Valuing Harvest

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. By far and away. Followed by St. Patrick’s Day.

I’m so predictable: An Irish dietitian. 

Thanksgiving feels really real to me. It’s about food and family and friends. And that’s it. And that’s nice. It’s got a good vibe to it.

Except when it’s only purpose to kick start the consumer flurry of Christmas. Darn capitalistic agenda! You’re ruining Thanksgiving!

In light of the economic and political crazy at the moment, I am especially grateful for Thanksgiving. First off, I’ll be having it at a farm. Surely, with good food. And with good people.

One of which sent me an invite to “Occupy the Holidays.” If this means a sit in at the Thanksgiving table for a couple of days…well then I’m all for it.

But really it is an invitation sent to remind people to “embrace community members that hurt, talk about success, listen to frustrations, and eat real food that nourishes your soul and body.” 

Nicely put. 

Maybe I like the vibe of Thanksgiving because in preschool we learned that the rustic Native American Indians taught those overly civilized Pilgrims to grow food and enjoy their company-A truly succinct, kid-friendly version regarding the harvest events in Plymouth.

Regardless of any corruption or conjured euphemisms about the event, it seems to bring about this thought process that getting back to basics and helping the community was the answer. 

Food was the currency. And it did nourish souls and liven spirits. Food’s currency has changed. Significantly. 

My dear friend sent me an article that states Congress wants pizza and French fries to stay on school lunch and is fighting the Obama administration’s effort to take unhealthy foods out of schools. 

Stay strong Michelle!

What a short sighted excuse to make artificial pizza sauces and ketchup conform with established USDA vegetable serving guidelines per day to close the deficit. I’m sure someone will be barking up a different tree when health care costs rise exponentially in the future. 

Just as the Pilgrims lacked the amount of Harvest to feed their entire crew, the government saw the benefit of feeding a terrific amount of poor quality food to a particular starving socioeconomic group. Side effect 60 years later…? 

Well besides the obvious, the American Dietetics Association is backed by companies like coca cola. I understand that in order to represent our profession to advocate for better food practices and preventative health one needs to influence Capitol Hill. Influence meaning money. It’s just a shame. Especially when our national dietitian convention meetings comply with exhibition stations that give my professional peers taste tests of fiber fortified diet coke..?

The American Dietetic Association Political Action Committee has asked for donations so our lobbyist can be “heard.” The top health care professional advocacy group to be “heard” last year was the National Community Pharmacist Association PAC. Well not surprising considering pharmacist have the ability to donate a lot more from salaries and their backing drug companies. 

Such drug companies that make cholesterol lowering medication to most likely help delay the rising health care costs. Drug companies that hold patents that lead to larger revenues. Revenues that can help pharmacist “speak louder.” A population that takes these medications who are at the mercy of the government regulated free and reduced school lunch programs and value menus. Income tax that aids Medicaid health care. 

I am all for helping the community and the underprivileged. I’m not so naïve to think the solution is simple. But it would be nice to get back to the basics a bit more. Putting more value into good food. Eating dinner at a table instead of in front of the TV. 

After all, it’s all short sighted. 

The Earth has been around far longer than we have. It makes good food for us but it will ultimately win regardless of what we choose to eat. 

It’s just nice that Thanksgiving can remind us to enjoy a harvest around a table with family and friends. In this moment.

Digesting on One-sie New Life

I think I need to change the name of my blog. Or at least the catch phrase.

The name of the blog remains correct. I am a nut. Or feel like one. Or write like one. Or D. All of the above. 

I think instead of “a sprinkle of life on nutrition” it should be “A series of major life events and their relationship to food.”

Not clever enough?

Yeaaa, I agree.

But seriously, I’m on some kind of higher list that is sending life event attendances my way. Maybe that higher list is called “being a 25 year old person with a large extended family and lovely friends who seem to be on a normal course of life.”

Not short enough?

Yeaaa, I agree.

Since late August I’ve been on a rocky course of transition. I’ve been traveling a lot and making several pit stops.

·   Pit stops being 4 weddings, 2 bridal showers, 1 funeral, 1 bachelorette party, 1 baby shower, 1 decline of a baby shower, a partridge and a pear tree.

There have been some ups. Some downs. Some slow moving times. Some realizations that this life is fluid. And some time to digest on all of these thoughts.

