Nothing Tasted As Awful As Skinny Felt

 Content Warning: disordered eating, anorexia, mental health crises

If you have read any of my previous posts, you know that I have written on the topic of my history of disordered eating.  In fact, it was one of the first topics I addressed, in "Sausage Legs", in April of 2018.  My very first post was inspired by the unsolicited well-intentioned comments of my friends and co-workers who were noticing my recent weight loss, some of which was intentional and some of which was brought on by illness.  When I was writing these posts, I believed that my history of disordered eating was behind me.  I knew, cognitively, that thin doesn't equate to health or beauty, and that I could be beautiful and healthy at any size.  I knew that, and still...here we are, telling another story.  

It was shortly after the 2018 marathon that I started dieting again.  I had, prior to the event, lost a good deal of weight, in part due to diet and exercise, and in part due to the IBS that I wasn't exactly talking openly about with casual acquaintances.  With the elimination diet that helped me isolate the foods that were triggering my symptoms, I reached the thinnest state I'd seen since college.  Having food sensitivities and allergies were both a convenient excuse to avoid fattening foods in public, and also a legitimate fear-trigger around eating for me.  I was still terrified of foods I wasn't certain wouldn't make me sick. With the help of a full-time gym habit and plenty of protein intake, I was well-muscled, and bore less body fat than I had ever worn before.  The compliments were constant. "You look amazing! What are you doing? I can't believe the transformation I've seen in you!"  I deflected with self-deprecating humor, because I knew the comments were misplaced and undeserved.  I didn't feel amazing.  I didn't feel transformed.  I felt tired, cold, and hungry.

In the summer and fall of  2018, while training for a 26 mile run, I was healing my battered gut, and the weight started to creep back on.  I carbo-loaded like a champ, learning which high-calorie foods my intestines were able to digest easily (tater tots are my absolute fave), and as I trained, I ate and put back on some of the weight I had lost.  As soon as the race was over and the blush of having completed such an accomplishment was behind me, it was time to start counting calories again.  

Why, after feeling like such garbage at a lower weight would I want to go back to feeling like that?  Because now I identified as a Thin Person.  Now I had a wardrobe full of tiny pants.  Moreover, now I couldn't let down all those people who expressed how pleased they seemed to see me small and sick.  It wasn't just a few comments.  It wasn't just a few people.  It was dozens of colleagues, friends, and fellow fitness enthusiasts at the gym.  It was the dentist.  It was my waxer.  It was the video guy at the school play.  They say it's the thousandth tiny cut that makes a person bleed, and in spite of my speaking up and speaking out about the damaging effects of thin-praising (in this very blog, no less), the damage had found its way to me.

I was successful at staying quite thin.  Here's the thing, though: I was never lighter than the BMI's official suggested weight range for my age.  My body fat was never low enough to be considered problematic.  I fit firmly into the current medical standards for a healthy body, and so I never thought that my dieting behavior was a problem that needed addressing.

Chronic dieters love to throw about the expression "nothing tastes as good as skinny feels".  First of all, skinny isn't a feeling.  It's a descriptor.  A pencil can be skinny, but it doesn't feel anything.  Second of all, if skinny were a feeling, for me, it felt like a constant barrage of digestive distress and frequent respiratory infections.  It felt like a weakened immune system and low thyroid function.  It felt like a pulse so sluggish, a doctor sent me home with a heart monitor for 24 hours to ensure functionality.  Worse, skinny felt like the thing that everyone else wanted me to be, and I would do anything, including sabotage my own health and happiness to be that thing that seemed to please everyone who seemed so much more interested in the person I had become in a smaller form.

I had an image in my mind of what a person with an eating disorder looked like.  I had seen the stories of the tragic, emaciated teen, hair falling, out, hospitalized with an IV.  A person with a proper eating disorder would be much skinnier than I was.  It wasn't until quite recently, when I went to count the olives I was putting in my salad (6 is officially a serving, by the way--worth one point in Weight Watchers, or about 50 calories) the same way I had done a thousand times before, that I thought to myself "I think...I think I can't do this any more."  I started opening up to my therapist about what I referred to as being 'on the verge of an eating disorder' and we looked up the official definition of anorexia.  Here's what the DSM's most recent publication has to say: 

A. Restriction of energy intake relative to requirements, leading to a significant low body weight in the context of the age, sex, developmental trajectory, and physical health (less than minimally normal/expected1).

B. Intense fear of gaining weight or becoming fat or persistent behavior that interferes with weight gain.

C. Disturbed by one’s body weight or shape, self-worth influenced by body weight or shape, or persistent lack of recognition of seriousness of low bodyweight.

