Mike DeGruy will be missed :(

My heart broke when I read the news a few minutes ago that Filmmaker Mike DeGruy died in a helicopter crash in Australia. I was waiting for my son to come down from his friend's apartment where he had been watching the Superbowl, and I was browsing through the Huffington Post app on my phone, and I saw a story about filmmakers dying in a crash. You never think you will actually know the people...And when I saw his name, my heart skipped a beat and my jaw dropped. Not Mike! Mike is so alive, so vibrant, so funny, so kind. Mike had a head full of silvery grey hair and a smile that lit up a room - or the boat in this case.

I met Mike when Discovery Channel sent me to Australia in 2008 to blog (Expedition Shark) during the filming of their Shark Week documentary, Mysteries of the Shark Coast.

I remember clear as day. Here's this world-famous and Emmy-award-winning filmmaker, and he was so kind, and so interested in my thoughts and views. That first night, we spent a lot of time talking about evolution and Christianity and the book I was working on (in fact, the dialogue is in my first chapter lead!), and I was likewise fascinated by his gnarled up arm. "What happened, shark bite?" I joked - since we were about to spend the next 10 days diving with sharks. "Actually... Yes." he replied. Then he told the tale of how he was attacked by a shark in Enewetak atoll when he was diving, and barely made it to the boat to be rescued. "What kind of shark?" I asked. "You don't want to know," he said. "Gray reef sharks." I didn't "want to know" because they were the very sharks we would be diving with for the next ten days... along with whitetips, silvertips, and the possible tiger and hammerhead (both of which we did see while there).

I kept in touch with Mike now and then because my ex-boyfriend Sean and I had talked about producing a documentary based on a story Sean knew about in the Solomon Islands and Mike was interested in producing it. After Sean and I stopped seeing one another I'd check in with Mike now and then by email to say hi. Our paths never crossed again but I deeply admire him and his work, and especially the sunshine with which he lit up a room and the kindness he showed me. He was one of a kind. I treasure the time I spent on that boat - it was the absolute BEST assignment of my life, hands down. You can read my experiences from the Discovery Channel blog here (Fear) and here (the rest of the Expedition Shark blogs). I also blogged about it on my Bohemian Adventures blog here (shark reflections), here (shark mysteries) and here (i love my job!).

And so life passes... my deepest condolences go out to his family and friends. He left the world a better place for his passion for the sea and the work he left behind. Tell someone you love them. Life is too short to waste. Make it count. As I wrote in the first blog of my series, Fear:

"The reality is, everything in life carries risks. Driving in my car, living in a city, bearing children, flying, crossing the street. One thing I know for certain: I risk that when I am born, I will die. But this I also have found to be true. Life is best lived in service of those who can not speak for or easily help themselves – and that includes marine wildlife."

And one thing we can say for sure, Mike lived his life - his career - in service of marine wildlife and other conservation issues that he and many others felt passionate about saving. And the world is definitely better for it. I leave you with some of my favorite images of Mike.

The guys were playing around with one of the sharks caught for research, which they kept in a kiddie pool! This is Sanjayan, Richard and Mike.
What a fun time - they climbed right in with the shark!
Mike had the greatest smile and laugh!All geared up and ready to dive.
They captured a very small juvenile shark in what they discovered was probably a shark nursery in the lagoon at the center of the atoll (Osprey Reef). This was a night dive.
Mike holding a coconut rattle, used to call in sharks.
Mike and Celine Cousteau on board the Undersea Explorer.
One of the few photos of Mike and I together (on my camera, anyway, since someone else had to shoot this from my camera!) You will be missed!

This is what love looks like

Wistful Wendee Copyright (c) 2011 Earl Nottingham (he named this image - and how apropos is wistful... "full of yearning or desire tinged with melancholy")

There I was updating my blogroll when I stumbled upon a blog post written a year ago by "Maggie Dammit" that made my heart stop... Now Maggie can write. She has a way of writing that just mesmerizes, cuts deep, transfixes, and rends hearts. I also have to admit I am not a big blog reader. Just don't have time. I may stumble on a share-worthy blog post now and then, but there are few blogs I keep up with regularly - hers included. So when I read this post, I just had to share its message because it cut to my core.

First, the blog link: what my heart looks like. The key thing that reached deep into my own heart was not the post title concept - that her heart looked like an aquamarine-colored stuffed seahorse her daughter clung to as she slept, but rather the story she told, which was exactly a description of how one dear friend touched my life recently.

Maggie's older daughter drew a picture, and then got so mad at herself for being such a crappy artist, she crumpled it all up and threw it in the garbage, declaring herself the Suckiest Artist Ever.

But that wasn't the end of the story. Hours later, when they all crawled into bed, there was the original picture, smoothed out, and next to a sign written by her six-year old sister that said: "I found this in the GRBij. I ♥ it It was a Mastrpese."

There. Are. No. Words.

Maggie then talked to a friend about why this resonated so deeply with her... and came to this conclusion:

"In my life today I am surrounded by people who will pick up my crumpled pieces, smooth them out with intention, and present them back to me with a gentle kiss on the head. I hope you have these people, too. I hope you are these people for your people, and I pray my daughters remain this way."

All I can say, is wow. In my experience, and I talk deeply with a lot of people, most of us walk around with a "piece of shit" feeling inside of us. Even - sometimes more so - Christians (the guilt associated with wanting to be in a more perfect or more holy or more righteous state, combined with the continued daily failures of sin, lust, selfishness, greed - AND the self-awareness of those things - can be doubly guilt-inducing at times). But to meet people, even a single person, who can lift you out of the 'garbage can' you choose to live in - whether you were thrown there by crappy circumstances in your own life, or whether you choose to wallow there because you don't seem to know another way (like Oscar the grouch), or whether you just climb in now and then, as I do... and they not only lift you out, but they make you feel like you are a masterpiece, worthy of bringing out of the garbage can, uncrumpling, smoothing out, and pointing out their worth... these people are one in a million.

I know all about feeling like garbage. After a teenager raped a drunken 15-year old me as I was passed out in the cab of a truck, another teenager drove me home, called me a slut, and dumped me on my front lawn where I could not even walk, before peeling out of the cul de sac and leaving me there, crumpled on the lawn. Like a piece of trash. And that is pretty much what I felt like for the next 15, 20 years.

