Considering how delicious the fish tacos we had the other day were, I thought I'd post the recipe. The pineapple salsa was what really put them through the roof.
Fun fact: every time I type the word "pineapple" it comes out "pineable."
Pineapple Salsa:
1 pineapple, trimmed and diced
1 shallot, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
juice of two limes
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp chipotle chili powder (the best part)
Toss all ingredients together in a bowl. Let it sit for at least one hour in the fridge before use to allow the flavors to meld together. Taste and adjust seasoning (or add more shallots) to your preferences. The chipotle flavor will really come out amazingly in the pineapple after a short time.
This salsa recipe makes much more than you will need and can easily be halved
Fish Tacos:
Ingredients for the Fish (makes enough to feed two, adapted from a Clean recipe):
1 lb skinless bass, halibut, or trout, cut into cubes
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Dash of sea salt
Juice of 1/2 lime
1 cup plain almond milk, or enough to cover
Place the fish in a bowl and mix with the other ingredients. It should be just submerged. Cover and refrigerate for 1-3 hours. When ready to cook, preheat oven to 300 degrees and place tortillas on a baking sheet. When oven is hot, place tortillas in oven to keep them warm until ready to use.
Meanwhile, heat 1-2 tbsp olive oil (I used coconut oil) in a frying pan or wok. Remove fish from marinade and cook until just browned, about 5 minutes. (If the fish doesn't brown because there is too much marinade in the pan, don't overcook it trying to brown it, it will still taste great!)
Build tacos with tortillas, fish, pineapple salsa, and sliced avocado. Enjoy!
In case you're interested, for the Clean program, we used sprouted corn tortillas (which are ok because once it sprouts it's a vegetable... I think) but you could also use brown rice tortillas. And beware: the salsa is juicy! It will run down your arms, but it's so good it doesn't really matter.
Ok, maybe you're not asking that, but you're getting the answers anyway.
Ask yourself this, would I ever follow advice from Gwyneth Paltrow?
Me neither. Not usually. Not least of all because her advice is generally really expensive. It's for things like eight-star hotels in Hong Kong and face cream made out of solid gold.
However, this time she recommended something called the Clean program.
It's a cleanse, which is also something I normally smirk at. It seems fairly obvious that most popular cleanses are a TERRIBLE idea. The idea of the "Master Cleanse" (i.e. nothing but lemon juice, maple syrup and chili pepper for a week) just makes me completely crazy.
This is me (looking a little sleepy) Day 1, 142 lbs.
Anyway, Clean is a nutritional cleanse, and it was designed by a cardiologist from Uruguay, so I'm already biased.
Long story short, the cleanse involves cutting out packaged and processed foods, and foods that contain potential irritants and toxins, for 21 days. That means no red meat, dairy, sugar, wheat, caffein, alcohol, tomatoes, eggs, potatoes, soy, corn, etc. for three weeks. It seems like a long list, but what I like about this cleanse is what you can eat.
We just finished the week-long pre-cleanse. This includes three solid meals a day from the "yes" list which is pretty much any fruit and vegetable you want, quinoa and brown rice, organic chicken, lamb and fish, etc.
Last night for dinner we had amazing fish tacos with pineapple salsa and avocado for dinner.
The night before we had lamb-stuffed mushrooms and fresh veggies and homemade hummus.
Fresh juice! And vitamins!
So, for the next 21 days we have to the a liquid meal for breakfast (fresh juice or a smoothie), a real lunch of clean food, and a liquid dinner. All of this is backed up with probiotics and supplements. You're still encouraged to get at least 1200 calories or more each day so that your system doesn't go into "famine" mode and stop detoxing.
There's an entire 336 page book that goes along with the cleanse and I read every word. I'm pretty pleased with everything it has to say. And I feel solidly educated.
I'm not in this to lose weight, I just want to feel generally better and have more energy. Tim is in it because I would be awful to live with for three weeks (technically four weeks, with the pre-clease) otherwise. But really, I'm pretty pumped for both of us. Stay tuned.
This ridiculous fathead is Mugi (pronounced "Moogie," more on that later).
For Christmas, Tim gave me a cat. He tried to keep it a secret, but I knew what he was going to do the minute he said, "we should wait and exchange gifts after we get back from Colorado." Cats are a gift that notoriously don't age well in wrapped packages.
Despite the "Christmas" intentions, it took us weeks to actually adopt him because of all kinds of complications, including an upper respiratory infection. Finally the vets called and said, "I think he'll get better faster and be happier at home with you." God, she wasn't kidding. I've never seen such a happy cat.
People are always giving me cats. Maybe there's something on my face that says, "I'm a sucker for anything furry." It could also be that I frequently say things like, "Aggghhhh. I wish I had a cat/dog/hamster/squirrel/lemur, etc."
