// April 19th, 2010 // No Comments » // Uncategorized
sitting in uptown Italian coffee shop
tempted by gelato at 7:56 with sun on foothills
cool ambient tones bounce, bass keeps time
as well as sandy blonde little boy
marching like rhythmic robot
step, step around display of coffee beans
$12.95/500 g
his dad bought him a croissant
just like me
only he doesn't have contraband clementines
on side
// April 16th, 2010 // No Comments » // Uncategorized
This is a note for all people that move to a new town and want to be part of the community. Get a small job serving your community.
When my husband and I first moved to Colorado two years ago we did not know anyone. He had a consulting gig he carried over from Miami, I got a gig working with a consulting firm here right away. I traveled a lot and was home for a week then away for a week. Our circle of friends was non-existent as the summer started in 2008. Eventually I made friends through work and during one of my weeks off a co-worker and I decided to cook up a crazy Indian feast. It was a Boulder Farmers’ Market day so my husband left us in the kitchen while he rode down to the market. When he returned he had all kinds of produce, a delicious pine nut macaroon for me and news… he got me a job. I looked at him like I wanted to kill him, I already had a job and enjoyed my week off, but I heard him out.
If you know him he is a chatty guy. Well the bakers where he bought the macaroon from used a sweetener I am not allergic to and he was overjoyed he could buy me a cookie. After talking with them longer he learned they needed Saturday help for their bakery stand. He said I would do it. I have to admit, it was a pretty damn good cookie and I was in. The pay was not much, but it isn’t like I had a lot of people to hang out with on my week off.
So it was, I would man the stand on the Saturdays I was in town and my husband would take the shift the weeks I was gone. And oh my goodness, did we have a blast!! The both of us began friendly relationships with regular customers, other vendors, and quickly found ourselves as part of the community we just moved to. Towards the end of the summer the two of us would run the stand if the bakers were busy, in the winter we set up shop for them at the Fort Collins Winter Market, and we have become really good friends with the business owners.
Sadly the economy took its toll on the bakery and they are now defunct. We are still solid with the bakers though and consider them family. Their opportunity allowed us to engage in the local food community in such a swift way that I know who to call if I want someone to raise poultry for me, if I want someone to pull a raspberry bush off their property so I can grow one too, and I have a phone number to pick up stone ground wheat even if I want it in the dead of winter. I have met many good people thanks to our experience at the market.
Therefore if you are new to town, or just looking to have a great time meeting your community and the local food scene try to work a stand at a market. We have so many here in the Front Range. I know there are ads on craigslist pretty often during market season asking for help. And it never hurts to say hello to your food producers and see if they could use an extra set of hands.
// December 16th, 2009 // No Comments » // Uncategorized
We all have that go-to dish, or at least we should for potlucks. It should be tasty, feed a good number of people, be fairly economical, and go with many different foods.
In undergrad I did a Caribbean legume and veggie rice dish. It worked very well for the hippie school and hippie folks I hung around with.
It was in grad school when I lived in a less kind area that I stepped up my potluck game for less adventurous palates and I have found this choice has worked very well in almost every situation where adults are eating.
Pear-Walnut Salad
1 pear, thinly sliced
1/4 c. – 1/3 c. toasted chopped walnuts
fresh parmesan cheese grated or shaved
white balsamic vinegar
good quality olive oil
fresh black pepper
sea salt or kosher salt
organic spring mix
Toss spring mix with vinegar, olive oil, pepper and salt to taste. Add thin pear slices and parmesan on top. Ask guests if there are any walnut allergies, if not then add them on top and lightly toss so most stay near the top. One more drizzle of oil and spices.
I prep the ingredients and pack them separately to the event and assemble there. I don’t know, I guess the presentation adds to the dish. It is simple but will impress your friends. They will be amazed actually.
This salad is easy, tasty, and easy on the palate so goes with a lot of dishes. I have made this for casual gatherings, Thanksgiving dinner, Hannukah dinner, baby showers, etc.