Sometimes, the people who lift us out of the garbage come in and out of our lives only for a brief time, they appear like angels from heaven... people who make you feel like you are worth something.... and they leave footprints on our hearts forever. I was made to believe that I am, perhaps, not garbage after all. And I want to build the rest of my life surrounding myself with friends who make me feel like not like I am garbage, but that I am a masterpiece worth redeeming.

My first tofu scramble

Tofu Scramble

I modified the following recipe from Kris Carr's recipe on Mightybell). It was really good!

• 2 T olive oil
• 1 container (organic!) firm tofu crumbled
• 1 leaf Swiss chard, chopped into strips
• ½ cup caramelized or sautéed onions
• ½ cup sun-dried / cured tomatoes diced (Do not forget this! It made the dish)
• ½ cup Mushrooms (I used a combination of Shiitake and Portabella)
• ¼ cup nutritional yeast (this was too much for me - I'd reduce it by about half to 1/8 c)
• 1 T tamari or shoyu (I used tamari)
• ½ tsp coarse sea salt
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp Herbes de Provence

Some of the ingredients! I get sun-dried tomatoes at my grocery store super cheap - that bag is about $2.99 I think. Organic tofu is not any more than non-organic. And I had some dried mushrooms that I rehydrate. Save the liquid and use later for recipes! Shiitake mushrooms have weight reducing properties.

Tamari is soy sauce without wheat (hence, gluten free). I've been cooking with shoyu, a high quality soy sauce but am trying to go gluten free again for a while. Nutritional or Brewer's yeast kind of tastes like Parmesan cheese (it's great on popcorn). And turmeric is praised for its health properties!! I get that and the herbes de provence (in the tiny bag) in bulk at my grocery store uber-cheap! I have no info on what olive oil is better... I actually want to do some research into cooking oils... anyone have any insight?

Directions: In a hot sauté pan, add oil. Add chard and crumbled tofu. Cook on high heat for 3 minutes. Add remaining ingredients. Continue to cook for 3‐5 minutes. Right before serving, add a handful of fresh chopped basil (if I had it, I'd have done this - I LOVE fresh basil).
It was actually really good! The sun-dried tomatoes really made the dish. They went perfectly with it. The original recipe had some differences but it was great - the only thing I'd change would be to use a little less nutritional yeast. The final product looks like scrambled eggs, doesn't it?!

A plethora of articles! Obesogens, Cousteau & more

Prayer tree at Green Gulch Zen Center Garden Copyright (c) 2007 Wendee Holtcamp

‎"It may be that what you could be haunts you. It is real. It is a weight you have to carry around. Each failure to become, to be, is a weight. Each state you could inhabit is a burden as heavy as any physical weight, but more so, because it weighs on your soul. It is the ghost of your possibilities hanging around your neck, an invisible albatross, potentials unknowingly murdered." - Ben Okri

It's a new month, and that means I have some new articles out!

• First, a Q&A with Alexandra Cousteau for Momentum Magazine's Winter 2012 issue. I asked her several questions around the main theme "What would it take to create sustainable ocean fisheries?"
  
  
• Next, a feature that arose out of a panel at the Society of Environmental Journalists conference! Obesogens: An Environmental Link to Obesity in Environmental Health Perspectives, Feb 2012. Obesogens are chemicals we are exposed to that change our metabolism and are very likely contributing to the obesity epidemic.
  
  
• In this same issue, I wrote a news article about the recent (and long overdue) finding of a court-appointed science panel about the chemical PFOA (in "Teflon" nonstick coating, among other things) which was leaked by the DuPont chemical factory in WV. Pregnancy-Induced Hypertension “Probably Linked” to PFOA Contamination. PFOA is a suspected obesogen, also.
  
  
• And finally, a short piece that is a summary of a peer-reviewed article in this issue of EHP (which is a peer-reviewed science journal). In the Same Boat? Health Risks of Water Recreation Are Not Limited to Full-Contact Activities.


• And if you haven't read it yet, I'm super proud to say that my article, Did Tap Water Kill Lou Gehrig, is the #1 most read article on the Miller-McCune website still! Check it out if you haven't yet! Ack - Just looked again and it's now #2 - you guys better go make it #1 again! It was #1 yesterday!!

I am about to dig into a new article due mid-February, and catching up on randomness in the interim (doc appointments, car washes, tire rotations, you know the typical boring stuff). Been cooking some - lots of kale chips (I'm still obsessed!) I made a delicious Navy Bean-Barley soup the other day, and these yummy raw cookies and I'll post some pictures and recipes soon. I've been reading a TON of books of parenting, and took an actual Sabbath day this past Sunday where I didn't get online nearly all day until late evening, and I spent the day attending church (finally have been going back to church again), lunch with a friend, then just chillaxing, reading, and doing a meditation and - oh, yea - I took an actual NAP! Good times.

losing weight as a vegan

Purple coneflower or Echinacea Copyright (c) 2000 Wendee Holtcamp

This is the day which the LORD has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it! Psalm 118:24

I had all this stuff to blog about and I literally completely forgot... what can I say?! Generally, things are good, and I've been feeling SO much better, and am very grateful for that. I was going to give an update on my vegan eating, so I'll stick to that for now. Ive lost 5 pounds in like 30 days! Besides just eating vegan (ie no dairy) for a month, the key things I've changed are:

• I greatly reduced sugar consumption - to almost nothing. This means using unsweetened soy or almond milk rather than sweetened, and no processed foods with added sugar. I use Stevia to sweeten my tea. If I'm craving something sweet, I either have a cup of tea or grab a "raw ball" from the freezer (see recipe here). These have maple syrup in them, but maple syrup has a lower glycemic index than sucrose (aka table sugar) or high fructose corn syrup. And the weird thing is I tend to crave savory stuff now more than sweet stuff whereas it used to be the opposite. And I will just eat one raw ball and be totally satisfied, whereas before (Christmas time, pre-vegan) I would eat like 6 at a time! On the healthy living Yahoogroup I started recently, I just posted a link to this New York Times article "Is Sugar Toxic?" that I reread recently - wow - scary stuff!
  
  
• I put lemon juice in my first water of the day - supposed to crank digestion.
  
  
• I try not to eat solid food before noon. This is from Crazy Sexy diet. I drink green juice or tea. Not every day, but almost.
  
