Bowls, Plates, and all things beautiful

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When preparing food, I always try to follow a lesson my mom taught me a long time ago. She said that Chinese food is always prepared to excite all of your sense: smell, taste, appearance, and texture. Obviously that lesson can be applied to all culinary cultures and all types of cooking or in my case non-cooking. Coincidentally, I've just fallen upon this really interesting article about Feng Shui and Food. Aside from making your food taste wonderful and properly combining textures (soft and crunchy, etc.), other things include always making sure that your food is colorful or seasonal (warm autumn colors in the fall, bright colors in the summer, etc.) and that it's presented on pretty china, pottery, or whatever you use.

One of the decisions Andrew and I made when we moved out of our last place was that we would donate all our china and start from scratch. We decided we would only buy things that were made with love, made by someone we had talked to, and meant something to us rather than just finding cold lifeless objects to eat off of from some chain store. So far it's worked great, we've been collecting pottery and stoneware (featured in all the pics on my blog) from both Tessem stoneware and Dancing Pig Pottery, and all the pieces really mean something to us. See how much of a difference it makes to eat breakfast in a porridger given to you by a friend? (featuring Brendan Brazier's Banana Ginger Pear Cereal)


Or a really simple raw snack served in matching stoneware whose maker you met and talked to? (chocolate hemp milk, cashew-oat groat chocolate chip cookies, apricots, dates, ginger/cranberry/pumpkin seed mix)


Little things make all the difference, pretty platage being one of the most important. Try it out!

Workout of the Day: Upper Body Strength Training
5 minute warmup on stairclimber
80 crunches (I think I may actually be overworking my abs, so I took it a little easier today)
3x12 stability ball chest press
1 minute jump rope
3x12 shoulder shrugs
1 minute jump rope
3x12 seated row machine
1 minute jump rope
3x12 overheard tricep extension
1 minute jump rope
3x12 hammer curl
1 minute jump rope
10 minutes of stretching

I think jump roping is my new favourite thing. It raises my heart rate between sets, while making me feel like a five year old again! Who could ask for more...

Recipe of the Day:
-More spirooli goodness! We made butternut squash/zucchini pasta with veggies (turnip, broccoli, cauliflower, grape tomatoes, carrots) marinated in pasta sauce (Braggs, sundried tomatoes, 1 date, black & green olives, rehydrated mushrooms, olive oil, pepper, herbs, blended in food processor).
-Made rebound balls for Andrew (I've amended the recipe a lot since my initial post about them)
-Made more Raw Man Cookies

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