time to prep for the holidays

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays. There's one reason, only one reason, of course: the food. Short, sweet, simple. For many years now, I have insisted, I mean seriously insisted, on hosting our family's Thanksgiving dinner. It is a combination of seriously traditional and somewhat innovative with the innovative usually coming from my siblings and children.

Our family is fun and diverse. We are also not without our distinct and sometimes unwavering positions about what holiday food should be. We have family members who are vegetarians, family members who fondly remember brown-and-serve rolls and don't think it's Thanksgiving without them, family members who love stuffing from a box or cranberry sauce from a can,  family members who like to make sauce from real cranberries and pies from real pumpkins, carnivores, omnivores, sugar-holics, health nuts, you name it. And I love it all, the cooking and trying to please part at least. I am embarrassed to say that I get excited about making food for people I love that cannot conceivably do their health any favors, but it's true. To the variety of tastes and dietary restrictions, this year I have added the complication of Paleo consciousness. What should be one pleasant meal, shared with gracious thankfulness has become what could turn out to be a political and dietary minefield.

For years our meals have had two or three of many foods that traditionally focus on meat. There's turkey gravy and vegetarian mushroom gravy. There's stuffing (dressing really) with meat, which usually has homwmade croutons, and without, which usually has Mrs. Cubbison's Corn Bread Stuffing from a box. We have a roast turkey, two sometimes, and a vegetarian wanna-be turkey. I love to roast turkeys, no smoking or deep frying or other nonsense for me. I do like turkey, but as far as I'm concerned, the primary reason for cooking a turkey is to have a basis for making gravy. If I could, I might just live on gravy. Luckily for me, or not depending on one's perspective, I'm really good at making gravy. I started making gravy as an adolescent, maybe even earlier, and have worked for years to perfect it. I make phenomenal gravy, sorry about the lack of modesty here, but I really do. It's smooth and silky and rich and flavorful. It's just not really healthy, and that's a serious issue, holidays or no.

I have a couple of issues going with trying to work on healthier gravy, not the least of which is that I really like the gravy I have been making, just the way it is. I like it, but actually, I can no longer eat it the way I've made it for years, not even a taste. Traditionally, I've used milk, cream, wheat flour, and a dash or two of soy sauce and Worchestire for color, in addition to turkey stock and pan drippings from the just-roasted turkey. Last year I substituted sweet rice flour for the wheat flour and made it without milk (sigh.) Sweet rice flour is wonderful for straight across substitutions in gravy and sauces. It is, however, a grain, a highly processed grain at that. This year, no grains will be on my plate at least, and I selfishly would like to eat some of the things I look forward to on Thanksgiving. I'm working on a couple of possibilities, one a simple reduction and the other using coconut flour. Lots of gravy expected around our house in the next week or two. We will see which wins this year.

Either way, this year the turkey gravy as well as the vegetarian mushroom gravy will be made at least a day ahead. I have realized how easy it is to do many dishes ahead and have them ready in the freezer or refrigerator for reheating on Thanksgiving Day. And forget about trying to perfectly time potatoes for mashing while you're juggling a hot turkey and too many guests hanging out in the kitchen.  I'll go into detail in a day or two about mashed potatoes (and mashed cauliflower) prepared ahead and perfectly, painlessly reheated in a crock pot.

the whole30, continued



While I am absolutely thrilled with completing my thirty days of the Whole30, I'm also not completely where I want to be health-wise. With this primary goal in mind, I'm sticking with the program, most parts of the program---yeah, I'm using my bathroom scale, for awhile. I'll let my body dictate how long.

Reading the information about transitioning after the Whole30, I became well aware that much of the testing and reintroduction of different foods is something I won't need to do. I have no intention of adding them into my diet. Before I started this, I didn't eat grains, dairy products, sugar, or legumes. Occasional natural sweetners, like actual stevia leaves from the herb garden, were just that, occasional. I am not a fan of sweet foods. Even wine is not of much interest to me these days. Though I have not ruled out having a glass of really good wine on special occasions, I don't see it becoming a regular part of my routine. I will probably add back a few of the "Paleo" versions of fun foods, like biscuits and such made of almond flour. These I rarely ate anyway, probably less than once a month, so I don't see that as much of an issue.
 Possibly, I may take a slightly more relaxed attitude toward some food, but I rather doubt it. I'm still narrowing the scope of foods I trust and shifting my emphasis even more from gourmet to impeccably fed and responsibly farmed. If I'm going to obsess, may it be in the direction of health for my family, the planet, and me. Right now and along similar lines,  I'm also obsessing about buying locally, which seems virtually impossible at the moment. More about that to come, most definitely.