  
• I've been drinking green tea rather than coffee. Green tea is supposed to help weight loss and it also has threanine which helps depression! I started the vegan thing the last week in December, and since then I have had coffee maybe 5 or 6 times total, whereas before it was twice a day every day. And most of those coffees were in the past 2 weeks when I was coming out of my stricter cleanse. I'm looking to create a healthy diet/lifestyle rather than being on a "Diet" so need to be able to be flexible without returning to totally bad habits! I adore coffee but now it's really a "sweet treat" to me rather than something I need every day. Oh and when I drink coffee, I drink decaf, though I do still get some caffeine from my green tea.
  
  
• Using apple cider vinegar and lime/lemon juice as salad dressing (before I used a low-fat Newman's own vinaigrette and I used it once or twice since I started). However apple cider vinegar is also supposed to help weight loss!
  
  
• During this time, I've had 2 juice fast days which means green juice, tea, or smoothies all day. I actually consider my fast until the sun goes down. After that, I don't gorge but have had something small to eat that’s solid on both the times. I don’t know why I cant just go all day with no solids, cuz ive done all juice (lemonade) cleanses for up to 15 days, but I'm trying to not be too extreme. (Crazy sexy diet - or at least her 21-day crazy sexy cleanse - encourages it once a week).

Well I have a busy day tomorrow, so I better sign off... more later. Cheerio!

thankful for a penny!

Sunset on the Galapagos... Copyright (c) 2007 Wendee Holtcamp

"If you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days." -Annie Dillard

I am feeling so incredibly much better than I was just a couple weeks ago, like night and day, which is surprising given some happenings in my life, but you just gotta roll with the punches sometimes (and, as the amazing quote says above... when you do not have much in the way of expectations, you are grateful for even the small, tiny , well, 'pennies').

Two weeks ago, I was very much in a pit, which was scaring me... so being the take-charge kind of person I am, I took some steps to turn it around. And thank God, it worked. Primarily I credit the 5-HTP I have been taking (5-hydroxytryptophan) -- an over-the-counter natural herbal remedy that is basically a metabolic precursor to tryptophan (you know, the stuff in turkey) which is then a precursor to serotonin. Many pharmaceutical antidepressants are SSRIs or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, which prevents the serotonin you have from being recycled into something else, but 5-HTP actually creates more. It has been used in Europe for a lot longer than here in the US and there are scientific studies showing it's both safe and effective. I read about it in two books which I checked out from the library (part of my quest to wellness): The Mood Cure and Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, which I mentioned a couple weeks ago. Anyway I have had some sadness now and then, but of a totally and completely different nature than "the pit" I was in.

Today, I actually felt one of those little jolts of happy energy and hope you feel sometimes, kind of randomly, and it hasn't gone away since it happened earlier. Praise God! I am hoping that it will stay with me for a while. Other than lifting my sorry a$$ out of my pit through spending time with friends, getting my butt back in church not to mention back in the gym, and doing a few theophostic prayer sessions (kind of like therapy, but with prayer), I've also been up to ...

I started attending a study group at my church for The Good Listener, a book on, well, listening. I want to be a better listener, particularly for my kids. There are about 8 women, all married for a long time and I'm the youngest and the only divorced woman and I thought it might be a little awkward but the discussion seemed good and the book is awesome so far. The first chapter made me cry! It told a story about Helen Keller when she came into a room, holding her rag doll and started wildly pulling the buttons from her grandmother's dress. Her grandmother screamed for help because Helen could be really wild and she was holding Helen's baby sister at the time. The father came in, frustrated, and her brother meanly said she should be locked up like the animals. Only her mother kept saying, "No, Wait! Wait! Helen is trying to tell us something. That's it! That's it! She wants her rag doll to have eyes." The mom sewed button eyes on the rag doll and Helen held the doll close and rocked it in her arms, calm and peaceful. The way it's written and the scene is so moving. The power of listening -- not just to the words but to the whole, big picture... to really see a person, as they are trying with their limited vocabulary and communication toolset to be heard and understood, and to have someone take the time to truly understand - to "see" what others may miss for lack of concern, busyness or impatience -- this is a beautiful gift we can offer to people. And I want to be a better listener. There are certainly times when I am a good listener, to friends in particular. But when the situation is challenging - usually family (as they say families put Miracle-Gro on our character defects!), then it can be another story.

I also applied to attend the Knight Science Journalism Food Boot Camp fellowship at MIT (never been to Massachusetts!) - wish me luck! With my obvious passion for food, it should be just a perfect opportunity to dig in and learn more and get some great story ideas, too. I really hope I get in! I may apply for the Vermont Law School Summer Media Fellowship also, and maybe the Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting fellowship in Rhode Island. All three sound super fantastic and I'd be thrilled to get into any of them. I love marine science and ecology, naturally, given my educational background and writing history for the past 17 years, but that's also the area I probably least need to "learn" from others in. On the other hand, there are always good story ideas to be had, and networking, and they are a lot of fun. I was accepted for the Scripps Howard Institute on the Environment in Jupiter, Florida in 2006, which was fantastic! In fact, several of us were reunited at the recent SEJ conference in Miami.

And I've been continuing on the (mostly) vegan, low sugar, healthy eating kick and have lost five pounds without even trying - yay! I'll give some more updates and recipes soon. It's time for bed - peace out!

sadly mistaken

Oh how this song resonates in my soul right now... one of my favorites - heartrending and beautiful, from my favorite singer of all time, Alanis.



"Simple Together"

You've been my golden best friend
Now with post-demise at hand
Can't go to you for consolation
Cause we're off limits during this transition

This grief overwhelms me
It burns in my stomach
And I can't stop bumping into things

I thought we'd be simple together
I thought we'd be happy together
Thought we'd be limitless together
I thought we'd be precious together
But I was sadly mistaken

You've been my soulmate and then some
I remembered you the moment I met you
With you I knew god's face was handsome
With you I saw fun and expansion

This loss is numbing me
It pierces my chest
And I can't stop dropping everything

I thought we'd be sexy together
Thought we'd be evolving together
I thought we'd have children together
I thought we'd be family together
But I was sadly mistaken

If I had a bill for all the philosophies I shared
If I had a penny for all the possibilities I presented
If I had a dime for every hand thrown up in the air
My wealth would render this no less severe

I thought we'd be genius together
I thought we'd be healing together
I thought we'd be growing together
Thought we'd be adventurous together
But I was sadly mistaken

Thought we'd be exploring together
Thought we'd be inspired together
I thought we'd be flying together
Thought we'd be on fire together
But I was sadly mistaken

Learning to be the light

The light! Copyright (c) 2011 Wendee Holtcamp

This song is my favorite on the Christian radio right now (KSBJ) and it has so much meaning to me... let me know what you think.

