Cirque du Malaise

I’ve written a lot about being a big fan of the Julia Cameron book The Artist’s Way. I’ve followed this 12-week program several times in my life, and it has really made a difference in the way I see myself and my potential for creativity. The last time I “did” The Artist’s Way project, I blogged about it every week. You can see the archive here.

One of my favorite things about The Artist’s Way project is that you make a creative date with yourself every week. This is a habit I have tried to carry over into my life as a permanent fixture. Not every week, necessarily, but regularly. This year, I decided to take one workday off every month and play creative hooky.

This is how my first creative hooky day of 2012 went:

First, I went to the Mill Valley Library and read magazines.

My intention was to find new magazines to submit my writing to. However, I will admit that O! Magazine sucked me in for a while. I hate it when I am an obedient example of the target market. But I did also (re) discover the McSweeneys publication The Believer, which you betcha I will be subscribing to from now on. I particularly liked this piece: Hatorade — about the phenomenon of hateful internet commentary. Been there.

While I was at the library, I checked out a free pass to the De Young Museum in San Francisco.

(Yet another reason the library system rocks the house.) If you haven’t been to the De Young in Golden Gate Park, definitely check it out. It’s my favorite museum in San Francisco. I particularly love that it doesn’t seem to have a theme. It’s not, like “modern art” or “heritage art” or “Asian art” or anything like that. It’s just a mishmash of cool stuff. The main exhibit right now is classic Venice masterpieces (oil paintings). The next one is going to be a Jean Paul Gaultier exhibit. My favorite things at the De Young this time:

The Art of the Anatolian Kilim (Ottoman empire rugs from like 400 years ago)

A very cool mobile sculpture with accompanying shadow art. (More on this.)

Stopped at The Village Market in San Francisco for a mocha.

And while I was there, bought some very expensive rice with bamboo powder in it. I don’t know; I’m a sucker for things that should be really cheap but are actually exorbitantly expensive. $7 for rice? Sign me up! But it was actually quite delicious.

And last but not least, went to pottery class.

The perfect way to top off a day of 100% creative activities. Ah, good for the soul.

Oh also, you guys, because I talk about The Artist’s Way so goddamned much, someone from their publishing team recently gifted me a free trial of their brand new web site service and iPhone app, My Artist’s Way Toolkit. The intersection of creativity and technology is something I’m really passionate about, so I was very excited to try this out.

It’s pretty cool. Whether you are interested in making a commitment to the 12-week Artist’s Way program, or just want a place where you can jot down ideas, receive Artist’s Way journaling prompts and “Artist Date” ideas,  and feel like you are really doing something for your inner artist and still being a cool, hip, technical sort, check it out. And they gave me a code you can use to try it for free for one month. Go here and type in: AWTOOLKIT

Make me proud!

One of the downsides of being a writer with a naturally curious personality and a wee bit of an obsessive compulsive issue is that I know a real lot about some extremely useless things.

For instance, ask me anything in the world about percale sheets. I’m pretty much the world’s leading expert on threadcount versus weave, after spending the last three weeks shopping around for new linens. I can tell you, for instance, that percale gets thicker with time as the threads tighten up and bind together. And that a high threadcount does not necessarily make for nicer sheets. And that the best cotton, as far as sheets are concerned, comes from Egypt. And that the best flannel comes from Italy. And that everyone that works in the Macy’s sheet department at the Northgate Mall cares more about crystal meth than they do about sheets. And that, incidentally, the Northgate Mall is a good place to go if you want a glimpse at what hell is going to be like. (HINT: It smells like Drakkar Noir.)

Another thing I know a lot about: tea.

Once, I got in what I’ll politely classify a “discourse” with a barista in San Francisco because he erroneously told me that the mint tea was “decaf.” I felt like it was my moral responsibility to explain to him that, technically, mint tea is not “decaffeinated” because it never contained caffeine in the first place. In fact, mint tea is not tea at all but, rather what’s called a tisane. To actually be tea, it has to come from the camellia sinensis plant, and naturally contains caffeine, whether it is black, green, puehr, or oolong. (And I swear to Christ I did not even have to look this up on Wikipedia.) Otherwise, it’s a tisane, which is what all herbal teas are.

