Family

Wordless Wednesday

Sometimes the world is a tough place for Sam. It’s not easy being a middle child, but on top of it all, he’s had to deal with this recently:

Landing

He watched his sister pull off a Tsukahara Double Pike at the water park. Once he got over his shock, he realized that he needs to step up his athletic game big time.

Teeth

After the gymnastics debacle, he was sent to the dentist. The stuffed animals were freakish, not calming. Lauren disagreed.

Jail

He watched his dog get hauled off to jail for stealing a peanut butter bone from the pet store.

Cheers

Recognizing that he’s been under a ton of pressure, I offered to buy him a vodka lemonade, which he gladly accepted.

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Clean eating

summer peppers textIf you Google “clean eating”, it returns over 100 million responses. A popular term, no doubt. And why not? Don’t we all want to eat clean? Because if we’re not eating clean, are we eating dirty?

Clean eating is a not just a trend. It’s a way of life for people who want to be conscious and deliberate about the way they eat.

It goes by many names, making it hard to keep track of what eating “clean” actually means. I’ve seen a laundry list of diets that are categorized under the term “clean eating”, everything from Vegetarian and Vegan to Dairy-free, Gluten-free and Paleo.

And it’s for that reason that the term “clean eating” has become so popular. It’s broad, inclusive, and somewhat ambiguous, making it easy for people to adapt the term to suit their needs.

My favorite definition comes from HuffPost Healthy Living. They describe clean eating as the consumption of “whole foods — that is, foods as close to their natural state as you can get them. This means eating fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains and lean proteins instead of pre-packaged, processed foods or fast food.”

Clean eating has become a way of life for me. And through trial and error with my own diet, I’ve found 3 simple rules that I can stick to that allow me to eat a clean diet:

Eat Clean_FeedMeDearly

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100 new foods

Micro greens

microgreens

This week I brought home some micro greens from the Farmers’ Market.  What I didn’t know is that prior to our mystery food session, Rodney had taken the kids out for donuts and movie popcorn. So while I was running errands with Emma, Lauren and Sam were feasting on more junk than I usually eat in a week.

So what I’m trying to say is that micro greens were off to a horrible start. But miracle of all miracles, even after the sugar and the salt, Lauren said that she liked them. Loved them actually. Especially with a little drizzle of oil and salt. Can’t say I blame her after the morning she had. But I’m eager to get more of these greens into the rotation.

ME: This mystery food is micro greens.  What does it look like?

SAM: It looks like bananas.  It looks like strawberry ice cream.

LAUREN: I think it looks like clear donuts, with clear frosting.

ME: Are we looking at the same thing or is there a dessert hidden somewhere?

LAUREN: Donuts.

ME: Why donuts?

LAUREN: Because we just ate them.

ME: Who?

LAUREN: Us!  I had strawberry.

ME: What? No wonder!  Who took you?

LAUREN: We got it from Daddy. Dunkin’ Donuts.

ME: So that’s how he gets you to eat your lunch.

ME: Why’d you get Dunkin’ Donuts?

LAUREN: Because it was our special day going to the movies. We got popcorn.

ME: What? You got popcorn and donuts today?

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Family

Wordless Wednesday

Good morning Friday. #morning #walk #street #streetphotography #urban #nyc #chelsea

Good morning Chelsea! What a beautiful view. I love everything about my street: the tree canopy, the brownstones, and dog poop for miles. I should clarify, I don’t actually like the dog poop, but it’s heavenly for my dog, and he needs to enjoy his mornings too. So much to sniff, especially on a warm day.

I lied to you last week. Sort of.

I made you depressed, convincing you that summer was officially over. But just because Labor Day had come and gone, it didn’t mean that summer was actually over. To be truthful, we were still on vacation last week as school didn’t start until yesterday. Meaning that we had 7 whole days after Labor Day to get into trouble.

Here are a few things that we did before school started up. I wouldn’t recommend most of them.

#Breakfast of champions, #dessert for breakfast #chocolate #sweet #latte #deliciousness, time to double down on the workout today.

Speaking of delicious smells, check out my breakfast that morning. A latte and donut from my favorite breakfast spot in NYC, The Doughnut Plant. That would be a chocolate donut, with a chocolate cookie crumb. It’s the most insane breakfast treat if you’re trying to gain a few pounds, which I assume most of us are.

#Lunch with my little guys was great except for one thing #food #frythieves

And there’s no sense in starting off a day with chocolate donuts. That immediately designates the day as a bad eating day, so why not follow it up with a big plate of fries?  Just don’t bring your kids as they’ll eat the fries right off your plate. Which defeats the purpose of your bad eating day. Meaning that you’ll have go for another bad eating day the next day just to keep things even.

Fall_Saturdays_fall_weekend_coffee_love

Thank goodness for the lake, it always seems to keep me on track. Nothing kickstarts a morning like a gigantic coffee filled to the brim with half and half. Crap, bad drinking day is starting.

I passed the test ) #lake #lakehouse #water #sports #wakeboard #waterski

Might as well continue the bad drinking day and celebrate this win with a massive bottle of champagne. I’m talking Magnum here. The kind you order on New Year’s Eve when you’re traveling in the south of France. Which I assume is yearly for most of us, right?

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School lunch

School lunch box

When I trace my interest in food, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when it all started.  As I’ve mentioned before, my love affair specifically with organic, natural, locally-grown products began in my early 20s.

But truthfully, if I were to dig a little deeper, my deep and complicated relationship with food started earlier.

I had quite a few food influences when I was growing up. My stepfather is Hungarian and his family lived in Switzerland and France before finally settling in the US. He knows his way around a plate of food like no other, jumping at the chance to order tripe and sweetbreads when we dine out. When I was 16, he taught me to appreciate a real French baguette, and wouldn’t let me travel to Paris on a family vacation until I learned to eat Brie cheese with the rind. 

Like me, my mother was – and is to this day – an avid cookbook collector. I grew up watching her pull thick volumes off the shelves to whip up a batch of pancakes or find inspiration for a new stir fry. 

Food traditions run deep.

But I think that my relationship with food goes back even earlier. My gut (no pun intended) tells me that it was in Elementary school when I was finally introduced to that shareable, swappable, social pecking order-inducing meal of all meals: school lunch.

School lunch jump

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