Garbanzo Bean Squash Muffins are actually GOOD! (and Gluten Free, too!)

I really love to bake.  And I really really love to eat what I bake.  But this no gluten thing has made my relationship to baked goods a little.... complex.  

In Seattle, you can find many great gluten free cookies, donuts, cupcakes, breads--  but they are expensive!  Mostly very good, but pricey as heck.   

Also-- and maybe this is obvious-- but just because something is gluten free does not mean it is also preservative and chemical free.  I bought these cookies the other days that were made out of peas and chocolate liquor (surprisingly tasty combo) but also contained about a million other non-gluten ingredients, most of which I couldn't pronounce.  They were very good, but honestly good in the way that pop-tarts are good...     

In conclusion, I have decided to venture forward [baby step by baby step] into the world of gluten-free baking.  I like to know what goes into the food I eat, and I love to bake with my kitchen elf and teach her that food doesn't grow in boxes... so here we go.  

Recipe #1:  Garbanzo Bean Squash Muffins  

My parents left to go back to Berkeley at the end of the summer, and filled my pantry with tons of half used food items.  One of those items was a bag of Bob's Red Mill Garbanzo Bean Flour.  

When they first left it, I was kind of feeling like really?  what on earth am I supposed to do with this?? But now that I can't use normal flour, it seems to be coming in handy.  

OK, you guys, I know these muffins sound ridiculous, but I promise you, they are GOOD.  Actually very GOOD!  Violet helped me make them (she was pretty excited; we haven't baked anything in a while), and they made our house smell amazing-- like fall wrapped up in cinnamon.  

Squash is normally the one thing my girl won't eat, and she ate four of these right out of the oven.... so there you go.  

Ingredients: 

2 eggs (or equivalent egg substitute) 

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup olive oil 

2tsp vanilla 

1 1/2 cup yellow squash* 

1 1/2 cup garbanzo bean flour 

1 tsp baking powder 

1 tsp baking soda 

1/4 tsp sea salt 

2 tsp cinnamon 

Preheat oven to 400.  

Mix all ingredients together until smooth (a good task for your kitchen elf).  

Pour into muffin pann lined with muffin wrappers (another good task for your kitchen elf).  

Bake at 400 for 30 minutes.  

Recipe makes 12 muffins .  

*I used delicata squash; precooked until soft.  I think you could also use canned pumpkin for this recipe, or another sweet squash like butternut.  

Always buy two pumpkins.

We bought two pumpkins this year.  We bought one very large round one, and one kind of bulbous lumpy one, with what looked like a pumpkin belly button.

OK-- lesson learned--  never buy a pumpkin with a pumpkin belly button, as cute as it may be.  

One afternoon you will be sitting at your table eating lunch, and you will give the pumpkin a shove to make room for your kid's grape juice, and next thing you know, your thumb is inside this rotten pumpkin cavity.  

We weren't planning on carving pumpkins today, but since belly button pumpkin turned into rotting-spot pumpkin, I tell Violet that yes, finally, (because she has been waiting forever) we can have a pumpkin carving afternoon.  

So she gets all excited and puts her apron on and calls in the cat from outside to help, BUT THEN I start to carve the top off and suddenly the entire pumpkin is caving in on itself in one big black rotting mess, spraying me with pumpkin bile. 

   

I have never seen anything like it.  It was rotting from the inside out.  The entire thing, just a black moldy seedy mess.  So I put it outside.  

But V was so excited to carve a pumpkin.... so we had to have round two with our second pumpkin that I wasn't planning on carving until closer to Halloween (thankfully we had another one!  I felt so bad for her; Why is our pumpkin rotten, mommy??  Why do we have to throw it away??)  

Thankfully, perfect pumpkin number two had no rotting belly button, and supplied us with more than enough pumpkin carving fun.

Violet's cousin, Rose, sent us this detailed illustration of how to turn your pumpkin into a cat which obviously we were thrilled about.  Chowder helped.  

Pictures!  (none of pumpkin 1; sorry)

Dairy and Gluten free

"Choose your food wisely, it becomes your body at a cellular level" --Andrea Beauman 

September, and actually much of the summer, was a bit rough for me.  I think I'll save the story, and just say that I am now feeling great....  but have had to go dairy and gluten free.  I'm not sure if it will be a permanent thing, but it's certainly permanent for now (does that make sense?) :)
Let me just make it crystal clear:  I never thought I would be one of those people with food sensitivities, especially after living in Italy and then India where an adaptable digestive system is the key to so much wonderful food and culture...

But man alive, after having to cut out nearly everything from my diet, and then add things back in one by one by one, I am SO happy to finally feel as though I'm getting on top of this thing.   