He wasn’t really all that pleased to be schooled on his job and I’m pretty sure he wanted to shoot me in the eye with his espresso spigot. In case you are thinking, I can see where he was coming from, don’t worry, I hate me too. Know-it-alls are real annoying. I try to tone it down.

I really do love tea, though. I’m very, shall we say, particular about tea. I once stormed out of a Whole Foods in L.A. because they only had Twinings tea available at the coffee bar. Not okay, Whole Foods. Twinings is diner tea. At least pony up the Mighty Leaf.

In an alternate life I would own a tea company. Instead, I own an imaginary spice company, SimpleBasic: www.simplebasic-sf.com Sometimes I concoct actual things and give them to my friends. Recently, I made two gigantic batches of two different kinds of tea:

They’re pretty delicious. I was feeling self-congratulatory.

But then I got turned on to this new company Tea Sparrow, and I was humbled. Tea Sparrow is a tea club. Every month, they send you a variety box of loose leaf teas in these sweet little reclose-able bags. I got my hands on the first box, and dove in to the Red Rocks, which is an herbal rooibus vanilla blend. I’m not usually a big rooibus fan, mainly because it reminds me of a certain South African tea “friend” I used to have who kind of ruined my life a little bit, but this rooibus may have actually turned my life back around. It was that good. The rest of the teas were equally star quality.

Signing up for this monthly tea delivery might have to be my splurge of the year. Unless you count the Italian percale sheets I just bought.  But, you know, those were more of a necessity than a splurge.

Anyway, I really want this new company to succeed because they are doing good things with tea and it’s a fun idea, so if you’re into tea, please check it out:

www.teasparrow.com

I sometimes write about food and even occasionally post recipes, because eating locally, organically and sustainably is something I find really compelling and wholesome. (Although, just to be clear, I don’t care what or how you eat. Promise!) So I am pretty excited to officially announce that I will be co-leading a retreat at White Lotus (in Santa Barbara) next May with Christy Brown:

Christy Brown is an old friend of mine who I occasionally collaborate with to lead retreats where she teaches what she is amazing at: yoga, mindfulness and just how to be a generally decent and lovely person, and I lead reflective journaling sessions and try not to act terribly surly toward people.

Helge Hellberg is basically a rock star in organic/local/sustainable farming circles, working hard to bring us back to the days when farmers got respect and we ate according to what was natural for the season and the climate in which we live. What this means, in a nutshell: don’t eat watermelon in January if you live in New England.

The beautiful thing about shopping at farmer’s markets is that you are automatically eating local and seasonal food. And the even cooler thing is that you just might discover some pretty fabulous stuff that you never even knew grew near you.  I recently signed up for a bi-weekly organic produce delivery from Farm Fresh To You. Every other Tuesday, I get a box of delicious surprises on my doorstep. And, thank Christ, there are often no mushrooms in it.

If this subject matter interests you, I highly recommend the memoir Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. Or anything by Michael Pollan, of course, but most notably Omnivore’s Dilemma.

Anyhoodle, if you would like to sign up for this retreat (please come! I was just kidding about being surly!) visit my web site and click on ye’ol’ Paypal link. Full details there. And beautiful photos of White Lotus below.

Santa Barbara is warm and sunny and will be epic in May.

We'll stay in these adorable yurts. I deign to call them magical.

This is the community table where we will share our local, organic, fucking delicious meals.

This is a place you can steal off and read.

This is a peaceful-looking Buddhist thingie.

I don't know what this is, but I think it's pretty.

Le ocean. Speaks for itself.

I was recently dismayed to find out that I weigh 20 pounds more than I did 2 years ago and 30 more than my ideal, target weight (which is: the weight I have to be at for my awesome collection of size 6 hand-me-down jeans to actually fit). I had a mild nervous breakdown for a few days. Okay, not mild.

