Composting and online dating.

From SFGate.com/

And finally: This only-in-San Francisco moment captured by Joe Mac, a recycling-booth volunteer at Sunday's leather-laden Folsom Street Fair: a guy removing a horse bit from his mouth to ask if the plastic cups were compostable.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/30/BAG019UG9L.DTL#ixzz0Sbk4f9Px

My city is awesome. My mood, however, is not. Looking for some cheering up. Anyone got anything good to share in the comments? 

Also, I'm considering online dating again (perhaps once my mood has swung back over to the positive). It's been well over two years since I did Match.com/ and I may be up for the fun/torture again. Chemistry.com/ was suggested... I could blog about it - some of you read our curly-haired friend's online dating blog a few years ago and it was hi-larious. Plus, look where she is now - married and a mom! (Love you, AB)

SF MOMA?

Hey. I just recently found out that I get into SF MOMA for free - PLUS a guest! Let me know if you want to go. We don't even have to wait in line!

WowStupidPlasticThing

It's the WowBacon. You use it to microwave your bacon. Because, you know, a pan isn't quite fast enough.

WTF.

Maybe some of my snark is due to the loss of my microwave, which died last week.

Most of it is due to the fact that this is a stupid piece of plastic. Thanks for alerting us, Treehugger.

End of five paleo-ish days.

So, my five Paleo-esque diet days are done.



I am looking forward to:

• Oatmeal topped with yogurt. I miss this flavor and texture combination.
  
• Grains mixed in with my veggies.
• Reducing my reliance on nuts - seriously! I don't think this was a good move, but sometimes I felt like I was at a loss for what to eat that would help me feel satisfied. Straight up protein alone doesn't do it, nor do veggies or fruits. Nut butters and nuts do help me feel energized and satisfied, but are way too calorically dense for me. I'm trying to reduce my calories-in, not increase! Maybe some of this is "getting used to" the diet changes, but I don't really want to do strict-ish Paleo. It was just an experiment.

What I learned:

• Cooking chicken breasts is easy. Remove from freezer, marinate over night, bake. 
• I do not like either of the rice protein powders I've recently purchased. 
• Other than yogurt, occasional cottage cheese and whole grains (quinoa, oats, amaranth, barley) -> this wasn't *that* different from how I normally eat... save the additional proteins in place of some of my beloved grains.
  
• Ok, except that I do have chocolate/baked goods/sweets sometimes and I didn't have those for five days (with the exception of chocolate almond/soy milk and a little unsweetened cocoa powder w/squirt of raw agave syrup on a mashed up banana last night - I was craving sweet & creamy sooo badly).

Next week is post- bachelorette party. I think that my experiment will be something around a solid reduction of calories. My pants are tight, and have been tight, and I am not down with this. So, experiment may take the form of actually plating my dinner and then being done. Or eliminating snacking between breakfast and lunch. Or an all-liquid day. Maybe actually posting my "nutrition log" to my ninja training club online forum. I'm already putting up my workout log... probably about time I did the nutrition one too. Let me know if you're interested in seeing either of those.

So... ideas for my next week's nutrition experiment?

What a crock of...

I want a crock pot to make some winter stews, particularly as my CSA is moving towards kale and chard season and I get more into actually cooking meat (ok, so far it's only been chicken) in my own kitchen.

Recommendations? Do I need one that's programmable? Two quarts seems small - I love having leftovers for lunch... but is four quarts a LOT? I am cooking for just one person (who sometimes eats like 1.5 - 2).

100 Days!

There are 100 days left in 2009, friends. What are you going to do with them?

paleo update

hahahahaha.

last night i dreamed that i ate pasta (which is strange, because i don't actually eat pasta all that often) and oats (topped with yogurt, natch) and quinoa and bread.of course, then i felt all guilty. dude, this may be a rough five day experiment. i loves me some whole grains. though, really, i think the toughest day is over - yesterday was vegan monday. no grains + vegan = big challenge for me.

also, big ups to the sweet potato. i don't recall if i've discussed the beauty of this tater, but it makes up a fantastic part of any breakfast.