Learning to Be the Light by Newworldson

When the stars came crashing down
In tiny pieces to the ground
I was all alone down here
Trapped beneath the atmosphere
Then I, thought somebody called my name
I spun around and caught a flame
I gave into a God I didn't know
And now everything is falling into place
A brand new life is calling and I owe it all to grace

It's so much brighter living in your world
Savior what you did for me
You gave me something I want everyone to see
When we stumble and it all goes wrong
Only you can make it right
So I say
Oh oh oh oh oh
I'm learning to be the light
whoa, whoa
I'm learning to be the light
whoa, whoa

When a heart is cold as ice
You can't melt it with advice
No one wants to listen to
A list of things they shouldn't do
So I build a city on a hill
And I light a candle on the sill
Knowing you'll be always knocking at the door
Oh God I just want to love on everyone
All I have is yours to give so let the people come

It's so much brighter living in your world
Savior what you did for me
You gave me something I want everyone to see
When we stumble and it all goes wrong
Only you can make it right
So I say
Oh oh oh oh oh
I'm learning to be the light
whoa, whoa
I'm learning to be the light
whoa, whoa
im learning to be the light

that makes the shadows hide
the light that breaks the curse of pride
the light that takes the weary in it's arms

When it all came crashing down
There was only darkness all around
But in the distance I could see
A Flame

It's So much brighter living in your world
Savior what you did for me
You gave me something I want everyone, and I mean everyone to see
When we stumble and it all goes wrong
Only you can make it right
So I say
Oh oh oh oh oh
I'm learning to be the light
whoa, whoa
I'm learning to be the light
whoa, whoa
I'm learning to be the light
whoa, whoa
I'm learning to be the light
whoa, whoa
I'm learning to be the light

vegan living, recipes and mood

Long live veggies! I started getting organic veggies from a local co-oop - this is my first order. For just $18 I got 3 pounds of apples, 7 pounds zucchini (for Zukamole), 3 bunches of kale, one romaine lettuce, 1 greenleaf lettuce, 1 celery - not bad! It all looked really healthy and vibrant too.

Hi pumpkins - how is everyone? I've been cooking up a storm. I've been vegan for 3 weeks now, and have cut processed sugar totally out (will have the occasional raw ball - recipe below) and coffee (ok to be honest, I have had about 4 or 5 cups throughout the entire time, but not one every morn and night the way I used to! And most of these have been this past week...) So all in all, quite a change for me since I have a major sweet tooth. I can't say I feel all that energetic and clear-headed the way a lot of people say they do when they go vegan, or cut sugar out (though I already was vegetarian so it wasn't a huge change). I do love the food, and the recipes are delicious and fun to make, but I am trying to create a lifestyle/diet that I can live with rather than going on a "diet" per se. So it's an experiment. I have actually been really down lately, and not sure what is all going on there. However, I got a couple books from the library (including Change Your Brain Change Your Life which I'd read before during my post-divorce depression- and the other book by the same author Making a Good Brain Great by Daniel Amen, MD and I also skimmed The Mood Cure by Julia Ross which a naturopathic doc friend of mine recommended) - and through reading I realized a few things. One, we naturally gravitate towards sugar and starchy carbs for a serotonin boost. I was doing this A LOT in my "previous life" and the other thing is that meat, milk, cheese have building blocks for many brain proteins. So since I cut out 95% of my sugar (and all white, refined sugar), plus all milk/dairy at the same time (I used to have a major ice cream kick going on) plus I'm vegetarian so no meat.... I'm wondering if all these things aren't affecting my mood... Has that happened to anyone else going vegetarian/vegan or cutting out sugar? Did it change after a certain amount of time passed?

So, I decided to start taking 5-HTP - a supplement that is a precursor to serotonin and clinical studies show it works. In fact in Europe they give it as a prescription. So... we'll see if it helps. I have to say that depression is a very real thing and I believe it has both biological and psychological roots - not one or the other only... In fact the two books by Daniel Amen he pioneered brain imagery for people experiencing different psychological issues including depression and how they changed back after either meds, natural supplements, or various other techniques. The one main thing that stuck with me from the post-divorce-depression read of that book was to "stamp out the ANTS" and ANT=automatic negative thoughts. And I have always had a lot of ANTS! So I'm working on that... the trick is to totally STOP the thought in process when you catch it, but also to replace it with a positive thought. I sometimes can stop the ANTs, but I always have trouble with the positive part... I always thought I was more Winnie the Pooh but now I think I'm more Eeyore...

I have been better the past couple days. But if you ever have a friend experiencing serious depression, here is an amazing and helpful article from CNN Health - How to Save a Friend from the Brink, sent by my friend who said just what I needed to hear at the right time. I love my friends so much, and I have to say there are a hell of a lot of people who don't have any idea how to respond to someone in that much pain. Usually they ignore it, thinking it's not serious, even when you tell them it is. It's society's fault, I suppose, but do yourself a favor and go read that - and let someone in your life who is down know "you matter to me." I mean it - do it now! :) (It wouldn't hurt to tell me, while you're at it!) :)

With that, I'll leave you with some recipes that have kept me occupied. I cooked for hours on Sunday and then again today. One of my secrets to sticking to the vegan lifestyle is to have prepared salads and recipes in the fridge at any given time, so instead of grabbing the corn chips, you have a lot of healthy options - dehydrated kale chips (I've got some drying now!), Mediterranean salad with cukes and tomatoes, toasted quinoa and some beans for protein.
This is what my counter looked like earlier when I was prepping about 5 recipes at once! I made green juice, a huge salad (aka bowl of health), kale chips, and the Mediterranean cucumber-tomato-caper salad. And see below for three of my favorite recipes!

Cauliflower Steaks
I made these the other day - easy peazy.

1/2 a head of cauliflower
one fennel bulb
Olive oil
2 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1 Tbsp grated Parmesan cheese (optional)
Fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 375.

