Hello blog-land- it has been a while, hasn’t it. When I started blogging less and less, I always wondered if eventually I would hit a “blog-craving” – you know, when you are looking your blog and you think “I really want to post.” I did occasionally, because I like sharing things about life, gluten-free vegan food, travel, and sundry topics… and then I would post about it on Instagram.  Interestingly, I had semi-sort-of foreshadowed all of this almost exactly three years ago too: Looking at the last few weeks and ahead at the next few weeks, it is likely that posts here will continue to be sporadic, so I encourage you to follow me on Instagram in addition to this site.

I remember when I was blogging actively, I could not imagine not blogging.  And back then, I could also not imagine cooking more elaborate interesting meals. Yet, fast forward a few years, and I most definitely have done both things. There have been (too many) weeks of spinach salad with hemp seeds, smoothies, lara bars, red lentils cooked with turmeric, baked tofu, rinse and repeat.  2016 was the height of food simplicity, but 2016, along with 2015, are the two years I have worked the hardest in my life. In 2016 alone, I had 17 to 19 work trips, depending on whether you count by cities or by times I was out of DC).  Oddly, though, I kept at my 5 workouts/yoga classes a week, and eating gluten-free and vegan, sticking to at least one green smoothie or green juice a day.  That’s a post for another day, but looking back to some blog entries in the past (like this one), moving did not always come so naturally to me, yet now I take it for granted.

Fast forward to today. 2017 is a little more balanced in some ways.  Back in January, I decided to post an average of 1 instagram a day and see if eventually I would want to blog again. I called it my January plan, and kind of forgot about it. So some combination of that plan, and/or 2017 being a bit more balanced, might be why today, of all days, I truly wanted to put a post out there.  I suspect the craving will hit again at some point (I have several post ideas percolating), but in the meantime, there’s always instagram – I think of it as mini-blogging.  Even if you don’t have instagram, you can always look at it without having an account.

Choosing Raw: Making Raw Foods Part of the Way You Eat is an amazing new book by Gena Hamshaw who, among many endeavors, writes Choosing Raw, one of  my very favorite vegan food blogs. In this recently released book, Gena shares her infectious enthusiasm for raw cuisine, inspires us with beautiful and creative raw recipes complemented with cooked recipes, and provides guidance on how to easily add more raw vegan foods to your life. 

In addition to the recipes – which I can assure you are very good, having tested over 50 of the 125 recipes included, and tried several of the others as well, the book provides a simple path to health and wellness. Gena draws from a mainstream, scientifically sound perspective on healthy living, and makes a vegan diet with many raw options feel easy instead of intimidating.  The majority of the recipes are easy to make, and naturally gluten-free for my fellow gluten-free friends (or easily modified – i.e. things like replacing shoyu with gluten-free tamari, or substituting gluten-free bread for the tartine and avocado toast recipes).  

First, though, full disclosure – Gena is a dear friend. In fact, long-time readers know Gena and I became friends several years ago, initially through our blogs, and ultimately being neighbors in DC the last couple of years.  Over the years, we have shared many meals and moments of hilarity, as well as the less-fun-bits-of-life-that-don’t-always-make-it-to-our-blogs. There have been birthdays and other celebrations (with cupcakes, more cupcakes and, did I mention cupcakes), potlucks, food sharing, juice pulp sharing (cue more hilarity), and many SweetGreen salads(recap of the first).

Choosing Raw, both the book and the blog, is quintessentially Gena – thoughtful, compassionate, inspiring and humble and, at the same time, informative, warm, and sensible.  Like the blog, the book is also beautifully written.  I initially found Choosing Raw just under five years ago, not long after Gena had begun blogging.  After overhauling my diet and going gluten-free/dairy-free/egg-free (I was not vegan at the time, though was leaning that way), I started dabbling in raw foods to increase my repertoire since many raw recipes are naturally gluten-free as well as vegan.  The food was great, but the raw foodie rhetoric did not sit well with me.  Lots of talk of cleansing, toxicity, and “all or nothing” approaches around raw eating. I loved the creativity of the recipes but was not running across many raw foodies I could relate to. 

Enter Choosing Raw, the blog – at the time, Gena was an editor in New York and working long hours, and I could immediately relate to her enthusiasm for raw foods balanced with a solid dose of pragmatism in light of her heavy work schedule.  A few years later, Choosing Raw, the book, maintains that same balance – Gena writes about being a raw foods enthusiast and provides guidance on how to add more raw vegan foods to your diet in a completely judgment-free, relatable way. The book is chock-full of information on leading a vegan lifestyle, how raw foods can be beneficial (regardless of whether you want to adopt a raw-leaning lifestyle), and then introduces you to the food using an approach of building blocks.

The building blocks approach to the 125 recipes begins with the Essentials – lots of easy recipes for satisfying meal-sized salads, soups, spreads, crackers, snacks, desserts, and breakfasts, followed by the Tried and True section – then Something New, followed by Brave New World, which leans to the all-raw or high-raw.  The book concludes with Desserts for Everyone, like the No-Bake Tartlet with Raw Vegan Chocolate Ganache (p. 243) you see below.

