfer the garlic cloves to a cutting board, allowing all of the oil to drain back into the container.  Chop the garlic fine (or puree it in a mini food processor).  Film with confit oil and store in the refrigerator.

Enjoy!

Our first batch of asparagus from the garden this year.

Asparagus is one of my absolute favorite vegetables and I look forward every year to spring, when we get to enjoy them fresh out of the garden once again! My favorite way to eat them is simply, often roasted or steamed with a little olive oil, salt and pepper. Growing up, I always dipped them in mayonnaise (which I don’t hesitate to admit, I still enjoy!) but now that I’m older I tend to like to try new ways to enjoy them.

This year, I discovered Mollie Katzen’s book The Vegetable Dishes I Can’t Live Without, and immediately fell in love.  I’m constantly on the look out for new ways to cook vegetables and this cookbook is a stunner and full of inspiration.  This gingered asparagus “salad” is one that I enjoy accompanying a lovely grilled “Hawaiian-style” chicken thigh and wild rice.

Gingered Asparagus

from The Vegetable Dishes I Can’t Live Without

Flavoring vinegar with ginger creates major kitchen incense!  This is a wonderful way to enjoy asparagus as either a salad or a side dish.(The definitions happily blur.)

Notes:

• You can prepare the vinegar (step 1) well ahead of time.  It can sit, covered, up to 2 days at room temperature and will only get better. Meanwhile, the asparagus can marinate deeply in the garlic spiked oil (step 3)
• Assemble the finished dish at the last minute, so the acid from the vinegar won’t discolor the asparagus.

3/4 cup cider vinegar or unseasoned rice vinegar

1-1/2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger

2 Tablespoons light-colored honey

1 pound fresh asparagus, tough ends trimmed

1/2 teaspoon minced or crushed garlic

2 Tablespoons Chinese-style dark sesame oil

3 Tablespoons peanut oil

1/4 teaspoon salt (possibly more, to taste)

1 teaspoon soy sauce

Place the vinegar and ginger in a small saucepan and bring to a boil.  Turn the heat to medium-low and cook, uncovered, for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the vinegar is reduced by about half. (Open the windows!) Remove from the heat and stir in the honey. Set aside.

Steam the asparagus until just tender (not too soft).  Refresh under cold running water immediately and drain well.  Dry thoroughly with paper towel and transfer to a platter or a plate with a rim, arranging the asparagus in a single layer.

Whisk together the garlic, oils, salt and soy sauce in a small bowl.  Pour this mixture over the asparagus, then cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours and up to 2 days.

Shortly before serving, spoon the vinegar mixture over the asparagus, distributing it as evenly as possible.  (Definitely include all those little bits of ginger!) Serve chilled or at room temperature.

Enjoy!

It starts with a love story

There is a single word in Greek, kefi,  that explains a philosophy of life.  Kefi  is the culmination of a celebration when music, dance, food, liquor, and the company you share intersect. The effect is so ethereal and the feeling so euphoric that you realize this is what life is about.  It isn’t material possessions – the size of your house or the kind of car you drive – that are important.  It’s the joy you derive from celebrating life with the people you love.

Michael Psilakis

This cookbook is a love story.  About a man and his family.  His family and food.  And food as love.

Michael Psilakis has written a cookbook that you just want to sit down and read with a glass of wine in the evening.  He’s crafted a story about his family, including his deep, personal relationship with his late father, that can make you misty-eyed at times.  Love, faith, teenage angst and family dinners all coincide and then you look up, and remember it’s a cookbook.

A beautiful book

How to Roast a Lamb: New Greek Classic Cooking is a beautiful book with mouth-watering recipes. The pictures and pages have a matte-texture to them that I find both modern and classic.  Combining full color pictures of many of the recipes, alongside black and white family photos, How to Roast a Lamb is like thumbing through a treasured family scrapbook.

The cookbook is organized into the following chapters : My Father’s Garden, Open Water, Dinner, Family Style, My First Recipes, The Hunting Trip, A Lamb and a Goat, Psilakis Birthday Dinners, Kefi – A Time to Dance, Big-Party Cooking, Anthos – The New World, and The Aegean Pantry.  If you’ve read my blog for some time you might quickly realize why I love this book so much.

It relates to the way we naturally eat.

With family, for feasts, with friends, from the fishing basket, and with an emphasis on using homemade, hand-crafted pantry goodies.  It is like it was written for me!