So while digesting, I pit stopped at my dietitian friend Brandi Breden’s house to celebrate the arrival of a whole new life course for her, her husband and their future baby. That…, or she had some slow moving “tract” of her own. Specifically in the GI department. Because it looked like she swallowed a basketball!

Guests were to make the mom-to-be a onesie. And in the honor of her new track and the arrival of Baby Drew Breden, I drew one out. 

Showing her that that sometimes her new life course would be made up of love. Of sweet moments with her little pumpkin. 

Sometimes a parents live-r can become a pain-cre-as and she may need to sp-leen on a good friend. 

Sometimes she might feel like there are so many little bits and pieces to keep on tract. And even when everything can be progressing normally, it might all come out like … well, that’s what daddies are for. 

To help.

Pick up the pieces.

Clean up the mess.

Hold mommy.

Because mommy is tired. From holding for 9 months.

We could all do with a little support.

When embarking on tracks that twist and turn and make the pit of your belly feel out of control. So we pit stop. And we help celebrate and support people who are moving down their course. We provide onesies big network of support.

In Her Wake

Daylight savings time hit. And I hit the bed. The lights went out. I slept for 10.5 plus 1 additional hour that night. Eleven and a half hours of sleep? Jeez. Guess I needed it.

It’s a bit darker now. Farmers remain annoyed. Crops keep croppin at sunrise despite the clocks’ LED reflection of our thoughts. That colon blinks blinks blinks neon green. Do we think it’s brighter in the morning? The clock is brighter sooner; the incessant blinking shows itself earlier in the evening.

After three family weddings we had an unexpected family funeral. A sad one. One that welcomes me to ‘fall back’ into bed. Blankets me with dark. Two consecutive weekends of white and light followed by a weekend of black and dark. My eyes are blink blink blinking the mourning.

It happened on Halloween. The next day was all Saints Day. Maybe she was.

We rise mourning. We attend a wake at night.

What makes sense?

Sometimes the time change reminds me of the coziness of family and holidays. It seems to bring about this Chicago feel. Good smells. Good tastes. Good people. Good laughs. Layering clothing, gathering around a kitchen table and having a crack with the family. The kitchen table is where it’s at. 

It’s the epicenter of the family. A lot of time, it’s where the matriarch holds her domain. My Aunt Mary Kay certainly hosted a good Christmas. I don’t know if she ever stepped out of the kitchen. She brought the good smells the good tastes the good people the good laughs. The prayers. The light.

She was our saint. 

She will see us early to bed, early to rise. She will remind us to be healthy, wealthy and wise. We will think of her. She will turn the lights back on again. Maybe come spring. After the mourning.

 

Guest Book

La Fee a la Fete

It appears to be November already. I don’t know how. It’s gone by with a blink of an eye.

With the end of October came the last family wedding. The 3^rd within the past 6 weeks.  

Halloween themed. Would there be any other?

Appropriateness to dress as the hallucinogenic alcoholic-drink fairy at a family wedding? Discuss.

What if I mentioned that I also witnessed Alice, the Mad Hatter, the Queen and of course the Cheshire Cat at the festivity?

A fall down the rabbit hole? Maybe by the end of the night..

but certainly a wacky wedding wonderland.

Let me repeat, appropriateness to dress as the absinthe green fairy at my cousin’s Halloween themed wedding?

In my defense a French maid did a reading. Cleopatra did a song. The officiate became Tony LaRussa.

All with a drink, some hallucinogenic fairy dust and the blink of a fake eye lashed eye.

My costume idea originated from my liking of the old French advertisements that market the green anise and sweet fennel flavored drink.

La fée verte.

More easily explained to wedding guests using Kylie Minogue’s line in the Moulin Rouge.

“I’m the green fairy.”

…A catch phrase hoping to render Toulouse Lautrec images.  

An old world cocktail, popular amongst Parisians, artist, writers and bohemians.

Opposed by social conservatives and prohibitionist.

Meh? Seemed to suit my attempts at fun Boho Chic wedding guest.

I deemed it appropriate.

After all, I was dreamt up. Merely imagined. A hallucination. Of a good time. At a family wedding.

Pumpkin de Lis

Un

  

Deux

Trois