Yesterday I bit the inside of my lip very hard, so hard I drew blood, and that spot has swollen up in my mouth such that normal chewing has led to me accidentally re-biting it over and over again. At this point I am begging my own teeth for mercy and considering a liquids-only diet, if only to cut out chewing.
So far this week has been one long domestic duty after another. Yesterday I went to Costco and ran into a friend; we chatted for a while and then she glanced at my cart. “My god!” she said, “Is this a NORMAL trip for you? Do you always have so much fruit?” Well, yes. And my Costco produce trips are not going to get any smaller, since my husband just bought me a juicer as an early birthday gift! Juice for everyone! My liquids-only-no-more-chewing diet is going to really take off; now all I need is a few good recipes. Ideas and tips, all you intrepid juicers out there?
Today I was grocery shopping at my old-people Co-Op to pick up the things that I can’t get at Costco, and lo, there were two young people there. Young people! At the “all seniors all the time” Co-Op! Not only that but these two individuals were young men who were clearly unaccustomed to grocery shopping of any kind. I saw them in the dairy section, and then I saw them in the produce section. I couldn’t help but overhear their conversation as I scrutinized red peppers and packets of basil; from their discussion I realized that they were grocery shopping to make dinner for their girlfriends. It was absolutely adorable, and I felt that full-heart feeling I get when I witness young love, like I’m a withered up old crone who receives vicarious joy from others’ youth and romance.
“Now, the problem is, I don’t know how we’re going to find balsamic vinegar,” one said to the other after a prolonged discussion about whether these are Roma tomatoes or not, and is sheep’s feta okay? I leapt into action and said the balsamic vinegar is right over there, down that aisle. “That one right in front of us?” the other fellow asked, pointing at the cereal and peanut butter aisle. No. I showed them and told them exactly where in the aisle to find it. Hey, the Co-Op is designed for the elderly in my elderly community; they rearrange nothing, ever, and I have been frequenting that place for fourteen years. I could pretty much draw a map to every item available.
Back in our romantic courting days, my husband used to cook all the time. I rarely, if ever, made dinner back then. My husband would cook, and grocery shop, and my oh my, is it getting hot in here? There’s not much sexier than having dinner made for you, now is there? If that was his seduction plan then it worked, every time. These days he mostly grills giant cuts of meat on the barbeque for the kids, and bemoans my vegetarianism. Well, and he buys juicers and other small appliances for me, which is also very sexy in its own way. Especially since I somehow just bit my inner lip AGAIN and I’m not even eating anything.
The other day we were having breakfast-for-supper, a weekly occurrence in my house, and I made a tofu scramble. For those of you who don’t know, it’s like a vegan version of scrambled eggs. I was creating a recipe and so was throwing things together and making notes about additions. I served up a small portion for him to sample and, I will tell you, I was pretty startled at his reaction. “Damn! This is great! This is really good!” he said as I stared at him in disbelief. Given that he was just cooking a pound of bacon for himself and the boys, I felt this to be quite a testament to the tastiness of the dish. Either that or he was trying to get busy with me. Or – OR – he was bedazzled by my new Victoria’s Secret push-up bra. Either way. Tofu. Enjoyed by my husband.
If he had wanted to romance me he could hardly have improved upon this.
After I helped them find the balsamic vinegar, the young guys at Co-Op thanked me effusively. I smiled at them as they eagerly unloaded their groceries in the”12 Items Or Less” line, when I noticed one of them had a giant hickey on his neck. Aww. Godspeed, young man. May your dinner be excellent.
Ok, SINCE YOU ASKED.
Use the 80 / 20 rule when juicing. Vegetables to fruits. This is somewhat confusing because carrots and beets have a lot of sugar so you must move them to the fruit side, and lemons and limes are surprisingly alkaline so they get to be in the veg. side.
Prep everything on a nice big cutting board in neat little piles (you will love this part it’s very OCD), wash and cut into large pieces that will fit in your juicer. I peel my citrus, some juicers will do peel and it allegedly has good nutritional but frankly it brings a bitterness to the juice that trust me you don’t need if you are doing lots of greens. You can juice any greens EXCEPT ARUGULA which will make you want to heave on the spot. IMHO anyway. The greens will juice better if they are really wet, and swiss chard is nice because of the ‘juicy’ stems. Remove seeds from fruit – especially apples because allegedly the seeds are toxic.
Juice your greens first, and push them through with watery fruits or veg like cucumber or lemon. Chop the celery a bit to prevent fibre from wrapping around the insides of your juicer and slowing your progress. Carrots will push anything through, I always leave them to the end, or throw one in partway through if things seem a bit sluggish.