In high school Trina picked up a cat from a box outside the grocery store and brought her to me as a "surprise." I love this. This type of impulsive behavior is why she's in my wedding party.
Srsly Fat Face.
In college, Tim's sister Carly found two kittens under a truck parked outside of a Chinese restaurant. They were small enough that both of them fit in the palm of your hand at once. It was fun to be a full-time college student with two kittens who were too young to be weaned, one of whom liked to sleep in my hair, suck on my ears and pee on my head.
Still, I'm lucky that these people thought of me when random cats appeared because they all turned out to be hilarious, charismatic cats. Which is not just something I'm saying because I'm crazy cat lady (which I probably am). There is such a thing as a boring asshole cat, I know.
In general cats can be compared to Hollywood celebrities. Don't tell me you haven't looked at your grandma's cat and thought of like, Elton John or Joan Rivers. They're simultaneously standoffish and attention-craving. They can be picky and weird and moody and their contributions to society range from "etherial" to "box of crap."
But some of them totally win.
i'm upside down, showin u my bellies.
Case in point: Mugi.
This cat is like the Johnny Depp of cats. What I imagine it would be like to live with Johnny Depp in real life. If he were a cat.
Mugi likes to slink around the apartment, meow philosophically, and then fall over and roll around. Rolling around is his favorite hobby.
He also enjoys sitting as close as he can to your face (sometimes on your face) and reaching his ENORMOUS paws out and touching you.
He purrs almost constantly (i.e., right now), and unlike any cat I've ever met, he loves, loovvesss, to have his belly rubbed. He will wedge himself into ridiculously uncomfortable spaces, like a Chilean miner, but he leaves his belly tantalizingly exposed.
I think he might fit.
Basically, he's lived here for about three days and he's already sneezed on everything I own, discovered every hiding place in the whole apartment, lost his collar, made a disastrous mess in the guest bathroom, and established that he is in charge.
If that doesn't sound like A-list behavior to you, then I don't know what does.
Postscript: His name is "Mugi," which was my "Blue Ivy Carter" moment. The shelter named him "Moogie" which is an utterly meaningless name (though it's better than "Pampers" and "Panera," the names of some of the other cats up for adoption). Given the choice we probably would have named him "Huckleberry" or "Thucydides" but my one real superstition is that you can't change an animal's name. However, according to the illustrious Alsn, "Mugi" is the Japanese word for Barley. (I can just hear Gwyneth Paltrow saying those words. Whatever.) He's definitely a barley kitty, in that he would hide in it and then jump out and love you to death.
I like to have smoothies for breakfast in the morning but am lazy and usually just make some combination of frozen fruit/yogurt/juice/banana. Monday I whipped this up as an alternative and, as my colorful grandfather would say, I'm as pleased as a pig in shit with myself. All of the ingredients are pretty good for you (even the cocoa--don't try to tell me otherwise, I will Google fight you into the ground) and I feel not a shred of remorse for having had three of these this week.
Macca approves. Except I was probably supposed to take the picture before I inhaled the smoothie.
Raspberry Mint Chocolate Smoothie
In blender add:
1 cup frozen raspberries
3-4 sprigs of fresh mint leaves with the stems discarded
1 tbsp dutch process cocoa
1 tsp agave or honey
1 cup chocolate almond milk (or enough to just cover the other ingredients in the blender)
Blend all this together on low, then switch to medium for ten seconds or so. Enjoy!
Being unemployed would be a lot more difficult if it weren't cold outside. Most days, I feel a very strong urge to go outside and make something of myself, but then I open the door and feel how cold it is. I have no idea how people in Greenland accomplish anything.
That would be a good research project to conduct in my "time off."
This is the seventh book I've read by ol' Chuck. At this point, I may just be reading them out of habit--a yearly antidote against Fox News and Christmas time car commercials. If, like me, you have ever read anything by him, you already know that this book is not exactly PG. If you have eyeballs, you also probably judged that from the cover. The beauty of Chuck Palahniuk is that, while his books can be aggravatingly childish and will occasionally make your face bleed with the Brett-Easton-Ellison-level of depravity described within, he's not writing filth just for the sake of filth. Damned, like many of his other novels, offers a heavy critique of modern culture with a lot of satire, irony, and dark humor smeared on top. Don't read it if you can't define the word "glib." It's about the teenage daughter of a Hollywood power couple, who finds herself in Hell after dying of... a Marijuana overdose. Palahniuk's hell is both totally different from, and exactly what you would expect it to be.
I would recommend this book to: Kristin and anyone who hated The English Patient, so, not you Dad. :/
Like Bossypants, by Tina Fey, the audio version of Mindy Kaling's book has the distinct drawback that you can't see the pictures and you can't really lend it immediately to all of your friends. However, the benefit of the audio version is that you come to feel like Mindy is your bff and the only thing stopping her from texting you is pretty much the fact that she doesn't have your number... yet.