I mentioned above, as one of the recipe testers for the book, I tested 50 of the 125 recipes. Even more importantly, my husband tried all 50 of them. He is not vegan and, unlike me, does not think green smoothies are a way of life.  He also does not love hummus and quinoa anywhere near as much as me, though he likes certain vegan entrees and salads, regularly eats kale or spinach salads topped with hemp seeds, and often suggests zucchini noodles as a dinner option.  That said, he also eats meat, cheese, pizza and dairy/egg based desserts, and his palate is far more mainstream than mine, but he found the majority of the Choosing Raw recipes he tried very good, and put the remaining ones in the category of  “this is new, interesting, and might grow on me.”  This should not be a surprise to me as an early Choosing Raw recipe for kale chips (and the inspiration of the kale chip recipes in the book) is known as the magical kale chips recipe in our household.  They were the first kale chips my husband liked and now, a couple of years later, he eats a wider variety of kale chips than he originally would have sampled.     

My experience working through the Choosing Raw recipe testing process with my husband sampling and opining on the recipes really confirmed my opinion of the accessibility of the book’s recipes to anyone, regardless of their palate or preferences. Whether you are looking to add a few delectable salad and smoothie recipes to your repertoire or change your diet completely, Choosing Raw is a fantastic resource.  It also works very well for a couple or household like mine – i.e. where one person is vegan and/or raw and the other eats a more mainstream diet – because the recipes can work for both.  For example, you could make a dinner of Curried Chickpea Salad (p. 162, part of the Tried and True  section), with a Raw Cobb Salad (p. 145, Meal-Sized Salads), and Gazpacho (p.180, Something New) and address multiple palates and dietary preferences.

The photos I share in this post are of Mango Coconut Chia Pudding (p. 172, part of the intermediate Something New section) and the Chocolate Acai Bowl (p.209, Brave New World), both of which happen to be favorite breakfast or anytime snacks.  I am also sharing photos of the Coconut Curry Kelp Noodle (p. 223, Brave New World) and of the No-Bake Tartlet with Raw Vegan Chocolate Ganache (p. 243, Desserts for Everyone), which never cease to impress people, vegan or not.  There are several kelp noodle recipes in the book, and all have Asian-inspired flavor profiles – so I often pair them with veggie sushi.

Below I share a recipe from Choosing Raw for the Avocado Black Bean Breakfast Scramble (p. 178, Something New) – if there ever was a recipe that made me believe that raw vegan foods can appeal to a palate as mainstream as my husband’s this was it.  You will note it serves 4, but we finished the whole recipe between the two of us as dinner the first time we tried it.  The Avocado Black Bean Scramble has become a staple for us, as have the Heat-Free Lentil and Walnut Tacos (p. 191, also Something New), the Zucchini Pasta with Mango, Avocado and Black Bean Salsa (p. 216,  Brave New World) and the Pumpkin Quinoa Risotto with Pomegranate Seeds (p. 195, Something New).  

Avocado Black Bean Breakfast Scramble
Makes 4 Servings

2 large avocados (about 12 ounces), peeled and, pitted, and diced into 3⁄4-inch chunks
1 1⁄2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
1⁄4 teaspoon sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 1⁄2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 large carrot, grated (about 1⁄2 cup)
1⁄3 cup diced red onion
1⁄2 cup minced fresh parsley
1 cup cooked black beans
8 lettuce or cabbage leaves
4 slices sprouted-grain bread (optional)
1. Place the avocados in a large mixing bowl and, using a fork, mash them lightly with the lime juice, sea salt, pepper, and nutritional yeast.
2. Add the pepper, carrot, onion, parsley, and beans. Mix well, until the avocado resembles a “scramble” and the veggies are distributed evenly.
3. Scoop into lettuce or cabbage leaves and serve (about two per person). You can also eat this piled high on sprouted-grain toast.
To keep leftovers fresh, sprinkle them with lemon juice before storing in an airtight container in the fridge. Kept this way, the hash should last for 2 days.

From Choosing Raw by Gena Hamshaw. Reprinted with permission from Da Capo Lifelong, © 2014.

Gena, it feels like only yesterday that you moved to DC, or when we had this long discussion regarding eating disorders and the executive woman, or many of the other discussions we have had over the years.  It has been such fun having you as my upstairs neighbor, and not just because I got to try even more of the book recipes than I made myself (though that was certainly lovely).  Congratulations again on a beautiful book! 

A couple of years ago, I was in Boston for work and, at the time, wanted to come back for a vacation.  Having gone to college near Boston, I always like to visit, but two years ago I was especially aware of how much the city had changed and wanted to see some of the changes.  The opportunity to come back finally presented itself in the form of a wedding my husband and I attended last week in central Massachusetts – we drove back to Boston, but rather than flying out that day, we stayed an extra day in Boston – if you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen many of these pictures. 
 

