I Don't Do Vegan

A few weeks ago I cross-posted two blog posts about food on my friend Sarah's blog Charlotte Local Eats. My blog posts were about salmon and moose, respectively. Sarah blogs about all things pertaining to food, mostly to advocate buying and eating local food and eating healthier in general. Earlier this week she blogged about The China Study, a book about eating a whole foods, plant based diet. I haven't read the book, but her review was pretty interesting. I forwarded the review to Leigh, who really latched onto the idea of a whole foods, plant based diet and is still dumbfounded by the study showing the ingesting cow's milk has been linked to multiple sclerosis.

Then Leigh dropped a bomb on me: we're cutting out meat and dairy for 3 weeks as a test run for this plant-based diet thing. OK, I was a vegetarian for 6 years so I can understand the "no meat" attitude, but DAIRY?!?!?! Leigh grew up in a house where a jug of milk was a fixture on the table for every meal. We're from the land of sausage gravy and mac'n'cheese. Who is this person who's suggesting we give up DAIRY!?!?!

Don't get me wrong, I'm all about healthy. In fact, since moving to Europe and coming home in 2010 Leigh and I have changed our diets significantly in an attempt to maintain our weight and be healthier. Since my metabolic diagnosis in May, Leigh and I have made even more significant changes to our diets, this time attempting to learn the science behind food and metabolism.

At this point I've talked about my health issues and dietary changes enough that a short recap is probably sufficient: I am genetically prone to extremely high cholesterol and triglycerides. I take a medication to improve my liver function and I avoid all foods that lead to higher cholesterol and lipid levels. This means very little red meat, no egg yolks, no prepared foods with more than just a few milligrams of cholesterol per serving. For triglycerides I can't eat anything white (rice, flour, sugar, etc), I avoid alcohol, and a few weird things like tropical fruit (coconut, pineapple, bananas). All of my sweeteners and fats have to be all natural (honey, agave, EVOO, etc) and low in saturated fat. Additionally, it's essential that I consume a lot of fish and oatmeal to counteract my malfunctioning metabolism.

Anyway, it's caused a huge change in our lives. Basically we don't eat anything processed and stick almost entirely to whole foods. But we still eat meat (mostly white meat and fish) and dairy (low fat cheeses, milk, and yogurt are staples). So for Leigh to suggest that we basically go VEGAN for 3 weeks is kind of a big deal. What will I eat if I don't eat greek yogurt (with honey)? It's a major source of protein for me and one of the few safe "sweets" I can eat regularly! And we LOOOOOVVEEEE milk and cheese, especially ricotta and goat cheese. What will we do without it?!?!?! Plus on top of that, vegans REALLY irritate me. Not the diet itself, I definitely see the benefits, but the political, holier than thou, attitude that often accompanies the diet. Can't people just do what's best for themselves without being pushy and annoying to everyone else? If someone wants to be obese and die young that's their business. If they ask you for advice, however, then preach away and save a life!

OK, off my soapbox. Anyway, so it looks like we're going to do this for three weeks starting next week. We have a ton of dairy in the fridge that needs to be eaten and we've scheduled our big grocery run for next weekend, so it's good timing. I don't expect this will be a permanent change, but it'll be interesting to see how we feel after a few weeks of cleansing our systems. If I lose weight and if my November blood tests come back with flying colors, I might continue a whole foods, plant-based diet on an 80-90% basis (meaning I'll have ice cream and cheese sometimes and red meat rarely).

But I have to ask one more time: Who is this woman taking away my yogurt? And what has she done with Leigh?!?!?!

Fall Frenzy

Our weeks are consistently busy and exhausting, but I can't complain, not for a second. Making plans with friends avoids any week from becoming mundane. Even the rare week when we only have one or two things going on is special because it means we get to relax or focus on cleaning the house or something. The times when we make commitments to friends are special because it helps us grow roots in our new home, plus it keeps us laughing and enjoying other people. Having Cannellle Puppy is a huge part of this too. She has her own little friends who we often make plans with at our house. Last week we even started taking her to a free play hour at a nearby doggie daycare facility. It's good to have a socialized, tired puppy!

This weekend was no exception. On Saturday we had a puppy play date with Cannelle's BFF Gaia and her parents. We had coffee and breakfast in the kitchen while the pups wrestled in the lawn. After the play date Leigh and I ran errands and had lunch downtown. That evening we tackled our overgrown flower bed (weed beds?) and started replanting them with tulips, daffodils and hyacinths. By Sunday afternoon we had completely weeded and planted the big side flower bed and the front flower bed. I even figured out a way to make what little fencing the previous owner left us long enough to protect the entire flower bed from Cannelle's digging tendency. Next spring we'll attack the other raised beds to plant indigenous bush plants and vegetables.