Again, I reiterate, according to the BMI , an official(ly debunked) chart (created by white men, using research primarily on white men), my weight was never below "normal".   But it's safe to say that my eating (or lack thereof) was having a deleterious effect on my health.  My intense fear of re-gaining the weight I had lost was having a deleterious effect on my mental health.  I even turned down the offer of anti-depressants during a particularly rough patch because I was afraid they would cause weight gain.  I learned which answers to my doctor's mental health questionnaire would require her to have me hospitalized and I lied to avoid it (but I still wasn't about to stop dieting just because I was at my literal lowest). 

Eating disorders can look like a lot of people we don't see portrayed in typical media presentations.  They can look like your fit friend.  They can look like your fat friend.  They can look like someone who is doing everything 'right' when they know people are watching.  You might think you're being a good friend by encouraging someone's weight loss.  Maybe sometimes those comments occasionally do some good, but there is always the chance that they can do harm.  In my case, the thousandth tiny cut led to a relapse worse and more sustained than my prior dalliances with disordered eating: two years of bouncing around from diet to diet, alternating between counting macros, counting calories, counting points, counting olives.  It's hard to stop counting.  I still find myself looking at the 'nutritional' information on packages.  I'm still re-learning how to actually recognize hunger and fullness signals.  I struggle to remember if I ate or when I ate, since I'm no longer tracking every bite in my phone.  I still weigh myself every day (baby steps).  I still turn sideways in the mirror and look to see how much fatter I appear than I remember wanting to appear.  I still suck in when a picture is being snapped.

If you have a friend who you know is intentionally losing weight, and they're happy and proud of their progress, there are so many supportive things you can say to them:  "I'm glad you're feeling well; you deserve to be happy"  "I see you're doing a lot of Zumba! It looks so fun!"  "What you're eating looks delicious and nutritious!  How does it taste?"  "Your form on that lift is fantastic--you've made so much progress".  What I urge, is to please consider eliminating comments about a friend's size from your list of compliments.  Even when well-intentioned, telling a person that you find them more impressive, more beautiful, more valuable when they are smaller sends a damaging message.  No one should be encouraged to shrink themselves to be more palatable for another person's viewing.  The fetishization of thinness is outdated and unhealthy.  

Beauty and health exist at all sizes.  If you're interested in more body-positive content creators, I recommend Sonya Renee Taylor, author of "The Body Is Not an Apology" and Aubrey Gordon, author of "What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat."

If you read this far, I want to thank you for listening.  I'm in recovery, working with a therapist.  This was honestly really hard to write.  I've been mentally composing it for weeks, and I'm grateful to have it out and on a page.  Thank you for your tenderness in reading.

I don't expect to post any further pieces on this blog.  I think I've exhausted my interest in writing about wellness, especially since I've learned how co-opted that word has become by the weight-loss industry. 

Thank you again for joining me in this journey. 

Stay beautiful,

XXOO Dianna

The Tick that Bit Me

I haven’t written many blog posts since the shutdown last spring.  In fact, I’ve been doing less of many things since the shutdown last spring.  Until very recently, I thought I knew the whys and the wherefores.

Let me take us back to, oh, say late April of 2020.  The school year was nearing a close, and I was working from home.  I was still running regularly with my husband, training to complete the local half-marathon that had been cancelled, along with everything else in America.  I was teaching remotely and editing music videos for my drama and chorus classes, so the sudden blurred vision seemed reasonable--screentime is notorious for hurting vision. The masking debate was still raging, and running outdoors was a little stressful—any time we approached another human, slight panic took over: run in the street? Pull on my mask? Will they be mad if I do either or neither or both? I assumed that my battling emotions were making the sport less fun, and that’s why running was feeling so hard lately.  Once we completed our 13.1 very slow miles (which felt rather harder than any 13 miles I had run before), I decided I needed to take a break from running, and I turned to asana (yoga) practice for my physical activity. 

Don't forget to stop and smell the lilacs

In June, my teaching job came to an end (no contract was made for the following year) and I managed to enjoy approximately 10 days of unemployment before I was (thankfully!) hired at a local grocery store, offering a truly decent hourly wage and an incredible health care package (starting in November).  The job is physically demanding, and I was understandably sore and tired after the first week.  And after the second week.  And after the third week.  And so on.  I made it through the first 4 months working 5 days a week, averaging well over the minimum requirement for health care, and I began scheduling appointments for doctor and dental visits.