Slice the cauliflower as you would cut a loaf of bread, making 1/2"-3/4" thick slices, two per person. (Now I don't know if there is some special way to do this so that the cauliflower actually stays together as a "steak". Mine kind of fell apart. But it still tasted great!) Arrange the pieces on a baking sheet and drizzle with a little oil. Sprinkle with parsley, cheese, salt and pepper. Cut fennel into slices and either bake on a separate dish or together with the cauliflower. (I've never roasted fennel but it is DELICIOUS! I love it raw in salads - it is the same thing as anise and has a slight licoricey taste but when roasted it doesn't. It really adds to the flavor with the cauliflower) You can save the green leafy top part and use it in salads, or in green juice! I use pretty much every part of every vegetable in my house...

Roast steak till golden brown, about 12-15 minutes. Flip the slices, drizzle with a bit more oil and roast an additional 10-12 minutes, until browned and tender.

This is what it looks like before you put it in the oven, I didn't get a post-cooking version but Oh. My.God they are SOOOOO good! Both kids loved them too! Ding ding ding we have a winner!!! Next up...

Green Power Soup
1 c cucumber chopped
1 c celery chopped
3 c kale chopped
½ c carrot juice
1 zucchini chopped
2 T lime juice, or lemon
1 T chili powder
2 cloves garlic
2 t flax oil, or olive oil
½ t jalapeno
1 t Celtic Salt
½ c red bell pepper diced
½ c tomato diced
½ c avocado diced

In a high-speed blender, blend cucumber, celery, kale, carrot, zucchini, lime, chili powder, garlic, flax oil, jalapeno and salt. Hand mix in the red bell pepper, tomato and avocado (I didnt do this - I just added it in the blender. I also added about 1" ginger root, and about 1 additional Tablespoon lime juice).
I only used a tiny amount of jalapeno but this pepper must have been spicy because the soup is spicy! I like it spicy but it was interesting - glad I didn't add more! It was really good! Kind of like blended together gazpacho. Serve cold, of course, since it's a raw soup.

(Almost...) Raw Balls!
Makes 10 - 12 (or 24 if you make smaller balls...)

1/2 cup walnuts
1/2 cup pitted dates
1/2 cup raw carob powder (if you can't find raw, regular is fine- that's what I used)
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup almond butter (raw almond butter IF you want the recipe raw, obviously)
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract (I forgot this - oopsie!)
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/2 cup whole almonds
2 cups shredded coconut (unsweetened)
1. Place the walnuts in a food processor & process until coarsely ground. Add the dates & pulse until well combined with the nuts.

2. Add the carob powder, maple syrup, almond butter, & salt. Process until mixture is thick & smooth.

3. Add the almonds, pulse a few times until combined, but you want them to remain in crunchy chunks so do not over process.

4. Form into golf-size balls with your hands. Roll the balls in coconut, unsweetened carob or unsweetened cocoa powder (I used carob for some and coconut for others).

The dough looks like this in the food processor. It sort of reminds me of the "energy nuggets" you can buy at Whole Foods and grocery store bulk sections. But better!

4. Place in a sealed container in the freezer until hardened.

Ta da! I eat them right out of the freezer and they're so good! In fact, before I cut out sugar, like during the Christmas holiday when I made these along with the truffles, and even my 1 "pre-clease week" (when I cut out dairy, MOST sugar but not coffee yet and not all sugar ie I had some soy ice cream, that kind of thing) - I would eat like 6 or more of these... now I can have one or max two and I'm totally satisfied. Trust me, that's huge progress!

Now go tell someone you love that they matter to you!

Did Tap Water Cause Lou Gehrig's ALS?

Yellowstone's Grand Prismatic Spring - colored by cyanobacteria.
Copyright (c) 2011 Wendee Holtcamp

I wanted to mention my latest article in Miller-McCune Magazine - a story I am particularly proud of - not only because I think it's a compelling and interesting article, but because the topic is one that I've been following for a long time and it has important implications for human health. I first met the subject of the article, Dr Paul Cox, when I was a graduate student in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at Rice University when he gave a seminar there in 2004 on this topic and I was thoroughly wowed. Any story that involves fruit bats, pond scum and brain diseases has gotta be good, right? Paul is also a great guy, very passionate about helping people and the planet, a fantastic writer (check out his book Nafanua: Saving the Samoan Rainforest) and really a brilliant man.

In a nutshell - neurotoxins produced by cyanobacteria ("blue-green algae") may be causing neurodegenerative diseases, like ALS and Alzheimer's. Yep that's right! Read the story - you may not want to eat shrimp and crabs much longer! I wrote another article on this subject in 2009 for Texas Parks & Wildlife magazine - Blue-Green Mystery - and I have one coming soon on the topic for Environmental Health Perspectives (just turned it in - love that feeling!).

I hope this story helps bring more awareness to this important subject, which certainly merits more study and attention. And remember when I visited Yellowstone and Jackson Hole, Wyoming to report the story last September? So go read it, comment, Facebook it, Tweet it, and you will make me a very happy camper! Let me know what you think!

Was Lou Gehrig’s ALS Caused by Tap Water?

A toxic molecule found in pond scum may trigger neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS and Parkinson’s. Could a group of scientists, led by a botanist, hold the key to a cure?

The story begins...

Rudyard Kipling called it “Hell’s Half Acre,” a geothermal wonderland where people could fall through the Earth’s thin crust or be poached by steamy hot springs and geysers. Most visitors to Yellowstone National Park’s Midway Geyser Basin stroll the wooden boardwalks, but a few hike a short, steep side trail that reveals a bird’s-eye view of the entire valley, including Grand Prismatic Spring, which can be fully appreciated only from above. Mustard-yellow and vibrant-orange mats spread like tentacles from the turquoise pool. “Not even the most talented artist could imagine something as beautiful as that,” muses Sandra Banack, a biologist who studies cyanobacteria, the microbes that create the colorful mats — and that hold a toxic secret.

Click over to continue reading!

coconut citrus kabocha bisque!

The marvelous kabocha squash! I was happy as pie when I found one in my grocery store, in a big bucket o' squash of different varieties. Images copyright (c) 2011 Wendee Holtcamp

Let me just start off this post saying posting one recipe a day is out... I am going to try to make one a day but posting them all on my blog is too time consuming right now (on deadline!). But I will finish this one, and do my best to keep you all updated on my faves.