Let me go back and tell you-- I have been meaning to write this post for a long time, but something has kept me from doing it.  I'm kind of a private person when it comes to my health, and I think the not knowing what was going on, mixed with the shock of getting a few weird and unexpected test results back, and the general and enormous frustration of dealing with doctors and the medical labyrinth of the UW... it all just felt a bit overwhelming and discouraging.

Also, and this is a big one (and kind of a weird one)-  I know from being a semi-vegetarian that the general public, but also family and friends, can be very put off and unreasonably judgmental toward those who are constantly changing the rules of what can and can't be in their diet.  

It is definitely a popular thing right now to have very complex and unique dietary needs, but I'm starting to learn first hand that if someone is choosing to eliminate something as fabulous as cheese or croissants from their diet, they must have a damn good reason for doing so.  

Anyway, it would be very easy to write pages and pages about how hard it has been to deal with all of this, but really I am starting to see a blazing bright side of this whole thing, which is of course the mere fact that I am feeling better. 

Along with clearing up some of the major things that were going on with me, there have also been a lot of small wonderful side effects I've experienced from cutting out gluten and dairy.  I know a lot of people who suffer from these seemingly minor discomforts, but they definitely add up and can be avoided with a tweak in what you eat. 

1) I was having heartburn, almost daily, that would last hours.  Now that I am gluten and dairy free, heartburn seems to be a thing of the past (knock on wood :) 

2)  My skin has changed.  I don't seem to be breaking out quite as much anymore, and in general I just feel like it's been brighter.  

3) Sleep.  Oh, glorious sleep.  I'm definitely sleeping better these days.  Thank you thank you thank you.  

4) Kind of related to sleep--  I'm just not as lethargic  during the day.  This is partially due to better night sleep, but I feel like my mind has been rid of all this clutter; it feels great and very open.  

5) My mood swings, which had gotten completely out of hand again, have really, for the most part, leveled off.  I think this has been the biggest one for me.  

And there is more-- (too intimate for a blog)-- but I'm happy to talk with anyone about it one on one.  I'm really interested in learning about your experience with diet-shifts too, and how they have changed your day to day life.  Also--  dairy/gluten free winning recipes?  Send then my way!!  

One more thing:   I have one VERY good doctor that I do highly recommend.  She is not affiliated with any major hospital-- she's a bit of an independent.....

Portait Painting

I've never painted a portrait before--  well I've painted portraits of flowers, animals, bugs.... but never a human portrait.
But I've been in a bit of an artistic rut, and I needed something to bend my mind in a new direction, so I thought I would give it a go.
Guess what!  It's HARD.
Well, hard for me.  I know several extraordinarily talented portrait artists, who make it look so easy.
I really didn't think it would be that different from painting anything else... but I have to say, painting this portrait absolutely has been one of the most tormenting stressful artistic experiences I've ever undertaken.  A very good challenge....
but this picture of my daughter with her giraffe literally had me swearing at the paint.

Here's the thing about painting people:  You sit and chip away at this thing, and then you walk away to go to the bathroom.  When you come back, somehow the mouth is in completely the wrong spot, and the nose is far too small, and the eyes are staring in two different directions.  So you fix it.  You fix it all until it's perfect.
Then after dinner you come back and stand aghast as you stare this painting that looks like someone else's child-- not yours-- it looks absolutely nothing like yours.  So you attempt to put some shadows near her eyes because you decide that what it needs is eye work, and then realize that you've just aged her by 20 years.
Then, you think finally you are finished with the awful thing, so you do the trick that artists do where you hold it up to the mirror and see how it looks flipped around... and now her cheeks are full of marbles.

Anyway, a good exercise.  And fun to get out my [anciently old and rusty] oils.   I might do a little more work; maybe a glaze in a couple of weeks, and I still haven't decided if I want to leave the hair and background thinned and sketchy or if I should fill it in...I've always sort of liked the half and half look of an "unfinished" painting....  but anyway, here it is in it's current state:  Violet and G-Raff.

Beginning Ballet

Violet started ballet a few weeks ago.
Before she started, I kind of had mixed feelings about it.  I think it's fairly common to worry that ballet will just be a kind of vanity activity--  you know, that maybe it's too much about the pretty pink costume, and the polishing of a little girl into this delicate little dolly--  really, there was definitely something about the idea of ballet that made us hesitate and cringe.
But, somehow, somewhere, Violet got it in her head that she wanted to try ballet.  And then we found out that one of her best little friends was signed up for it.
So we decided to give it a go.  

And oh my goodness-- she adores it.  ADORES it.  

