Tag Archives: food

Ruth Reichl’s delicious deviled eggs recipe

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My favorite food writer is Ruth Reichl, former food critic of the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, editor of Gourmet magazine, book author (Tender at the Bone, Comfort Me with Apples, Garlic and Sapphires, Not Becoming My Mother, and more) and a wonderful tweeter to follow on Twitter.

Her tweets are poetry, jewels of sensual delight. Here’s a recent one:

Late spring. Damp green grass beneath my feet. A flock of tiny yellow birds. Local strawberries, so sweet, drenched in thick Jersey cream.

Doesn’t that make you want to hang out with Ruth, wherever she is? She’s so present, so alive, so appreciative.

She wrote about how to make deviled eggs, and I learned several things:

  • Fresh eggs do not peel well. Get farm or backyard organic eggs from free-range chickens and let them sit in the fridge for a week before hard-boiling.
  • The term “deviled” was used starting in the 18th century to refer to spicy foods, such as deviled eggs and deviled ham. They are also called “stuffed eggs” and “mimosa eggs”.
  • If you want perfectly centered egg yolks, store the eggs on their sides.
  • Bring cold water with eggs in it to a boil, then cover and turn off the heat for exactly 12 minutes.
  • After cooking, immediately chill the eggs in a bowl of ice water to prevent the greenish tinge on the outside of the cooked yolk.

I made deviled eggs yesterday, before I read this article. They are so easy and yummy in summer! I use store-bought mayo (made with olive oil—Ruth provides the recipe for homemade—click the link above) and topped each filled egg with paprika and exactly three capers.

Below, two eggs are store-bought organic, and two are from Hal’s backyard chickens. Guess which is which? Also notice the greenish tinge on one of the yolks. That egg must not have cooled quickly enough!

My granddaughter, who turns 12 today, has a shortcut to get deviled egg flavor without the work: She peels a hard-boiled egg, cuts it in half, and smears a little yellow prepared mustard on it. Pop it in your mouth, and voila! Quick and easy!

Best gluten-free burger in Austin at Hopdoddy’s!

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I’m not sure I’ve mentioned this, but my body does not digest wheat well at all. I learned this five or six years ago, and after going without it for a couple of months while on a strict diet to clear excess candida, I noticed a very unfamiliar feeling — I felt, well, well, and I had hardly any fatigue, digestive issues, or feeling like my mood and energy level were on a roller coaster ride. For the first time in, like, forever.

I changed my diet drastically, although it took time for me to really accept that if I ate that piece of pizza, I’d feel bad and “pay for it” later for a few days. I did learn, though. Over time, I learned that I can handle maybe a quarter teaspoon of wheat (such as dusted on blackened fish) without problems.

So being an all-American girl raised in Texas, I missed eating burgers. Not that they were ever a mainstay of my diet, but when you can’t have wheat, you find out what you miss. (Burgers and pizza.)

A couple of times I craved one so badly, I went out and ate one, gluten bun and all, and paid the price for satisfying my craving, which was several days of digestive upset and not feeling too well.

Then I’d make them at home with ground bison patty and toasted Ezekiel bread made from sprouted grains, which my body tolerates. (Toasting it is the only way to make it palatable, in my opinion.) It was good, but I still missed being able to just go out to a burger joint and eat a burger.

Well, today was bliss. I ate lunch with my daughter at Hopdoddy’s, a fairly new and very popular Austin restaurant on South Congress that offers a variety of burgers on a variety of buns — including gluten-free. I’d read reviews about how good their burgers were and that they offered gluten-free buns. I looked forward to tasting for myself.

This is what I had:

That, my friends, is a gluten-free bun, and it was light and kind of crispy on the outside. Toasted! And it actually had some flavor, too.

The Buffalo Bill burger (using bison from Thunderheart Bison, South Texas) came with blue cheese, apple-smoked bacon, “Frank’s hot sauce,” and “sassy sauce.”

All I can say is that it was delicious, and it feels so great to know I won’t feel ill. I’m not a big meat or burger eater, but it’s great to know I can indulge occasionally.