We stayed at the Fairmont Battery Wharf (the same place I stayed at two years ago) and made the most of our short time in Boston – first with a long walk through the North End, the Downtown Waterfront and parts of the Financial District.  The amount of green spaces in Boston has truly grown – from Christopher Columbus Park (the two pictures above)  to the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway (the two pictures below) – that part of the city has seen an increase in parks. 

Dinner that night was Wagamama at Faneuil Hall:

We discovered a chocolate store, Boston Cocoanuts, with multiple raw and vegan options.

The next day, I made it to a barre class, and afterwards, we tried a new way to get to the airport – a water taxi – and it was a really good idea.  The views were fantastic and there was no bad traffic:

I even managed to take a decent selfie:

It was a nice Boston minute!

So it has been pretty quiet around these parts.  My resolution to blog more in 2014 has not exactly happened as I expected.  I feel like I blinked three times and it became mid-March, and yet I feel like it was just the end of January.   

I did end up deciding what to do about resolutions – I went with a variation of simply having fun, loving one’s self more, and eating more chocolate – mine is having fun, loving myself more, eating more dark chocolate, and focusing on connecting and reconnecting with people.  The connecting part was something that I have been thinking about a lot the last few months – life just goes by so so fast, and one way to make it pause is to connect with myself and with others. The reconnecting part of these resolutions is because several long-time friends and acquaintances have reappeared in the last few months, and it has been really wonderful to catch up.  It has also made me think of how to use all the different ways we communicate today to stay in touch with people.  I am dedicated to email – it is my favorite – but I often get behind on it, and am starting to see the benefits of using multiple modes of communication to be in touch with someone.

And speaking of communication, I also got an iPhone – after years of wanting one – and finally joined Instagram … to say I am obsessed with Instagram is kind of an understatement. I remember when twitter came out, there was a lot of talk of micro-blogging, but somehow I never could see twitter as micro-blogging – it might be the limit on the number of characters, or the fact a twitter timeline is so text-heavy. Instagram seems to solve all these problems, and has been really great for days I do not want to pull out my camera, but still want to share with all of you. 

Like this morning – I made very basic pancakes (with garbanzo fava bean flour, water and vanilla extract), and topped them with a cranberry fruit sauce and a strawberry chia fruit sauce and maple syrup. Part of me really wanted to blog the whole meal – it was that pretty – but both my husband and I were hungry and brunch had already taken too long to prepare, so I instagrammed instead:

As it turns out, the pancakes were good, but not great (super basic meant the texture was a little dry) so I would not have written up the recipe anyways.  Also, today’s brunch, as nice as it was, made me miss Karyn’s on Green – brunch there in December was definitely a vegan food highlight for me.  But anyways, Instagram provided the best of both worlds in that I got to share how pretty the meal was (yes, that’s a banana spinach smoothie on the side) but could do in a micro-blog way, rather than a traditional blogging way. Also, interestingly, I find myself tweeting more than I used to, likely because of my comfort with Instagram.

Looking at the last few weeks and ahead at the next few weeks, it is likely that posts here will continue to be sporadic, so I encourage you to follow me on Instagram in addition to this site.

Hello from snowy Washington, DC.  My office was closed today so I worked from home.  And did #snowga:

(Photo courtesy of Tranquilspace & Kimberly Wilson)

One thing I really appreciate about living in downtown DC is that as long as you can climb over the (badly ploughed) banks of snow, you can generally get in some movement – gyms, yoga studios and other boutique fitness studios may have reduced hours, but they tend to open.  At this point, #snowga (or #hurricaneyoga back in 2012) has become a tradition. So, after a morning of calls and drafting, it was refreshing to take a short walk and indulge in some yoga.  Aside from yoga that my day involved work, catching up with a dear friend who also happens to be a neighbor, and hopefully (assuming I finish this last project of the day soon) a little bit of me time.  I am so very grateful that, despite the extreme weather, I am warm,cozy, did yoga, still have power and internet.  So tell me – did you have a snow day? And what are you grateful for?

6.10am – The alarm on my phone rings. I don’t want to move. At least it is already around 30F (-1C) instead of in the single digits.  Also it is raining. Hard.  Still rain > snow in my book, so I can live with that.

6.25am – I am out of bed. I am freezing so immediately put on a fleece hat.  I know as long as I am out the door by 6.45am I will make it to 7am yoga. I brush my teeth, change into yoga clothes, take my thyroid medication, and put saline drops in my eyes. I save my prescription eye drops for later as I am not planning to wear contacts today. 

6.46am – I bundle up and am out the door.  I am grateful for warm rainboots and my bright pink umbrella.   

6.52am – I arrive at my local yoga studio, check in, and lay out my mat.  The same 20 to 30 people come to the morning classes. People rarely chat, but there is a nice sense of kinship.  Today there are only about 12 people in class. I love early morning yoga for many reasons, and the feeling of spaciousness in the room is one of them. 