Coming from a family of hunters and fishers myself (with a freezer loaded to prove it) I appreciated Psilakis’ appreciation for and recipes for wild game and fish, along with both traditional Greek fare as well as next generation Greek recipes that you might not expect. (see his venison sausage recipe)

In the chapter entitled, “The Hunting Trip,” Psilakis explains,

“We are so removed from the origins of our food that to see the animal in its natural habitat is to learn a new respect for the food we eat and the people with whom we share our food.  The food is more special because we know where it came from, and the respect that we show for it – by cooking it well, by enjoying it, and by gaining nutrition and life from the animal that gave its life – are part of the Greek culture that most of us don’t get a chance to experience.”

 Michael Psilakis, though I’ve never met him, reminds me of a man’s man.  A Hemingway. One that hunts, fishes, adores his wife, children and mother and is man enough to cry from joy when he dances, in his words, becoming

“consumed by kefi and the spirit and soul of the dance,”

before wiping his eyes, tossing back a glass of metaxa and brandishing his knife to cut up a large cut of meat to serve to his family.

About that Lamb

When I was in elementary school I grew up in a small town in California, affectionately nicknamed, “Lambtown, USA.” You might have guessed, they were known for raising lambs there.  Every year the town hosted a big fair that showcased the best of the community, from FFA animal showings to quilts and jams and always had lots of rides which I looked forward to every year.

The first time I had lamb that I truly relished was at a barbecue hosted in conjunction with the fair.  With rows of charcoal grills underneath the oak trees, the men in their best jeans and button-down shirts manned the grills with an air of nonchalance and experience.  I was maybe only ten at the time, but this barbecue and the lamb I ate there is a taste memory that is as clear today as if I enjoyed that morsel last week.  Succulent and rich, I loved it.  That taste memory, along with the following recipe, inspired me to make lamb for our Easter dinner this year.

In a book entitled How to Roast a Lamb: New Greek Classic Cooking you’d expect a roast lamb recipe, right? Psilakis doesn’t let you down. He actually shares two, the one below along with a whole spit-roasted lamb for “Big-Party Cooking.”  Can’t decide? Check out the book for both!

Roasted Leg of Lamb

from How to Roast a Lamb: New Greek Classic Cooking

serves 6, or more family-style

 Butterflying the lamb gives you options that you don’t have with a bone. A good butcher will be happy to do this for you. Here, I’ve made a very flavorful stuffing from sun-dried tomatoes, which looks great when you carve the roast.  Normally, I don’t see the point of mincing herbs, but rosemary, with its woody sprigs, is hard to eat. If you’re using it only as a flavoring agent, you can just pull the sprigs out at the end, but if you want to eat it – and lamb loves rosemary – it has to be very finely chopped.

For the Stuffing

1-1/2 cups large, plump, sun-dried tomatoes, roughly chopped

1/4 cup oil-cured black olives, pitted

1 teaspoon minced rosemary

Leaves only from 3 small sprigs thyme

1 teaspoon dry Greek oregano

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

15 cloves garlic confit or 1/3 cup garlic puree*

3 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1-1/2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar

About 1 teaspoon cracked black pepper

For the Lamb

3 to 3-1/2 pound boneless leg of lamb, butterflied to flatten, some of the fat trimmed off

Kosher salt and cracked black pepper

Extra-virgin olive oil

1-1/2 cup water

1 Tablespoon Dijon Mustard

1 Tablespoon Garlic Puree or 2 to 3 cloves Garlic Confit*

3 large sprigs rosemary

3 Tablespoons blended oil (90 percent canola,10 percent extra-virgin olive oil)**

In a food processor, combine all of the ingredients for the stuffing and puree to a smooth, thick paste, about 45 to 60 seconds. reserve about 2 Tablespoons of the stuffing.

Lay the lamb out on a work surface with the fattier side down.  Season generously with kosher salt and pepper and spread an even layer of stuffing over it, pressing the stuffing down into the crevices. Drizzle with a little olive oil and roll the lamb up in a spiral, seasoning the fatty side with salt and pepper as you roll. Tie in 3 or 4 places crosswise and 1 or 2 places lengthwise (twist the string around itself 3 times instead of just once before you pull it tight, so it won’t loosen as soon as you let go).  Ideally, allow the meat to sit on a rack, uncovered, in the refrigerator overnight, to dry the surface well and develop all the Greek flavors.

