Day 14: Make Fruit Roll-ups.

Posted on March 14, 2012 by LaLa

So, what do you do when you need to: one, do something with a rock or roll theme, as referenced in yesterday’s post; and two, make use of the expiring fruit that was lovingly left in the refrigerator by the absentee roommate?  Much to my delight, google replied with what sounded like the perfect answer:  make fruit roll-ups.  Did you know that this used to be a fairly commonplace way of preserving food that was called fruit leather?  Fascinating, I know! (Work with me, people).

Now, as with any good recipe, it’s important to really improvise and make it your own.  So, here are the steps that I meticulously followed:

1.  Pour yourself a generous glass of wine.  This helps to calm the nerves when making anything for the first time.  It also takes the edge off after a two-hour visit to Costco.  On the plus side, I now have at least a year’s supply of paper towel and toilet paper.  Not to mention more books, yoga wear, and a new lamp that I absolutely needed.  And a ginormous bag of quinoa.  And snow peas.  And lemons.  And 3 head lamps.  And… well, I think you get the picture.

2.  Pry the bottom off the blender to give it a good wash with soap, as it is used on almost a daily basis by the roommate to make breakfast smoothies, after which it is routinely rinsed.  In the interest of not mixing flavours, or anything else, this merits attention.

3.  Pour a second glass of wine while waiting for the blender to air dry, and while reading the recipe in full, or until you get bored and want to do something else (ADD can be a lifestyle choice).  I mean, grabbing a dish towel is just unnecessary manual labour.

4.  Chop up the fruit, and add it to the blender.  Feel free to first of all make interesting shapes with the fruit before you puree.  Liberally add whatever other stuff to it that you want.  I chose to add a couple of squeezes of honey, and probably way too much cinnamon.  But, not being cinnamony enough is simply a crime that I refuse to commit.

  

5.  Top up your wine glass so that you have something to sip while pureeing the concoction in the blender, being the good multi-tasker that you are.

6.  Spray your baking sheet with Pam, even if you are using a Silpat, for insurance, because you just know this stuff is gonna be sticky.  Oh crap, remember to turn on the oven, now, too, at the lowest heat it allows (for me, that turned out to be 170 F, which is like 77 C, because google never lies, although it can be cheeky, like when you ask it to find Chuck Norris).

7.  Pour the liquid goo onto the baking sheet.  Pick out and eat any big pieces of fruit that managed to evade the blade.  Spread it around with a spatula, so that you have one more thing to lick.  Mmmmm, sweet cinnamon.  Who knew it went so well with California chardonnay?

8.  Put the baking sheet into the oven, but do not fully close the door.  Because I said so.

9.  Is there anything left in the wine bottle?  Good, because you will need something to sip while you clean up the blender and lick the spatula, which can mercifully go into the dishwasher, next to the cutting board.  This fruit leathery thing takes forever to dry out in the oven, which is like… many, many hours.  Forego the temptation to simply crank up the oven temp, unless you want to make fruit chips, which are also tasty.

10.  Take the baking sheet out of the oven – note to self, use the oven mitt thingies, not your bare hands, even though it is ‘low’ heat.  Just saying.  And never, ever blame the wine.  Ever!!

11.  Pull out the plastic wrap, slap the leathery goo in there, and roll, baby roll!

12.  Stick it in a jar in the fridge when you’re done, or eat some now, because it also goes surprisingly well with your best friend, Blanche (you know, the one from California?).

Hmm… Twelve steps.  Interesting…  Anywho, without further ado, I give you homemade fruit roll-ups, circa 2012.  Eat your heart out, Heston!  P.S. happy pi day.

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Day 13: Take Melatonin.

Posted on March 13, 2012 by LaLa

I’m not exactly what you would call a pill popper.  I take a multi-vitamin, and love my Advil, but that’s pretty much it.  I almost never get sick, which makes me a teensy bit resentful of all the sick days I could have taken when I was gainfully employed and never did – I swear, I’ve maybe taken a grand total of two sick days ever, and at least one of them was a really bad wine flu.  So when I was wide awake last night at 1 am (which was only 5 am in the UK due to the difference in daylight savings this week), I took the opportunity to take melatonin to help me sleep.

Seriously, a touch too much packaging - ya think?!?!

Now, all of my former roommates would attest without a shadow of a doubt that I do not belong in the good sleeper category.  If I get 5 or 6 hours on a weeknight, that’s loads, and I will wake at the drop of a hat or full bladder.  I come by it honestly, though, as my father and his mother are the same.  So many things to do, so little time…  All three of us have been caught ‘just resting our eyes’ in front of the television or movie screen on more than one occasion.  Hey, if you’re going to force us to sit still, that’s the risk you’re going to take…  But I digress.  Again.

