wait, what??? peanut butter is in here???

Sittin on the balc on a Friday night smokin a stogie (thank you Sonny) and sippin an after dinner cordial...as my great Dad used to say when he drank an after dinner drink..."...it fills in the cracks..." Genius.....a little Tia Maria, which my sister and I , God rest her beautiful soul, used to partake in much to the chagrin of our then spouses....so we kind of over did it every now and then...hey, you only go around once, as far as we know...no one has ever come back to confirm that, but that's another story. Soooooo, I sit here on my balcony gazing at the beautiful sight of NYC across the Hudson, very content and satisified after cooking an African dinner. I say African dinner because thats what it said in the title of the recipe....keep in mind that Africa is way bigger than the USA, geographically, so saying I cooked an African dinner is like saying I cooked an American breakfast when I made grits....no....totally misleading. So the recipe was titled "African Peanut Stew".....well, that didn't exactly sound to frickin appetizing.....I read on...and, it was, apparently, a recipe from North Africa, probably Morocco, (based on the ingredient list), and so I made it....and it was excellent!! All vegan, all super fresh, all organic......some people just know how to eat.....I found it when I was searching vegan recipes and found the site "Clean Eating"...I'll post the link below. It was easy to make, had an incredible depth of flavor, and is super healthy......sometimes you have to really, really, open your mind to things and just let them in....dive in, and it gets so good.....the new flavors are really great for you body....of course, they are only NEW FOR YOU, because we get stuck in the same old rut....same old shit...so if you want your life to be different, you have to be able to try different things, different tastes, different flavors....I love that. I'm all about change, it makes life exciting....who wants to live their entire life doing the SAME OLD STUFF???? There is more to it...there is more to experience!!!!! Take it all in, get healthy.....no reason to accept the fact that if when you grow older that you have to be ill, or in pain, or not feeling any energy....bullshit...you don't have to do it....I'm tellin ya, for me, it's all about the food intake....I swear....eat shit, feel like shit....eat good, feel good....and I feel good...never felt better in my life.....I've started this blog to document my changes based on my diet...good or bad...so so far...it's been good....if it turns bad, I'll be honest and post that too....if it turns out that eating McDonalds and other processed foods is good for you, I'll post it....but, so far, my theory is correct....all that processed crap is exactly crap...leads to illness and disease, and is totally allowed by our government....if I were king of the forest (my favorite saying...) I would ban the shit that they are selling to people...make them sell real food...no chemicals....did you know in Norway, they wont allow ANY GMO foods in the country????? Not even in the country, let alone sell them....and you know why?? Because the citizens still have control....they have people in office that are not in bed with Monsanto, Bayer, or other big Ag corps....like we have in the old USA.....anyway...on a rant, but, hey,it's my blog, so, you can check out if you want, or you can read on.......
here's the link, by the way..it's an awesome, super tasty, recipe...

http://www.cleaneatingmag.com/recipes/dinner-tonight/african-peanut-stew/

....live for today...eat for tomorrow.....have a great weekend

John

no meat, all taste.....

it's been so long since I've had a piece of meat I can't even remember.....and it's been so long since I've had a big old gut around my waist I can't remember that either.....that's a good thing! Feeling pretty light these days, feeling good. Haven't had any joint pain in 3 and a half months (knock on wood), but I'm leaning towards the fact that it was my original hunch....my joint pains were a result of my diet, not my age. 6 months ago, I was having to hold on to the bed, chair, door frame, and whatever else I could use to support me in the morning when I got out of bed to go to the bathroom.....I thought, wow, 58 years old and this is it??? This is what happens?? I can't get up in the morning without pain??? I felt like an old fart...I wasn't ready for that. I thought the pain was from all the racquetball  I played for years and years; jogged at lunch time for a lot of years, and generally thought that I just finally destroyed my knees and ankles. But then I looked around at other "old guys" and somehow they were still jogging, still walking OK....etc, so I figured it really wasn't self inflicted wounds, so maybe I should troubleshoot this thing. All my life, I've worked on complicated electronic warfare systems. Love it...the more complicated, the better...the bigger the problem, the better...made a living doing this...still am. So I figured I can troubleshoot my body problems as well, hey, it's a system, takes input, does functions, creates output...boil it down and make it simple. So I read a million articles, watched a million documentaries, and everything pointed to diet....diet, diet, diet. So I cut to the chase...I decided to take on the diet that Okinawans, some of the Greek Islands, and some other cultures in the Mediterranean area have. Basically, pretty much plant based diets, little meat, little dairy. I stepped it up a notch and went all vegan, which means, NO MEAT, NO DAIRY, just plants...just stuff that was grown in the earth. And it worked...it worked,...it worked....I haven't had joint pain since the end of December...I have high energy, I'm slimming down, and I've really never felt better in a long, long, time...