7am – Yoga class begins.  I follow the practice exactly as taught by the teacher until 7.45am and then switch to restorative pauses and start savasana a couple of minutes earlier than the class.  I do not tend to get to restorative yoga classes as much as I used to, so always try to end my practice with a few minutes of restorative yoga poses.  It is still pouring hard and I can hear the rain on the skylights during savanasa.

8.02am – Reluctantly roll up my mat and put it away into the cubby where it lives at the studio.  Members get yoga mat cubbies labeled with their names.  Then, I bundle up. 

8.06am – I am on my way home. I am technically already late, as I have from 8am to 8.35am to get home from yoga, showered, ready and back out the door to work.  Making myself walk fast always seems contradictory with the slow vinyasa flow of the yoga classes I go to.

8.12am – I am home and immediately jump into the shower. For days like this, I do not bother with a full shampoo routine. I rely on Everyone Soap for Everyone so I can just reach for one shampoo and body wash.  I use unscented, but have been eyeing the lavender version. 

8.20am – I am out of the shower and get dressed.  I wear a suit or a jacket/skirt combination every day because of the dress code at my job.  Technically the dress code requires a full suit (ie same color on top and bottom) but days where I do not have any meetings out of the office, I tend to wear a jacket/skirt combination.  Today is one of those days, so I pull out an old favorite combination – black skirt with black top and black/grey pinstriped jacket.My husband is packing his lunch and slicing apples for both of us.

8.28am – I grab my lunch and put it in my purse.  The night before early morning yoga, I try very hard to pack lunch.  I also grab my sliced apple and some raw almonds and homemade hemp milk for breakfast. I finish the hemp milk and almonds but end up packing half of the apple as I am running out of time.  I also take my morning supplements and pack my prescription eye drops.

8.36 – I am out the door. Usually my husband and I walk together until I get to my subway stop and then he walks on to his job.  in the morning, I walk one subway station further than the one closest to where I live. It is a way to get some fresh air plus that particular metro station is way less crowded than the one right by where I live.  Neither of us are particularly talkative in the morning until we leave the apartment, but usually being outside makes us more talkative.  During our walk we chat about the Superbowl, which was last night. 

9am – I arrive at work, put in eye drops while listening to my voicemail, go over my to do list, have a couple of conference calls, and before I know it it is …

1.15pm – Lunchtime.  I have about 3-4 cups of baby spinach with Emily’s peanut sauce, as well as some chickpeas and raw almonds . The raw almonds were for a late morning snack, but I completely missed that window to eat.  I read a document while eating.

3.50pm – I start thinking about my game plan for the evening.  I find that if I think about what I want to get accomplished before I get home, that increases the likelihood of it happening.  

6.45pm – Leave work and take subway home.  I am starving and it is still rainy and very cold. 

7.12pm – Arrive home.  Decide against plan green smoothie for dinner because the dampness outside chilled me, so I decide to make soup instead.  I throw crushed tomatoes, cashews, lemon juice, the last of my husband’s salsa (from the Superbowl the previous day) and some salt into the blender.  It looks like I have about three servings, so I put one serving into a jar for lunch tomorrow.  I then reheat the two remaining servings of tomato soup on the stove before stirring in baby spinach leaves to wilt down.  I also brown tofu cubes in a separate, non-stick, pan.  The browned tofu cubes serve as croutons.  My husband makes us basic baby romaine salads with lemon juice, olive oil and chopped red onions.

7.40pm – This whole meal took 25 minutes to make.  This makes me happy.  Right before we sit down to eat, I remember the white beans that have been soaking for over 24 hours.  I rinse them and put them in the rice cooker, along with water.  I set the rice cooker to its slow cooker setting and sit down to eat.

7.45pm – I eat dinner with my husband (who has the same dinner as me) and we talk about our days.  I know soup is not his favorite food, so I limited the amount of tomato broth I gave him and piled on the spinach and tofu.  Nevertheless, he enjoys it.  We eat sitting on the couch as we were intending to watch something on Tivo, but never get around to it.  When we are done eating, my husband does the dishes.  

8.20pm – I am quickly becoming one with the couch.  I have my IPad and a blanket and do not want to move.  I answer a few work emails that have come in since I left the office, but otherwise work is pretty quiet tonight.  Unlike my day in January, today was a pretty typical at-the-office day.

8.50pm – I tear myself off the couch and promise myself I only have to do household organization stuff for an hour.  I start putting away the ever growing pile of professional wear that has been living on a chair for over a week, and also fold laundry (we did several loads the day before).  My husband has folded most of his.  I also run a load of clothes in the washer (the laundry room is in the basement of our building). I pick that particular load because it not require any time in the dryer.

9.30pm – The washer cycle ends. I walk downstairs and get the load of laundry and bring it back to the apartment.  I hang up most of it on a drying rack and the last of it in the bathroom.  I then go back to folding dry laundry from the day before.

9.50pm – An hour is up! I put the Good Wife on through Amazon streaming and fold a bit more laundry while I still have some momentum.

10.10pm – I am so over folding laundry (it seems to multiply) that I just stop. 