This morning I knew I would be the only one in the office, so I slept in an got to work just before 9am (as opposed to 8am). It was great to have enough extra time this morning for breakfast and some tasks. For the past week Cannelle has been sleeping in her kennel that I tucked into my closet. She seemed to like it well enough- it's dark, warm and she can hear us breathing at night. But I can hear her fidgeting and always assume she has to pee, so I'll get up a few times per night to let her out for a potty break. Needless to say she's getting spoiled and I'm not getting enough sleep. So this morning I moved her kennel downstairs to a new spot: the unused corner of the living room behind our loveseat. I showed Cannelle her new "bedroom" and she took to it right away- carrying into the kennel, the running back to retrieve them and show them to me.

As slow as work has been the past two weeks, everything else has been accelerating at a nice clip. For the rest of this month Leigh and I have a series of commitments to attend to including social events, puppy-sitting for two different friends, and various meetings of social and professional natures. Gone are the days of coming home from work or school to veg out in front of the TV and only rarely make plans beyond that. Instead we're downright social and starting to make commitments to our friends and community. This is adulthood, I guess.

Now I just need to re-focus on my health and fitness- this beautiful Fall weather won't last forever! This call for an afternoon bike ride!

Cross-post 2: Moose Meals

Cross-Posted at Charlotte Local Eats:

Hello again from Alaska! Summer and fall may be prime fishing months, but colder weather means hunting season.

Yes, hunting. Vegetarians may want to avert their eyes, but for those of us who eat meat, hunting is a reality we have to acknowledge. No matter how free range, organic, or humanely your hamburger was raised, it was still a living creature at one time and somebody had to kill it so you could eat it.

OK, moving forward. Thousands of people travel to Alaska every year to hunt big game like moose, caribou, bear, and dall sheep. Locals hunt too, but they tend to hunt for food first and trophy second. Moose and caribou (aka wild reindeer) are most widely prized kills. One moose can provide all the red meat your family needs for an entire year! The best part is that when a hunter has their kill processed they get to pick how the meat is divided and seasoned. How many pounds of ground meat? Steaks? Chops? Roasts? Breakfast links? Chorizo? Polish?

Nobody in my house hunts, but we only eat red meat sparingly so we are content with relying on gifts of game meat. I say gifts because game meat is so “local” that you can’t even buy it. You have to kill it yourself or receive it as a gift. Hunting out of season or selling game meat or game trophies are criminally punishable offenses.

Fortunately we have lovely, generous friends who often share their bounty with us. This summer we bought our first house, so some friends gave us a couple pounds of moose sausage as a house warming gift.

Yep, moose sausage. The best hotdog you’ll ever eat. It’s lean, tasty and local.

Moose sausage veggie scramble is a delicious and super easy way to use game meat sausage and whatever vegetables you have on hand. Just cut up the sausage and a mix of any veggies you have on hand. Season with salt and pepper. Throw the sausage in a pan to render the fat, then throw in the veggies and let it all cook down together. So simple, so tasty!

There’s not really a recipe for moose hotdogs, you just defrost the sausage and throw it on the grill. We use whole grain hotdog buns with the usual hotdog toppings. Moose hotdogs are particularly good with grilled vegetables, baked beans or baked french fries.

Unfortunately for most of Sarah’s readers, moose hotdogs will not likely be on your plates anytime soon. However, if you visit Alaska and make some friends, maybe they’ll have you over for dinner and serve you some moose chili, spaghetti with moose meat sauce, or a good ole moose polish. If all else fails, just go to one of our local diners or street vendors and order up a reindeer sausage on a bun or on the side of an egg breakfast. It’s the next best thing.

Cross-post to Charlotte Local Eats

My friend Sarah has a Charlotte, NC based blog about local food. She asked me to be a guest blogger for October. Here's the first of two Alaska-themed posts:

Emily Maass on Local Food in ALASKA! Part 1

Life in Alaska is a little bit different from the rest of the country. First of all, we are pretty isolated up here and most towns are not accessible by road. Even though I live in Anchorage, which is a real city with most of the creature comforts of any other American city, the goods shipped here are sold at noticeably higher prices. Also, Alaska is cold. We don’t get as much snow as Buffalo, NY (my former stomping grounds) but the snow we get sticks around a lot longer and our average lows are much lower. It’s also dark 18-20 hours per day in the dead of winter and light 18-20 hours per day during the summer. Basically, this is a state of extremes.

What does this add up to? Well, you might think this means that Alaska is a food desert, but this couldn’t be less accurate. It’s just that what we consider to be “food” and “local” is a little different. More extreme, if you will.