I’ll be back!

~~~

Postscript, 11/17/13: For a down-home, less expensive alternative to Hopdoddy’s, I’d also like to give kudos to Wholly Cow (downtown and South Lamar) for making grass-fed burgers (request Udi’s gluten-free buns) and for their awesome Fit Cross Paleo Burger, served with portabello mushroom caps in place of buns! Both made with local, grass-fed beef.

A changework and bodywork session

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One evening this past week, I received a special honor. I got to do changework and bodywork with someone who has done changework and bodywork with me. I’m not going to provide any identifying information out of respect for her privacy. Think of this as a case study: it really happened, but you will never be able to tell whose experience it was, and in any case, it doesn’t really matter.

I’m writing this session up to illustrate what I am offering in my private practice: changework combined with bodywork.

Most everyone is at least familiar with what bodywork and massage are. Changework is less known. You can think of it as a kind of coaching, with applications for managing stress, becoming more relaxed, changing your stories, shelving beliefs that no longer apply, clarifying, removing obstacles, getting unstuck, achieving goals, knowing yourself, expanding, transforming emotions, and more.

I have some training and experience I can draw on, but mostly I listen to understand and offer support for a client to explore and find movement toward resolution. Sometimes just being really listened to makes a huge difference. Sometimes a client just needs another point of view. Sometimes a question or two can open up a whole new direction. Sometimes a technique can help.

When a positive shift has occurred, we move into the bodywork part of a session — to literally embody the change.

My client had overdone it with some physical activity and then made a ducking, twisting movement — and her back started spasming. After several days, the spasms were entirely gone and she went back to work…and they returned. She understood then that the spasms were probably tied to something else.

She had already done significant work on this before we met. She examined what had been happening emotionally before the injury occurred — especially in regard to work, because the spasms resumed when she went back to work.

She had been feeling irritated about some of her clients not taking care of themselves despite all she had put into their sessions. (This experience is pretty universal among health care providers.) She was just being with this awareness, not knowing what she was going to do about it, when she overdid it and started having back spasms. She put resolving this issue on hold.

Once she identified the unresolved issue, bringing it into the light, she made some changes in her work, and a deeper level of healing began.

She was still feeling like more exploration was needed when she came to me.

I asked how I could help, and she said maybe we could do a little tapping — EFT, the Emotional Freedom Technique. I shared with her a version I like, and she tapped away as we talked.

With EFT, you identify what you are feeling. Behind the irritability, she recognized that she felt sad about not being able to help.

I asked if she could really know that she wasn’t helping these clients, and she said no.

Sometimes people have to step in the hole again (or a thousand times; see Groundhog Day, one of my favorite movies) before they walk around it.

When someone finally makes a decision (or the decision makes itself) to walk around the hole, changing has become more attractive than not changing. Her clients’ experiences of her own healthy vibrancy, her work, and her commitment to well-being are of course part of the force-field that makes changing to healthier habits more attractive. It just might take them awhile to really be ready, though.

On her own, she came up with an inspiring course to take — if some of her clients are choosing the shadow over the light, and she’s resisting them doing that, then maybe now is a great time for her to examine her own shadow side.

Brilliant. Perfect for the season, too, as the nights get longer.

Then she got on the table, and I gave her a deep massage, which she had not previously experienced. She loved 9 points (TLC people, if you’re reading this, you’ll know what I mean). I reached some back muscle tenderness and melted into it.

She blissed out on the table, and I finished working on her, and we talked a little more, and she slipped away into the night — until we meet again.

Green drink recipe

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It’s a day off for me, which means no classes and nothing on my schedule until this evening. That’s rare in my life. Massage school is on break for a week. My program, 3 full days a week, is called “the intensive” for a reason.

I felt in need of an energy boost, so I just made myself a green drink. I made mine in a blender, not a juicer. I like the fiber! I’d love to get a VitaMix when it’s time. They’re so versatile (but expensive).

Into the blender went the following:

  • 2 cans of coconut water
  • 2/3rds of a peeled cucumber
  • half a bunch of Italian parsley
  • a bunch of kale
  • a stalk of celery
  • 1 clove garlic
  • 1 T turmeric powder
  • 1 T spirulina powder
  • 1 T maca powder
  • 3 T flax-seed oil
  • 1 T flax seeds
  • 1 T hemp seeds
  • 1 T chia seeds
  • pinches of herbs from my garden: spearmint, peppermint, rosemary, thyme, basil

All organic where possible. This makes enough for 5 or 6 servings.

It tastes pretty darn good (even for a green drink), if I do say so myself. I take that to mean that my body needs it.

I’ve learned not to put too much garlic in. And if I’d had fresh ginger root, I would have peeled and added it, but what I had was rather shriveled, more ready for the compost pile than consumption.