Just a braggy picture of my beautifully-stacked apples

I kept expecting to build more endurance at work, but my energy continued to wane.  Depression started to creep and my brain seemed to cloud a little more each day.  I’d put pantry food in the fridge and fridge food in the pantry.  I'd have to check my schedule three times before I could remember what time I was starting work each day.  I could barely focus on a television show to follow the plot.  But there were explanations for all of this:  I’m aging and under some stress.  I’m working in a physically demanding profession while figuring out my career future for next year.  My husband had a kidney stone.  Elections were contentious.  The humans of planet earth are all experiencing a mass trauma of unparalleled proportions.  The burgeoning arthritis in hands and knees seemed like a normal part of being in my 40s.  Perimenopause explained the hot flashes, night sweats, and dizziness.  The headaches and fatigue and general slowing of me all seemed attributable to logical causes, and Occam’s razor always points to the simplest explanation(s).

Except when the simplest explanation isn’t so obvious.

I had cut back my hours to the bare minimum at work.  I had cut back my recreational fitness to gentle asana practice twice a week.  I had stopped cleaning the apartment.  I bought enough masks so that I only had to do laundry once every three weeks.  I was buying more prepared food to avoid the strain of cooking.  I was sleeping fitfully, taking naps when possible.  I was dropping things and stumbling through my days, telling that classic bold-faced falsehood chronically ill people have learned so well to recite when asked “how are you today?”.  And herein lies the problem with having acquired the skill of pretending to be okay when you are not okay: you start to believe it yourself.  You believe that if you just say "I'm okay" enough times, it will become true.  And it becomes true enough to fool an onlooker or even yourself for a while, but not enough to fool a medical exam.

When my annual checkup came around, and my blood pressure, pulse, and hemoglobin were all suspiciously low, my doctor suggested I switch from nightly Benadryl to daily Allegra and take more iron until the blood tests were complete.  She asked me how I’d been feeling and I told her: “honestly, I’m just exhausted all the time.”  While we both agreed that, compared to how I’d been feeling the last time we saw one another (in December of 2019, I was busy working full-time through a 2-month bout of pneumonia shortly after having an emotional meltdown triggered by career-related stress) I was doing far better.  Still, “exhausted all the time” is sub-optimal.  I took her advice to switch allergy meds and take more iron, and I went back to my shadow existence of working as little as I could while still keeping my health insurance, and resting as much as possible so that I could go back to work again.

Several days later, I get a call from the doctor’s office to discuss my blood work: “Are you having symptoms?” asks the physician on the line (not my doctor, but one of her colleagues).  “I’m always tired” I say.  I tell her I’ve changed allergy meds and am taking more iron.  It does seem to help.  “Well, you tested positive for Lyme” she tells me.

LYME.  LYME DISEASE.  I grew up literally 20 minutes away from LITERAL LYME, CONNECTICUT and spent every summer of my youth rolling around in the deep woods.  Everyone I know from that region has someone in their family who’s gotten Lyme at least once.  (Honestly, I was surprised it took me this long to catch it.) We all know the look of the tick and the classic bulls-eye rash that sends New Englanders to the doctor for immediate treatment.  

a Lyme, or deer tick

tick bite and surrounding rash

Did I see any of these telltale signs?  Of course not.  This, of all summers, the one where I spent the LEAST amount of time outdoors, would be the one where a sneaky rash-less tick would bite me.  And of course the symptoms should be so subtle and slow to develop that I would explain away each one of them with some other rationale.

One time I was bitten by a spider and *that* gave me a bullseye rash.  No superpowers, though.  It’s never superpowers.

So I got the antibiotics and I started the treatment.  But, apparently with Lyme, (and also with Syphilis), when the bacteria die off, they make a really big fuss on the way out.  For about the first 4 days, I felt like I was living through a nasty hangover: all lights were too bright.  All noises were too loud.  Headache and nausea were a baseline sensation, and my legs were baby-deer wobbly.  Random pains moved around my body:  one minute, my teeth hurt.  The next minute, my ears hurt.  Then one vertebrae would light on fire, and just as quickly, extinguish itself.  The skin on my hips felt bruised when my hand brushed past.  I managed to drag my sorry self to work each day, though, because as long as I’m not contagious or barfing, I’m not about to lose any hours that might cost me access to my health care.  If I hadn’t had a lapse in employer-based insurance, would I maybe have visited the doctor sooner?  I guess we’ll never know.  But my Hot Take on American health care is a Whole Nother Story altogether.