Please post your go-to potluck contribution if you care to share.
// December 7th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Uncategorized
let me see… December… close to ZERO degrees in Colorado for a few days now… cooties are spreading among us… holiday partying is wearing us down… are you feeling 100%? If you are sliding or just want to boost your immunity here are a few of the simple comforts us here at Ossumniss HQ rely on when we are not feeling our best.
#1 good old fashioned rest
#2 good nutrient-dense food, vitamins if you need to supplement
#3 probiotics, we have a cow share that supplies us with raw milk, consider yogurt or supplements
#4 honey, naturally antiseptic
#4.33 honey with lemon for a bad throat
#4.66 hot toddy if you are just feeling like sh*t (squeeze two lemons, add honey to taste, heat til really hot, pour in mug, add whiskey til it slightly burns your eyeballs when you go in for a sip… vary with spices and liquors… go wild!)
#5 saline wash (add sea salt and water to gargle for your throat, use this mix in a neti pot if you need it for your sinuses)
#6 elderberry… this is a new one for us and we have been doing elderberry and zinc herbalozenges because we have not hit the cool threshold to make elderberry syrup ourselves with dried elderberries
#7 tea – we darn near live down the street from Celestial Seasoning and they are going to do well this cold & flu season for a reason… tea is comforting and in the right blend it has healing properties. just stay away from the caffeine because that will not help if you are trying to tell the mucus to go bye-bye. you can also bath with some mint and/or eucalyptus blends or just put them in a bowl to breathe the vapors.
#8 emergen-c… why is this stuff da bomb?!? stay with a flavor you like though. we have too many friends that decided to be adventurous and buy a box of acai berry, that stuff tastes like a$$.
do you have any remedies to add? the more old-timey and accessible the better.
// December 1st, 2009 // No Comments » // Uncategorized
Perhaps I was harsh with the STFU December, but I was honest. If you cannot add value then shut it.
At Ossumniss we are not going to shut it. For the month of December we are going to challenge ourselves to a NABLOWRIMO-style challenge and post all 31 days. We will post content that hopefully adds value to your day.
This challenge will be easy. Gwen Bell has also challenged her social media friends to do a “best of” month and has 31 blog post prompts listed on her site. We will do daily content and if we really like one of her prompts or get stuck for an idea of our own we will use one of hers. Today is a prompt of hers that I really like… WHAT WAS YOUR BEST TRIP OF ’09?
This is hands down an easy response, our two-week road trip in Sept/Oct from Colorado to California to Arizona over to New Mexico and back to Colorado. I did a photo blog chronicling some of what we experienced and suppose this is a good forum to say why. Sadly I cannot give all the whys of how auspicious this journey was, but most of them.
First off the main purpose of the trip was to 1) attend teachings with His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama 2) spend time with my best friend and her young daughter and 3) have some fun with my husband away from the mundane.
singing bowl I picked up at the teachings
The teachings were powerful and unexpected. I have attended several public speaking engagements with HHDL before but not teachings. I was surprised that we did initiations and felt like I was in a right place with my spiritual practice to partake. We did the Amitabha Initiation, the Medicine Budhha Initiation, and I took layman vows while a few in attendance chose to take the Bodhisatva vows. I know I am nowhere as cool as those who took the Bodhisatva vows but was overcome with joy that they were in the right place to take that step and that I was present to witness. The overall experience put me at ease with the world and my place in it.