Then, because at this point in my life I’ve learned the hard way that no secret angel is ever going to come fix all my problems for me, it became sadly obvious that I only had one choice: DIET.

I have never been a dieter, ever, although I have tried every smart and wholesome eating system this side of the Sierras. I’ve done all manner of juice/wheatgrass/colonic cleanses/protocols, and they have never worked for me. All they ever do is whack out my blood sugar and send my entire system into the sort of distress that inevitably leads to horrific rebound binge eating and emotional trauma. (And if you are thinking of recommending that ONE AMAZING CLEANSE I have never tried, save your breath.)

I’ve also gone the route of more gentle and holistic eating protocols, such as the 3-month elimination plan that my acupuncturist Caylie See put me on last winter. That actually made me feel fantastic and helped me with a lot of things, but, unfortunately, it did not make me lose weight, even though I stopped drinking, eating sugar, eating dairy, gluten, stopped enjoying everything, basically, for three months. (And I have to note here that the goal of the program was NOT to lose weight, so it’s no fault of Caylie’s. She’s truly incredible at what she does.)

Here’s the thing — the women in my family get fat.

I’m from a long lineage of matronly women. The Westcott/Bangs/Hamilton women, they start out reeeaaaallly skinny and then swing to the opposite side of the pendulum over a long lifetime of having babies and being enduring, stoic New England sorts. I thought I might evade this pattern, since I am woefully childless and moved to California, but it turns out that it doesn’t matter. It’s hardwired.

As a kid, I was emaciated and actually anorexic for a while, and my mom and grandmother were also wispy little waifs when they were young. It’s when we get older that things predictably slide. Now, my mom is in pretty fine form these days, mostly because she owns a restaurant and so (ironically) doesn’t eat because she’s too busy running around being mad at her employees all the time. She also doesn't have blood sugar issues. She’s one of those annoying people who “forgets” to eat food and maybe eats one meal a day, maybe. And she is a jogger. Me, not so much. I wake up starving and get hungrier, crankier, and fainter from there. If I go too long without eating, I become palpably murderous. And as for jogging, no.

I know that technically it’s unhealthy to starve yourself, but here’s a dirty little secret that all women know and most holistic consultants don’t want you to find out: it’s the only real way to lose weight.

So I have come up with my own eating plan that is my shining salvation and only hope. Fingers crossed.

The Small Bowl Diet^TM is basically an artistic expression-meets-portion control eating plan.

Here’s how it works. First, you make a really cute, small bowl in pottery class. This is your one and only Small Bowl^TM. Now, you can eat whatever you want (except evil sugar, of course) as long as it fits in Small Bowl^TM. When you eat out of the bowl, you always take a moment first to admire how good you are at pottery. This is essentially a distraction from the fact that you are eating a concentration camp amount of food.

You wait until the point that you are absolutely starving, and then you wait just a little longer, for good measure, and then you eat ONE Small Bowl^TM of food. You eat it slowly, as if torturing and punishing yourself for being fat, and when that’s gone, that’s it. You should still be hungry when you’re done with the one Small Bowl^TM. If you’re not, you overfilled it or you need a smaller Small Bowl^TM. The key is to always be at least slightly hungry.

Then, you once again wait until you are out of your mind, chew-your-own-arm-off starving, and you wait the requisite little-bit-longer, and then you maybe accidentally murder someone, and then you eat another Small Bowl^TM.  Don’t go overboard.

Again. The key is to be basically starving all the time.

Oh — and a fucklot of exercise. You can’t forget that part. Basically, if you want to lose weight, you have to get on board with your genetic legacy and mimic the amount of physical activity your forbearers used to get. So in my case, the same amount of exercise as if I was chopping firewood and lugging water uphill from the river on black ice, 15 hours a day. That’s how much exercise my aging metabolism demands for me to stay at my “peak weight,” and even then, it’s a losing battle, since my genes think that a faux pregnant belly is a good thing — gets us through the long, cold, sedentary New England pilgrim winters, after all.

Unfortunately, my genes and my jeans are at odds, and if me and Small Bowl^TM have anything to do with it, the jeans are gonna win.