Bring the lamb to room temperature while you preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.  In a small roasting pan, whisk the reserved stuffing with the water, mustard, and Garlic Puree.  Throw in the rosemary sprigs. Place a roasting rack in the pan; the rack should not touch the liquid.

Again, season the lamb on all sides very generously with kosher salt and pepper.  In a large, heavy skillet, warm the oil over medium-high heat. When the oil is very hot, sear the lamb well on all sides, using tongs and leaning the meat up against the side of the pan to sear the thinner sides and cut ends. Transfer the lamb to the rack seam-side up and roast for about 1 hour, basting every 15 minutes with the pan liquid. (When the meat is medium-rare – 140 degrees Fahrenheit – a skewer inserted at the thickest point should feel warm when pressed against your lower lip.)

Rest the meat for about 15 minutes. Slice 1/4-inch-thick-pieces, drizzle with the pan sauce, and finish with a little extra-virgin olive oil.

Optional : Peel and cut a few potatoes into rough wedges, toss with a little olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and throw in the roasting pan.

*Check out the venison sausage recipe on my blog, also from How to Roast a Lamb: New Greek Classic Cooking that features the garlic confit/puree recipe.

**Sarah’s note : I don’t personally use canola oil but this is what the original recipe calls for. If you prefer not to use canola oil try substituting a high-heatable oil like coconut or palm oil or non-hydrogenated leaf lard.

images from How to Roast a Lamb: New Greek Classic Cooking

Outside my Window… it has been beautiful weather but it might get to freezing tonight. Praying that my little plants make it!

I am thinking… and praying about a more focused direction for my blog, my future health coaching, and my life.  Good things are coming. Slowly, prayerfully, but they’re on their way!

I am wearing . . . jeans, black sweater, bare feet. Getting ready to go to bed soon.

From the learning room…Lloyd has been all about math lately.  His favorite ipad app is Rocket Math where he gets to design rockets, name them, and, to build them, has to “earn money” by answering math problems. Then, he gets to launch them.  Win, win for everyone!  He’s surprisingly great at beginning addition.  He starts kindergarten this fall.  Who knew? Luke is loving reading and identifying letters everywhere and Stella has learned to clap and say “Dada,” her first word.

I am thankful… for God’s grace and, I think He has a sense of humor.  Especially with timing. (And no, that is not an announcement; I am not pregnant!  Just bemused.)

From the kitchen… We celebrated Lloyd’s 5th birthday two weeks ago and it has basically been a gluten-fest since.  Cupcakes for preschool, cake and pizza (and ice cream, see the happiest boys ever, for proof) for his birthday,

then baking for a MOPS bake sale, and a carrot cake for Easter.  I feel sluggish and unwell.  Gluten is not my friend, even if I love baking. Tomorrow the gluten and sugar detox begins anew for me. Green smoothies are my new best friend.

And in our garden . . . pea plants are rising from the earth along with red leafed lettuce, curly kale and a few tiny sprigs of rainbow chard! We also planted ten berry plants this past Saturday (four raspberry, three blueberry and three blackberry) along with two pink hydrangea bushes.  I’m excited! I’ve been working toward building up our perrenial permaculture around the garden and berries have been on the list for a few years, I’m excited we finally got some in the ground!  In other news, the lilacs are blooming and gorgeous!

I am creating… a happy family.

I am reading…. a lot of everything in supremely random ways.  I’ve been enjoying reading Dr. John Douillard’s books on Ayurveda, and am currently reading Perfect Health for Kids: Ten Ayurvedic Health Secrets Every Parent Must Know, just started 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess, and I am exploring the Golden Ratio/Phi through research online, along with researching the lymphatic system and am excited to pick up Earthing: The Most Important Health Discovery Ever? from the library tomorrow. Random, I know.

What are you reading these days?

I am hearing. . . baby chicks cheeping as T. fills up their water for the night.

Around the house… Baby chicks have taken over our guest room.  I’m excited to move them out to their coop in a few weeks!  And boys growing bigger and bigger. I can’t believe I have a five year old! Doesn’t he look like a little man?

One of my favorite things…sleep!  Stella has been only waking up once a night for the last two nights.  It’s been heavenly!  Hoping this is a trend that continues . . .

A Few Plans and Prayer Intentions For The Rest Of The Week …

• Pray for guidance, patience and grace
• Pray for strength as I sugar and gluten detox.
• Lilacs!

Thank you to Peggy for hosting! Please go visit other daybooks here . . .

