Virtual Coffee {35}

Hello dear friends, and welcome to coffee! Today I’ll be having a green tea as I’m on one of my “it’s spring, time to detox” kicks, which, much like the weather is a fickle friend but I’m enjoying it while it lasts.

I have a love/hate relationship with spring. The weather drives me nuts, whenever I leave the house I look like I’m off on a trip as I’m usually carrying at least two jackets and a sweater per person, you just never know how it’s going to change from one minute to the next (just this morning it was hot and humid then chilly with some wind, then overcast, then sunny and now it looks like rain).

My vegetable garden makes sad eyes at me whenever I look out the kitchen window, probably wondering when I’m going to start fertilizing and planting and what not, but the likelihood of at least one more snowstorm is holding me off for now.

And the pollen, I swear the pollen is trying to kill me. The one thing I truly, sorely miss about living in a big, polluted city is not having any allergies as green areas are kept at a minimum in Milan.

Of course, I also love the colors, and the pretty pink flowers blooming on all the trees on my street, and alternating my dark and dreary wool sweaters with my bright and happy cotton ones, and the smell of renewal and possibility in the air that just says spring to me.

Pretty flowers, also, five minutes before taking this picture it was sunny. Crappy spring weather!!

I’m also in full spring-cleaning mode, part of the reason is that my live-in housekeeper/nanny is enjoying her hard earned holidays back home with her family. I thought this month and a half without her would be pure hell, but I actually enjoy having full rein of my house again. Sure, we’ve had many an organizational bleep as I’m used to having someone trustworthy to watch the kids whenever I need it, but apart from that it’s been easier than expected.

In fact, I’d been trying to talk her into using more “environmentally friendly” cleaning products, mostly because I’m extremely sensitive to chemical smells and most traditional cleaning products make me nauseous (I’m not exaggerating, also, it’s a great excuse to have a housekeeper!). Of course, she refuses saying that vinegar and water just don’t get the job done. I was on the fence because, well, as she does most of the cleaning I’m not going to get into an argument with her over it (I swear, it’s like I’m living with my mother!) also, I didn’t have enough experience cleaning over a long period of time with homemade products to judge. So I went out and bought some cute, colorful spray bottles and have set them up in the two main bathrooms we use and the kitchen. Well, you know what? Vinegar and water kicks ass. Seriously. Also, the kids can play with it with no adverse effects. In fact, yesterday they cleaned the windows and they thought they were playing. How awesome is that!!

These spray bottles just make me happy. 

I’ve been experimenting with essential oils to cut down the vinegar smell, because the husband complained that the kids smelled like salad the other day, so I’ve been using varying combinations of rosemary, eucalyptus, tea tree, lavender, sweet orange and rosewood essential oils to find the perfect smell and as a bonus the first three essential oils are also anti-bacterial.

Ok, after this little green propaganda moment I’m off to clean the bathrooms, and I’m surprisingly excited about it!

Don’t forget to go visit our hostess Amy for coffee too, please!

Got milk?

I’ve been on a quest of sorts lately, one with no clear path or objective… basically I’ve been running around with no rhyme nor purpose, trying to find something to make me feel better and I ended up fixating on food. Food to make me feel better, food to help the husband get better and food to make us all healthier – a tall order one would say. 

In my typical haphazard manner I landed on the concept of “real food”. Real food is a terrible moniker if ever there was one, in my opinion, but it’s established, recognizable, and easily searchable if you’re so inclined so that’s how I will refer to it henceforth. So, to give you an idea of what in tarnation I’m talking about I’m going to borrow the words of one of my favorite blogs on the subject: Cheeseslave in answer to the question “What is a real foodie?”: “A “real foodie” is someone who cooks “traditional” food. We cook stuff from scratch using real ingredients, like raw milk, grass-fed beef, eggs from chickens that run around outdoors, whole grains, sourdough and yogurt starters, mineral-rich sea salt, and natural sweeteners like honey and real maple syrup.

We don’t use modern foods that are either fake, super-refined, or denatured. This includes modern vegetable oils like Crisco and margarine, soy milk, meat from factory farms, pasteurized milk from cows eating corn and soybeans, refined white flour, factory-made sweeteners like HFCS or even refined white sugar, or commercial yeast. We believe in eating wholesome, nutrient-dense foods that come from nature. So we shop at farmer’s markets or buy direct from the farmer, or we grow food in our own backyards.”

I’m not exactly a “real foodie” according to the definition above, but I already had a tendency towards this way of eating and now I’m simply looking into it more deeply and trying to apply it more thoroughly. I’ll delve into the subject better in the future but instead of proselytizing (there are many blogs who do so far better than I ever could, so I’ll start listing them here and in future posts for your reference) I’ve decided to just jump right in and talk about the practical aspect of it from my point of view.

It took me awhile to wrap my head around the concept of real food, and I’m yet learning a lot about it, but it makes sense to me, and though I’m not proposing foregoing junk food in my life forever, I am now, at least, making a conscious effort to recognize it as such and to make a cursory effort to avoid it as much as I possibly can.

In any case, today what I really want to talk about is milk. I’ve always been a milk hater. Until recently I hadn’t drunk milk since… well I don’t remember, but a very young age. Milk - the smell, the texture of milk has always pretty much disgusted me. If you’re heating milk on the stove I have to leave the room cause it makes me gag. Yes, that bad. But then Nina Planck turned me onto the wonders of raw milk (from grass-fed, free to roam and pasture, happy and contented cows) and I had to test it because, seems that raw milk is to pasteurized milk what a cow is to outer space. So I went searching for it, thinking it would be a long and arduous quest as apparently in the US it’s frowned upon, much like marijuana is frowned upon. Not so where I live, one not only need not search very far it’s perfectly legal (unlike, alas, marijuana) and quite conveniently sold in places such as this:

Just a regular storefront.