10.35pm – I remember the white beans – the timer had chimed right about when I was hanging clothes in the bathroom.  Fortunately, once the slow cooker cycle is done, my rice cooker has another setting for keeping its contents warm without cooking them.  I portion out 4 cups of the white beans into plastic containers for freezing, and put the rest into a glass container to refrigerate for the rest of the week.  I had wanted to make white bean hummus with some of the warm beans but have no motivation.  I leave the containers to cool on the counter and return to watching the Good Wife. 

10.55pm – I have gotten completely sucked into the Good Wife (I am nearing the end of Season 1)  but then I remember I want to go to yoga tomorrow morning, so need to get my lunch assembled. I add some of the newly cooked white beans to my jar of tomato soup.  I also pack a two cup pyrex for reheating the soup (I like my soup really warm and I am not sure my recycled nut butter jar can withstand several minutes in the microwave) and a container of spinach to add to the soup.  I also pack a container of raw almonds and some walnuts, as well as small jar of hemp milk (I find hemp milk to be a great snack). I then proceed to putter around the apartment, completely ignoring my aspiration to be in bed by 10.30pm or 11pm. I write a few notes in anticipation of writing this post. I also realize I have no relevant pictures, so decide to use a page from an art journal a couple of years ago.

11.20pm – I decide it is high time to go to sleep.  Actually, I don’t, but my husband starts turning off the lights and pointing out it is late and I just said I want to go to yoga in the morning.  I brush my teeth, put in eye drops and wash my face. 

11.35pm – Lights out.

As January draws to a close (where did it go?) I have thought a lot about what I want to do this year in term of goals / resolutions / themes.  Initially I had a long ambitious list of things I want to accomplish – but that was more of a checklist, which, to me at least, is not the point of New Year’s reflections.  Then I thought of picking a word for the year, or a theme, like I did a few years ago, or perhaps monthly goals.  I was still undecided, but then it all started clicking when I read Shirley’s comment: 

So far the resolutions that are appealing to me the very most are simply having fun, loving one’s self more, and eating more chocolate. Sadly, none of those were my own ideas, but I’m thinking that if I embrace them, a lot of things that have been on my “to do” list for a long time are going to “magically” fall into place

I love this idea, which I am adopting, but I want a little more … structure? Maybe a framework? So right now (the next-to-last day of January), I am almost settled on the idea of a word per month – it seems to bring all these concepts together.  I am starting to think that November this year might need to be #noexcusesnovember, so that I actually do some of this thinking before the following year begins, as opposed to starting this process during January, but in the meantime I want to do a little more thinking on that.

One thing I did decide on in January is that this year I want to do a day-in-the-life post every month of 2014. I love reading other bloggers’ day-in-the-life – I find these posts fascinating, but it also occurred to me that I would love to look back on my own days-in-my-life at some point, however mundane.

Unlike my old job at a law firm, my days now tend to vary more.  While the majority of my days are still at-the-office days, I do have days of meetings out of the office, like today yesterday.  Those tend to happen quarterly, sometimes monthly.  They also seem to tend to cluster in the same week, like this week.  Below was my day today yesterday:

5.45am – Alarm goes off.  This is earlier than usual but I have to be out the door by 6.45am/7am today.  Like every day this last month, I immediately check the weather. Today it  might break 30F (-1C), absolute and real-feel, but currently it is in the single digits, even without the wind.  I know it is way colder in other parts of the country, but still, I am so over the weather in DC. 

5.55.am – I finally get out of bed, put in my morning eye drops, take my thyroid medication, brush my teeth and then sit for a few minutes. I wish I could be one of these people who bounds out of bed, but even at my best-rested, I usually have 15 minutes of “coming on line” sitting up.  I have tried to meditate in that time, and should probably try that again. 

6.10am – Super-hot shower, which is the best way for me to wake up.  While shampooing, I debate the merits of skirt versus pants – I have skirts and pants for most of my suits, including the suit I plan to wear today.  When it is this cold, I prefer skirts with tights with warm boots (I rotate a couple of vegan Earth pairs that are warm and wonderful) but I want to avoid having to switch shoes when I get to my out-of-the office meeting. My purse is going to be so full, and boots take up space.  

Sometimes I think I spend a lot of time thinking how to lighten my always-enormous purse.  I decide to go with the pantsuit option, mainly because I am sick of wearing skirts and do not want to carry my boots around, plus it is far warmer today than it has been for weeks. I do not usually lay out my suit the night before, but since this was an early morning, I did some prep ahead of time.

6.20am -  Shower done, hair combed into place (I never blow-dry, always air-dry), I get dressed. I decide to wear super-heavy socks under my professional trouser socks, and dig out a pair of flats that are on the larger end to accommodate the heavy socks.  I put my contacts in and my makeup on.  This is about the time I usually get up, so I start moving a bit faster.