Then one day, for a few hours, the fog lifted.  Most of my pain seemed to just…disappear (I suspect the arthritis might be part of the New Dianna for…well, maybe ever, but that’s okay).  My head didn’t hurt.  My stomach didn’t spin.  The lights were just the right amount of bright.  And I had ENERGY.  I moved about the grocery store with all the spryness of a 41-year-old!  I found myself nearly in tears with happiness—is this what *healthy* people feel like?  I had been sick (truly more so than I even realized) for so long I didn’t even know what wellness felt like anymore.

Yes, I am aware that many people experience symptoms long after treatment with Lyme, and I might become one of those people.  Yes, I know I went an awfully long time prior to diagnosis, and that doesn’t bode well.  Yes, I know what some of the long-term repercussions might be with this illness.  But I’m choosing optimism, because I already feel SO. MUCH. BETTER.  I got to experience wellness again, and I know I can access that feeling again and still.  If this is as good as it gets, I will be grateful, because until I had this diagnosis, I thought my new normal was so much worse.  And at least I have the grim satisfaction of knowing I'll probably outlive the tick that bit me.

https://globallymealliance.org/about-lyme/prevention/about-ticks/#:~:text=TICK%20LIFE%20CYCLE%3A,larva%2C%20nymph%2C%20and%20adult.

Hold on to your health care (and fight for better access to health care for everybody!  Again, though, that's another blog post altogether).  Go for checkups.  Don’t ignore symptoms, because you never know when the difference between an existence half-lived and a thriving life might be as simple as a blood test and 28 little* pills.

*Okay, they're actually kind of big, but that doesn't sound as pithy.

Be well, friends.

image sources:

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2016/p0208-lyme-disease.html

https://globallymealliance.org/about-lyme/diagnosis/stages/

https://www.producemarketguide.com/produce/limes

Dirt Under My Nails

When you were a youngster, did you ever make mudpies?  I can still recall the satisfying sensation of slapping the soggy soil from one hand to the other, simply enjoying the feeling of wet mud on my hands (and pretty much everywhere else--sorry, mom).  

Maybe you never made mud pies, but you enjoy walking barefoot on the beach or grass, feeling the soft earth under your feet.  Maybe you enjoy running your fingers over tree bark during a nature walk, or inhaling the scent of a recent rainfall over natural terrain.  Or maybe, like me, you've transitioned your love of dirt into a passion for gardening.  Maybe, like me, you're planting bulbs for spring.

For 14 years, I lived in city dwellings and had to satisfy my cultivation itch with a few potted houseplants and stoop-front annuals in containers.  

6 years ago, I had the amazing fortune to move to a more suburban environment, and our landlord gave me carte blanche to cultivate the bit of earth out back that we share with our neighbors in the building (all of whom are thrilled to have more greens and flowers to gaze upon and smell in the warmer months as part of our home).

Maybe you're a gardener.  Maybe you have a gardener in your family or friend circle.  If so, you know a few things:  our backs frequently ache.  We talk to the plants (and they talk back--just because you can't *hear* them doesn't mean you don't listen).  We like getting dirty, and we are usually in a much better mood after spending an hour with our hands in the soil.

There are a few theories (and research to back them up) as to why gardening, nature walks, and time spent in physical contact with the earth are so therapeutic.  One factor is sunshine:  frequent and moderate exposure to the sun seems to have a profound effect on the brain's serotonin, the chemical responsible for helping us feel calm and contented.  This is why Seasonal Affective Disorder is so common in winter, when there is less sunlight and people spend more time indoors.

Another rather obvious factor is that (most) everyone enjoys the beauty of natural splendor.  If you are getting dirty, you're probably outside, and you're probably engaging in an enjoyable activity.  Chances are that your feet are in the sand or your hands are in the flowerbed because it's your "me" time, and you're engaging in self-care (while also caring for your environment, ideally).

One possibly surprising factor is the actual dirt, itself.  Soil contains loads of fun ingredients, including "Mycobacterium vaccae" (myco is the prefix for mushrooms, by the way, and maybe you've heard of how underground fungi can actually help plants communicate to one another--we truly know so little about the magic of plants).  This is a kind of soil microbe which is responsible for nourishing plants, and may have the added benefit of improving mental (and possibly physical) health.  According to gardeningknowhow.com, 

"The bacterium is found in soil and may stimulate serotonin production, which makes you relaxed and happier. Studies were conducted on cancer patients and they reported a better quality of life and less stress. Lack of serotonin has been linked to depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder and bipolar problems. The bacterium appears to be a natural antidepressant in soil and has no adverse health effects. These antidepressant microbes in soil may be as easy to use as just playing in the dirt."

