Making Love in the Kitchen

My name is Jen and I do not condone the use or consumption of packaged foods.

This is not because I have the “nutritionist” moniker associated with my name. It is just my food philosophy. I believe in eating whole unprocessed foods because I really want to be healthy and quite honestly, packaged foods are gross. The were made in some far off factory from strange ingredients and taste more like the cardboard box they come in than real food (I know this because I was once a university student and managed to somehow get by on lean cuisines and frozen burritos for dinner. I’ve since moved on).

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After the Vegetarian Food Festival last weekend, I was all soyed out. Seriously! Soy was served up in every little shape and size they could dream up. From icing on cupcakes, to dried out beans covered in sugar and cinnamon, they could almost change the name of the event to the Soy Food Festival.

What did I eat the weekend of the event? I kicked it BYOS- Bring Your Own Salad/Smoothie. Now it’s not that I hate soy… Okay, I do. I do hate it and all the ways it functions like plasticine- getting moulded and blended and cooked and baked into all kinds of things. Soy on it’s own, in it’s whole organic form is a-okay though. I will actually eat it, love it and feel okay after.

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Wowzers did we ever have a lot of entries for this one! Thank you all for showing My Nut Sack a little love and entering our fun little giveaway. We are thrilled to announce the 3 lucky winners! They are (drum roll please!):

1. Laura Bloom

2. Lorrie Weibe

3. Jason

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Well didn’t we have just the most fun ever at last weekend’s Vegetarian Food Festival? Didn’t we? How can you not have fun when there are grown men running around dressed as giant peas?

I was busy sharing my wares at my booth.

I was most excited about how excited everyone was over our brand new creed, irish moss, tote bags, and sleeping masks (with fabric I designed myself, I might add!)

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We all have those veggies we don’t really like. The ones we know are great for us, but for whatever reason, they just aren’t the ones we would ever reach for when we are staying on our game and desiring a healthy snack.

For me, it’s carrots and celery. I wish to bits that a handful of carrots were a desirable snack for me but they just aren’t. Maybe it’s because they’re so freaking hard and I have wires cemented to the back side of my front and bottom teeth, a souvenir of the years of braces. Every time I bite into one of these shard-of-glass like veggies I am fairly sure they are going to crack off that cemented wire and I will find myself back in the orthodentist’s chair with one of those big plastic speculum type deals stretching my mouth unnaturally far from my face, all while surrounded by twelve year olds.

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Though I am not a massive fan of the BBQ, I felt I couldn’t let a whole summer go by without offering at least one recipe that actually goes on the Q. Why am I not a fan of BBQ’d food?

BBQs tend to cook food at very high temperatures. Additionally, most peeps are not grilling veggies on their BBQ but throwing on big hunks of fatty meat which can be become a wee toxic when that fat drips through, burns up and smokes back up. As well when fat that hangs on to the meat gets charred, I believe the word for that is carcinogenic. Lastly, from as early on as I can remember, my dad loved BBQing and never failed to show off how he singed the hair off his arm in the process. That’s just gross.

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When some people don’t want to consume hot dogs (and meat in general for that matter), they often turn to the vegetarian options. And what might these be? Veggie dogs! There are also veggie burgers, veggie deli meat, veggie turkey, veggie ground beef, veggie chicken pieces and the list goes on and on. From the looks of it, it seems that vegetarians have no problem replacing meat since there are so many options readily available for them. They can have some faux bacon for breakfast, followed by a mock salami sandwich for lunch, rounding things off with a chicken-less “chicken” stir fry for dinner. Oh, and don’t forget about soy pudding for dessert!

How easy was that? By consuming these fake meat items, vegans and vegetarians can pick up right where they left off with the real stuff. Can you tell yet that I’m joking?

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When some people don’t want to consume hot dogs (and meat in general for that matter), they often turn to the vegetarian options. And what might these be? Veggie dogs! There are also veggie burgers, veggie deli meat, veggie turkey, veggie ground beef, veggie chicken pieces and the list goes on and on. From the looks of it, it seems that vegetarians have no problem replacing meat since there are so many options readily available for them. They can have some faux bacon for breakfast, followed by a mock salami sandwich for lunch, rounding things off with a chicken-less “chicken” stir fry for dinner. Oh, and don’t forget about soy pudding for dessert!

How easy was that? By consuming these fake meat items, vegans and vegetarians can pick up right where they left off with the real stuff. Can you tell yet that I’m joking?

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Today I would like to address this issue of soy. It’s a hotty tomale topic so feel free to disagree… just remember what Byron Katie says about defense so don’t expect me to battle you back.

If you are a vegan based on the principles outlined in such poppy culture books as Skinny Bitch (ugh) then you are likely inclined to think that eating a vegan ‘ burger’ is a wiser choice than eating a real burger. Not sure I would agree with that.

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Monkey balls I say! Is it really September tomorrow?

What? What on earth was that??? Oh my, it was the cool fall breeze blowing in.

I am not happy about this my friends. Not happy at all. But I will learn to embrace because fighting against what we cannot change is a massive waste of energy, totally futile and rumour has it, also causes suffering beyond the crap-olla event itself.

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How it makes my heart sing when I can go to a regular restaurant and order my lover of a food, tempeh. Now, when I say regular restaurant, I’m not talking about nonsense places with names like “Wings and Things”, or “Deep Fry It So You’ll Try It”. I mean restaurants where their overall values- eat organic, local, seasonal etc.- make sweet love with my own.

So wasn’t I over the rainbow excited to see a veg menu with tempeh on it. And this wasn’t the kind of tempeh you might find at most veg/vegan restaurants where it’s kind of just cooked to a crisp and served over a bowl of rice. This tempeh was prepared as if it were the leanest cut of gold labeled cow (do cows come with with gold labels?).

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Please, please, please tell me that you’re not still drinking bottled water?

Water is one of the those questions I get asked after almost every cooking class. Everyone always wants to know what kind of water they should be drinking. My first response is usually that you just need to be drinking it. The second is that you can’t be afraid of bottled water if you’re still drinking juices and sodas that also come in plastic. The plastic has to go, no matter what!

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With all the running around, vacationing, working, and other summer fun happening, many of us are finding it kind of tricky to plan our meals properly. Not having the typical routine set out for us, we often get home from our Summer frolicking h-u-n-g-r-y and not wanting to do much in the way of cooking.

The temptation to turn to foods of convenience may just lure us in. The ultimate in convenience foods- Ramen noodles.

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Now that we’ve defined the dirtiness that is Healthwashing, it’s time we start addressing some of the viscous culprits. Back in May, I received a press release for a brand shiny new cook book by Anna Boiarde, granddaughter and niece to the brothers behind Chef Boyardee (they changed the spelling for phonetic reasons). I thought I should take the PR rep up on her offer and schedule an interview, that they agreed could be filmed. The PR rep claimed to love my website and all my recipes and when I arrived at the downtown hotel for the interview, she went to the trouble of lining up all these Chef Boyardee “foods” beside me.

Anna’s book is truly beautiful and has some really delicious sounding, back to basics style Italian recipes. She claims to shop organic, feed her family well and from our interview, clearly has an appreciation for top quality ingredients.

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I have a kitchen table! Like my own. In my own home. It’s nice I tell you, it’s nice. After three years of working where I live and living where I work, I have my own little apartment right nearby.

That kitchen table, by the way, was the very same table I had in my very first apartment twelve years ago. It has been in my parents garage since 2003 and we cleaned it up and made it good as new. Want to know the best part about taking this table and now using it again? I don’t have to hear my mom bla, bla, bla at me about storing it in their garage anymore.

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