Not only do I feel virtuous for taking the time to lovingly create and consume this concoction, but the vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, enzymes, fiber, and the anti-viral/fungal/microbial/cancer, rebalancing, detoxifying, immune-boosting, energy-boosting properties of these ingredients will rejuvenate me down to the cellular level.

It’s very nice to do something for those hard-working cells that rarely get any credit!

Generosity, root vegetables, and an offer on my house!

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Today is the fifth day of my 21-day gratitude challenge. It’s still raining! I mentioned my gratitude for that yesterday. Another day of rain in January translates to more wildflowers in April in Central Texas. Plus, with the summers we have here, variety is welcome!

Here’s what else I’m especially grateful for today.

Generosity

Today I’m feeling especially grateful for the generosity of friends and strangers. Since my car has been disabled since Christmas eve (but ready tomorrow — yay!), my friend Thomas has twice let me use his car while he was traveling.

I have appreciated that, and his friendship, very much. The car loan has helped me out tremendously, since I didn’t have rental coverage on my insurance (do now!), and he hasn’t had to pay for long-term parking. I’ve picked him up and dropped him off at the airport (with my daughter filling in once when I had a yoga workshop), returning his car with a full tank of gas. Thank you, Thomas!

I also appreciate my friends letting me bounce my ideas about creating my right livelihood off them, supporting me and sharing information about possibilities for training and people they know who have an inside scoop. I’m mulling over a lot now, and I recognize that my friends have a lot of resources, wisdom, and connections to share.

This last anecdote falls into the category of random acts of kindness, a form of generosity. Who isn’t grateful for those? My friend Victoria shared a story about how she (currently carless) accidentally left her bag with the extra layer of clothes needed to wait at bus stops in January at her workplace, and how a woman waiting behind her in line at a coffee shop offered to drive her back there to get her bag. The woman refused any compensation, as she had had the experience being a carless bus rider herself. Victoria felt supported by the Universe and appreciated having that extra layer of clothes as she went about her day.

Root vegetables

I just made a big ol’ pot of borscht, with parsnips, carrots, red-skin potatoes, and most of all, beets, among the ingredients. Red beets and orange beets and sliced beet greens.

Beets and rainy winter days go together really well. The jewel-like color of borscht made with lots of beets is a warming, heart-opening color to nourish you during these days of low gray clouds and cold dampness. Beets have an earthy taste like no other vegetable I can think of. If you need grounding, eat beets.

Negotiating

I got an offer on my house yesterday, and this time it was in the ballpark! Yay! I’m feeling very grateful. It’s been six weeks since it was first listed, and to tell the truth, it’s been a tiny bit nerve-wracking. It’s not the best time of year to sell.

So I am grateful that a prospective buyer and his realtor are taking my listing seriously enough to make an offer.

I met with my wonderful realtor/neighbor today, and we made a counteroffer. This could go back and forth several times, and it could also fall apart, with one or the other of us walking away. I’m asking what I want, having already come down once, because if you don’t, guess what? You won’t get it!

She’s letting another couple of very interested prospective buyers know that I’m currently negotiating, so if they want to make offers, now is a good time!

Keep ya posted!

Water falling from the sky, Mexican food, and saying no

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I am grateful for rainy days, specifically for today’s drizzle and forecast of rain for the rest of today and into tomorrow. After I post this, I’m going back to bed with a cup of tea and the wonderful novel I’m reading.

Isn’t it somewhat miraculous that we live on a planet where water falls out of the sky from shape-shifting beings called clouds? And that water soaks into the earth to nourish plant life, which feeds all the animals, including us, and also — by seeking the lowest place — that it runs off into streams and rivers and seas? And that water evaporates back into clouds to start the cycle over again?

(If it’s flooding now where you live, I hope you feel grateful for the evaporation and the gaps between rains.)

I feel gratitude for Mexican food. I just made myself some migas for breakfast. If you’re not familiar with migas, they’re scrambled eggs with salsa, grated cheese, and crumbled corn chips mixed in. Very popular in Texas!

I love the mouth-feel (the soft warm cage-free farm eggs and cheddar cheese contrasted with the crunch of the corn chips), the flavors (bland eggs, piquant salsa, sharp cheddar, salty chips), and the colors (especially if you use the baked blue corn chips). Migas made with high-quality, healthy, fresh ingredients are quite appetizing, and it’s a fun, creative way to gussy up scrambled eggs. (Try some smoked goat gouda sometimes in place of the cheddar. Yum!)

I feel gratitude for being able to say “no”. My friend Katie just called about meeting up with her and other dear friends today for an attractive adventure.

I declined, telling her of my plan to read in bed today.

She liked that I was doing that for myself, and I liked that she and Glenda and Vee were doing something they wanted to do. We left off agreeing that either I’ll call her when I’m ready for something else, or she’ll call me when they’re ready to do something else. Everyone is happy and fulfilled and flexible.

Easy peasy, huh? Not always, for me. I’ve learned how to say no without feeling like I need to apologize, and for that I feel very, very grateful.