We have Buff Orpington’s, Barred Rocks, Silver Laced Wyandotte’s and Ameraucanas.
Welcome Home Babies!

Love at First Sight

I picked up Salad as a Meal: Healthy Main-Dish Salads for Every Season on a whim at the library recently.  It looked like my kind of book.  Along with Dorie Greenspan and Georgeanne Brennan, Patricia Wells is one of my favorite modern  French cookbook authors. I either own, or habitually borrow from the library my favorite books of theirs over and over and re-read them like I re-read my favorite novels; every few years or so I have to revisit them for renewed inspiration.

So I brought it home and began to browse through it after the kids were in bed.  Within a few minutes I had to set the book down and rummage through the junk drawer. I was in search of my stash of mini post-it notes (one of my favorite things!) and began to note the recipes that looked delicious. By the end of the book, I’d run out.

There were just too many recipes I had to try.

Along with the salad recipes she includes recipes for appetizers and sides, soups, breads, 14 dressings (can you say “Lime & Vanilla Dressing?” Doesn’t that sound remarkable?) and pantry items as varied as lemon zest sea salt (featured in the dressing, below), homemade curry powder, quick lemon confit and brine-cured black olives.  I’m sure that Ms.Wells’ kitchen cupboards and refrigerator are packed full, as are mine, with little jars of hand-crafted yumminess; we’d get along splendidly!

Would I recommend Salad as a Meal?

Wholeheartedly. I love it’s range from salads with eggs to fish to oxtails and recipes for every season, her wine suggestions and the introductions she makes to each recipe.

A tip I particularly enjoyed from her introduction notes that,

“if one is enjoying a wine with the salad as a meal, the less vinegar in the dressing the better, since vinegar can kill the flavor of even the most modest of wines.  Rather, go for a light salad dressing with a lemon, buttermilk, yogurt, or light cream base.”

The cookbook is organized well and features beautiful, crisp photography.  In fact, I’ll be very sad the day I have to return it to the library, removing all my little sticky-notes from recipes I want to try after renewing it as many times as they will let me. . . it is certainly one I will consider adding to my permanent library.

There once was a girl who wore XtraTuf’s . . . and a recipe

There’s a funny story related to the recipe I chose to feature from Salad as a Meal: Healthy Main-Dish Salads for Every Season . . . starting my senior year of high school and through college, during the summers I worked for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

I did not work in an office, I was out in the field, as a Fish Tech II.

I worked out of a little mobile trailer on a beach that saw a lot of traffic with commercial fishing charters going in and out for King Salmon and halibut trips, along with people clamming for Razor Clams.  I wore XtraTuf boots with a fillet knife on my belt every day, chest waders and a rain coat most days, and rode four wheelers from boat to boat, climbing into their holds to check their catch upon their return.

We were studying King Salmon, but I often had to grab, with both hands, around the tails of the sixty to eighty pound halibuts they’d also caught that day, and sluice the halibut down to the end of the hold to get an accurate count of the salmon caught earlier and trapped underneath, before the weight of the halibut and the slime of the fish shot it back my direction.

We knew the charter captains and their crews, saw them go through two loads of clients most days, and, though they pretended to be gruff, most of them were teddy bears underneath their grizzly exteriors.

A few times a season, after a particularly good catch, they’d knock on the door to our trailer and hand over a gallon sized bag or two of halibut cheeks and fillets from that day’s catch.  The choice cuts? Always the cheeks.

We’d cook them simply for our lunch, dredging them in cornmeal and frying them up on the two-burner stove in the old travel trailer.  Eaten piping hot, sweet and buttery soft, with one’s fingers off of a paper plate?  Unbeatable.

And when I saw that Patricia had included a mouthwatering recipe for halibut cheeks (gluten-free, at that!), though there are others that I’ve bookmarked for future meals (like the Salmon and Avocado Tartare with Cucumber Ribbons, Warm Asian Shrimp Salad with Kaffir Lime Dust,  Walter’s Lime and Lemon grass Cured Beef Salad or the Winter Oxtail Salad with Cornichons and Capers, to name but a few) I knew that this was the one I had to share.  I hope you make it, and then seek out her gorgeous book to try the rest!

