Edible Tulip

Natural Plant-Based Household Cleaning Products (And Good Ol' Vinegar and Baking Soda)

I stopped being dependent on chemical-based products for my body a long time ago. I use a natural deodorant (crystal roll on; lemon verbena stick; Burts Bees spray on, to name a few) and sure it doesn't work as well as a name brand anti-perspirant chock full of aluminum and a whole bunch of other ingredients you probably can't pronounce but then again sweating is part of the human condition. It's natures way of releasing toxins from our system. It's why you can smell booze or garlic if you've had a little too much of either the night before. And frankly, I'd rather smell like my self than baby powder blended with a heavy dose of musk. I've always been sensitive to smells and to chemicals, and in many ways I'm thankful for that. In addition to becoming allergic to my bed sheets when I used a chemical based laundry detergent, my sensitivity was also almost the determining factor in a relationship break up. I was picked up for my birthday dinner in a freshly cleaned car that had been sprayed with air freshener. In my books, that's a mood killer when you're tryiing to talk while feeling as though someone's grandmother wearing too much of her talc powder is sitting on your face. I do love the smell of lily of the valley, of wet ferns, of fresh cut grass, of AIR in general, but I don't like reproductions of those smells, created with chemicals and packaged up in aerosol containers. After a few bad headaches following cleaning the bathtub, I decided to stop buying store bought name brand chemical household cleaners. Not only do they smell awful, there are poison warnings plastered all over the bottles. And often enough they tell you that a specific cleaner that's okay for a kitchen counter should not be used on natural marble, wood, fabrics, and painted surfaces. Hmmm, why? Because the cleanser is so potent it will peel paint? I started using plain old white vinegar mixed 1 part to 3 parts tap water just like they did 50 years ago. I use it on everything, everywhere, instead of a lysol or a multi-purpose windex. It does smell vinegary when you first spray it but when it dries it loses all scent. In addition to the vinegar/water homemade solution (you can get a large jug of vinegar for about $1.99!), I use two other cleaning products: an all natural fruit and veggie spray made of palm oil, cellulose gum and witch hazel which I soak the produce in for 10 minutes in cold water in the sink. In other words it takes a natural cleanser to work off the pesticides, i.e. chemicals, that cover my food. And an all purpose plant-based natural SOAP which I use on everything - to clean the kitchen sink, as a shampoo for my dog, to wash my hands, to mop the floor. The one pictured above is a Whole Foods brand and I think it cost about $2.99. It uses organic lemon essential oils, chamomile, white tea, aloe vera, and a certified organic coconut cleansing complex which creates a great sudsy soap. Why wouldn't everyone prefer to use NATURE instead of synthetic fragrances and irritating sodium lauryl sulfites. And for an exfoliant when you have those extra tough stains like RED WINE on white counter tops, don't grab the extra strength bug killer/stain remover, sprinkle some baking soda on top, let sit, scrub. Bet it's gone! I'd love to hear any tips you might have, or natural cleaning methods you've randomly discovered, or invented, or have been passed down in your family.

Here's a piece from CBC Marketplace that explains why household cleaners fall under the Hazardous Products Act. As a little preview, this is how much producers of toxic products care about the well being of their consumers over a little profit: "We wanted to ask Health Canada about its role and some of the concerns raised in this story, but they refused repeated requests for an on-camera interview. The manufacturers of Lysol, Clorox and Pledge all said they were unavailable for an interview and so did their trade association."

p.s. I was about to toss the ceramic toothbrush holder also in the picture above that I got at the local Dollar Store. It was when my boyfriend lived here and we both used handheld manual toothbrushes and the wooden toothbrush affixed permanently to the bathroom wall was made of wood and beginning to rot. Plus, who knows who has used that toothbrush holder before we moved in. Ew. Anyway, this toothbrush holder didn't work that well either. The spittle deposits in the bottom of it and it becomes sludgy pretty quickly. Plus my boyfriend moved out and I switched back to an electric tootbrush. Then it rained yesterday and soaked all the spring flowers beginning to bloom in the front garden so I pinched at the base of the stem a few of the delicate ones keeling over from the heavy rain and brought them inside and looked around for something to put them in and lo and behold the toothbrush holder works perfectly. It holds about 1/2 inch of water in the base and it has 6 open squares for putting in a flower stem. Why not look around your house or your apt and find an item that can be used for something other than its intended purpose. Let me know what you find!