Since Alicia Silverstone so raves about them in her book The Kind Diet, I had been wanting to try it but had been unable to find one anywhere. I used a substitute before, the buttercup squash, which is quite similar in coloration/look but looks sorta like an acorn whereas this one is more pumpkin shaped. The recipe I used buttercup in - a modification of her Black bean Kabocha Squash Stew (I used pinto beans) - I didn't like. I cooked the squash in the oven for that one, which is how (until the other day) I always cook squash, and I think I overcooked because the squash was really soft. That would be fine for some recipes, but I wanted chunks of it like the recipe. And I wasn't crazy about the flavor - I've never been a huge squash fan, so am trying different recipes to find the way I like squash best! I do love me some spaghetti squash.

Here's the recipe which I got from crazysexy.life.com:

-1 tablespoon coconut oil or 1/2 cup veggie broth
-1 medium kabocha squash, seeded and cubed
-pinch sea salt, plus more to taste
-1 orange, zested and juiced
-5 or more cups filtered water or broth
-1 can (13.5 ounces) coconut milk
-pinch white pepper
-fresh herbs, for garnish

Heat oil or broth in medium stockpot. Sauté the kabocha with sea salt for about three minutes, covered, stirring occasionally. Add a little water if the kabocha starts to stick to the pan. Add orange zest and juice. Sauté for two more minutes.

Add water and coconut milk and bring to boil. Simmer until kabocha is very soft (about 20 minutes). Puree with immersion blender right in the pot or in batches in a regular blender (return to pot when finished blending). Add pepper and sea salt to taste. Serve hot garnished with fresh herbs like cilantro or parsley.
The first step is cutting your squash in half, and then taking out the seeds. You need a pretty sharp/big knife to cut through the squash.
The recipe calls for you to put the squash in cubes in a pan, where you saute and then boil it and so, normally I just plop the whole thing in water in the oven but I thought, ok, I'll try to peel and cut it up. Let me just say - total p.i.t.a! So much of a pita that I ...
...only peeled one half for the soup and baked the other half. To bake squash you put it in about an inch of water and then bake at around 350 until soft when pierced with a fork.
I zested an organic orange (I did wash it, even though it was organic) and then juiced it in my juicer. Since some folks may not have the ability to juice, it created exactly 1/2 cup of orange juice so that's what you would use if you just used juice. I sauteed in broth but added a teeny tiny amount of coconut oil also just for flavor. Then of course you also add a whole can of (light in my case) coconut milk later.
Here you can see the chunks of squash boiling in the rest. After they are soft, you puree them together either in a blender or food processor. I added only about 1/2 of the oven-baked squash to the recipe, because I wanted to save some for another purpose, plus all of the half I peeled/cut in chunks of course. I don't have any photos of me pureeing the soup (bisque technically - I almost just wrote techniquelly - lol!)And here is the final product! Here's the scoop: when I first tasted it, fresh out of the pot, I was disappointed. The coconut and citrus flavors were lost and it seemed bland. I added a little bit more salt, and then a dash of shoyu (like soy sauce) and then I decided, since miso is really helpful for digestion and is basically a probiotic, to throw in 2 teaspoons of miso (The Kind Diet raves about miso and puts it in a lot of recipes). That actually helped. However it still wasn't the best thing ever. BUT...

I put the pot in the fridge and had it again last night (I made it 2 days ago) and it was WAY better! The orange flavor came out substantially more. Strangely, the coconut flavor seems lost. If I made again, I'd recommend using coconut oil to saute the chunks in first, which gives a stronger coconut flavor. I love coconut! It wasn't that the soup ever tasted bad, it just didn't live up to what I expected. But I definitely prefer it with the miso and after settling for a day.

New Year's Eve

Orange crush - Central Oregon coast. Copyright (c) 2011 Wendee Holtcamp

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself. —Neil Gaiman

I was going to post a recipe for the coconut citrus kabocha bisque that I made today but it's 1120pm (early for me, really), and despite coffee, I'm falling asleep trying to keep myself awake... and that, despite the crazy fireworks going off in my neighborhood and landing on my roof... So I'm going to give in to the sleepiness and go journal a little and fall asleep and wake up in a hopefully better year than this one! Well this year actually wasn't bad - it was fair to middlin. It was, I think, a year of transition between the old and the new. A year for breaking bonds and choosing wisely - choosing to care for myself, and to follow God's leading even when it is hard.

And the year goes out with an absolutely precious memory tonight of listening to the Top Twenty Songs in Christian Radio from 2011 on my local Christian radio station - KSBJ - and just feeling like God was singing to me in nearly every one. I have heard all these songs umpteen times, but something about tonight... several of them moved me to tears, but in gentle, sweet, loving ways - the voice of my Creator whispering to me that He loves me and He will provide... He will care for me, and I do not need to worry. I need to just live, love, breathe, be... and things will all happen as they are meant to. And then as I thought to myself that God was speaking to me through the music, I remembered that just yesterday I had tweeted a passage from Zephaniah 3:17 (that I had heard on the radio right when I tweeted it in fact) - "He will quiet you with his love, He will rejoice over you with singing" - a passage which is breathtakingly beautiful and one of my favorites. And I was like, dude! That's exactly what the Lord is doing - rejoicing over me with singing!

I once heard that we often think that "God loves us" but the reality is not that. God (and Jesus) is IN LOVE with us. Think of how it feels when you are in love with someone - it has a totally different feel/image/reality than saying you love someone... the God of the universe is in love with us, he pursues us, he desires us to know him, he wants to spend time with us. He's interested in us and cares about us - in our dreams, our fears, our worries, our joys. He deeply desires our joy and our happiness (but not pursuing self-gratification for its own sake). He wants our best. He wants to bring out our best. He is enthralled by our beauty and - as the lover to the beloved - sees beyond or does not even see the flaws - and this truly, is grace.... And so... go into the new year with these thoughts in your heart.. because that is a God I want to follow and know. And I want you to know too.

Peace out - see you on the flipside.

But wait - there's more! (Do I sound like an infomercial yet?) I want to leave you with a video of one of the songs that really moved me tonight - by one of my favorite artists, TobyMac we have seen him in concert twice).

