Uno Mas

What just a few days out in nature can do to revive a person is truly wonderful. Three days of camping was exactly what I needed to get back into the final swing of things. One more paper to go, three more days to do it... While it seems a challenge to do after being so relaxed and reconnected to more important things in life than school and grades, my brain is ready for the challenge. It was so wonderful to do nothing but get back in touch with myself, greenery, and people. Spending your nights around a campfire drumming and dancing is more therapeutic to me than a lot of life's activities...

The funny thing I noticed is that I find that when I'm away from home (and more specifically, my kitchen), I don't define myself as obsessively by food as I do when I am home. I can think about other things, I can be someone else, and my thoughts become more diverse. It seems strange but it's true. Sometimes I ask Andrew if I drive him insane when I realize that 90% of my conversations have some direct relation to food. When we were away, I think that fell to about 20% of the time.

We packed lots of fruits and veggies, one bottle of home-made vinaigrette, and a few of the Fudge Babies and pseudo-Monkey Bars I made before we left, and we were good to go for four days. It was simple, it was sweet, it was perfect. But the minute I got home, I had to be in the kitchen, and life became about food again. What new treat can I make, what can I try to dehydrate this time, what new concoction will go in the Vitamix? In under 36 hours, I made five new recipes... obsessing, much? Is this a good thing? In some ways yes, and in some ways no, I think. I know I need to learn to balance things a little bit better. It makes me more sane.

I started our day with Ani Phyo's very refreshing Goji Berry Sunshine Cereal and Vanilla Mylk recipe:

So, my mad kitchen fury did lead to some pretty tasty things though. As a graduation present to me, I finally decided it was time to revamp my cookbook collection (which so far, is pretty pathetic because I'm a cookbook snob). Before we went camping, I went to my Amazon Wishlist, and picked a few items off of it: Ani Phyo's Ani's Raw Food Kitchen, Matt Amsden'sRAWvolution, Renee Loux Underkoffler's Living Cuisine, and Cafe Gratitude's I am Grateful. They were all waiting for me when we got back.

Much to my glee, we finally found the first seasonal organic corn in the grocery store yesterday and I knew I had to make the tacos I'd been craving since I realized corn was out of season. It made for a brilliant dinner. I used Ani Phyo's Taco Meat recipe (though I only used 1 tbsp of olive oil, and added garlic, oregano, and a marinated chipotle pepper to the mix to great effect), Alissa Cohen's Corn Chip recipe, and diced up some avocado, tomato, red pepper, and romaine lettuce. It was our belated Cinco de Mayo Celebration.

While I just made a giant taco salad of awesomeness, Andrew actually shaped his into tacos. Here's an example, with Andrew serving once again as my sexy hand model:

I'm still waiting for my mom to send me the pictures of the awesome raw raspberry marzipan ice cream cake I made for her for Mother's Day, but until then, it's great to be back! And now more work on this final paper...