Today I was sitting at work thinking about what I should cook for dinner....I always do that during the day...try to get a new, fresh recipe....so I found a website that had recipes for "meatless Mondays"....even though it was Tuesday......supposedly it is a site to help people that want to reduce their meat intake a step at a time....so they have some pretty good recipes....this one tonight was pretty tasty!!!

This bad boy was full of flavor....it's eggplant, roasted, and then broiled, on a bed of lentils and rice with mint, cilantro, garlic, and pomegranate.....frickin excellent!!! All plant based, all very satisfying........let me know if you want the recipe....I'll post it if anyone is interested....

Stay healthy and happy folks.....live for today....eat for tomorrow....

a day in the life...for my niece

One of my nieces asked me to post a sample menu for one day in this plant based diet i'm on.....i don't like calling it vegan, because a true vegan is against killing or harming any animals, not just for food, but for clothing, shoes, belts, purses, wallets, car interiors...you get the picture. I'm not there yet...probably never will be. Maybe if I started when i was 10 or something...but, um, 59 may be a little late for that drastic of a life style change. Lets keep it at the just eating healthy level for now.  Actually, I've always been semi against animal cruelty. Semi....not fully. I have thrown my share of cats in swimming pools....don't hate me. Cats can, and will, walk on water...... But I remember when I was a little kid in Ashland, PA, my dad and I used to go on hikes. In the fall, late fall, when all the leaves were down, I remember I helped him build a little shelter out of branches and downed trees. He said we were building it for the animals, so they could have a place to stay when it snows....I'll never forget that. The other thing I remember from being a kid is Reidlers farm. Our neighbors, Paul and Betty Reidler, had a farm a few miles outside of town. In the summer, sometimes we would drive out there and have a picnic, cookout, swim in their FREEZING cold pool, and then walk out in the fields with a bucket of corn. The deer would see us with the bucket, and slowly, shyly, walk up to us and actually eat corn out of our hands....it was an amazing experience. In my teenage years, all my buddies hunted...I just could never do that...couldn't kill one. The only time I'd be able to kill one is if I was hungry....other than that, I'll just go to the store and get food. Anyway, thats some of the early memories of how I viewed wildlife, Maybe thats why I still love to hike to this day....especially if I can catch a glimpse of a deer or anything else in its natural home....

Anyways...So, for my niece, a sample of a daily plant based diet.....

• Breakfast.....typically, I don't eat breakfast, if I do, it's on the weekends when I have a little more relax time in the morning. Usually just a cup of fresh ground coffee. I actually have a hand coffee bean grinder that I bought on Amazon a while ago. I put that in a French press, and have the frickin greatest cup of coffee ever....one while shaving, then another for the 10 mile drive to work. But on the weekends, when I do eat breakfast, I eat a bowl of oatmeal. Steel cut oats with some fruit on top, usually blueberries or strawberries, with some honey or agave syrup on it, and I also add some soy milk. Vanilla flavored. Has a lot of protein in it. 

I just so happen to have a nice pic I took a few months ago of my oatmeal and blueberries....with honey, honey....ha ha. Maybe I can get into the food photography business...

• Then for lunch, I take leftovers from last nights dinner. If not, then I either go to the company cafeteria and get a salad, not a very big one, with oil and vinegar, and all the legumes I can put on it for protein. A side of fruit salad usually, and if the soup is vegetarian, I'll get a small bowl of that. If I go work out at lunch, there is a place right beside the gym that has vegetarian crepes...the Greek one is awesome.  All organic ingredients, super fresh. It's called 3rd Wave Crepes in Lyndhurst, NJ.....stop by if you are ever in that area.
• For the famous afternoon snack, I walk to the vending machine and stare at it....stare at the goddam chips and crackers I used to eat...stare at the food from the factories....I swear to God they put some chemicals in that shit that makes it addictive and craved.....so I stare at it....and then claim victory for not putting money in the machine.....pat myself on the back, go back to the lab and grab a handful of almonds and a glass of water....usually a few handfuls of almonds...again, a lot of protein packed in those little suckers. That usually gets me to supper.
• Then I leave work, head to the grocery store. Pick up what I'm gonna make that night. I usually have something in mind. Usually look up a recipe on one of the thousand vegan/vegetarian sites and one will catch my eye. For instance, tonight I made vegan enchiladas....I thought they were good. Basically consisted of steamed potatoes, beans, ( I used black beans cause i love them), onion, green pepper, garlic, mushrooms, vegetable stock, green chili peppers from the can, and a bunch of spices (cumin, chili pepper, sage, salt and pepper), and then wheat tortillas with enchilada sauce from the jar.....pretty tasty. 

So, that's pretty much a day's worth of food intake for me...