Dehydrated kale "chips" recipe

The final product - Krispy Kale Chips! Plus some green juice - for the juice I used 1 head of romaine, 1/2 cup kale plus the kale stems I cut out for the chips, ~3/4 cup carrots, 2 apples, a lemon, 1" ginger and some broccoli stems (never mind the avocado in the background!). Copyright (c) 2011 Wendee Holtcamp

Hello my vegelicious followers! It's day 4 here of my being vegan, and time for my next day's recipe. I originally planned to make the recipe from my friend Eileen for Kale Cashew Crispy snacks - even had the cashews in my grocery cart today, but then took them back out in an attempt to save money and use the ingredients I had on hand. In fact, I have so much food in my house, and one of my big plans is to use up some of the stuff here in recipes... sometimes that does require getting additional ingredients at the store, but... I do love to grocery shop! It's the only shopping I really allow myself on a regular basis. In fact, one of my plans for the New Year is to make a better grocery budget and stick to it. However, I have to get through this next article... due in less than 2 weeks. Ack. So anyway, I decided to go for the simple version of kale chips... salt, olive oil, and nutritional yeast! Specifically:

• 1 large bunch curly leaf kale
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 tablespoon cold-pressed olive oil
• 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast

I got this particular recipe from About.com's Raw Food Recipes site. My dehydrator does not have an adjustable temperature, and I do not know what it dehydrates at, and I know for raw food to be "raw" it has to be at less than some temp, which I don't know, but I'm not doing raw food diet so, whatevs. Did I mention that I love that word? ;) This ended up being so super simple, I am going to have these on hand ALL the time! I have a weakness for corn chips, which aren't necessarily unhealthy but they have highish fat and these kale chips are SUPER healthy (kale is a superfood!) and just have 1 Tablespoon oil in the whole batch. And that's not counting what gets evaporated (OK wait - I need a chemistry expert - the liquid component may evaporate, but does any of the fat content or does it just stick to the kale?!) I digress... Onto the pics.
First I soak the kale in my sink with a little veggie wash (or castille soap, depending on my mood). I bought organic, but you still need to wash them! Next I towel dry, and then cut out the central stem, which is tough (I reserve it for green juice though) and then chop. Put the chopped kale in a bowl. Put the olive oil, salt and yeast and then mix it around with your fingers. I think I used too much salt because mine were pretty salty. I like salt, too, but I'd probably reduce it a bit next time or even go without. If you don't ever use nutritional yeast, it makes stuff taste like it has Parmesan cheese on it. It's great on popcorn. My kids don't like it, but I love it. I'm going to test out the kale chips on them and will report back. My dehydrator has four trays and you stack them. One bunch of kale fit on two trays. I didn't know how long it would take to dry, because the About.com recipe says 2 hours, and another site with another recipe said like 10-12 hours! They must have a very low-temp dehydrator, I suspect, because mine were done and crispy crunchy within a couple hours. In fact, some were done within an hour.
They shrink up quite a bit. I am so in love with these!! They are soooo delish!! And so easy to make. Try them sometime! I think I'm going to make people Kale chips as Christmas gifts next year. Back to work for me!

Thai "peanut" sauce with raw veggies

Thai peanut sauce veggies dehydrating. Copyright (c) 2011 Wendee Holtcamp

So I didn't make any new recipes today (day 3 as a vegan), but I do have a post - as promised - about the third recipe I made last night. This sauce was absolutely divine. Freaking delicious. I got this recipe out of the Crazy Sexy Diet book and she credits the recipe to Chad Sarno of The Raw Chef. The ingredients are:

1/2 cup almond butter (technically you are supposed to use "raw" almond butter but I didn't)
1 Tbsp ginger, chopped
1+1/2 Tbsp lemon juice
2 Tbsp dates, raisins or prunes (I used dates)
2-3 cloves garlic
1+ 1/2 Tbsp sea salt
1 tsp serrano pepper (optional - I did use this, and it made it great - I can't imagine it without some spice to it)
1/2 cup water
2 zucchini, sliced in half moons
2 carrots, julienned
1 cup broccoli florets
1 cup snow peas

Veggies and some of the ingredients. You can substitute soy sauce, tamari, or Bragg's amino acid for shoyu. Shoyu is just high quality soy sauce.
Blend almond butter, ginger, lemon juice, date/raisin/prune, garlic, salt, pepper and water till smooth - I did this in my Cuisinart food processor rather than a blender. OK yea it looks kinda grody like this but it's really.... ...so delicious! (and no comments on how THIS one looks - it's peanut sauce for criminy sake. Well, almond technically but whatevs). Toss sauce with veggies. Then dehydrate on Teflex sheets at 105 degrees for 2-3 hours to soften.

OK I have to confess: I have no clue what a Teflex sheet is (though Google does come in handy for such mysteries). I just placed the stuff directly on the trays in my dehydrator. This is my first use of it - a gift I got for my birthday in July - and I have to say, some sort of sheet would have come in handy because the sauce did drip down all over the place. I will also say that I ended up a bit disappointed by the dehydration process. Here's why: I LOVED the raw veggies in the sauce. It was scrump-deli-icious! I could have eaten the whole bowl. (OK not the BOWL but the stuff IN the bowl). When stuff is dehydrated at low temp, it's still considered raw, but I don't know, for some reason I just preferred it really full-on raw rather than even slightly dehydrated (You don't totally dehydrate for this recipe to where it's crunchy or totally dry - just a tiny bit of time to 'soften'). I think maybe I didn't like it as much because it also dehydrated the sauce. I loved the sauce. I was dipping and drenching the broccoli (my fave of the different veggies here) in the sauce. And when dehydrated, it took a bit of the oomph out of the sauce, since well it was less... saucy.

I actually stuck the veggies on the dehydrator for a very short time - like an hour? They were barely dehydrated, and I did this on purpose because I liked the veggies + sauce raw so much. But even after just an hour, the sauce was already drying up/off. So I put the veggies in the fridge, cleaned my dehydrator, and today I decided I'd dehydrate more and see what happened. All it did was shrink the veggies more and I still prefer it totally raw. I really just like the sauce saucy!

So there ya go. I think I will try some other dehydration recipes, but this one I will definitely make again but next time will reserve more of the sauce just to use with the dehydrated veggies, and/or just not dehydrate them. Tomorrow I think I'll try Kale chips - I've been super excited about that recipe for months, ever since Eileen held a raw food picnic at her house!

Though I've been vegan for 3 days now, I'm still in the pre-cleanse part because I'm imbibing large quantities of coffee (I have a lot of work to do, what can I say), and I'm snacking on raw balls from the freezer whenever I'm craving something sweet (these are vegan, so it's ok, but I'm also planning on trying to cut down on sweets). I think the trick for me will be to have a lot of ready-made snacks around the house that I can have when I'm having a weak moment.