Husband playing with our #1 niece
Being back in Los Angeles was nice for a few days. That is my hometown. My husband and I used the time away from the teachings to visit my old haunts, eat good food, and play at the beach. I can make anyone love L. A. because there is so much love and diversity in that city. You just need to know where to look. We only stayed a couple of days as to not infringe on my best friend’s Yom Kippur observance… so we headed south to the beaches near San Diego. That was fun for a short time but we were aching to move on and it wasn’t all that warm at the beach.
hubby finishing meditation at Buddha with stupa behind him
We headed on over to camp just north of Sedona, AZ in the canyon. We were lucky and given a nice campsite along Oak Creek the first night for free. I had been to Sedona before but had never visited the stupa there. It is not the easiest thing to find but when we did we could hardly contain ourselves… it was an Amitabha stupa. Amitabha, just like the first initiation we took with HHDL. Woah! We visited at sunset one day and sunrise the next. Making offerings and meditation there were also very nice. Another highlight of Sedona was Slide Rock park, I had only been in the summer months and the water was in the 60s but I spent more time in it that I did at the beach. It was cold but so much fun.
only balloons we saw at festival were demo helium ones that wanted to fly away
After Sedona we made our way out to New Mexico and stayed in the mountains just east of the city. In town the balloon festival was just starting and all kinds of stuff was going on. We got to meet the Navajo Code Talkers from WWII, go to a bunch of garage sales, hit up Trader Joe’s, and go to the balloon festival for the evening glow. Unfortunately it was too windy so no balloons launched and we were tired… so we drove through the night to make it home. And rested on that last day.
The best part of the trip is a project us here at Ossumniss began working on while on the road. We need a few more things to develop but like our title states… it will be OSSUM (AWESOME). We’ll look to the start of the new year to announce it.
One other amazing part of the trip, the food. We came back thinner and stronger than we left. We ate simply and well. A lot of fresh produce. We went to Trader Joe’s and bought pre-cooked grain in a bag and pre-cooked legumes in a bag and would put them on the car dash to heat up. They made great lunches and dinners with a touch of cilantro and lime. I will list three great restaurants along the way that can satisfy the most gourmand vegans and provided some great desserts.
1. Mani’s Bakery (Los Angeles) on Fairfax between Wilshire and 3rd
2. D’Lish Very Vegetarian (Sedona) on Hwy 89A
3. Annapurna World Vegetarian Cafe (Alburqueque) near the university… they also have a Aryuvedic cooking school here
Overall it was a great trip that I think will impact us for the rest of our lives. Between spirituality and the developing project coming out of it we will fondly look on these pictures with huge smiles.
// November 28th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // Uncategorized
In the United States we celebrated Thanksgiving this week. The day means different things to different people. For some it is a day that marks the genocide of the indigenous people of our country. For others it is a day to hang our heads for all the turkeys that will be sacrificed to the altar of gluttony. Personally I love the holiday to celebrate the bounty of food we have, how easy our lives are that we get to partake in a feast, and by surrounding ourselves with those we care for when we share the feast. In short it is a day to be grateful for what we have and give thanks.
Even in this definition there are issues. It seems mostly with family. I love the phrase “If you think you have attained enlightenment spend a week with your family.” It is so true. I don’t spend the holidays with my family. I have made an effort to avoid them on major holidays since I was a young teenager. Now that I am married and my husband knows how trifling and unsupportive my family can be he helps me make sure we keep them at bay. The only exception so far is my dad, this was his 3rd Thanksgiving with us. My husband also seems to avoid his family on the holidays (though not for the same reasons). Our results are usually great days with our friends, our tribe.
Leading up to Thanksgiving my twitter stream was packed with people either complaining or giving thanks for the holiday for personal or political reasons. On Thanksgiving there were mostly tones of gratitude. Then come Black Friday it seemed to revert to a lot of political and personal complaining. This instant reversion made me a bit sad.
You see I love the holiday season. I am a sucker and believe in goodwill to all men. I do not celebrate Christmas but I love how many Christians act warm leading up to Christmas. There are a lot of cool holidays in December that bring a sense of joy to their celebrants. I like to be idealistic and spread that sense of joy from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day. These holidays are merely arbitrary dates to act joyful, however they are significant to people on the specified days.
