saturn floating

115mph, in a parking lot, with no rpms.

I do the hocus pocus.

i got kinda bored writing down the minutiae, but let it be known: i have succeeded! monday marked one week, and here i am on thursday, still goin' strong. i only wanted to challenge myself to a week initially because i thought it would have been too hard to muster a whole month, but as it turns out, i started on 10/26 and exactly one month will bring me right up to thanksgiving. i already agreed in the beginning that i would allow myself a golden ticket on my birthday, but other than that, i think i'll just go ahead and finish the month.

in related news, i have become dangerously attached to stove-made popcorn tossed with melted smart balance mixed with nutritional yeast. i know it sounds ridiculously hippie and awful, but i swear, it's heaven.

it's my birthday tomorrow, whoopee! tarin and i are going to spend the day in wine country. probably temecula since it is closer and i've never been, but santa ynez is so tempting...

i kind of want to brag about how easy this is (considering the hibernating cheese monster and all) except that i've had so much free time this week to play in the kitchen that i don't think it would be as feasible logistically during normal workload weeks. i have, however, finally mastered the art of freezing leftovers, so maybe it's more do-able than i think? meh, experiment shmeriment.

breakfast: hickory bacon salt (yes, it's vegan!) sprinkled on a pan-crisped nigari tofu patty, toasted sourdough bread, melted nacho vegan cheese, sauteed oyster mushrooms, baby arugula aka the breakfast sandwich from heaven. finally, a delicious, savory breakfast! i could get used to this.

lunch: sicilian carrot & whole wheat orzo stew over sauteed garlicky kale

dinner (before work): cheap&dirty iceberg salad w/ artichoke hearts, beets and kalamata olives, italian dressing

dinner (after work): wilted watercress with a can o' vegan split pea soup

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i made romesco sauce this morning for the first time ever and oh my god i want to have it's little saucy spanish babies. i have these adorable little round baby eggplants, and i'm thinking they are going to meet their delicious end pierced with garlic, roasted, basted in the romesco and topped with breadcrumbs. then i will put them in my mouth.

breakfast: i cooked up some glutinous black rice in soy milk and mixed in the quince conserve stuff that i made the other day, ate just enough to decry it far too sweet (i'm not a big fan of sweets period, and in the morning it can be especially overwhelming), lost my appetite, gave up, shaved my head, grabbed the closest umbrella i could find and curled up into fetal position until lunchtime. they say breakfast is the most important meal of the day...

lunch: i made a "grilled cheese" sandwich using this hippie, vegan cheese i found at the local-ish hippy, vegan-friendly supermarket. i sliced up what little marinated mushrooms i had left from pillaging the olive/antipasto bar at my local non-hippie, non-vegan-friendly supermarket the other day. maybe i'm just hard-up for cheese, but this fake stuff i bought is seriously delicious, and it seriously melts like the real deal. hippies have gotten way more industrious when it comes to food, and for that i am both relieved and grateful. so far the cheese monster lay dormant, and trust me, you don't want to see the cheese monster.

dinner: i shouldn't trust myself in the kitchen when i'm too ravenous to cook*. i originally planned on making some rice paper spring rolls with all of the leftover "stuff" i had around (cilantro, chives, avocado, sauteed mushrooms, cucumber, mango, daikon sprouts). despite the fact that i ended up rolling 4 giant blunt-sized food objects, i was so hungry from not having eaten a proper 1st meal and skipping both elevenses and snack time throughout the day, it didn't look like it would be satisfying enough to sate my hunger. at the time it sounded like a good idea to brush them in a little oil and bake to give 'em a more crunchy, satisfying, egg roll-like texture. about halfway through the brilliant** experiment it dawned on me that almost everything in the rolls was raw and laden with water and baking the rolls would make a soggy, glutinous, rice paper-y mess. instead of completely aborting the mission i cranked the oven to broil, hoping the higher heat would crisp the outside before mush-ifying the insides. needless to say, it was too late and by then i was too hungry and too defeated to give a crap that what i was about to eat looked like a landfill of quaggy, steaming vegan refuse. i dutifully shoveled the semi-edible debris into my mouth and called it dinner.

dessert: i wanted to make up for both breakfast and dinner's relative masochism by treating myself to something sweet, so i blended a banana, 1/2 an avocado, some cocoa powder and maple syrup into choco-banana pudding. it would've been good except that i forgot that i don't have a big sweet tooth, took a few bites, put it away, and poured myself some wine instead. by then it was past 8pm but i'm pretty sure the sun came out all over again.

* see what i mean? i didn't have a proper breakfast, and it totally ruined my whole life. "they" are so right about the most maligned meal of the day.