Today this is what I ate. Breakfast - had an organic apple, and some coffee with soy creamer (mmmmm my staple). Then around lunchtime I had a grapefruit, then about 30 minutes later I had some of my leftover toasted quinoa with a couple tablespoons of hummus, and a big salad from my "bowl of health" mixed with the remainder of the Mediterranean salad. Then I had a couple raw balls. Um maybe four. Yes I know that is more than a couple! For dinner I had the leftover mustard greens I sauteed the other day with leftover rosemary red potatoes (a recipe my aunt made at Christmas and it was soooo good but mine turned out very dry - not sure what I did wrong). Then I had like, um, three or four more raw balls... and a Jamba juice bar (not good when I start the actual cleanse but it is vegan and only 70 calories!). For snacks here and there, I had some plantain chips and hummus, plus a piece of rosemary toast with hummus (I rarely eat bread, but this was the last piece, and it's not something I can have on the cleanse so I was indulging...). Did you notice a theme here - hummus, hummus and more hummus! And raw balls. Wonder if I should try them together? Ha.

Night!

My 30 days of vegan living

Ingredients for Thai "peanut" sauce vegetables from Crazy Sexy Diet by Kris Carr. Yum! Copyright (c) 2011 Wendee Holtcamp

One of the gifts I'm giving to myself in 2012 is starting it off with a vegan cleanse. In other words, I'm going vegan for at least 30 days, and (though this isn't tied into veganism, per se). I'm also giving up refined sugars, processed foods and all meat, milk and animal products. I actually started two days ago in a pre-cleanse phase, where I'm still drinking coffee and soy creamer (which has sugar and is processed) but I have not totally decided whether I can handle giving coffee up altogether or not... I am a total addict. Which is, of course, all the more reason to give it up but you know, what can I say.

I often start a new year doing the Master Cleanse (the lemonade thing - I blogged in 2010: foodie blog one, in 2008: I give up, in 2006: weirdest place to put cayenne pepper, and visions of hamburgers dance in my head and sisterhood of the lemonheads) and I may well add a week of doing the master cleanse here at some point. But I found when doing it that I would lose some weight and then gain it right back. I don't want this to be about weight per se, but about a commitment to healthier eating. Don' get me wrong, I eat generally fairly healthy but I also have a major sweet tooth and I use food as comfort when I am upset, as a lot of people do - and the food I gravitate to when upset includes... ice cream, queso dip, chocolate, and other sweet stuff. I want to see how my body responds to really cutting out the dairy, and cutting way back on sweets (especially with sugar and corn syrup - apparently brown rice syrup and other more natural sugar sources affect our body differently). I also already use Stevia, which is an all-natural plant-based sweetener with no calories. I use it in coffee and when I drink tea, tea, but never in cooking.

I started a healthy eating/vegan cleanse email list of friends for support and recipe sharing (if you want to join, let me know) and plan to blog a recipe a day, maybe including my meal plan in case others want an idea of what to do. There are two main books that will be my staples to follow: Crazy Sexy Diet by the inspiring 30-something cancer-survivor Kris Carr (who has incurable liver cancer but was able to stop its growth by changing her diet), and The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone who is a vegan and also includes some macrobiotic/vegan recipes which she calls Superhero recipes. Crazy Sexy Diet actually has a 21-day follow-along guide, that includes not only meal and recipe ideas, but inspiring messages and things to do that day, which I may actually try to do. I tried to do this once before but never completed it. She also has a whole website dedicated to this - Crazy Sexy Life - including a forum of people who want to interact, share recipe and health tips. I may explore that - better than time-wasting on Huffington Post or Facebook!

I'll share tidbits of wisdom from the two books or other info I gather over the next few weeks. One thing that Kris says is that she covers like 2/3 of her plate with vegetables (rather than beans or grains), and I think she tends to eat that much raw. I am really trying to eat more raw, but I'm not going overboard with the raw recipes. I'm just trying to eat more greens... Alicia, on the other hand, is all about macrobiotic which is grains and beans and of course veggies. So I'll have a sort of mix of those two. I tend to love salad but be too lazy to make it, so inspired by my triathlete warrior woman friend Jen (who I saw in Miami recently but didn't include a pic, and in 2007, after my Galapagos trip), I made what she and her family call "a bowl of health" - just a giant salad with whatever they feel like tossing in - greens, of course, and then nuts, raisins, olives - whatever. Then it's already pre-made and you can just eat every day until it's gone. It probably helps if others in your household will eat it, but my kids hate a lot of the veggies I put in things (in fact, they call most of my food "unidentifiable vegetable mush"), so... I will have to ingest it all myself! This is the Bowl of Health I made yesterday:In it, I put spinach, romaine lettuce, chopped leek greens, pumpkin seeds, Kalamata olives, tomato, cucumber, green onions, capers, carrots, snow peas, and black & tan Gomasio (black and tan sesame seeds with sea salt). Oh that reminds me, I have some celery in the fridge I need to use. I'll have to add that in too. This doesn't have any salad dressing, so you just add that onto each bowl. I will probably be mostly using some vinegar and oil combo or homemade dressings to keep it vegan/healthy/natural, but do whatever you like!

I was on a kick last night, and also made Simple Mediterranean Salad with capers from the Crazy Sexy Diet book - and combining that with the 'bowl of health' - ZOMG - yum! The mix of apple cider vinegar, olive oil & I added a dash of lemon juice - was just scrump-deli-icious. The image is before I mixed it all up - not that pretty but soooo tasty!

Simple Mediterranean Salad with Caper Berries (serves 2)

1 cucumber, sliced in thin rounds (peel if not organic)
3 roma tomatoes, sliced thin (or any kind, really...)
1/4 cup red onion, julienned/sliced thin
1/4 cup caper berries
2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 Tbsp olive oil
3 Tbsp fresh basil, chiffonade (OK I didn't know what this meant, so looked it up - it means cut into thin strips - you learn something new every day!)
1/2 tsp sea salt

I halved the recipe, basically, because I only had one (really a half!) tomato because I'd used the rest in my bowl of health. REALLY good! Oh I added a splash of lemon juice, also. I'll be making more of this fo' sho!

And though I teased you all with the totally amazing Thai peanut sauce veggie recipe experiment photo at the top of the post - you will have to come back tomorrow for that one! It even involves my first use of my dehydrator, which I got for my birthday this year.