So while this comes off as backhanded whining about other peoples’ whining I challenge myself and you to STFU this month. If Thanksgiving is stressful for you, then the holidays in December can also be stressful. They are only that way because we make them so. If it is family then work on your issues if you can. In some cases like mine you cannot so make the choice to add value to your family celebrations or find alternative plans if that will make you happier. If you are sad you cannot be around your family then surround yourself with a good tribe, you can count on your community if you are a good friend to them. If it is the cost of presents, then only spend in your budget or make gifts. Do not put yourself in situations to stress yourself out if you can avoid it. Try to keep the momentum you had on turkey day whether you ate poultry or nut loaf… be grateful and express it.
Keep the gratitude going this Thanksgiving weekend. Try to keep it going in December and beyond. If that is too hard then just STFU for December if you cannot add value to whatever you are doing with positive thoughts and actions.
// August 14th, 2009 // No Comments » // Uncategorized
Wake up America. There is something seriously wrong with our food supply system that affects our diets, politics, fuel economy, and environment. Please get informed and make good choices. In the last few days a coalition of big food production companies that include Hershey Co., Kraft Foods Inc., Mars Inc. General Mills, and Unilever United States Inc. has written a letter to the Secretary of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, Tom Villisack, to raise quotas of the amount of sugar that is imported to the United States. Sugar is now at a 28-year high and they are concerned that as a country we can run out which will mean food production could be brought to a screeching halt. Here is a summary of this situation from the Los Angeles Times and the BBC.
Reasons cited for a global shortfall by the big companies include turbulent global weather patterns affecting harvests, competition for sugar cane between food markets and fuel markets, and an increased U. S. sweet tooth.
According to the American Sugar Alliance, a coalition representing domestic sugar cane interests, the U. S. annually consumes 10 million metric tons of sugar per year. The current quota via the USDA is no more than a combined export of 1.3 million metric tons to the U.S. annually excluding Mexico due to NAFTA. Yesterday’s press release from the American Sugar Alliance is that the big companies are “crying wolf” and domestic sugar suppliers are more than capable of meeting their needs with the October harvest around the corner. (more…)
// July 30th, 2009 // No Comments » // Uncategorized
We were not everywhere at the festival. We were not getting paid to do that. The few photos we took are a tiny portion of everything going on. See other sites for video and images of the popular music acts that you have been reading a lot about. Here is the hedonism we engaged in. Well this and our peaceful campsite + lengthy road trip.
I want to thank my husband for taking off over the mountains and across the desert with me to play. I half expected him to bail or cock his head to the side with some of the stuff I wanted to do. He stepped up, fully participated, and even learned that he likes chanting in the process. He even put up with me when I was a bitch and had a million things on my mind while I should have been making out with him. That is love.
The best part of this weekend was spending time with my guy. Being bendy and spending time with a cool community were also major highlights. I hope to attend the festival in the future. Perhaps caravan and bring friends from Colorado to play as well. For an inaugural event it went very well. As with anything in life be prepared to take care of yourself instead of relying on others, there ends up being less stress in the end if you go that route. For my full re-cap check out yogadork’s website. I also want to reiterate the gratitude I have to Jenni at Yogadork for setting the wheels in motion for our last minute trip to the festival. It is just funny how things work out.
Other Wanderlust coverage:
// July 29th, 2009 // No Comments » // Uncategorized
After winning Seeker passes to Wanderlust Festival from Yoga Dork (thank you!), my wife scored us media passes to the event. We covered all 3 days for Yoga Dork (through email) and for Ossumniss and ourselves (through our twitter feeds, @Ossumniss, @tcabeen, and @mrscabeen). The weekend was nothing short of complete Ossumniss. It was amazing, insightful, exciting, and possibly even life-changing. Well, it was life-changing for a few people, at least. I might even be one of those people.