6.35am – Finish up my makeup, which is very fast these days, largely because my makeup routine is so much more pared-down than a few years ago.  I look healthier at 35 than in my 20s, when my skin was either red or pale (or both) from inflammation.  I am so so glad I found out in my early 30s I should eat gluten-free, and dairy-free – my skin immediately improved, and instead of needing a lot of makeup to look healthy, I now need just a little to look polished.  I use mostly Zuzu makeup and 100% Pure products – all vegan and gluten-free. 

6.40am – Check my purse, which I packed the night before. I have a notepad, a small manila folder, my IPAD (loaded with a ton of documents so I don’t have to bring printouts), usual purse stuff, my lunch and oh dear god, why is my purse so heavy and so stuffed-looking. Why? This is a frequent state of annoyance for me – other women seem to either need less stuff than I do, or pack it better.  Lunch is pretty haphazard today –  I was feeling remarkably uninspired last night. I have homemade hummus I made Monday night, my favorite store-bought kale chips (they were on sale at Whole Foods last week) and I should have crackers for the hummus, except I did not buy any recently, telling myself I would make some. Turns out, that was too ambitious considering how the week unfolded, so I didn’t make crackers. Sigh – I pack seaweed snacks instead. I know from experience they work surprisingly well with hummus.

6.50am – I have no appetite this early, especially without working out first (in light of my early start, I moved my workout time to after work today), but I need to eat, especially as I need to take my morning supplements.  I have some sliced apple and raw almonds (I am out of almond butter), as well as a small mug of a chocolate hemp seed faux-latte, similar to my Pumpkin Spice latte -  it is an experiment to make a more chocolatey version of the Pumpkin Spice latte which I plan to post on the blog when I am happy with it.  I made it last night knowing that I needed something with protein that was chocolatey and tempting to get me to have it this early in the morning.  Still, it is too early to eat – I do not finish the apple, and pack it to take with me.  

7am – My husband gives me a sleepy good-bye kiss before I leave and I head out the door. Today I am attending a seminar at a government agency – the good news is that it is about a 10-15 minute walk from my office, which mean I make the same subway commute, but need to head in a different direction when the subway arrives at destination.  Since it is the same metro stop as my job, I do not have to look up timing or anything.  I just do my usual commute routine, which, in the morning, means I walk one subway station further than the one closest to where I live. It is a way to get some fresh air plus that particular metro station is way less crowded than the one right by where I live.

7.35am – Make a quick stop at Le Pain Quotidien and then arrive at destination.  As I am not a government employee, I need to go through a very long security line.  Our rockstar paralegal at work pre-registered me so I can skip one of the security lines, but even the line for pre-registered people is very long.  The instructions to pre-register had been several pages long and involved sending in a picture of specific dimensions, so I am grateful she took the time to figure all of that out, as I pick up my badge with no issue once I get to the beginning of the line.

8am – I am in the auditorium where the seminar will occur, starting at 8.30am. I use that half hour to answer work emails on my IPad, stopping to chat to the people sitting near me.  I also text with a friend who has the flu.  Someone sitting next to me compliments me on my shoes, and is shocked that they are non-leather flats from Old Navy.  I neglect to tell her I paid $12 with a coupon. 

8.30am – Seminar begins. I switch from IPad to my notepad to take notes (I use yellow ones for out-of-the office notes), keep an eye on my phone for emails, and eventually pull my IPad back out to type up a longer email to answer an email. 

10.30am – Break. I step out of the auditorium (no food allowed there) and pull out the coconut chia pudding I picked up at LPQ by the subway exit.  While on the subway, I realized  I forgot both my snack bar and the chia pudding I had prepared last night. I have had good luck eating at LPQ – despite being all about the quotidian bread, LPQ does gluten-free well, so in a pinch, like today, I am glad there is an LPQ right by the metro exit.  I eat the chia pudding and the last of my breakfast apple while responding to work emails.  The person next to me asks why my greek yogurt is lumpy.

10.45am – Seminar resumes.  The current panel includes someone who looks really familiar. I eventually realize we went to the same law school.

12.15pm – Seminar breaks for lunch. I wish I could stay, but the afternoon topics are less relevant to my work and I have meetings and calls. I stop by to say hello to the panelist from my law school.  Then I head back to the office.  I run into someone else I know on my way out and since we both have a few minutes, we sit down and catch up.  This is actually one of my favorite ways to network – short, quick conversations when running into someone I know.  Sometimes it is so hard to schedule time to meet,so these chance meetups are great.

12.25 –1.06pm – Between the quick networking meeting, waiting in line to drop off my badge at security and walking back to the office, time sped up and it is now past 1pm.   I have 54 minutes before 3+ hours of calls.  I return a phone call and write two emails, then review notes for my 2pm call and 3pm meeting. 

1.24pm – My colleagues have figured out I am back in the office and all of a sudden three people are in my office in quick succession.  First, I talk to a law clerk about legal research he is doing for a larger project I am working on. Then I start thinking about lunch, when another lawyer has a question about a matter we are working on.  I have a policy to not eat during meetings with colleagues, but I really want to eat before I get on my 2pm call. 