I'm on the first leg of my flight home from Thailand, via Tokyo on All Nipon Air, where I just made my way through an 8:30a.m. Japanese 3-course dinner served in cute little lacquer boxes full of delicious but mostly unidentifiable processed cubes of things. I ate the ones I was sure were not mushrooms or flaccid boiled egg. The highlight was the banana poppyseed ice-cream ball. Those kooky Japanese chefs.

The Japanese elevate everything to an art form, including cooking, eating, and being a flight attendant. The Chinese, on the other hand, plan their menus as if Hannibal Lecter’s cousin is coming to dinner.

Disclaimer here: I am a very picky eater. I’m not adventurous in the culinary terrain, unlike my mom, who ordered a Peruvian delicacy — baked guinea pig— when we traveled together to the Sacred Valley a few years ago. Judith is a chef and a restaurant owner, so I think she’d want me to point out here that I did not inherent my food pickiness from her. I get it from my father, who, at the age of 62, I introduced to burritos just last year. “Can’t I just stick with tacos?”

On my last night in Bangkok, on the 36th floor of the Chatrium, I ate alone at the hotel's fancy Chinese restaurant overlooking the gray river that winds through the endless city. The menu was an exquisite read — an ornothologist's dream, really — until I realized that it was actually a list of FOOD OPTIONS. I laughed/gagged at the "roasted whole pigeon," but I stopped laughing when I gamely perused the dessert selections and contemplated ordering something with the sublime name "Bird's Nest." I thought, I bet it's some sort of an elaborate drizzled sugar confection, maybe with an egg in it just to be maudlin. Just to be sure, I googled it, and THANK GOD I did because it turns out that "Bird’s Nest" is exactly what it sounds like: a bird's nest.

A swallow's nest, to be precise. A certain kind of swallow that is rare and special, and so it's a luxury of the upper class to get their hands on one of these nests, soak it in water for a bit, and then bathe it in coconut milk. I can only imagine that it tastes sort of like shredded wheat, but with a more fibrous quality that makes it an excellent intestinal stimulant. I might have been intrigued and brave enough to try it, until I read the fine print, which informed me that swallow's nests are comprised primarily of swallow's spit. Yes, their saliva.

I have to point out here that I think my cat Budapest might be Chinese, as once she came home with an entire birds nest (and a few little tiny just-born baby birds, whoopsie) hanging out of her mouth like, no big thang.

I shared the Bird's Nest menu item with my friends. Tom, who is Taiwanese and grew up eating Chinese Food, said, "It sounds gross, but it’s super tasty!  It was once of my faves! Like sharkfin soup, it is a Chinese delicacy.  Unfortunately, the birds are not happy, and they face extinction, so I stopped eating it recently.”

Then Vanessa told me that she actually tried Bird’s Nest, in Singapore. I have a vague recollection of Vanessa going to Singapore but I have to admit that I didn't retain this tidbit about her culinary courage. Although I love hearing about Vanessa's life — which is much more globally glamorous than my own — flying to Singapore for a few days and eating local delicacies is something I just expect from her. Vanessa is a jet setter and she’s cool.

I'm not like that. I'm like this: just before I wrote this blog post, I spent an hour here on the plane meticulously planning my exercise schedule for the remainder of 2011 in my iPad calendar. Knowing exactly what to expect is how I relax.

And on that note, so happy to be home!

I just finished up 3 straight months of a fascist eating program courtesy of my insightful and talented acupuncturist, I went cold turkey off coffee and tea, sugar, alcohol, gluten, dairy, vinegar, soy, potatoes, tomatoes, and peppers. Among other things. I also took Chinese herbs three times a day for three months, swallowed a handful of acidophilus pills every morning, got needles stuck up in me weekly, did yoga regularly (yup), started hiking more, journaled every day, and just generally took immaculate and spectacular care of myself.

Now that I am wrapping up this program, people in my life are asking me how I feel. “You must feel amazing,” they say.