The old and the new meet on the Wyoming Plains
We drove from Boulder, CO to Squaw Valley, near Lake Tahoe, CA. The journey took us up the I-25 to around Cheyenne, WY, where we caught the I-80 west, all the way to Lake Tahoe. A quick stop in Salt Lake City, UT to visit my wife’s father for lunch was awesome. He’s such a great guy. That night, we made a brief slumber a little shy of Reno. Breakfast the next morning was made as planned at the Circus Circus buffet. Campy? Cheesy? Silly? Whatever, it was fun, and the omelette station was surprisingly fantastic. For 8.99 you get fresh omelettes, real fruit juice, only-slightly-overripe fruit (my favorite stage of ripeness!), corn on the cob (WTF?), Chinese Porridge, a whole random assortment of other stuff, and some really greasy, nasty donuts. If you’re a bit selective in your selection, it’s one helluva breakfast for one heckuva price. This was not a paid promotion. I just enjoyed the meal, dammit. 
Leaving the craziness of Reno, and trying to put the previous day’s running-out-of-gas-10-miles-from-a-gas-station-on-the-Salt-Flats problem behind me, we motored across NV to the CA border, where they stole our cherries to prevent the spread of some damned fruit fly. What? I didn’t mention in more detail my failure to get gas before the barren 66-mile stretch? Let me tell you all about it: I got a lift from a nice LDS family and it worked out. Never speak of it again. More importantly, those were good cherries and we were looking forward to enjoying them and whatever evil fruit fly eggs they probably didn’t contain (but could have!)
It’s also important to surrender anything that is being looked for at a check point. Sometimes it’s good to just consume it right then, but if we’d scarfed an entire bag of cherries that fast, at least one of us probably would’ve pooped some pants in the car. Likely me. So we let the cherries go. Ok, I slept through most of it, but that’s not the point. I was tired. And they weren’t Raniers, anyway.
The waste containers were bearproof, except the one containing edibles. AWESOME. (Unfair comparison!)
We were both tired, actually. A lot to pack into a few days. We also got a bit hungry from time to time. Actually, it was mostly me. And it was more than a bit. I was hungry a lot, and I’m trying to eat better. The food options at Wanderlust Festival were clearly geared to the music crowd. The yoga crowd had severely limited options. Pita and hummus? NO. Rice and beans? NO. Veggie burger? Actually, yes, but at one place that was really out of the way for many people. I found it on the last day. But anyone with a food allergy probably couldn’t eat it. Vegetarians had trouble. Vegans, Celiacs, and people with other severe food allergies were also screwed. The ONE saving grace was Alice’s Mountain Market, which had a pretty substantial selection of quite nice things at mind-bogglingly reasonable prices. They beat our local Safeway grocery by about 20% on some items. And the guy that was always at the register was cool. I recommended it to several people. Beyond that, though… good luck. Fortunately, we took a bunch of food with us. It got us through most meals, but I’m a piggy. So I ended up getting a piece of pizza one night, and grabbing a few Luna Bars here and there. On the last day there, I got fish tacos from the Arc at Gold Coast, and they were awful. Thickly breaded fish, on super processed white flour tortillas, with a side of probably-cabbage just BATHED in some beige sauce. Dripping. Messy. Barely-nutritious. Far greasier and processed than I was looking for. To close on another very positive note, though, the guy running the stir fry station at the Arc was AWESOME. With food allergies himself, he was extremely understanding, patient, and helpful to myself and the celiac in front of me. He washed his pans and utensils before preparing her meal, and was very careful with the ingredients. She didn’t get a very round meal out of the deal, but he did what he could for her. Meeting him was actually one of the many highlights of the weekend for me.
Some lovely accommodations and a sculpture
On the Gondola to high camp, where there is a pool and hot tub. And showers.
Parking was abundant, but haphazard, Friday. Haphazard every day, actually.
White people like oversize things
In case you brought E, The LED Toys Cart is ready!