My next posts will focus on holiday foods and advance preparation. I am a gravy fanatic, have finally mastered early preparation of most dishes for our absurdly massive Thanksgiving dinner, and look forward to sharing ideas. Since we serve traditionalists, vegetarians, and Paleo sorts at our house, this will include a variety of dishes I don't eat and rarely write about, but the emphasis will remain centered on Paleo, I hope.

the whole30, day thirty

Yep, I'm feeling rather proud of myself today. Though I still have the annoying sinus issue, I am much more focused on my completion of The Whole30.

That said, I'm really not sure what, if any, changes I'm inclined to make, right now anyway. I like the results, so far, and I want more. I will, most likely, welcome back my bathroom scale. While I have experienced no food cravings in this 30 days, I have missed the scale. I may have mentioned that once or twice. I don't quite know how I'll react if my weight hasn't changed, though weight was not my motivator in undertaking this. I would guess that it's dropped by the way my clothes fit and what I see in the mirror, but that's not always the case. As we all know, muscle weighs more than fat, and I sure hope it's fat I'm losing and not muscle. We shall see.

On a somewhat lighter note, I've often, maybe way too often, mentioned that, like GK and Coco, I am a creature of habit. I like to call them rituals, but semantics is not in my favor here. So today, my Day 30 of the Whole30, I am somehow making my own coffee. That is not the way it works here. I cook, he cleans and grinds beans to make coffee every morning and brings me two cups of strong, black coffee. That is the plan, the routine, the ritual. This is seriously wrong, yet here I am, impatiently waiting for the brewing to be done, cream in his cup, nothing in mine, so that I can take him coffee. This is an anomaly; it is most definitely not the beginning of a new ritual.

Breakfast, a few hours after the coffee, was quick and none too exciting. Mine was small, one scrambled egg and a leftover pork chop, a pretty dry, flavorless, though not overcooked specimen. I'm thinking of calling it quits with pork for awhile. It is just so hard to find any with flavor or enough fat to make it palatable. I buy only meats that at least claim to be raised humanely on small or smallish farms. I avoid factory farmed meats and grocery stores, and it still is barely edible. I should mention that live in central California; those of you in other parts of the world may have very different sources and experiences. I'm thinking of sticking to ruminants, a little bit of poultry, and responsibly caught wild fish.

I will not be wrapping up my experience with the Whole30 today. As I transition out of this, if I actually do transition out of it, I'll do my best to pull the different aspects of my personal experience together here. I've learned a lot more than I'd expected, and I'm a lot less anxious to move on than I'd thought I'd be at this point. Next time I post, I will have completed these 30 days. Guess I'll be taking it one day at a time for awhile.

Since we all have different takes on this and reactions to it, it would be wonderful if anyone who's doing this or something similar would add your thoughts and experiences, as well. Thanks.

the whole30, day twenty-nine

Years ago in a series of self-actualization trainings, again and again, I heard something like "Expectations are the seeds of dissatisfaction." I am paraphrasing, but that was the message. I think about that from time to time, and today I'm obsessing over it.

Today, Day 29 of my 30 days on the Whole30, does not fit my expectations. I didn't have a clear mental picture, of course, but I can promise you I did not for a single minute think I would be on day 3 of a killer sinus infection, complete with splitting headache, swollen face, and sleepless nights. Not for one single second did I picture this. I'm considering this a healing crisis; I do hope I'm right. Healing or not, I don't like it, and I am definitely dissatisfied at the moment. What I'd like instead is a warm glow of contentment and that sense of pride and honor that comes with completing a meaningful task. Any idea where I could order that?

Until this passes (oh! please let that be immediate!) there will be no thoughts of celebrating a completion. My plan right now is to tighten this up instead. Writing that, I almost had to laugh. What do I tighten? I prepare everything, I mean EVERYTHING, I eat. With the glaring exception of my bacon fiasco, I am not using anything processed. Virtually everything in my house is organic. I'm waiting to check out the clarified butter rule until next time around because I know I have some issues with dairy. (I did put several packs of pastured butter in my freezer to be ready, since it's seasonal.) My meat, beef and lamb, is grass-fed even though that wasn't a requirement here. Maybe I'll cut out eggs entirely; I've already cut way back. I'm almost at a loss. I am not at a dead-end, though. So many things feel so much better with the Whole30, and I will not give up. I'm wondering though, will Monday be Day 31 or Day 1 all over again?

Still, I'm left thinking about that training and my expectations. Somehow I can't quite put my finger on what I want to take from all of this right now. Maybe it's the headache. Maybe it's the sleeplessness. Maybe it's our weather with highs about 15 degrees less than the lows of two days ago.

Yet in the back of my mind I know, today is Day 29 and headache and sinus infection will soon be history (or so I hope.)