Mindy not only plays Kelly Kapoor on The Office, but is also the only female writer on the staff. This in itself is enough to make me want to read the book (Is Rainn Wilson really as insane as he looks?). But the book also has essays about other hard-hitting topics like cupcakes(!) and karaoke and being chubby. Yes, obviously, I want to know what hilariously funny people my age think about everything. The chapter "Why Do Men Put on Their Shoes So Slowly?" is not only hilarious, but probably worthy of serious scientific investigation. I seriously want to know, why do men put on their shoes so incredibly slowly?
I would recommend this book to: Kacie, Jessica L., Jared (I know you already read it, Boo.)
Do not buy the audio book version of this book. It is an excellent, well-researched book that requires at least minimum focus and concentration to comprehend and absorb what Pariser is trying to tell us, which is--I think--that the internet is a powerful tool for building communities and expanding our capabilities, but that the current course of search and social network technology is severely limiting the way we experience not only the internet, but the whole world, in a detrimental way. Got that? Whew.
It will be easier to explain if you just want to watch this amazing TED talk (which is basically the introduction to the book, BTW).
If you've ever felt like something about Google and Facebook (their targeted ads and seeming mind-reading abilities, for example) are just a little bit skeevy, but you can't put your finger on what, this book explains what's going on in language that is easy to understand and far from conspiracy theory crazy talk.
I would recommend this book to: my Auntie T-Bone, and um, others who use Facebook
I know, it took me like a hundred years. I don't think I have to convince anyone to read this.
I'll just say that it's easy to see why this book is the thriller for the new Millennium, pun maybe intended. Thrillers and detective novels of the past were founded on the principle that the most dangerous people in society were always outsiders: homosexuals, women, people with disabilities, anyone of a different race. Think of Peter Lorre in The Maltese Falcon. Could there be anyone more threatening to a white male than this effeminate man with an untraceable accent? And then there's the Femme Fatale, the woman who will seduce you and then kill you the minute you turn your back.
That so many people have enjoyed this book speaks in part to the fact that it's a gripping story, but it also has to do, I think, with a new attitude towards who can be "in" and who can be "out." It's amazing how far Stieg Larsson goes, with Lisbeth Salander, to shout in our faces that times have changed, are changing. And when you look at the types of crimes committed in this novel and the treatment of their perpetrators, there can be no mistaking this novel as a novel of the 21st century. The writing style may be simplistic but there is a lot going on.
I'm seriously not even going to bother recommending this. Sweden doesn't need my help.
Here's a picture of some donkeys, just to make you happy.
I have once again run out of bookshelf space.
This isn't really surprising since I obviously have a much bigger problem: my book addiction is still wildly out of control.
I have about 274 books that I own but haven't read yet (not including books on my Kindle).
TWO HUNDRED SEVENTY FOUR.
Under good circumstances, I can read about two books a week--but I don't, because I try to go outside every once in a while. That means that if I stop buying books right now and stop trying to accomplish anything else, I will have all of these books read by July of 2014.
I've never really been a "Resolution" kind of person because that kind of psychology inevitably fails me (and apparently lots of other people too). If I couldn't accomplish something I wanted to accomplish before some arbitrary date, I probably won't be able to accomplish it afterwards. Also, I generally like myself, and don't really want to go through a shame cycle every January.
Ah, the time-honored tradition of the shame cycle.
Nevertheless, last year (in March) I set the goal of reading 50 books in the year because I like goals with definite ends. (NaNoWriMo is a perfect example of this sort of goal.)
"I will work out more," would never cut it as a goal for me because it's not quantifiable. "I will work out 100 times this year" definitely would, not least of all because it would allow me to shop for some kind of notebook where I could cross off days, and after my 100th workout I could probably work out two extra times just to make myself feel extra smug, and then not get off the couch for the rest of the year. Goal accomplished! No guilt needed!
Anyway, I met and exceeded my 2011 goal. I read 64 books, which is enough for me to comfortably cross off the poetry collections and Kindle Singles that don't count and go with a solid 60.
This year, I can't be sure I'll read as many books with the wedding and everything else on deck. Instead, my goal is not to buy any booksuntil I've finished reading at least 10 that I already own. You heard me, no NEW books, until ten of the sad, lonely books on my "unread" shelf get moved over to the "read" shelf.
It seems like an easy goal, but for me that's like saying I'm not allowed to brush my teeth or eat a half of a chocolate cake by myself. I can and I will.
Be aware that this might increase my number of pleas for books as gifts. If I can't buy them for myself, that doesn't mean I won't try to get them through other nefarious means.
In case you're wondering, I'd really like a copy of Murakami's 1Q84.