I'm not sure why I was so focused on the vanity of ballet. You know, I spent my entire youth dancing, and doing gymnastics and it definitely was never ever about any of that.  It was HARD work.  It did, however, make me feel beautiful.  I was tiny, really puny, and somehow through dance my body was able to shine in a way that was never possible in every day life.  
Also,  I was (still am) really shy and awkward, and HATED any sort of team sports.  I always ended up first getting hit by the ball (it didn't matter what sport, the ball always ended up hitting me in the face), and then, secondly, getting yelled at by every other kid on the team for my complete failure to kick/hit/bat/run/throw/catch....
But dance and gymnastics were always different.  There has always been something about the quiet independence of dance that I just love.  Gymnastics too.  There is definitely a kind of silent strength that comes with the sport that always felt very empowering to me.
No yelling across the field; no contact.  No one else at all, really.
Just a huge floor, or a set of bars; space to fly.

So I guess it shouldn't surprise me that Violet loves ballet.  She and I are cut from the same cloth.
She comes home from class just beaming and talking non-stop about what she learned.  Yesterday when we got back, she immediately set up the entire living room exactly like the studio-- with a little obstacle course to leap and sachet through.
It's really fantastic to see her so proud of herself, and excited--
--and to see that through dance, maybe her introvertedness can shine a bit, as she focuses in on her legs and arms and toes.

After the first month of lessons, all the mommies got to come into the studio and watch the kids put on a little show.
It was a bit like watching bunnies dance.
They were adorable.  See if you can spot my string bean...

Weddings

I really love going to weddings.

I especially love going to weddings when you see how so completely very happy the two people getting married are.

And, I have to admit, as an artist, I love to see how differently the idea of wedding is interpreted. You get to see this wonderful collage of the couple's life-- their favorite friends mingling with outspoken relatives, wrapped in their favorite colors, eating their favorite foods, often in their favorite most sacred spot on the planet-- be it a family home, or a temple, or a church, or their favorite boulder looking out over the ocean.
You get this little snapshot of what is important to two individuals.  It's usually some form of tradition mixed with personal expressions of beauty, and creativity and resourcefulness and love.

Even with the most traditional weddings, you never know exactly what it's going to be.
Maybe I'm just lucky, but I feel like we've gone to so many weddings in the past few years that have truly been unique labors of love.
You know what it's like?  It's like handing out egg cartons to a class of kids, and telling them each to go home and make something.
Some kid will just bring it back full of eggs or marbles.  Another kid will turn their egg carton into a cat or a dragon.  Another kid will fill each pouch with dirt and plant sweet peas.
It's always so fascinating and beautiful to see how the framework idea of wedding is brought to life in different ways and shapes and colors and forms.
I love it.
Of course weddings aren't all about the fuss and frazzle-dazzle of the details; but I do remember, from our own wedding, all of these silly little projects unexpectedly brought me so close to so many people I love in such a fun and creative-crafty way.  It's this underhanded way of having an excuse to talk about color and fabric and flowers and food with everyone you meet, something I kind of relish in.

There were so many late sweet nights sitting with Tyler in our tiny studio apartment in the middle of a dark Seattle winter, printing out invitations, stamping birdies on the envelopes, drinking wine, laughing...  

Well, September has been full of weddings for us.  We went to two weddings in two weeks, and they were both incredibly fun and beautiful, and very different from each other.  

The first wedding was in Colville, Washington.  Our friends Nicolle and Jay got married at their gorgeous home looking out over acres of farmland.  This truly was one of the most incredible and heart warming events I've ever been to.  The entire event just exuded happiness.  I don't think I will ever forget the beautiful picture of Nicolle and Jay standing under the trees with their son, Ari, just wrapped in pure happiness to be sharing their home and love for each other with their family and friends.  And everything was beautifully hand-done.  The flowers, the food, the candles on the the driveway-- their house just glowed with all of these little projects that, you could tell, came straight from  Nicolle's heart.  Violet got to come, and she was absolutely in heaven.
  

The second wedding we went to was vastly different, but equally as fun.  Tyler's cousin Caitlin and her boyfriend, Miguel, were married in southern California over the weekend at Sherwood Country club.  (Does this place ring a bell?  It's where Tiger Woods has his own personal golf tournament ever year).  Well, it was a fabulous wedding!  Oh, California, how lovely you are!  It was a beautiful evening event  with incredible food and probably one of the best live cover bands I've ever heard.  An enormously fun party wrapped in purple roses, with dancing and, again, this enormous amount of love and celebration just dripping from every detail.  

Violet stayed with my folks for this one, so Tyler and I had the excuse to take a little holiday by ourselves :)  We went to Santa Monica and tooled around on the beach.  More photos?  Yes!  Although, sadly, I didn't get very many non-blury ones of the Caitlin and Miguel..    

Sunflower

Hello, September.  Aren't you pretty.

Sorry it's been so long.  We were busy growing a sunflower.  

We're very proud of it.  I'm not really sure why it decided to grow and bloom (most of the other flowers kind of gave up in August).  

It didn't seem to care about the glass and roofing scraps in the soil, and it certainly didn't give a fig that we only watered it every-other never.  

I think Violet is planning a birthday party for it.  I'm sure it will be quite an event!  All flowers are welcome to attend :)