By simply touching the soil, you absorb some of these nutrients.  By eating food grown in soil, you *ingest* these nutrients (a concept heralded by Josh Axe in his book, "Eat Dirt").  

You can consume natural antidepressants by just getting some dirt under your nails (and/or in your mouth).  It's worth letting your manicure take a hit.  And nothing tastes better than food you grew yourself, if you have the space to do so.

Obviously, no one is suggesting that you toss your meds and therapy.  I certainly keep up my conventional health protocols.  And not everyone has a yard or even a stoop.  But maybe it wouldn't hurt to get a few succulents to whisper sweet nothings to.  My only warning is that this hobby tends to evolve into a lifestyle, and once you start it's unlikely you'll ever want to stop.

Resources:

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/garden-how-to/soil-fertilizers/antidepressant-microbes-soil.htm#:~:text=The%20bacterium%20is%20found%20in,compulsive%20disorder%20and%20bipolar%20problems.

https://time.com/4888327/why-sunlight-is-so-good-for-you/

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141111-plants-have-a-hidden-internet

https://draxe.com/nutrition/eating-dirt/

Sing Out

There have been very few years of my life when singing, particularly choral singing, was not a large part of my best-spent hours.  Like most young American children, I started singing in school, as part of basic elementary music education.  In fact, one of my earliest memories of school is a particular chorus rehearsal where, at age...six? I think?...I allowed my (constantly wandering) imagination to take control of my hands, and I began tenderly choreographing hand motions to accompany the music we were singing in class.  My teacher pulled me aside and asked me to show her what I was doing; she asked if we could please incorporate the hand movements I was inventing and teach them to the class.  Equal parts embarrassed (I was certain I was about to be reprimanded--again--for not following directions) and flattered, we did just that in the following rehearsal.  It was the beginning of what would become a lifelong love for performing theatre and song. 

As soon as I was old enough to be allowed to sing in my church choir, I joined.  I partook in every school musical I could squeeze into my schedule, and I sang in every chorus and choir my schools offered, going so far as to spend two high school seasons performing with the Connecticut Allstate chorus. 

Senior Year with the H.S. school Chamber Choir

Performing the National Anthem at graduation with my classmate

To say that singing was the single most important part of my primary education is not an understatement.  Yes, I am obviously grateful for my ability to read, write, perform simple mathematical functions, and all the other vital skills school teaches, but I am in the minority among career schoolteachers in that I did not love going to school each day as a child.  I was a weak student, easily distracted, frequently frustrated, and convinced that I was too dumb to even belong there (not a lot changed over 40 years on that front).  There was, however, one thing I excelled at.  There was one thing I loved to participate in, and I was beyond thrilled to attend class for, and that was singing.  If there hadn't been singing in school, I don't know how I would have survived.

Maybe you sing a little.  Maybe you've been in a choir.  Maybe you know what it feels like when you and dozens of other singers hold a note so beautiful, you can barely stand to keep singing it but daren't ever stop (until the conductor cuts you off).  Maybe you've felt the phenomenon of your many hearts literally synching beats as you perform together as one.  Maybe you know how blissfully happy it makes you feel, or how you learn to breathe a little better, stand a little taller, feel a little stronger after a few hours of communal warbling.

There is science behind all these feelings.  The studies are in.  Singing, especially choral singing, is GOOD for you. 

Except right now.  Right now, singing is dangerous.  Well, singing in your shower is fine.  Singing in your car is great.  But choral singing?  Large groups of people spraying their oral aerosols at high volume at large groups of people listening?  These are, according to our best information so far, too dangerous to engage in until further notice (probably until a vaccine).  

Until this past spring, part of my work as a schoolteacher included leading the upper school chorus at the small school where I was employed.  It was my favorite part of the week, meeting with my group of singers.  Much like my experience as a student, I lived for those few hours when I would hear their voices blend in harmony.  Heart pounding, arms waving, I and my students would drill, drill, drill our pieces into perfection and then perform them for eager families who had barely an inkling of what their children's potential for musical greatness was until they heard their voices lifted together in song.

Conducting students singing the National Anthem at Citifield--a literal dream come true

And then came Covid-19/Coronavirus/SARS-COV 2--whatever you want to call it.  The virus came.  The school where I was teaching, like everything else, was shut down.  We moved to 'remote learning' (online classes). 

From March to June, we sang through screens at home, like everyone else, and we did one of those virtual choir things (which sounded fantastic), like everyone else, and it was better than not singing at all.

And then I was given the news that I knew was coming.