There was a bit of a glitch with the headline act, Michael Franti & Spearhead, in that Franti had been performing with a ruptured appendix (complete with great abdominal pain and all!) and needed surgery to remove that problematic organ, abscess, and all the infection in his abdomen. How can I make THIS paragraph about me? Well, when I was 2, the same thing happened to me. I was performing with my band at all sorts of awesome shows when my appendix ruptured, but I was an inarticulate baby, so it was difficult to diagnose the problem. By the time they went in for exploratory surgery (because my concerts had gone from folk to punk to japanese scream punk metal shit), my appendix was ruptured, and I had some abscess all filled up with gangrene. If that had ruptured, I would’ve died. So I assume Franti had a bunch of gangrene up in there, too. You should be glad we’re both still around. Anyway, his surgery was a hugely awesome success, and the festival organizers were able to book Common in a last second coup. The fans were pleased. Franti got painkillers. Everybody wins.
Mutaytor Hearts Burlesque
There were three(3) stages. Gold Coast stage was at high camp, and was the largest. On the base level, there was the Globetrotter stage, which was quite large. Then there was the Casbah stage, which was small and in the middle of everything, so the up-and-coming musicians got great exposure. I passed several artists “rocking the casbah” as it were, and didn’t really pay attention to any of them.
We got to see The Mutaytor’s night set on both Friday and Saturday. They were less impressive than I had expected, but still quite enjoyable. (I’ve listened to some older tracks, and the sound was ENTIRELY different.) Three horns, three drummers, a guitarist, a bassist, and some guy playing synth and macbook. But they were the background. The foreground consisted of a rotating stock of interestingly dressed men and women who spun fire poi, flaming staff, flaming sword, LED wand thing, LED hula hoops, or just danced. Belly dancing and Burlesque were both featured. Adolescent boys were shifting and giggling all through that bit.
Common pulled a fan on stage. She swooned.
We also caught part of Common’s set. I like a couple of his songs. He didn’t perform those ones. He did flex the skill (and balls) required to do a complete live freestyle on the stage, though. Women were swooning throughout the set. Lots of people were sparking up. Common gave them props. They returned the props in a most mellow fashion.
The yoga sessions were.
Hah, how yogic was that? They simply were. Actually, there were just as many yogic artists (yogis, yoginis, instructors, masters, whatever term you like) as there were musical artists. And they were equally, if not more, skilled in their respective craft. A VAST range of styles were represented, from pretty straight-practicing yogis to the more “fusion” crowd, with their acrobatics, dancing, and whatnot. Furtheremore, there was much chanting, misic, singing, laughing, fun, sharing, and simply being present. I’m not going to try to sound like I know waht I’m talking about here, because you’ll see through it. It was just awesome, diverse, and chock-full of incredibly talented instructors.
Kia meditating on the Salt Flats in Utah
John Friend, one of the better known names in yoga, taught a few classes at the high camp, above even the Gold Coast area, where the VIPs (and the media) were able to hit the pool and hot tub, practice yoga, and chill. In one of his classes, I saw a woman absolutely racked with tears. As John went to her, his expression of compassionate sympathy melted to pure joy when he realized that she was just overcome. She quietly sobbed through the last few minutes of the session, and redoubled her sobs after it had ended. And at the end, she was surrounded by people laughing, crying, laying their hands on her in interconnectedness, and just sharing experiences. It was, from all appearances, a pure religious experience, like any other.
Duncan Wong was the embodiment of wild fun in the class we were able to attend. He had apparently done Thai Massage in other sessions, but this was some insane melding of yoga, dance, and martial arts. And I mean this very literally. He would pause, mid-pose, and shake his thang, like he was in the middle of tha club, then immediately erupt into Bruce Lee outbursts of shouting, kicking, and punching. He translated some Warrior postures into their purpose in war, demonstrating strikes from a pose in hand-to-hand combat, or how to effectively shoot a bow from another Warrior posture. It was eye-opening to very literally see how the limbs of yoga have grown from very different roots.