I had bought the melatonin a couple of months ago, and conveniently forgot to take it (I will eventually remember to talk about my memory ‘opportunities’ in another post).  So, I saved it for just such an occasion.  The tasty strip that comes in the little cartridge inside the ever-so-slightly oversized box melts on your tongue, and is chocolate mint flavoured.  So far, so good.  I then read a few pages of a book, and turned out the lights.  Then, it happened.  I fell asleep rather quickly, and do not recall waking up until around 6:30 am or so.  That’s actually really good for me – normally, Mr. Insomnia wakes me at least once or twice to check what time it is.  In the past year, I haven’t even used an alarm clock, except as a safety net when I have had to catch a flight.  Before that, I usually woke up a few minutes before the alarm was set to go off, and just stared at it, evil thing that it is.  But this morning, I even managed to go back to sleep for another hour.  True story!  There might be something to this.

I’m reading the box now (as I do, because it’s almost like an instruction manual, and I’ve got a lot of male friends who dismiss all forms of instruction that I guess has partly rubbed off on me), and it purports to help reduce the time it takes to fall asleep, increase total sleep time and improve sleep quality.  In the immortal words of Meatloaf, Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad.  There’s 2 cartridges x 15 strips in there, and it says to use daily, but for use beyond 4 weeks, consult a health care practitioner.  Good thing it’s not February.

So if you’re thinking there’s a bit of a theme happening here based on yesterday’s Tantra post (the old sex, drugs and rock and roll tri fecta), then I need a rollin’ idea for tomorrow’s rockin’ new thing.  Suggestions welcome… Hmm.  I think I’m regretting this already.

Posted in Health | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Day 12: Tantra Workshop.

Posted on March 12, 2012 by LaLa

How you doin’?

My name is LaLa, and I’m a voucher-holic.  It’s been 3 days hours since I bought my last deal.  And I don’t buy just any old deal.  Oh no, I like the ones that are like my men – intriguing and downright quirky.  Which brings me to today’s new thing:  a 4-hour Introduction to Tantra Workshop.  Admittedly, I had planned to buy the deal as a gift for a good friend of mine.  But when I started to read the reviews, I just couldn’t resist trying it for myself.  I mean, who couldn’t use a few tips on spicing things up?  Maybe Tantra’s the real reason arranged marriages are so successful?  Think about it.

The website advertised that the evening would help us to discover how tantra works, experience tantric energy, and get exercises to take home.  And the workshop easily delivered on all points.  There were several references to the importance of breathing (hoo hoo and ha ha); however, unlike the calming yoga breath, which is deep in the belly, the tantric breath is shallow to get the energy, well, up.  References to ‘Every Breath You Take’ and working in ‘Synchronicity’ abounded, which makes me think that Sting was indeed an early adopter.

Get jiggy with it!

During the class, we further learned the importance of movement, sound and eye contact in tantra, and participated in several activities that were surprisingly effective.  Our teacher, Lucy, did an incredible job of putting everyone at ease, building a safe and trusting environment so we could get in the groove, so to speak.  It was almost like a very personal improv class.  The sexercises in particular, including hip circles and pelvic thrusts set to music, made me wonder what a martian peaking through the window would think of us as earthlings.  That probably wasn’t exactly what I was supposed to be thinking just then… but what can I say.  My mind wanders.  The most surprising exercise, though, was when we just stood and gazed into another person’s eyes for several minutes, to see their inner spirit.  It was a bit like that episode of Family Guy where Meg brings her family on a daytime talk show, and there’s a couple who reveals that the guy is actually a horse, who is actually a broom… Ya, so the similarity is the zipping off of the outer layer to leave, well, the broom, which would be your life force.   All kidding aside, the connection and honouring exchanged was, in a word, incredible.  By far, the best quote of the evening for me, at least, was:  “Your heart is your home.  When you are in your heart, you are in your home.”  That’s good stuff.

So, has tantra changed my life?  Quite possibly.  Will it make me more open to new experiences?  Absolutely.  I’m still smiling from ear to ear.  Just ask Sting and Trudie.  I don’t think I’ve ever looked forward to homework so much!

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Day 11: Send a Tweet.

Posted on March 11, 2012 by LaLa

By the time I completed yesterday’s post (in between bouts of napping), some birds started chirping right outside my window and wouldn’t stop – at like 3 am (this was still in the UK, so you can’t blame daylight savings… and it was that pretty Cinderella type of twittering that isn’t quite loud enough to get you out of bed to see what all the fuss is about).  Clearly, it was a sign… of something other than the fact that I am not getting enough quality sleep.  And so, the seed was planted.