I will not be teaching school chorus in September.  There might be no musical plays.  There will be little singing in the school.  There will probably be little singing in any schools, not for a while.  Standing shoulder to shoulder and spraying our breath about for a crowded auditorium is simply too risky to engage in, and it's a hard pill to swallow.

I cried for a week.  I could barely listen to singing, much less practice it.  My voice fell silent while I mourned.

My earliest and happiest school memories are from singing.  If we can't sing in the schools, I don't know how anyone is supposed to muddle through the rest of the hours, because the hours spent singing in schools are the best hours of them all.  They are the hours that sustain the kids (and teachers) who, like me, are just marking time from day to day until the moments when we can breathe deep, stand tall, synch heartbeats, and sing together.  I can't bear to imagine going to a school where there is no singing.  I'm grateful I don't have to (I got a nice job at a nice grocery store where I sing quietly into my mask while stocking bananas).  A school with no singing is a place I'd rather not be.

But mourning must end.  Singing is good for us.  We mustn't stop singing.  So what are we to do? 

We can keep singing in the shower and in the car.  Never stop singing in the shower and in the car.  We can sing with our families.  And we can, in a way, still sing together.  Since March, a Maine organization has been hosting an ongoing 'quarantine karaoke' via their Facebook group.  And if you're really hungering for choral singing, while it is decidedly not the same thing, there are a growing number of virtual choirs anyone can join so that you can hear your voice blend with dozens of people you've never met before.  Now, as much as ever, is a time to adapt.  

You can sing along with me, if you like (see video).  Just keep singing, because singing is good for you.  It's good for me.  It's good for us.  As long as we maintain our distance to keep each other safe, we must keep singing. 

So, please, by all means, if you want to sing out, sing out.

(mobile users may have difficulty seeing the video embed, so here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6chG6DXWys)

*edit:  I have recently learned that I was given inaccurate information -- there *will* be a chorus at the school where I was previously employed.  I suppose circumstances changed between June and August, as they are wont to do.  I still stand by my writing, as it reflects my truth at the time I wrote it.  Best wishes to all music teachers as they navigate this year's process.

"Pizza" By Any Other Name

If you've read my early blog posts, you know that I'm allergic or intolerant to every key ingredient in pizza: dairy, wheat, and tomatoes.  I have been, over the past year, testing out a few methods that might make it possible for me to consume something pizza-like, and I think I've finally nailed a decent facsimile.  When I posted my first 'pizza' attempt on Instagram (it was okay, but I wasn't wild about the crust), one of my followers suggested that I call it something different, as it was so far removed from what a pizza is.

I will continue to call it pizza, because I feel like after being deprived of dairy, wheat, and tomatoes, I should at least be allowed the simple pleasure of calling this thing I've concocted whatever I want to call it, even if it doesn't fit traditional confines.  Feel free to call yours a tasty food disc or whatever you like, but for simplicity and for the sense of feeling like I'm not a complete outsider in this food experience that so many other people consider part of a 'normal' life, I'm going to exercise my freedom of speech.

This is actually two recipes: one for the crust, and one for the 'marinara sauce'.  Let's do the sauce first.

I start with beets and carrots.  It's about this many (I'm not much for measuring).

some beets and some carrots.

Peel them, chop them up, and boil them until soft.

Peel

Chop

Boil

Then, you put the whole mess (water included) into a blender, and purée the heck out of it.  Put the blend back in your sauce pot, and season to taste.  If it's very runny, just simmer it until some of the moisture evaporates.

Add flavorings.  Probably include garlic.

I'm not going to tell you how to season your sauce, because I--A: didn't write down what I put in (definitely garlic, but, uh, how much?...) and I B: am from German descent and honestly have no business telling people how to make something taste Italian.  Look for some nice marinara sauce recipes online.  I bet there's a million.  I'm sure they'll tell you how to make it good.  Be aware that it will taste verrry much like beets and carrots.  You'll need to add a lot of magic spices to make it taste anything like tomato sauce, and in the end, it won't, really.  It will be a red purée of nice flavor that, if you squint and pour it over something like pasta or a pizza, you could convince yourself it's marinara-adjacent.

Sauce that is red!