Where you are greeted by them:

(just in case you where wondering exactly where it comes from and what it’s primary purpose is)

All manner of informative material awaits you:

What cows eat, do and become.

The sign on the left shows some of the things you can do with raw milk.

As apparently does a fair savings as a liter of milk costs about one euro (not the lowest price out there but on the lower spectrum of supermarket prices).

You can bring your own glass bottles or buy the plastic ones there for 0.20cents (shown above). And next to the milk dispenser there's a sign stating when the cows were milked and when it expires. (There's also a sign that encourages you to boil it before drinking it, but we drink it raw - except for the husband who's immune system is suppressed)

The process is easy, convenient and unbelievably sanitary:

milk dispenser

you stick your bottle in and close the door and the blue light apparently keeps things sterile, though, of course, you're responsible for the cleanliness of your own bottle.

you put in the amount of money you want depending on how much milk you need - 1€ for 1 lt,  50cents for half a litre, 20cents for 200ml - doesn't matter how much, and then you press start and the milk starts a'flowin'.

a-flowin'

and a-flowin'

then you take your bottle out

cap it and admire the results of your labor.

They also serve other raw milk products like yoghurts (which are objectively much tastier than anything I've ever bought at the grocery store), mozzarella, ricotta cheese and the like.

cheeses and stuff

lovely yoghurts

And it all comes from a farm near here, I haven't visited it yet, but I will soon. So now we’re hooked. I even drink the stuff myself though I still prefer it in other forms (like butter, cream, yoghurt, and cheese), and, just in case you were wondering, it tastes and smells nothing like pasteurized, homogenized milk. 

Would you ever consider drinking raw milk?

Just a few of the many, many resources to learn more about real food (in no particular order):

Weston A. Price Foundation

Modern Alternative Mama

Cheeseslave

Food Renegade

Nina Planck

Jewish Penicillin (aka Chicken Soup)

Apparently chicken soup will cure all your evils. Seriously, I’ve been reading up, colds, flu, stomach ailments, bad skin, bad moods, chicken soup will solve them all. Of course I won’t be declaring this under oath or anything, but still, it’s known as “Jewish penicillin” (though why that is is beyond me, it should really just be known as Grandma’s penicillin, everybody’s Grandma makes chicken soup, right?).

Anyway, there’s a catch (of course there is!) for it to work its magical powers you can’t use ready-made store-bought chicken soup, no ma’am. You done have to go out and get yourself a real bird.

I used to make chicken broth all the time when I was weaning the kids and I used it instead of just plain water for the purees (not the fruit ones, do I need to say it?), but it always smelled chicken-y and was too bland and, well, blah, so when I used it for soup I always had to add bouillon, which sort of defeats the whole purpose, you know?

So I’ve been experimenting and what I’ve come up with is divine. For optimal health I’ve read one should have a cup of “real” chicken broth a day, every day (kind of like the apple, it keeps the doctor away), I suggest you just make large quantities occasionally and freeze it. So if you want soup, or catch a cold, or a stomach bug, or just need comfort food, it’s there for you. Although, I do suggest you heat it in a pan, not the microwave, to preserve all the nutrients and stuff.

Please don’t pay too much attention to my pictures, they’re kind of crappy and there’s just no way to make chicken pieces boiling in a pan look good, just trust that the end result will be worth it!

As with most recipes this continues after the jump so click on the link!

New is good. Right?

Stuff has been happening to me, little changes, that I haven’t talked about because they were hardly noticeable. Except now they’re starting to be noticeable. I may not have mentioned this before, but I’m a Libra. I know, all you rational people out there are rolling your eyes at me, and normally I’d be one of you, except, and this is why this is relevant, the duality of the Libra has started manifesting itself more and more. Hence the changes.

Lately, I’ve discovered new things that interest me, things I’m trying to put into practical use in my life, things I never would have considered a few years ago, not in a million years! In a way I’ve finally decided to embrace my contradictions, the opposing forces in my brain that drive me to buy only organic fruits and vegetables and then, with the next bite drown myself in the epitome of industrial foods like hershey’s chocolate syrup.

I’ve been reading a lot of environmentally friendly, crunchy, granola content and it’s starting to rub off. Hence the changes. Hence this post, in fact, which in my usual completely round about way is mostly to tell you that you’re going to be seeing some new content on here. Some new, crunchier content. (Along with run-on sentences I apparently really like fragments too). This is not to say that I’m completely abandoning my materialistic ways, let’s just say I’m reassigning my resources.

To give you an idea, some of the things I’ve been researching are: natural remedies for a variety of ailments, real food, the role of gluten and dairy in our lives, natural beauty treatments, frugality and what it means in our society, and a variety of related subjects. Although, let me reassure you, I’m not turning into a completely different person… I’m just looking into ways of living a healthier, happier, less expensive life more attuned with nature. Also, this way, I can spend all the money I save on the really important things. Like shoes.

Of course I’ve upgraded the look of this blog to go along with the new content (not that I’m completely shifting gears or anything, the old content stays, I’m just expanding), thanks to Meredith of Bueno Baby. The unveiling on Monday along with a post on raw milk, or how to use honey on your face, or possibly on how to make really yummy super healthy chicken stock… something like that.  I’ll save the posts on how I’ve stopped using shampoo for the near future, when you’ve adjusted to me going all nineties, granola, lefty, Birkenstock wearing, but just once a week, I can’t handle it more than once a week. So for now, Toodles!