today's breakfast, just fyi -
small protein shake before leaving the house - plain rice protein powder, 1/2 c each of frozen mango & frozen berries, splash of unsweetened vanilla almond milk. blended and then topped with 1/4 c TVP (texturized vegetable protein, which adds a nice granola-esque crunch, so it's like an acai bowl.)
once i got to work - small sweet potato (prepared at home by cutting into cubes and boiled in the microwave) - sprinkled with a touch of salt and a hard boiled egg

other stuff i have with me to eat during the day -

1/2 chicken breast (leftover from sunday) over my leftovers from last night's dinner - roasted fennel & garbanzo beans w/rainbow chard & dried cherries
1.5 carrots & yellow bell pepper (to be eaten plain, with almond butter or eggplant hummus/baba ganoush)
pear
two cups honeydew melon (soooooo awesome - from my CSA)
and, just in case - another hard boiled egg or rice protein powder & almond milk

probably have some almonds/walnuts/pecans before track tonight and then...

after track? some ideas...
tuna with huge jass salad
chicken with huge jass salad
potatoes - i have sweet & regular blended with cauliflower for a mash
tomato & cucumber salad, if not involved in the huge jass salad
zucchini & eggplant & bok choy
baked tofu
scrambled eggs

usually after track i'm super hungry and it's already after 8:30pm. so the tuna or eggs may win. ideally, i'll prep some tofu & veggies for wednesday's lunch/dinner... we shall see.

The Paleo Diet, attempt #1

New eating habit I'm trying out for now... a modification of The Paleo Diet. As the name implies, the Paleo Diet is supposed to be like eating what people did Back In The Day (and I don't mean the late 70s/early 80s) - caveman/huter-gatherer style. Meat, eggs, fruits, vegetables -> all in. Dairy, grains, tubers, legumes are out.


I think there's some BS here... Food preparation, no potatoes ?!?, the fact that old skewl cows actually ate grass, um, whole grains like quinoa, oats, amaranth are actually really good for you... Etc, etc. But, I've read that cutting out dairy has been shown to help with acne (yay!)... and I'm on this increased protein = decreased hungry feeling kind of kick.

My mods - tubers and legumes are IN! (Potatoes, soy) And I'll have some protein powder now and then - esp today's vegan Monday, when I left my edemame at home :(

Also, I just realized that I had a Clif bar this morning before working out. Damnit! Oh well.

I'm going to give it a shot for five days (Sun - Thurs) and see how I feel. Sometimes I feel like I overeat on something ( such as the delicious almond butter) when I might actually feel satiated by what I'm craving (bread/grains/chocolate/sugar).

Of course, life happens and if I find myself out somewhere, I'll go with the flow. Speaking of the flow... wine will be a-flowin this weekend! I'll be at a bachelorette party in Napa, eating copious amounts of bread and cheese and drinking wine all the live long day.

Maybe I'll figure out a new detox plan for next week. ;) Taking suggestions. As long as it doesn't require me to go a long time without eating, or drastically cut calories, or anything that would make me feel too cranky.

Oh yeah, so I found out about The Paleo Diet through Crossfit, aka Ninja Training. This is my fourth week of 2x a week there and it's been pretty rad. Let me know if you want to join me sometime!

The POTUS and his light saber. Oh happy day.

 

Taken from the comments section of this Gawker post, which also has the original, not quite as hilarious, but also quite amusing, picture on the White House lawn.

Caster Semenya - gender identity, physical gender

I've been interested in learning more about gender identity, gender chromosone disorders and other sorts of non-standard gendering, ever since a college friend was going M->F. Caster Semenya, a female track star from South Africa, has had her female status under fire since winning several high-profile international races. She's completely blown away her competition and looks a lot more manly than her fellow (already very ripped and lean) runners.

Poor girl is 18 years old and has always lived as a girl. Now she has just found out that she doesn't have ovaries or a uterus. Instead, she is a hermaphrodite and has internal testes, which are producing testosterone. Her testosterone levels are 3x that of a "normal" female. (But I haven't easily gathered how much more testosterone an average male has compared to an average female, which would be interesting.) Testosterone enough, I don't think, is adequate grounds for disallowing a female to compete in women's athletic events, but the physical evidence of hermaphrodism, does put Caster Semenya's athletic future in a tricky spot.

Article from the Australian Daily Telegraph here.