Now for the crust.  Again, there are a bajillion great adapted crusts out there, using a variety of ingredients (did you know you can make pizza crust with cauliflower?).  I've learned, as I've had to eliminate most grains from my diet, that baking is not really the wizardry some people would have you believe.  Yes, if you're making a soufflé or a flan or something quite technically challenging, you should definitely follow instructions closely.  But for quickbreads, cookies, and crusts--baking is a pretty simple business.  You take dry ingredients and make them wet, and then you cook them until they're dry again.  The rest is just: how do you want it to taste/how fluffy do you want it/how dense, how dry, how crusty...all of this can be finagled with a little know-how (regarding how much egg/fat/baking powder, etc. you decide to use).  For this crust, I used *no* recipe, and made use of the ingredients *I* (a gluten-free/dairy-free baker) tend to use.  Lucky for all of us, I wrote everything down.  Feel free to substitute any part of this with pretty much anything remotely similar.  It will probably work.

Dry ingredients:

1/2 cup buckwheat flour

1/2 cup tapioca flour

1/2 cup quinoa flour

1/2 cup coconut flour

1/2 cup tigernut flour

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Wet ingredients:

1/2 cup puréed spaghetti squash

2 eggs

1-2 cups water 

Start by mixing the dry ingredients, plus the squash (if you have some--I literally had some around, and I've been meaning to test out my theory that squash would make a good ingredient in quickbread recipes--it does!), and one egg.  

Add a cup of water, and as you mix it up, keep adding water until it reaches a nice, doughy consistency.  I warn you, it will NOT behave like pizza dough.  It will be more like gritty cake batter, but stickier.  Scoop this goo onto a pizza pan with a sheet of parchment paper on top.

Then, use a spreader to make a nice, round disc of sticky, flat dough.

Bake this at 350 (Fahrenheit) for 15 minutes.  Then, you'll be using the second egg to seal it before baking it a second time.  Just paint that egg all over the top of the crust.  This is a key step in many crusty recipes.  I use egg washes for sweet and savory pie crusts as well.  Bake the topless crust another 20 minutes.

Once your twice-baked crust is nice and crusty, layer on the 'marinara' sauce and your favorite toppings.  For the cheese, I use Daiya brand mozzerella.  It melts.  Sort of.  Again, if you squint and use your imagination, you can believe it's cheese-adjacent.

Bake this again (still at 350--going any hotter risks burning the crust) for about 30 minutes--and yep, this is a Hawaiian pizza.  I figure I've offended pizza-lovers so much already (you'll be appalled to hear that we ate these with forks and knives, because the crust, while delicious, is not structurally sound), why not go whole hog and throw pineapple and ham on this monstrosity.

Straight up delicious.  No joke.  Closest thing to a pizza I've eaten in literally years.  I hope you can find the joy for yourself that this disc of food items has brought to me.

The Sun Rose Today

A week ago, our school was talking seriously about the possibility of shutting the building.  Last Tuesday, we trained our students in the online platform we would use for remote learning.  On Wednesday, my 8th grade actors and I, who were preparing to open "Newsies" for April 1st, held our last rehearsal before the closure. Every time anyone discussed future plans, even as proximate as the following day, I would hesitate before uttering the word "tomorrow," grimly thinking to myself "If there is a tomorrow..."  I mean, of course there will be a tomorrow, but for the first time in my life, I genuinely didn't know what to expect each day.  We were told to bring everything home every night in case of an overnight announcement. The growing sense of uncertainty we've all been feeling over the last few weeks was surreal.  I remember turning to the pianist Wednesday evening, shrugging, and saying, "Well, we're here today."  We smiled, and we went on singing, dancing, complaining about how much our feet hurt, and pretending that everything was "normal".

Thursday was our last day in the building.

Now I'm socially distancing (I love this expression and will use it for the rest of my days) with everyone else, and I am actively experiencing a massive sense of gratitude that I am one of the lucky few who are able to work from home.  I am blessed to have a loving human and two furry friends in the apartment with me.  It's spring, and the weather is warming.  My plants are sprouting, and my fermentations are brewing in the kitchen.

We're here today.

Today the sun rose.  It will rise again tomorrow.  Tomorrow is miles away (sorry, Annie) and we can cross that bridge when we come to it.  We're here today, and the sun rose.

As long as the sun rises each day, I feel it is my civic duty as a citizen of planet Earth to salute it.  I invite anyone who would like to practice said salutations (and a few more poses) with me to practice along; I'll be making some follow-along yoga videos to help encourage others to develop an at-home practice for all of us with a little extra at-home time on our hands.

Please enjoy Asana Terra's YouTube debut:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzhzSnLV-Xg&feature=youtu.be

Sauerkraut!

Maybe it's my love affair with sour and salty foods (I keep the pickle juice in my fridge after I've eaten the pickles just to take sips from the jar), or maybe it's my love affair with probiotics and fermentation (oh, hey, did you see my post about kombucha?) or maybe it's my German heritage, but I can't remember a time in my life when I didn't love sauerkraut.