The truth is, I don’t feel that much more amazing than I did before — which was far from amazing. (What is the opposite of “amazing”?) My size 6 jeans still don’t fit by a long shot; I still get a stomachache every single time I get anxious (which is always); yoga still feels like torture; I still can’t walk straight up a hill without getting winded and really irritable. I still need 10 hours of sleep a night and feel like I have the flu if I don’t get it. I still get nasty PMS and I still feel mildly congested and sinusy most of the time.

On the other hand, I did learn some things about myself:

• I am not lactose intolerant (huge relief, as cheese is basically the only thing I live for).
• I feel like a better person without alcohol in my life.
• I like the way coffee smells far better than the way it makes my stomach feel.
• I have insane self-control and determination.
• I basically rock.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to get a coffee milkshake.

I am on a very strict and somewhat joyless food plan by mandate of my acupuncturist, the brilliantly talented Caylie See, L.Ac. of Acupuncture Kitchen in San Francisco. She got sick of my whining about always having a stomachache and decided to fix me. She gave me a 6-page typed-out plan that outlines food suggestions along with things I can’t eat; prohibits me from going near sugar, caffeine, alcohol, dairy, gluten, or nightshade vegetables (among other things); and insists that I get 30 minutes of “quiet time” a day. (My whole life is quiet time, so I checked that one right off.)

Favorite breakfast: cooked leftover yam, blood orange, blueberries, avocado with Bragg's liquid aminos and turmeric EVOO

I’m not a fan of cleanses, having previously tried all of them — The Master Cleanse (Really? You want me to drink sugar all day long? That doesn’t raise any red flags for you?), the Liver Cleanse, various intestinal cleanses and colonics programs, wheatgrass bootcamp, starvation cleanses, the Type-O diet, Atkins. Not to mention that I excelled at anorexia nervosa for most of my pre-teen years. (There were months in there where I would only eat jellybeans and yogurt. Ask Judith.)

But I trust Caylie, and I was feeling desperate to make a shift, so I promised to acquiesce to her instructions for three months, no questions asked. So far? It’s been awesome.

For starters, getting off caffeine is one of the most empowering first world activities one can undertake. I am sleeping like a lamb these days. Cutting sugar out of my life has been hard, but rewarding. I feel lots better. Although, I crave strange things, like butterscotch pudding. And it’s kind of sad that the way I indulge these days is a $6 pressed green juice that I can drink in under a minute.

All in all, the shiz is working. Who knew that all I had to do to get rid of my stomachaches was stop eating almost everything, get off black tea, choke down Chinese herbs that taste like dirt three times a day, swallow billions of microscopic probiotics every morning, trek an hour each way to get acupuncture once a week, and drink so much water that I need a catheter? No probs.

Just to be really clear, this fascist food plan I’ve been on since January 1^st has nothing to do with New Year’s Resolutions. My New Year’s Resolution — in keeping with my philosophy of only making New Year’s Resolutions that I would already be doing anyway, was to see more movies this year. I’m doing pretty great at that. I’ve seen almost everything that’s worth seeing in the theaters right now, and some of the things twice.

New Years resolutions — an opportunity to better yourself or a setup for failure and disappointment?

I don’t know too many people who can manage to keep their New Year’s resolutions for a solid year. Most of us base our annual goals on a vision we have of the person we want to be, not the person we actually are. And while I believe that most resolutions do come from a good place in the heart, they can so often be misguided and, frankly, unrealistic. And then when we don’t meet our own lofty goals, we feel like failures. No bueno.

In other news, my hair is not browny-purple anymore. Hope all you goth-haters are satisfied now.

Willpower has never been one of my stronger character traits and so I have traditionally not had a lot of luck with New Year’s resolutions. But a few years ago I made a shift in the way I resolve. I decided to start basing my New Year’s resolutions on a metta practice of kindness and self-love. How? By committing only to do things I am naturally inclined to do anyway. You might say that my resolutions are more like things I let myself get away with. But, with the proper spin, they seem like examples of betterment.

Read the rest on Elephant Journal...

I have an imaginary spice company called SimpleBasic. Occasionally I feel inspired to make a batch of blended spices or salt/coffee scrub, and thanks to this great book that my brother Elia gave me years ago, I have endless recipes.