There were a large number of vendors present, mostly clothing and accessories, and other gear, but also food, nutritional vendors, and things like that. Few of these were very interesting to me (like the beer and margarita tents at Gold Coast), but I did very much like the offerings at the Dude Girl tent. Especially the $10 bin, where I picked up some yoga pants. Yay, bargains!
Yoga World Reach
Among the vendor tents were the non-profits. I didn’t get a chance to speak with the non-profits at the Gold Coast area, but base camp featured some really awesome goups. Two were promoting health and wellness in Africa, through teaching yoga, building schools, and making sure people had a bite to eat.
Working with at-risk youth through yoga
// July 9th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Uncategorized
On Sunday morning my husband woke to the option of one of two tasks:
1. Go for a bike ride. Get orange juice for mimosas.
2. Stay home. Make waffles.
In his dreary stupor he paused too long and I was out the door with my pannier on my bike to get the orange juice. Sucker.
I didn’t realize I would be leaving him with an overwhelming task. We eat whole-wheat waffles 3-4 times a month. He made a batch last summer when I was headed out for a work trip so that I would have a week of breakfast in my hotel fridge. His waffle mastery is still being worked on. In this latest batch he forgot to add the whole-wheat flour and we were left with some sub-par waffles. The taste, texture, and satiety of the breakfast just was not there.
In my husband’s defense I admit I do not have the clearest directions in my “black book” of recipes.
First off, if you know me at all, I cannot eat sugar. Or at least not cane sugar. I have an allergy. And for those a-holes of you that want to correct me and say I have an intolerance why not hang around me next time my throat closes and the breathing thing does not work out so well. For the 2 tbsp. in this recipe it is a given to use crystalline fructose, xylitol, or beet sugar. Or use agave and a little extra flour.
Second, the flour. I copied this recipe from somewhere and did not make the modifications on the page because they seemed obvious to me. 1 cup boring processed flour, 1 cup of rock and roll stone ground wheat flour. A 1:1 ratio so that there is some substance to the waffles while still letting them be fluffy.
There is a difference between the two flours which is shocking considering they are the same food. Just on different ends of the processing spectrum.
Actually not on completely different ends of the spectrum. My husband thought the wheat was already mixed in because I have been known to combine them in the past, and it wasn’t as white as the flour he was used to seeing his mom cook with. It is unbleached organic flour from the bulk bins. There is flour out there that is whiter.
The stone ground wheat flour comes from Butte Mill Flour Company at the Boulder Farmers Market for $1/pound. Farmer John also sells via Cure or you can pick it up off from his porch in the winter months.
Besides the color of the waffles there was something else different. The taste. The texture. The experience. We max out on the number of waffles we eat pretty early. With the batch we had over the weekend we could have eaten all 12 of them. They were not satisfying. It was disturbing but at least we supplemented what was going in our tummies with blueberries, champagne, and orange juice.
If you have any questions about the difference between the two flours first look at the glycemic index. It is an index of how carbohydrates breakdown in our systems and are assimilated in our blood stream thus affecting our glucose levels. The bland white flour absorbs much more quickly than the robust brown flour. It basically acts like a sugar dissolving in water when compared to its counterpart that still retains fiber (and nutrients). We basically had sugar waffles that our bodies absorbed rapidly compared to the wheat waffles we usually eat.
Thanks to my crazy food allergies we do not eat many processed foods in our home. We manage to stay away from a lot of the overly-processed diet that many Americans thrive on. The case of these two flours is only a miniscule example of why people can eat so much damn food all the time and still be hungry. Over processing plays tricks on our bodies and we don’t feel full. There is no substance. Wheat is only a tiny portion of what we eat in the U. S. Anyone that has seen King Corn or basically knows about the prevalence of corn in our diets knows exactly what I am talking about.
We ate the bland processed flour waffles. Hubby took a stack of them to work with some fruit and maple syrup. He also learned a basic kitchen 101 for our household, there is a huge difference between stone ground whole wheat flour and the more processed flour.
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