Our growing season is short but intense. Crops, flowers, and even the grass under our feet flourish under three months of warm, sunny skies. Likewise, Alaska farmers market seasons are short but intense. The markets are small, usually with 10 or so produce vendors, one or two baked goods vendors and a lot of vendors selling other local goods like fireweed honey, jams, and crafts. The produce vendors typically sell the items that grow best in this climate including root vegetables, squash, cabbage, etc. And do they ever grow! It’s not uncommon to buy a zucchini the size of my lower leg for $4. Which brings me to prices: they’re really good! Alaskan farmers market prices are competitive with the grocery stores, plus the products are local, sustainable and delicious!

While farmer’s from the Matanuska-Sustina Valley north of Anchorage harvest our produce and local businesses bake our breads, individual Alaskans are tasked with harvesting their own protein sources. That’s right, hunting and fishing (check back on Thursday for my post on hunting).

I didn’t get to do my own fishing this year, but it’s common for Alaskans to spend most summer and autumn days fishing the rivers for various salmon species. On weekends folks drive to the Kenai Penninsula to take a boat out in the sound to fish for halibut, which sometimes weigh as much as 300 pounds! A dedicated angler can easily catch enough fish in a season to stock a freezer with enough wild-caught fish to last the year.

The salmon in my freezer was a house-warming gift from friends at work. I started making this dish in the summer of 2010 when I was working for my grandparents’ organic farm in Washington State and selling their wares at Seattle area markets. My grandparents grow soft fruit (apricots, peaches, plums, etc) and make a variety of low sugar fruit and herb products from their crops. Because market workers tend to trade their wares, I found myself experimenting with the ingredients I was given on a regular basis. This recipe is the result of an experiment that went really well.

Apricot Salmon and Grilled Veggies

1/2 pound fresh or thawed salmon per person

Apricot syrup (preferably a low sugar syrup)

2 medium squash (yellow or zucchini) or any combination of squash, root vegetables or greens (beets, chard, or potatoes)

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

1. Spray a large sheet of aluminum foil with cooking spray or drizzle a smidge of olive oil and spread it around.
2. Place the salmon skin down on the foil. Add salt and pepper to taste.
3. Drizzle a generous amount of apricot syrup on the salmon.
4. Wrap the foil around the salmon, making sure it’s secure so that the syrup doesn’t escape through the corners. Place the salmon in the fridge to marinate for 45 minutes.
5. Clean and coarsely chop your veggies. Salt and pepper to taste or add your favorite seasoning. Sauté in a pan with olive oil.
6. When the salmon is ready, you can cook it on a barbeque grill or a stovetop.
7. To grill: on high heat, place the entire foil package on the grill. Close the lid and check the fish after 10 minutes. It’s done with the center meat is flaky and a lighter pink.
8. Using the stovetop: spray a frying pan or skillet with cooking oil. Place the salmon skin down and cook it covered on med/high heat until the center meat is flaky and a lighter pink. This method may cause the fish to dry out a bit more, so keep an eye on it.

That’s it! A very simple recipe that is delicious, healthy, sustainable and local.

Emily Maass is an attorney who lives Anchorage, Alaska, and clerks for the Superior Court.

Cross-posted here.

Frequent Flyer Miles

Remember when I said my boss has gone to Paris for a month? Well that is good news for me for a few reasons: first, it means things will calm down in my office for a few weeks. Second, and more importantly, it has inspired me to really, REALLY think about my proposed trip to Europe this spring.

The fastest and cheapest route from Anchorage to Europe is on Condor Airlines. Each summer the German airline offers non-stop flights from Anchorage to Frankfurt, twice weekly. The flight is just shy of 10 hours and usually runs about $500 each way. Not too shabby. You can also connect to other cities via Lufthansa airlines. My initial plan was to fly to Europe on one of the first Condor flights of this summer, so probably the first few weeks of May, for about $1100 round-trip. Good plan.

Then I got to thinking: I have no idea what my job situation will be next year or how soon I'll have $1,100 burning a hole in my pocket. After buying the ticket, I'll then have to buy lots of train tickets to see and do everything I plan on. It will quickly add up to a $2,000 trip before I've even left Alaska. So should I scrap the whole trip? No way. Not this girl!