Halibut Cheeks with Polenta and Parmesan Crust and Asian Greens

from Salad as a Meal: Healthy Main-Dish Salads for Every Season

serves 4

Fish cheeks are extremely tender, tasty morsels.  They are light and have a fine, firm texture. In fact, many people consider the cheeks the best part of the fish, due to their concentrated sweetness.The flavor is delicate, and so a minimum of embellishment is called for here. If fish cheeks are not available, the same method can be used with any freshfillets cut into 3-inch squares or with fresh scallops. In our house in Provence, this is a regular after-the-Tuesday-market salad. I like to serve the fish on a bed of Asian greens from our garden, a flavorful, tender mix of tatsoi, mizuna, and red mustard greens.

• 2 large eggs
• 1/4 cup quick-cooking polenta
• 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
• 1/4 teaspoon ground piment d’Espelette or other ground mild chile pepper
• 4 cups mixed salad greens, such as tatsoi, red mustard, and mizuna
• Fleur de Sel
• 8 fish cheeks (preferably halibut, about 1 pound total)
• 2 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• Fresh lemon wedges, for garnish
• Lemon and Olive Oil dressing (see below recipe for ingredients and details)

Break the eggs into a sieve set over a shallow bowl. Press the eggs through the sieve. (This will help make an even-textured coating.) Combine the polenta and cheese in another shallow bowl. Season the polenta mixture with the piment d’Espelette.

Place the salad greens in a large bowl. Dress with just enough dressing to lightly and evenly coat the greens. Taste for seasoning.

Dip the fish cheeks in the egg, and then dredge themin the polenta mixture. Place them on a large plate.

In a large skillet, heat the oil over moderate heat.When the oilishot but not smoking, add the coated fish cheeks and cook until they are golden and cooked through, about 2 minutes per side. Season with fleur de sel.

Mound the salad on dinner plates. Arrange 2 fish cheeks on top of each salad. Serve immediately, with the lemon wedges for garnish.

WINE SUGGESTION : A white Cotes-du-Rhone

Lemon and Olive Oil Dressing

• 1/4 teaspoon Lemon Zest Salt or fine sea salt to taste (Mix 1 Tablespoon grated lemon zest to 1 Tablespoon fine sea salt to make Lemon Zest Salt)
• 1 Tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

In a small jar with a lid, combine the salt and lemon juice. Cover the lid and shake to blend. Add the oil and shake once more. Taste for seasoning.  The dressing can be used immediately. (Store the dressing the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Shake to blend again before using.)

We’ve been praying about it.

Researching it. Planning for it.

And now it’s happening.

I’ve enrolled at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition®.

In one year I will be a certified Holistic Health Coach.

And I can’t wait!

A little back story. . .

The week after Thanksgiving an old friend came to visit for the weekend.  She’s in the middle of getting her medical degree and we chatted about all kinds of things from health to family to faith over a glass of wine one evening.  She asked me where I saw myself once the little ones were in school. Something I’ve actually been thinking a lot about lately.

I told her that I didn’t really want to go back to what I used to do, working 40-50 hour weeks with lots of evening networking events to attend.  Not now, not with small children.

And, at the same time, I think I’d go crazy puttering around an empty house until school was over each afternoon. Yes, I could clean.  I could volunteer. But I wanted to do something more.

If I was going to go back to work, I said, and I had the luxury to choose, I really wanted to do something I was passionate about.  I told her my dream job, “you know, kind of like a life coach for people who want to get healthy and don’t know where to start.  But I don’t want to go back to school for years to become a dietician.  That, and I want to be able to manage my own time, allowing flexibility for family needs.”  I’m a mother first, after all.

And, I admitted, I don’t know if that job is even out there!

I thought it was just wishful thinking.

That next week, somehow, (God driven, I know) I clicked on a link somewhere (I don’t even know from where or how I got there) and found myself looking at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition’s website.  I didn’t search for it, I just found myself looking at it.  Then reading it.  Then reading some more.  Talk about God answering prayers!  Here was that exact “dream job” I had been yearning for, and here was how to go about getting it.

Thank you, Lord!

I waited for a few months.  Read every page on the site, visited their “success stories” websites.  Read a few of the books written by a few of their speakers.  Researched alternative coaching curriculum.  Googled it to make sure it wasn’t a scam. But I kept coming back to realizing it was the best place for me.

And then I got a scholarship that would allow our family to pay for it easily.  And I realized it was time.  I enrolled last week and classes start in a few weeks.  I can’t wait!

What will I be learning?