Working as a consultant in major IT projects, I’ve learned to cherish my time outside of the office, and try to keep it as unplugged as possible.  Okay, truth be told, I’m fundamentally pre-disposed to being lazy, and so I view all superfluous websites and social media as really just another form of work (yet somehow, this blog is different, or so LaLa logic keeps insisting… but I digress).

Despite numerous invitations, I’ve never joined LinkedIn, as I barely have time to keep up with my email, which includes various newsletters, and most importantly, my Daily Deal Tips.  So, making today’s new thing to sign up to Twitter and send a tweet left me with mixed emotions.  I mean, every website, TV show and celebrity has a link to Twitter, but I’ve just never had the hankering.  Why the character limit?  How is it different than a Facebook status update?  Lawd help me if this is just another forum to hear about the exploits of other people’s children, Farmville animals, or African rebel army leaders…  Life, and my patience, are simply too short for redundancy.

But then I took a deep breath and reminded myself that this year was about keeping an open mind to all things new.  So, I cautiously opened the gates to the Twitter abyss.  Right off the bat, my back went up at the way it forced me to choose 5 people to follow.  I have trouble listening to real people telling me what to do, but a website?  Eff that.  What if I want to lead?  It takes me a few screens to notice the glorious ‘skip this step’ fine print that enables the Next button… Sweet, lovely loopholes, how I adore you!

Immediately upon reaching the main feed screen, I feel as though something has gone terribly wrong when I see posts from people I don’t recognize.  And then, the horrible reality of the ‘retweet’ sinks in.  Crappity crap.  Facebook is bad enough with re-posts by people I think I know.  But to have stuff from people as far away as Kevin Bacon degrees of separation, well, that’s just more than I bargained for!

And so, the initiation is complete – my Twitter cherry has officially been popped.  I must admit, I am pleasantly surprised by some of the posts in there, many of which are insightful and clever.  My fascination with all things shiny is also curiously appeased by their brevity.  Without further ado, I give you my freshly created handle:  @lalaomni.  I cannot guarantee that I will tweet very often, but now at least I have the ability should the urge arise again, so enjoy.  In related news, this might also enable this blog to be available as content for Flipboard.  Stranger things have been known to happen!

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Day 10: Borough Market, River Cruise and Heston.

Posted on March 10, 2012 by LaLa

So, in honour of my 10th post, I decided to go for the triple crown of new things today.  This morning began with a leisurely tour of Borough Market, where the plethora of cheeses gave me a full on cheese-gasm.  There is a stall that has four raclette machines, and a few griddles that make the most delicious toasted cheese and onion sandwiches, which I begrudgingly shared with my hosts – pure bliss!  Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here’s 3k (the third is from a magazine cover in a wonderful cheese shop that well, just speaks to me on so many levels):

      

From Borough, I took the tube and DLR (light rail transit) to the Cutty Sark, a boat, sorry, ‘tea clipper’, that is being lovingly restored (the fire a few years back didn’t help matters any).  This was also the departure point for a City Cruise along the Thames.  It was a gorgeously sunny afternoon, so this was the perfect vantage point for seeing some of London’s best architecture without having to dodge black cabs and bobbies.

The recession does not seem to be affecting London very much, with no less than a dozen cranes on the horizon.  One of the soon to be completed projects is the Glass Shard building, that will be Europe’s tallest.  On a side note, some tourist fell in the water on one of these cruises today, and you may be delightfully surprised to learn that it was neither my companion nor I.  After the river cruise, we stopped in at the National Gallery for a quick view of some of London’s treasures, where admission is free.  Bravo, London!  I feel more culturally enlightened, seeing some of my favourite paintings up close just that wee bit more.

Now, the final stop on this glorious day is one that I have been savouring for about a month and a half, and that is Dinner by Heston Blumenthal.  To my fellow foodies, you will be familiar with this gastronomical master of disguise, who is known for his ingenious rendering of foods that are not exactly what they seem.  More recently, he painstakingly researched recipes from the past few hundred years to inspire his menu at this barely year-old restaurant, made up of things like ‘Meat Fruit’ (chicken liver pate in the shape of a mandarin).  I personally indulged in Hay Smoked Mackerel (circa 1730), Cod in Cider (c. 1940), and quite possibly the tastiest dessert I have ever eaten, Tipsy Cake (c. 1810).  Gawd, reality is so going to bite when I go home tomorrow and have to fend for myself once again in my own kitchen…  But that’s tomorrow’s problem.  For now, ignorance truly is bliss.  Burp.

  

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