About 6 months ago I told Leigh I was going to save up my airline miles until I had enough for us fly to Southeast Asia together for free, so about 120,000 miles. Right now I'm almost halfway there, which is also just about enough miles for a roundtrip ticket to Europe. I figured I'd reach this goal at about the same time we had each been in our jobs long enough to take about a month off. This is an excellent plan. Then I started to weigh the cost and benefits of this. First, I'm not 100% sure I can comfortably afford my tickets to Europe for this year. Second, my Condor flight will NOT allow me to accumulate more miles because they are not a partner with Alaska Airlines (weird, right?). Third, by the time we're able to take a month or so off from work for this proposed Southeast Asia trip we should be making enough money to shell out the dough for our flights. Basically I was going to spend money I don't really have in order to save up air miles for a trip that may or may not occur in the next 2-3 years. That's stupid.

So I decided to fly to Europe this summer on air miles, making my trip almost FREE. The best part is that the partner airline with the shortest flights from Alaska to Europe is Iceland Air, which just happens to offer FREE stopovers in Reykjavic. My Europe trip has just gotten so much more interesting. Here's the plan for a 2 1/2 week trip:

Either on the way to or from Europe I'll plan a 24 hour stop-over in Reykjavic. Honestly, I'd stay longer if I could, but I have lots of places to visit and I have to get back to work eventually. Because Iceland is a small country and Reykjavik is a small city, I can do a lot in 24 hours. The plan is to take a charter bus directly from the airport to the Blue Lagoon thermal pool, soak for a few hours, then take the same charter bus to Reykjavic City. Reykjavic is known for cool architecture and a great nightlife, so I'll wander around, grab some food, then go out for a few hours. I'll have to be up very early to catch my 7:40am flight to.....

Munich:
It only takes about 6 hours to reach Munich from Iceland, or 18-20 hours directly from Anchorage (with layovers, of course). When I lived in France I visited a friend in Berlin and LOVED it. I also made some German friends while studying with the monks at Taizé. One friend in particular lives outside of Munich. Bavaria, being culturally very different from other parts of Germany, has always been a bit fascinating to me. I get the sense that it's culture is the German version of the culture found in the southern US- heavy food, close-knit families, thick accents, culturally more centered on religion (Catholic, in this case) than in other parts of the country. Not to mention they have great beer and, of course, some incredible history.

The plan is to stay in Munich and the surrounding area over a long weekend. This will give me time to take the Free Tour, see an opera in Munich or puppet show in Augsburg, sample the food, and maybe even visit Schloss Neuschwanstein castle. Early in the morning that Monday I'll take the 5 hour train ride to....

Vienna:
Coffee, chocolate, schnitzel, operas, and beautiful buildings. Austria also specializes in a white "young wine" that is not exported. Need I say more? The idea is to spend about 3 1/2 days in Vienna. This will give me time to really explore the city and maybe even fit in a side trip to Bratislava (though I might be tired of sitting on trains and planes by now and skip it). At the end of the week I'll take an overnight train to....

Geneva:
Leigh and I spent a long day in Geneva at Christmas time in 2010. It was beautiful and fun but also painfully cold and we were so tired from taking early flights to pinch pennies. This time I'll spend a weekend in Geneva, hopefully staying with another Taizé friend for added comfort and fun. In addition to exploring Vieille Ville, I'd like to see the nearby town of Lausanne, buy lots of Swiss wine and chocolate, and take the funicular to see views of Mont Blanc. From Geneva I'll catch a 2 1/2 hour train to...

Taizé!!! I'll spend 4 days here relaxing, singing (well, listening, nobody wants to hear me sing!) and praying. From Taizé I'll take the train 3 hours to Paris for a few days. This will be my fourth visit to Paris, but you can't go to Paris too many times. That's like saying you're bored with visiting New York City. There's just so much to do and see and, even if you've seen it all, it's a lovely city even for solo travellers. In Paris I'll explore the Latin and Jewish Quarters some more, possibly spend an evening out in the Marais, and do some fabric and gift shopping. If I get bored I'll pack a picnic and sit in one of the many parks until my flight leaves at 2pm.

Awesome, right? I almost can't believe how many places I'm planning to see. Since my plane ticket is free that means I can take part in almost any activity I like and stay within budget. It also means if I need to pay for lodging I can without worry. It's possible that this trip will barely be relaxing at all, but that's really OK with me. The idea is to have an adventure and see new things but still revisit some of my favorite things I discovered a few years ago. I'll come back to Alaska exhausted but happy.

The friends I'm hoping to visit won't know their schedules until after Christmas, so I will wait make my reservations after the New Year. Then I just have to purchase any reserved train tickets I want and save my spending money (plus come up with a scheme to safely transport bottles of wine and other breakables back to Alaska!). It's amazing how much I love planning trips and how excited I get putting together my timetables and budgeting. It's like I said to a friend the other night: everyone should spend the majority of their time and money on travel. It's better be hungry but well-traveled.