1.40pm – The conversation switches to another matter, and our paralegal walks in with a question about something else. At this point, I give up and start eating while meeting with my colleagues.  I feel lucky we work so collaboratively. 

1.45pm – I realize the only way to eat my kale chips (which broke into tiny pieces, likely from transit in the world’s most over-stuffed purse) is with a spoon. I concentrate on not spraying kale crumbs while talking. I am somewhat successful. 

1.59pm – Impromptu meeting suspended so I can get on my 2pm call. 

2.47pm – Call ends early. Run to the bathroom because the last two times I tried to walk there I got interrupted.

3pm  – Move to a conference room for a larger meeting, which includes people on the phone as well. I have a brief presentation – because I knew this would be a hectic day, I had prepared talking points the previous day and reviewed them earlier in the afternoon.

5pm – The meeting is over. I discuss follow-up with a colleague before focusing on work and emails.  As much as I apprecaite out of the office meetings, the inherent catch-up at the end of the day from not being in the office never ceases to amaze me.

7pm – Call it a day. Take subway home. On the subway I begin to motivate myself for going to the gym.  This is why I prefer to go in the morning, but there was no way I was going to get up at 5 am to go to the gym by 5.30 in freezing weather. Decide to bribe myself with SweetPress in exchange for a trip to the gym tonight.

7.25pm – Stop at SweetGreen to pick up green juice. I also pick a green juice up for my neighbor who has the flu. Text her to say I will drop it off momentarily.  She is up, so instead of leaving the green juice in front of her door, I stop by and we chat briefly. 

7.45pm – I am home.  I know I could get totally sidetracked from going to the gym, so change straight into gym pants and sneakers. I switch coats, but take my sports bra and top and heart rate monitor to the gym to change into. I know if I change at home, it will take forever, so I focus on getting back out of the door.  I alternate between changing and downing my SweetPress.

8.10pm – I am a the gym. I finish changing and head to the treadmill. At this point, I am starting to feel tired, so I walk on the treadmill at an incline – just enough to get my heart rate into the 140s, but nothing intense.  I wonder if workouts like this – designed to not lose the gym habit, but which are, at best, phoning-it-in workouts in terms of intensity – do anything.  As nice as it is to be moving, I kind of regret having made the effort to come here. After 25 minutes, I hop off the treadmill and head home.

8.50pm – I am back home. Since my workout was fairly light (read, I barely sweated), I just change into warm dry clothes.  I reheat some lemony white bean soup (which is even more hummus-like than when I made the soup a couple of days earlier) and eat dinner while talking to my husband.

9.25pm – Begin writing this post, revise a document for work which I circulate over email, think about making a list for the following day and start getting sleepy….

10.45pm – Give up on finishing this post tonight, put in eye drops, brush teeth and head to bed.  Think about prepping breakfast for the next day, but realize I still have chocolatey hemp milk and apples, so am all set.

11pm – Lights out.

As the winter vortex continues outside, I am starting to think that my Chicago minute trip last month was a good preview for this weather.  As short as the trip was, we did more than eat – we walked around all through the downtown area, went to the Chriskindlmarket, which was amazing, and checked out all the beautiful decorations and lights on Michigan Avenue.

We also walked around the lobby of the Drake where I could not resist taking pictures of the tree:

And the gingerbread house:

Of course, we broke up all that activity with delicious meals:

• Karyn’s Cooked
• Frontera Grill
• Karyn’s on Green

I can’t wait to go back!

When I went to Chicago last month, Karyn’s on Green was absolutely at the top of my list of places to try.  I had read about Johnna’s, Gena’s and JL’s experiences at Karyn’s on Green over the years, and had a feeling I would love both the food and the restaurant’s approach. 

Did I mention that my Chicago minute of fun was about 27 hours? While my husband and I are not over-planners when on vacation, having 27 hours to work with meant devising a plan to maximize time, locations and distances.  We had lunch on Saturday at Karyn’s Cooked because it was on the way from the airport to the hotel, and decided to save Frontera and Karyn’s on Green for when we had a little bit more time in the 27 hours. While initially we were planning to go to Karyn’s on Green for dinner, I am actually really glad we went for brunch. It had been a long time since I had had so many gluten-free vegan options for brunch.

We decided to each order pancakes (because, hey, pancakes) and split the green tofu scramble with the gluten-free cornbread muffin:

The scramble was excellent, but the pancakes … oh my. I had the Gluten Free Corncakes with strawberries while my husband had the Buttermilk Pancakes with strawberries (which are made with wheat flour).  Below are my gluten-free corncakes:

And in the background below are my husband’s buttermilk pancakes, which he said were almost impossible to identify as vegan.  Now my husband is an omnivore, so if he says “I can’t tell this is vegan,” that is a big deal, because chances are he had the non-vegan version way more recently than me.

His and hers pancakes:

I loved my corncakes, and my husband noted that the corncakes were not that different from his gluten-full pancakes, so that was exciting as well.  Karyn’s menu does rotate quite a bit, so those pancakes may not necessarily be available when you go for brunch (and you should) but I have no doubt that any other gluten-free options at Karyn’s would be just as delicious.