** "stupid"

breakfast: soy oatmeal with quince, ginger and pecan conserve, sliced bananas

lunch: maple roasted rutabaga, stir-fried collard greens with golden raisins, spicy sesame tofu

dinner: yet another banh mi with my leftover spicy sesame tofu, quick kimchi salad and green beans

my cashew cheese experiment was a success! it is tangy, creamy, slightly nutty and very flavorful. no, it's not cheese cheese, but it satisfies the creamy, tangy, rich flavor that i would miss from a prolonged departure from dairy.

i often whine to tarin about lacking in the varied availability of unique ingredients i used to enjoy while i lived in seattle. i loved being able to walk to my local whole foods, or bus to uwajimaya and wander the aisles, pick up something unintelligible or unrecognizable, then solve the mystery and/or find a way to make it delicious. however sometimes i forget that orange county is even more heterogeneous than seattle is in some ways, although more in pockets, if that makes any sense. i guess what i'm trying to say is that there is a wider availability of unique products here, but that they are often farther away and only known to exist to a select few (namely, by whatever ethnic group happens to heavily populate that area). this probably doesn't sound particularly unusual to some of you, and it's hard to describe, but orange county is more segregated, community-wise than even the closest analog of "chinatown" in a big city surrounded by other pockets of ethnic neighborhoods. in orange county, it's easy to live completely oblivious of ethnic populations. abutting a particular neighborhood does not require one iota of human contact.

but i digress. tarin is undertaking the patient endeavor of making classic kimchi (fermentation vessel and all) and needed authentic korean chili powder, among other items of ethnic specificity. given that tarin's side of fullerton boasts a prominent korean influence, we kicked ourselves for not even thinking of checking out the big box asian supermarket a few miles away. i don't read korean, but i know the traditional korean greeting that is spoken in all of the neighboring establishments (even at the pho place!), so we assumed it would lean in that direction. we were right.

man, i love asian markets. i could lose hours staring at packaging, smelling produce and ogling the seafood selections. it's too bad i'm being vegan for a week or two, or i would have had a field day at this joint. as it was, i scored a bag of king oyster mushrooms for under a few bucks, a jug of soy sauce for 4, prepared spicy tofu in the deli section, more tofu, dried shiitakes, sambal oelek for dirt cheap, and then i drooled on everything else i saw. i'll be back.

for posterity's sake, day 2 of my vegan adventure:

breakfast -- banana, oat, chamomile soy smoothie

lunch -- cajun tofu red beans, whole wheat cous cous, sauteed spicy* king oyster mushrooms and sugar snap peas

dinner -- the 2nd half of my vegan banh mi with lightly sauteed cabbage tossed in spicy* peanut sauce

i tend to snack on crackers with avocado since i can't eat cheese. :( i am making cashew cheese right now; i had a brief taste post-blend and pre-cheesecloth, and i must admit, it had the tang and creamy texture (minus the "animal" flavor) of young chevre. i can't wait to try it tomorrow!

* i think i am overcompensating for lack of animal-ness by making everything i eat extra spicy. not that it's a bad thing, and i do eat spicy food regularly, but the last few days have been kind of out of hand.

i was bored, so i decided to go vegan for a week. more specifically, for at least a week and at the most up until my 28th birthday on november 6th.

VINGT-HUIT, WUT? i really can't believe i'm turning such a lovely, even number of such, ahem, high value in the "twenties." so soon. i feel so young!

by the way, i love my birthday, i love adding a number to my age every year, i'm not afraid of the 5 gray hairs i already have, 30 sounds like a wondrous party of giant proportions, i'm convinced i age as well as a chateau d'yquem, so no, i will never loathe november 6th.

(i feel the need to shout this now that i am entering my "late twenties" since so many women my age and older have already long given up on being selfishly exuberant on their birthdays. for shame!)

as far as the vegan experiment goes, so far i am having fun. i like that it stretches my skills in the kitchen, my creativity, my patience. so far, i have enjoyed:

breakfast -- a simple piece of organic sourdough toasted and painted with natural peanut butter, sliced banana and sprinkled with sea salt.

lunch -- ginger cayenne mashed rutabaga with sauteed collards with golden raisins, garlic and orange

dinner -- smoky miso baked tofu done a la banh mi: whole grain baguette, lime veganaise, quick cabbage kimchi, cucumber, cilantro

needless to say, the belly is happy. i am soaking cashews right now in preparation for this vegan goat "cheese" recipe. i am a scant meat eater as it is, but dairy products are my achilles heel (thus the vegan challenge). i'm intrigued to see what the texture/flavor to this alternative will be like.

i don't want to break livejournal or anything for posting thrice in one day after posting little more than mobile photo blather for months on end, but it just occurred to me that as of this month, 3 whole damn years ago, i quit smoking. i was a smoker for some 5 years, heavily, and after one long nite of drinking and smoking i quite simply awoke to a new day that didn't require the tobacco love any longer. i've tried to explain it to others, but to this day it doesn't make sense to me, so why bother?

i call it accidental aversion therapy, but i could care less what it is, i'll take it, and happily.

in some sort form of subconscious empathy i bummed one off of my brother last nite.

it literally made me sick.

okay, universe, i get the picture! sheesh.