My daily elixir is about 24 oz and consists of:
4-6 cups greens, 1 field cucumber, three stalks of celery, a piece of ginger the size of a baby hand (that is A LOT and you should work up to that. I LOVE that bite in the back of my throat from a lot of ginger) 1 large or 2 small apples, 2 large lemons and maybe 3 carrots, sometimes I omit but they really do push things through, and well, beta carotene and all that….
ANYWAY, drink that after yoga for a week and that post Hawaii pants problem? No more problem.
You may actually get a headache the first couple of days from the detoxing. I’m not even joking.
I’m sure there’s more I have to tell you but that’s a good START.
SMOOCH
PS What kind did you get?????
This is excellent! Thank you Melody, I knew I could count on you! Now off to the grocery store – again – because I don’t have any lemons.
OH WAIT THERE”S MORE. (I warned you) Put your brilliant green juice in a large mason jar and drink with a glass straw (they have them at CNF) and drink right away… if you can’t drink it all right away put the rest in the fridge in a glass jar or container that fills right up to the top so there is no airspace. It will keep for 24 hours that way and not loose too much nutritional value… but you get the most benefit if you drink in the first 15-20 mins.
ALSO, clean your juicer right away, there are no easy to clean juicers so don’t think for a minute you bought the wrong one. The cleaning process will turn out to be quite ritualistic and oddly satisfying. (there’s that OCD again)
That MIGHT be it.
I do most of the cooking– even though I think Beth is the better cook– just because she works full time and I work part time. However, she does cook every Sunday night and I love having someone else cook for me for a change. It’s a wonderful way to end the weekend.
Well, and this is the thing. My husband works all day, is never home in time for dinner, so if I waited for him to get home and cook…well…we’d all be on the floor having hunger-related tantrums and breakdowns. So naturally it falls to me. Luckily, I like it!
Hahaha, that is hilarious. Good for the teenage boy and your husband, whether his plan was to get you in bed or not.
Win-win situation, I’m telling you!
MY sweet husband only cooks grilled cheese and beans, so I am not certain I find it all that sexy. Call me fussy.
But if he unloads the dishwasher, now that, is sexy.
HOO BOY if my husband unloaded the dishwasher…I’d be ripping my clothes off and hopping up on the counter. This is hypothetical 🙂
It was the bra. I mean, I’m sure the tofu scramble was tasty and all, but speaking from own experience, it was the bra, and the most committed of carnivores will pretend that tofu is Absolutely Delicious when cooked by a lady with perky boobs.
My husband actually does a good half of the cooking these days. He doesn’t like being rushed, and he is hopeless at getting dinner on the table at the last minute when there are yelling children around his legs, but give him a task like “we need to make two soups & a casserole for this week” and he is ALL OVER IT. He also helps plan menus and write grocery lists, and will buy the groceries WITHOUT ME EVEN GOING ALONG if I ask him to.
And yes, it is sexy.
That is awesome. Cooking and menu planning? Wow!
Ah yes, my husband romanced me with cooking while we were dating. I made it clear from the beginning that I don’t enjoy cooking. I mean, I was 27 when we met so, of course, I knew how to cook to survive, but I never enjoyed it. Husband, on the other hand, loved to cook. SEXY.
Of course here we are 17 years later and due to work schedules I do most of the weekday cooking because, like you, if we waited until H got home AND cooked something, both children would be tantruming, hungry messes. Husband will still cook on the weekends, so that’s nice, but becoming a parent really has a way of kicking one in the butt in ways one cannot imagine before one has kids. I NEVER imagined I’d cook for often ungrateful picky eaters 4 nights a week. Sigh.
On a separate note, I will be lost if my grocery store ever remodels. Have been going there approx 2x per week for eight years. I know where everything is by heart. I make up my grocery list by aisle where I can find the food starting with veggies and ending with bread. Without kids I can get in and out of there in under 1/2 an hour with a full weeks worth of food. I love it.
My grocery stores move things around ALL THE TIME and it makes me insane. My husband can cook fairly well in a kitchen, but he really tears it up in a campsite from his years of canoe-tripping – nothing like French toast and bacon calling you out of the tent. This also reminded me of once when my boyfriend was away for a couple of weeks and snuck over to my house late at night when he got back; the next morning, my Dad said “I assume (boyfriend) was here last night, otherwise I’d love to hear the story of how you got that hickey”. :O