Maybe you love sauerkraut, and maybe you don't yet know how different homemade sauerkraut tastes compared to commercially-made sauerkraut.  Even the 'best' store-bought krauts don't compare to what you can create in your own kitchen, and it's easier to pull off a successful batch than you (probably) think.

A good kraut starts, as all good things in life do, with a head of cabbage.  Fresher is better; older cabbage can come with hidden mold, which may wreck your whole batch, leading to sorrow.

You can use green cabbage or red cabbage.  I, personally, have found that the red cabbages are slightly less moist inside, which means a greater likelihood of supplementing your batch with some salt brine, but this is not a hard and fast rule, and it shouldn't stop you from enjoying the magic of a red kraut.  I'm actually going to turn this cabbage red at the end of this post, using the magic of beets.  But for now, it's a lovely green cabbage.  Time to slice it to shreds!

I use a standard chef's knife for this.  I find that mandoline slicers make a big mess of cabbage (though I do use one for the beets) and shred it a little too fine, anyhow.  This is far from the most labor-intensive part of the process (that's the smashing, and it's loads of fun).

Next, add salt.

Any salt will work, but I'm a salt snob, so only the Frenchest brand for me and my kraut will do.

I'm not a big one for measuring, so I just pour it until I feel like it's a good amount.  If you want a "recipe", this is a good one.  Don't skimp on the salt.  You can always rinse the kraut later (I recommend it, actually) before you move it to the fridge.

Next, comes the "fun" part.  The smashing.  I use a smasher that came with this nice fermentation kit for use with ball jars. 

Much like muddling (for all you bartenders out there), you just take the big stick and smash the dickens out of the cabbage.  This is a great way to get out your aggressions.  The cabbage will start to break down and release its juices (this is the secret to great kraut).  Eventually, you'll have to switch from smashing to smooshing.

You gotta really get in there and squeeze the heck out of the cabbage, getting as much brine out as you can.  The juicier, the better.

If you don't have enough brine to fill up and cover the cabbage when you go to put it in the jar, you can supplement with some homemade brine (basically, just boil some filtered water and add in a handful of salt.  Let cool until it's room temperature).

That's the basis of a sauerkraut, and these are the only ingredients necessary:  cabbage, salt, and smashing.

Because I'm fancy, I add a few more things (varies depending on my mood and the alignment of the planets).  In this case, I added capers, dill, and caraway seeds.

And shredded beets!

Mix everything together, and then, use the big smashing stick to really cram it in tight in a quart-sized ball jar (or 2, depending on the quantity of cabbage you started with).  Pour the brine in until it covers the cabbage fully.  I then use a glass weight to make sure the cabbage doesn't expand (it likes to do this).  

Finally, cap off your jar with an air-locking lid (I like the little silicone ones that come with the aforementioned kit) so that carbon dioxide can escape, but oxygen won't enter.  

kraut with beets

kraut without beets

Final step:  Let it sit in a cool, darkish place for three weeks.  Check periodically to make sure the brine hasn't evaporated (I keep a jar of salt water in my fridge to top off drying krauts).

After 3 weeks, I strain and rinse the kraut, move it to the fridge (in a new container) and then eat it literally EVERY DAY because I love it so.

A few things can cause kraut tragedy, and it happens to the best of us, but if you're conscientious, you can avoid a lot of problems by watching out for the following:

Mold.  If you see mold forming on the surface of your kraut, it *might* be okay--just scrape off the top and hopefully it doesn't spread throughout the batch.  Some people consider this a death knell, but I've salvaged a few moldy batches (and lost a few, too).

Oxidation.  If you don't have a good airlock on your jar, oxygen can get in to your batch and make it brown and icky.  Get a good airlock system.

Heat.  Kraut-making is traditionally an autumnal activity (cabbages are harvested in fall in northern climates).  It's most successful in temps of about 65-75 degrees.  In summer, I place ice packs around the jars to keep them from overheating.

Dehumidification.  Sometimes the brine will evaporate a bit, and that leaves exposed leaves on the top.  This can lead to oxidation and mold.  Keeping the entirety of your cabbage submerged in brine is the best way to keep problems at bay.

Is this the easiest thing in the world to do?  No.  But it's easy enough that it's worth it; I'm ruined for commercial kraut anymore.  It takes me about an hour to make a batch that lasts me 2-3 weeks, and I'm telling you, I eat a cup a day.  It's a small price to pay for the best fermented vegetables on the planet.

Happy kraut-making!