For Christmas this year, I made an industrial-sized vat of Sri Lankan curry powder and apportioned it out into shiny glass jars with handmade labels. I’m a low-rent version of Martha Stewart, basically. If you didn’t get one, I either have it in the trunk of my car and just haven’t seen you yet, or I am under the impression you don’t cook.

I think it came out pretty well. However, when I give it to people, I tend to get the awkward blank stare, because, in truth, most people don’t get as excited about spice in a jar as I do. Perhaps I need to open your mind and heart to the amazing potential of a good old fashioned Sri Lankan curry powder. You don’t have to be a culinary wizard. You just have to have an imagination.

Here are some of the ways that I personally use Sri Lankan curry (or any other curry, for that matter):

• On the suggestion of a talented Ayurvedic nutritionist friend, I splurged on some ghee (expensive clarified butter) and have been melting a spoonful or two to mix into basically everything I eat lately. Especially amazing to spruce up leftovers, you can add a splash of curry to the ghee before you pour it on. Spice-tastic.
• In soup. Yup, just stir it in. It’s that easy.
• In oatmeal or breakfast polenta. Crazy, I know.
• In baked things like cookies or muffins. Trust me.
• In sautees — vegetables etcetera.
• On baked root vegetables in conjunction with some sort of oil (ghee again, or coconut oil, or EVOO)
• On broiled fish. Yumsters.

In short, be courageous and adventurous of spirit with the stuff, and you can’t go wrong!

Incidentally, although you can keep spices for a real long time, in theory they are best if you use them within 6 months or something. And when spices are fresh, you can really smell the difference. So, use them.

Happy holidays my darlings.

Although I profess that summer is my favorite season, I secretly love winter. In Northern California, where I live, winter is the season of relentless, romantical rain; it's thus also the season of more napping, less exercising, constant cashmere scarves, cozy down sleeping bags, gratuitous novels, hot toddies, and gloomy days spent in the sanctuary of the library. And it's my favorite season for food.

I know it's technically not winter yet, but the general malaise of Halloween makes winter seem right around the corner. So tonight, I made squasharoni. Mainly because I liked the sound of the word "squasharoni."

This is one of those recipes loosely interpreted from a veggie cookbook from an East Coast hippie retreat center, so there are a lot of obscure condiments involved. If you don't happen to have one of them, or two or three, I think you could safely improvise without doing any major culinary damage.

Winter Squasharoni

• First, cook a bunch of pasta. Like, a whole box of it. Even though this is a "roni" recipe, I cheated and used some tubular pasta that struck my fancy at The Hole.
• While that's happening, laboriously chop up a winter squash. Butternut is nice. I dig kabocha. The thing about kabocha is, you can actually eat the skin, but for this pasta, I took it off anyway. Peeling and dicing a kabocha squash is a sublime form of zen torture. If I wasn't such a picky freak about freshness, I would probably just buy pre-cubed butternut squash like a normal person.
• In a cast-iron skillet, saute red onion in EVOO for a few minutes.
• Add the squash, a half cup of water, some salt, and maybe a handful of garden herbs (oregano, sage, thyme).
• Reduce heat, cover, let simmer until the squash is tender.
• Meanwhile, mix together: 1/3 cup tahini, 1 T miso paste, 1 T vinegar (preferably umeboshi), 1 t tamari.
• Once the squash mixture is ready, add this sauce to it, along with a handful of chopped walnuts and a dollop of really pricey chevre cheese that you splurged on because your life seems hollow and meaningless and cheese always makes that better.
• Drain the pasta and mix it into the rest.
• Sprinkle on top: panko bread crumbs (I have no idea what these are, but they are always enthusiastically and somewhat snobbishly recommended to me by my  grocerial advisor, who I trust implicitly) and shredded parmesan.
• Cook (right in that same cast iron skillet) in the oven at 375 for 20 minutes.

Oh and incidentally, this is another reason I love winter:

It's a pretty lovely little pad for holing up in.