Another reason to go to Karyn’s is the abundance of gluten-free vegan desserts.  I eyed the Crème Brulee and the Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Brownie briefly, but since pancakes were sor of like having my dessert for lunch, I was more interested in variety than one additional dessert.  And that is where Karyn’s brunch dessert buffet comes in:

When I saw the buffet table, I was impressed at the sheer number of vegan dessert options, but I assumed that gluten-free options would be scant. And I was wrong.

Not only did the buffet have gluten-free options, but they were separate from the rest of the gluten-full buffet and set out in such a way I was not particularly worried about cross-contamination.  My favorite were the mini chocolate-chip muffins, but the donut pieces, the brownie and the scone were all pretty fantastic. That is quite a selection for someone who eats a gluten-free and vegan diet.  And if you can eat gluten and think being vegan means you can no longer enjoy a dessert buffet, get yourself to Karyn’s. Seriously.  Behold the spread of dessert:

Karyn’s is truly a gem – it is the kind of place I want to take new vegans too to remind them going out to eat can still be fun, delicious and in a beautiful setting (don’t mind my jacket in the foreground):

My husband is great in that he always indulges me in going to vegan restaurants (especially when we travel), but Karyn’s was the first place where he said he would eat there because it was great, not despite it being vegan.  As much as he enjoyed our meal at Millenium last year, somehow I think Karyn’s won out for him.  For me, it was a tie – but Chicago is closer, just saying.  I would like to go back when it is not December and when a mocktail sounds more interesting than tea and I get to try more of the sides.  I also noticed several of the sandwiches had gluten-free options and would be curious about those:

One last note for my gluten-free friends – the menus are clearly marked, but I noted that since last month, the website seems to have added a gluten-free menu. I found the staff knowledgeable and willing to get information (even if it meant calling over to another Karyn’s location for more information).  You should, of course, always ask questions and get all the information you need to eat safely, but I found Karyn’s a really great place for eating gluten-free. 

There is also a Karyn’s Raw, but oddly, as much as I love my raw foods, I am really intrigued about going back to Karyn’s on Green first.

When my husband and I were first discussing our brief stay in Chicago, Frontera Grill was high on his list – I was shocked I was able to make a reservation for a Saturday night, which was the only night we could go based on my work schedule.  I called Frontera Grill  the day my job confirmed I was going to Chicago that week, about 3 weeks before I would be there, and got the last reservation available that night.  When I spoke to the hostess she mentioned the menu would be changing in those three weeks, as the menu changes seasonally, but that they could accommodate gluten-free vegan diners.  I had also read Johnna’s review of her meal at Frontera and was optimistic.

The menu was indeed promising in a lot of ways – enchiladas with hearty greens, a mushroom options with the tacos and a long list of vegetable sides.

Our waitress was also fantastic, and completely understood gluten-free – and, with some due diligence, figured out an area on cross-contamination which I would never have thought of.  As it turns out, this particular Frontera menu iteration is pretty reliant on flash-fried garlic for flavoring a lot of its dishes – including some of the salsas, several of the vegetable dishes, and the vegan bean dish.  And, there is no dedicated gluten-free fryer, which means the garlic bits effectively took out a bunch of options I had been eyeing.  While the waitress conferred with the chef to figure out some options for me, I happily ordered the Jicama Street Snack – spears of cucumber, jicama and pineapple, with a nice dose of lime juice and guajillo chile.  This was crunchy and refreshing, and the sweetness of the pineapple was a really lovely counterpoint to the cucumber and jicama.

I also had the guacamole, which had a really specific savory feel to it – turns out if has finely minced sundried tomatoes

After conferring with the chef, the waitress suggested a modified approach to the portobello mushroom tacos, along with a made-just-for-me version of Frontera’s tomatillo salsa, some veggies, more guacamole(!), and corn tortillas. The idea was essentially a mini taco bar with all gluten-free and vegan options.  Behold the deliciousness:

The portobello mushrooms were seasoned unlike any others I had had before. Something about the combination of the achiote and the cooking approach (I am guessing a quick pan-sear of sliced portobellos) gave the portobello an almost meat-like consistency.  I never really see how mushrooms are meat substitutes – I mean, mushrooms are good on their own, and do have a meat-life umami, but I never find that the texture is meat-like – the sliced portobellos at Frontera Grill changed my mind on that point. 

All the veggies were separately prepared for me, so as to avoid their regular counterparts which are seasoned with the flash-fried garlic.  While the preparation was simple and they vegetables were very lightly seasoned, the flavor punch of the portobellos, the salsa and the guacamole made my veggie tacos wonderfully satisfying, with multilayered flavors.  I was very impressed with the food but also the waitress’ care, as well as the kitchen’s care.  It took a little bit of time to sort out what I could eat and it seemed that this iteration of the Frontera Grill menu was less gluten-free friendly that other version of the menu, I still walked away having eaten an amazing meal.