Coconut Wisteria Popsicle

It is so hot. Soooo hot. Looking for reprieve this afternoon, I decided to create a random popsicle recipe to make us happy, and distract us from our lack of AC. The 80's are tough, and there's rumors of 90's next week. Ugh. I'm such a mossback. I miss my rain.

Did you know you can eat wisteria flowers? They're delicious too! Don't eat the stems, though, or the leaves or seed pods. All those other parts are toxic, even deadly for young children, especially the seed pods. The flowers taste like butter lettuce with a tiny hint of honeysuckle. Very refreshing. 

Fresh off the vine! (Second round of blooming already this year.)

Ingredients

1 frozen banana (I keep them around in a pinch, you could use a raw banana too.)

2 cans of full fat coconut milk

1/2 cup shredded unsweetened coconut

1 small avocado (pitted & peeled)

1 cup wisteria flowers stemmed

Important to remove stems. If you have allergies you should remove the pistils and stamens too. (We don't so I left them in. I like the flavor, it gives a hint of honey.)

Blend everything (except for the flowers). If it is too thick, add just a bit of water, little by little.

Blend for a quick swirl, literally a pulse or two, leaving it nice and chunky so that you can see some flowers in the mix, along with the fiber of some of the chopped petals. Then you just pour it into the molds, and freeze them. Aren't they beautiful, and feminine? 

This recipe makes about 20 popsicles, each holding approx 109 calories. 

Here's the breakdown of macronutrients and nutritional information for one popsicle. 

You could probably use a lower fat coconut milk, but why? Fat is so good for you. It gives such a rich consistency, making it much more satisfying. I also noticed after eating it, my lips were softer which is an added bonus when everything is so dry.

Anyhoo, I hope you like it! Perfect recipe for a random Wednesday. I wish my niece Isla was with me today. She would have thought the whole thing was as cool as I did. There's nothing like a little scavenging for nibbles in the yard. 

Nature's Heartbeat

"Life is occupied with perpetuating itself and surpassing itself; if all it does is maintain itself, then living is only not dying."

That quote is from a random book I read over the weekend while staying at George & Diane Steed's guest house in Friday Harbor (my brother's wife's grandparents). I can't remember the name of the author, but I'm pretty sure the book is titled Voluntary Simplicity, or something similar of that nature. Reading it, as it was published before the mass of home computers and cell phones, was fascinating. In fact, the Steeds are facinating. The guest house had no TV, no radio, not even a clock, and I loved it. You could hear the crashing of waves from time to time, as they're out on the north end of the island just off the water, and it felt like a heartbeat; that I was snuggled safely in Nature's womb. Dan would still fiddle on his phone, but I completely powered down. We played Chinese checkers over decaf coffee in the morning, and listened the birds outside our window before bed. It was glorious. 

I visited mostly with Diane. She is so interesting, very well read, and curious, and happy, and kind. Dan and I noticed, as we were laying down for a nap one of the afternoons, how much of a treat it was to visit with people of the Steed's generation. We don't get to visit and hear stories from octogenarians very often. The stories we get are from books, or movies, or TV shows. They're often fabricated, or embellished, or extreme, or third party accounts. To hear from real people about their experiences, is a special treat. If I lived in Friday Harbor I would want to visit them all the time. Listening to their stories is like being told unique secrets. Secrets that so few get to hear. 

Life happens in the blink of the eye and each moment I get to spend hearing other people's life stories, the things they've seen, the lessons they've learned, the views they have formed - especially those with some experience under their belt - helps mold me into a more compassionate and open minded person. And it helps me grasp the enormity and the subtleties of the human journey. 

While we were there, we had another rainbow sighting, again with no rain. She popped up while we had been watching the 4rth of July parade, and had to sneak off to do venom. Dan's mom drove the venom down from her fridge and as I laid in the back seat of the car, and Dan dropped the drips into my nose, with my head hanging out the door, I looked up and saw my friend the rainbow. If I had not been upside down, I would never have seen her. Sometimes, even when you don't know it's there, you're being protected, watched over. 

And finally a picture of one of my best buddies, my niece Isla. 

If you look to the back, between Isla and my head, you can see Dan in the background. 

Happy 4th!

Orthoexia? What!

Holy. Cow. I have borderline orthorexia. 

It's an actual thing. 

I was watching the news this morning and a story came on about a girl who went vegan and about a year into it she realized that she would stand in front of the fridge for 20 minutes, overanalyzing her food choices, afraid to make a decision. She was obsessed with picking the healthiest choice (the definition of orthorexia). Hearing her story was like looking into the mirror. The girl became malnourished, having an extreme case of the disorder. I would consider myself more borderline, but the truth is, my obsession with food has lead me to become weak, have more seizures, limited my activities, and has isolated me from social settings. It has been too much. My relationship with food has become unhealthy. 

The tricky part, is that in the case of cancer many people say that their extreme food choices (orthorexia) saved their life. That it stopped their tumor growth, or even healed them. Of course, as with everything, there's a fine line, but I'm realizing for me personally, I've crossed it. Analyzing food has been all encompassing. Food has come to signify life or death. It has become my god and my devil. 

This realization, of orthorexia, comes just several days after making the choice to stop being so restrictive. I have stopped checking macronutrients (even though I can mentally size up grams, and ounces, and calories, and fat content and carb amounts of various foods - vegetables, fruits, meats, dairy items, oils, nuts - by memory) I no longer eliminate things from my diet. I made that decision after observing the fact that my seizures have gotten worse the more I restrict, the more I obsess and remove foods from my diet.

I should say, I can't, nor would I want to, unknow what I know about food. I'm now allowing myself to use my vast knowledge (and part of this is me acknowledging that I am educated enough to make great decisions) to eat the way that I need to for energy, for seizure control, and for tumor-fighting. Every body is unique. Each body has specific needs, and now that I've tried everyone else's protocols, I need to just create my own. I finally feel comfortable enough, after trying every tumor diet I could find, to fly on my own. Now I'm truly off in unchartered territory. My own rules. My own way. I feel empowered, but nervous. My training wheels are off. 

I have always put so much weight on food choices, since I was diagnosed, then progressively so as I researched more and more. Now it's up to me to make the best decisions. To compile all of my reading, my knowledge, and live healthy, to fight my tumor, and eliminate seizures, and have enough energy to get out and enjoy life. I hope I'm making the correct decision. I guess we'll find out in October when I have my next MRI. Perhaps, I just need to have faith in myself. And remind myself that no one diet (vegan, raw, restricted ketogenic, paleo, vegetarian, Budwigs, macrobiotic...etc.) cures cancer. But a percentage of people do well on each one. I need to go back to listening to my body, and quit beating my head against the brick wall of food/diet. 

I leave you with a photo of Charlie, my largest, happiest, cucumber plant. Note to self: I should probably stop naming my plants because it makes it harder to eat them.