The thing is....I think you have to like/love to cook to be successful at the diet change....I think it would be hard for me to stay on track if I had to eat out at a vegan/vegetarian place every day/night. Me, I love the whole process...I love researching the menu, picking out the food, bringing it home and slicing and dicing and cooking....I love that. And once I got to the point where I could actually make some complex dishes that were vegan, then I really started feeling satisfied with it...now I'm into the 4th month....I'll have some cheese every now and then, we had a GREAT cheese fondue a few weeks ago...it was awesome...bought some great cheeses from Murrays cheese shop in the West Village....then I had some fish at my birthday dinner with friends at Lure restaurant in SOHO; so I don't deprive myself entirely....but, for the most part, I simply eat a plant based diet. Never felt better in my life.......and I'm hopin my body thanks me and can be better equipped to fight off disease....that's the goal...

Peace

PS....I'll try to compile a list of links to sites that I've found with good recipes....next post...

Hippie Curry

So, continuing on with the plant based diet discussions, I had mentioned in a previous post that one of the things I've learned in the past 3 months is how to cook Indian food.  I've liked Indian food on occasion, as a matter of fact, come to think of it, one of the best meals I've ever had was in an Indian restaurant in Amsterdam. A few years ago, I went to Amsterdam to check out a music festival. It was called "Jam in the Dam"....clever name, and a really good festival, too. Anyway, one late afternoon I was strolling the streets and canals of Amsterdam, (if you've never been there, you should go....), taking in the shops, the smells, and the people. Of course some of the shops sell pot and hash, and some of the people smell like pot and hash.....but I digress. I was getting a little hungry; it was around supper time, and I noticed an Indian restaurant on the block. Looked kind of high end, a little on the fancy side, and I thought it was a little weird to see an Indian restaurant in Amsterdam, but I am a naive American, and didn't realize that Indian cuisine is all over Europe. So I looked at the menu, walked up the steps, (it was on the second floor), and sat down by myself...which I never really minded doing...I travel so much, I usually wind up eating a lot of meals alone. I ordered a fish dinner, with a lot of sides, and let me tell you, it was one of the tastiest meals I've ever had....unforgettable. I'll never remember the name of the dish, but that experience really opened my eyes to Indian cuisine.

So, tonight, I searched on line for some Indian food to make, and stumbled across this dish called "Hippy Currie" ....ha ha...loved the title. Apparently, it originated in the 60's from a commune in Marin County, California.....pretty much hippy ville back in the day. So I made it, tasted outstanding. The link is below if you care to give it a try. Simple to make, and I have leftovers for lunch tomorrow....yay.....

http://www.thekitchn.com/heres-a-simple-curry-that-130340

Eat hippy....I mean happy.....

John

90 Days...

Well, it's been 90 days since I started the vegan experiment. I can honestly say it's been pretty easy. I'm totally into it. I do that, though, I get on a roll with something, then I dive all the way in....whether it's hiking, guitar, cooking, sailing....all that shit I've done throughout my life...I'm always all in!!! So I was into the vegan/vegetarian thing deep...still am. I started with this just wanting to lose a little weight, get a little healthier, and do a little disease prevention....all the articles and research I've done over the past few months made me realize that the food we eat has a direct effect on our health. You eat shit, you eventually feel like shit. So, in the year or two prior to doin the vegan experiment, I would suffer every month or so with really painful Gout and or arthritis. It got to be ridicoulous. There were times when I got up in the morning I really couldn't walk..had to hold on to whatever I could hold on to, and work my way to the bathroom. I was only 58. This was not happening. I was always healthy up to this point in my life. So, after seeing a few doctors and taking the stupid pills to relieve the joint pain, I decided to change my diet; see if it worked. See if, by going vegan, eating only plant based food, if I could ease the joint pains.....well....it apparently worked...I haven't had one ache or stiff knee/ankle/toe in 3  months......it's almost to scary to claim victory this soon. But really, I've never, ever, felt better in my life. Not just the joint pain thing, but just everyday energy levels...my waist is down 5 inches from Jan 2, my weight is down 17 pounds, my blood pressure is 110 over 70, it's frickin great!!!!! So, I'm not done yet. I'm going to continue this little life change and stay on this path. The hardest part of it was cooking. I love love love to cook. It took a little while for me to realize that vegan meals are very unlike what I was plating in the past. In the past I would plate a huge meat entry, some veggies, maybe some rice or potato. But when you cook vegan, it's kind of like one or two dishes that make up the meal. At first it was just weird...just seemed weird eating like one thing, even though it was very complete meal. All the nutrients were wrapped up in one dish. I discovered Indian cuisine along the way, which is very healthy and some recipes are time consuming to make, which I loved....I love the process....the more complicated dish, the better.
So, anyway, just wanted to jot this down...that I made it 90 days...that I actually reached my goal, but I don't consider it the finish line...I'm doin the long haul...like I said, now it's more of a life style change and disease prevention gig.....onward.....through the food!!!!