Everything!  What I really like about the Institute for Integrative Nutrition is that it teaches the concept of bio-individuality in that not one diet works for everyone.  I’ll be listening to and learning from speakers and proponents of a variety of diets, literally, over 100, from raw to vegan to WAPF and Ayurvedic, and that knowledge will allow me to better serve my clients and their individual needs in the future.  Some of my classmates are vegan, I’m pro-Paleo for my personal diet, but none of that matters, we all have the same goals in mind; to help people find health.  In addition to simply diet, I’ll also be focusing on other factors in our lives that affect one’s well-being and learning how to coach individuals to find their best self.

I am so excited to begin this journey!

I’ve so enjoyed being a health & wellness foodie blogger (and plan to continue to be, don’t worry!), but sometimes it seems a bit one-sided.  I’m here on my end of the computer writing posts, getting a few comments here and there, but not sure how or if my material is helping others. As a holistic health coach, I’m really looking forward to helping people on an individual basis.

 Want to know more? 

I’ll keep you updated on my progress and let you know when I’ll be able to begin seeing clients (about six months from now!  Want to be one of my first?) and share my new coaching website when it’s up, but if you’re curious about the program for yourself, click on the link below to get a free book, or shoot me an e-mail with questions (sarahsmusings at gmail dot com) and I’ll be happy to help!

Disclosure : I am an IIN™ Ambassador and would love to help you decide if IIN is the right place for you. Reading the book above and clicking around the site is a good first step! More questions?  E-mail me!

• An interesting article/book review by Food Renegade on Earthing.  a.k.a. Grounding yourself with the earth electromagnetically.  I know, sounds kooky, but I’ve really been wanting to read this book! I’m intrigued!
• Children are people too.  Loved this short post on public parenting from, my friend-in-real-life, Kelly.

Happy Links

• I’ve been known to be pretty selective with my (personal) facebook friends.  (Not you, though!  Not those who like heartland Renaissance on facebook!  Just the people I know InRealLife!  And yes, Kelly, above, is one of those IRL facebook friends I actually treasure!)  It is very easy for me to unsubscribe or remove certain feeds from my news.  Read this on the days when you feel too linked in to everyone you’ve ever known.  TMI.  Seriously. Sometimes I just don’t want to know.  
• So.  Do you have the time to watch a movie?  One that will capture your attention? Check out Starwars Uncut.  My favorite clips are the ones where a family plays the parts, including babies and toddlers.  Awesome.

And Food!

• I know I’m all about the green smoothies and green juice, but, it’s gotten cold again.  This green soup for cleansing from Holistic Kid sounds perfect for cold-weather breakfasts.  Call me strange, but I think it’d be great with some leftover salmon on the side!
• We went to kindergarten round-up at our local school last week.  Can you believe I’m going to have a kindergartener?  It’s shocking.  So, I’m on the lookout for healthy lunch ideas.  I’m loving the advice and ideas from Paleo Parents! via Primal Kitchen.
• And on the menu for this weekend, to be slow-cooked in my favorite dutch oven, Dutch Oven Garlic-Rosemary-Studded Venison Rump (though we’ll be using elk).  Yum!
• Oh, and another one I can’t resist – Flank Steak Braciole stuffed with winter greens.  This looks like a stunner!

We’ve gone Paleo.

And it’s really been working.  T. and I have both lost weight (and continue to do so, steadily).  My IBS symptoms are gone.  Inflammation I felt in my lower back, gone.

We’re sleeping better.  Feeling better. More energy. More patience. Improved mood.

It’s been pretty amazing.

So what is Paleo?  How do I do it? Why should I do it?

Well.  I’m not going to tell you.  I’m still a novice myself.  Instead, I’m going to refer you to the upcoming FREE Paleo Summit. 

Hosted by Sean Croxton, an excellent blogger/vlogger/podcaster and founder of Underground Wellness, which I’ve secretly been reading for the past several months, Sean has put together an amazing resource for those curious about the Paleo Scene.

He’s interviewed 24 researchers, doctors and diet experts and is providing the content free, online, for 8 days.

What do I have to do?

All you have to do is register here to watch the videos.  Two videos, with Mark Sisson and Gary Taubes, are available immediately upon registration, and the remainder will be uploaded, three per day, from February 26 – March 4th.  The leading Paleo doctors, diet experts and bloggers are in the queue.  If you’re curious, check out the line-up before you choose to register.

You can’t lose with this offer. It’s free. And all you’ll gain is knowledge.  What you do with that knowledge is up to you.

I’m looking forward to listening in.  How about you?

Please note that I am an affiliate for the Paleo Summit.  Clicking on links in this post or on my blog may earn me a commission.