I have to confess one of our family pasttimes is to laugh at some of my mom's antics. She's been known to exagerate, something that drove my ex-husband bonkers, and now the new generation is finding her amusing in a whole different way. It started with my friends and I though. I always saw her and my dad as jumping on the health nut bandwagon - from making us take Tai-Chi to making separate trips for cereral and bread, not to mention fresh tofu (health food store), meat, fish and finally produce. We also grew tons of vegetables and my mom made yogurt, whole grain cookies with carob chips, and frozen chocolate covered pineapples. What a couple of freaks. A favorite game was "guess what Nikki has for lunch?" (eggplant pizza, sushi, tofu burgers?). They drew that line at organic lettuce, that stuff wilts within hours.She had this firm belief that it was critical to mimimize all refined flour, sugar, rice and completely avoid preservatives, at least until you were 12, then all bets are off. This might explain the Carl's Jr. wrappers we'd often find in our trash cans first thing in the morning. As annoying as this could be, and as begrudgingly as we ate our brown rice and non-instant oatmeal and made jokes about our dried fruits (want a date?), I knew deep down she was doing something right.
I'm now making my own way with my own family, and I definately appreciate a solid background in pretentious hippy food. I am avoiding the later low cal fads she jumped on, based on my brief perusal of some of the latest books, and my go-to blog for all things healthy, http://www.kellythekitchenkop.com/. I ply my kids with smoothies and grass-fed beef, lots of cheese and 5 ingredient ice cream. I've taught them to be scared of HFCS, although they can't get enough sugar and prefer in-n-out to my burgers, but I hope I'm giving them the foundation to someday enjoy these as much as I do.
If you want a better picture of my life, though, check this out.
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| Roasted CSA Turnips, yummy |
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Could you live an entire year eating locally or the food from your garden? Barbara Kingsolver transplanted her family from the deserts of Arizona to the mountains of Virginia for their endeavor. Join From Left to Write on February 21 as we discuss Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. As a member of From Left to Write, I received a copy of the book. All opinions are my own.
Nicole - I am still laughing! I joke that my parents' pantry is a well-organized, expertly lite den of crap food. I might have to hide a few organic cookies just to throw them off their Ding Dong game! Michele
ReplyDeletePretentious hippie food - ha! I still retain an absolute hatred of CAROB due entirely to MY years of being raised doing pretentious hippie food. You know, where if you wanted something sweet, you could have a cup of Sleepytime herbal tea -- with honey! Ack. Might explain my adoration of Diet Coke when I hit adulthood!
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, carob powder is absolutely lovely when you add it (with sunflower seeds) to homemade wheat bread. :-) (yes, it rubbed off on me also!)
Hope you're well. The blog looks great!
My mom has some of that in her as well. She was making me pita pockets with sprouts and avocado for lunch when I was in junior high and introduced many of my friends to things like mango and papaya. She always wanted us to try new things and I'm thankful for it. Now I'm an adventurous - and healthy - eater. No doubt due to her efforts.
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