Quinoa Salad with Corn and Lentils and Fresh Mint

And so the chapter of my life spent in Collingwood and environs is nearing a close. Although this moment couldn't seem to arrive fast enough during the cold days and dark nights of a winter spent alone in a town in the snow belt, I am happy that the days to come will seem swollen with appreciation in comparison. If you scroll back to all the merry cheer and fesitive feelings leading up to Christmas, you'll see that all of that exploded in what can only be understood as years of pent up resentment between two people in a passionately combative relationship. Moving in together for the first time is stressful. Moving in together for the first time in a remote town is even more stressful. Throw in a few years of feisty arguing and constant break up and you get the picture. Two smart sweet but proud individuals can use words like weapons dipped in sarcasm. Dagger me with a childhood fear? I'll bayonet you with your darkest secret. Yes. There was a lot of frozen front-porch silence. The orange glow of a lit cigarette trailing through the blackness like a seasonally lost firefly. The boy left with the car. I stayed with the dog and the two cats.

It's 5 months later and things are as different as you couldn't have drummed up back when it was all so terrible. Time, distance, accountability, memory, and spring in particular all do that to a person. The crushing claustrophobia of winter is gone. I am so imbued with the magic of this season, the core of its essence, the smells, the grace, and the dirt that binds it all together, that I momentarily feel certain that I have never been so happy. I am taking the dog and the cats and moving back to Toronto. We'll be living near a ravine so we won't leave nature too far behind. It is what keeps us honest, after all. Walking to pick up conveniences will be a marvelous treat. I have always been good about keeping my cupboards simply stocked -- dried grains and pastas, canned beans and tomatoes, tins of tuna, jars of capers and pickles, and extensive herbs and spices -- but the past several months have brought my sense of creativity to new heights.I have been spent a few months rationed with basic supplies picked up on weekly excursions with a borrowed vehicle. By the end of the week, I'm down to a few simple resources. And that, my friends, is where this recipe comes in. Today it is raining and Simon the dog and I took a long wet walk looking for the turtles we found yesterday and surprising a cotton-tailed bunny. We got back and I was hungry. I looked in the cupboards, the fridge and the freezer. I had a can of lentils. A bag of frozen corn. A glass jar of toasted sesame seeds. The fleur de sel from my sister in Belgium. A lidded glass container of dried quinoa. And, by golly, mint growing like weeds alongside the driveway has climbed the hot bricks of yesterday's sunshine in an almost obnoxious vigour. Here's lunch. Turned out delicious. Hope you enjoy. I served my heaping spoonfuls of the salad on chopped romaine, for flavour, for crunch, for photosynthetic vitamins.

Quinoa Salad with Lentils and Corn, serves 4 - 6 as a side dish or a salad

1/2 cup quinoa (rinsed under warm water for 3 minutes)
1/3 English cucumber, diced
2 green onions, including the green ends, chopped
1 1/2 cup frozen corn, boiled then drained, or 1 can of kernal corn, rinsed and drained
1 can lentils, rinsed, drained*
Grated zest of 2 lemons
6 to 8 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
Dash of paprika
red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
Fleur de sel
Black pepper
1/4 cup chopped fresh mint

Bring 1 cup of water to a boil and add 1/2 teaspoon of salt and the quinoa. Lower the heat, cover, and simmer until the grains are tender and have absorbed mostly all the water, about 10 minutes. Drain.

Chop the cucumber and the green onions and place in a large bowl. Add the cooked corn, the rinsed lentils, and the quinoa (once it's been cooled to room temperature).

Whisk together the lemon zest, the olive oil, and the lemon juice. Add a dash of paprika. Pour over the salad mixture, and toss to coat. Add the sesame seeds, and season to taste with the fleur de sel and coarse black pepper. Garnish with the mint.

Note: A curry vinaigrette would also be good! 

*For some reason, I find the No Name brand of lentils has smaller, firmer lentils than the name brands.

Honibe Honey Drop - It's Totally the Bee's Knees!

Over a year ago, I received an email from a man from Prince Edward Island named John Rowe. For those of you out there who believe there is nothing left to invent, well, John is a perfect example of a man who looks at dilemmas in life and finds solutions to them. In this case, hats off to John, for finding a creative resolution to an everyday frustration for people around the world: messy, sticky honey. On fingers. On toes. Dripped across the counter top. Leaked from a small jar in a knapsac. Honey crystals caked to the bottom of the dispenser. On and on. The beauty of honey lies in its earthy, velvety, aromatic sweetness that is all wild flowers and morning dew and feel good-y. But it's messy and sticky and so John, who runs a family business out of Montague, Prince Edward Island called Island Abbey Foods, hunted around for a solid honey product but could not find one that didn't have any additives or binding products (such as the dreaded but sadly ubiquitous corn syrup) and so he INVENTED it.

Let me introduce you to the Honibe Honey Drop. It is 100% natural honey. And it comes in plain honey or honey and lemon. It comes in a hexagonal single serving (like the sugar cube, it's 1 teaspoon worth of sweetness). They come in boxed packages of 20 with each one individually wrapped in foil that you can push the honey drop through like a lozenge. Perfect to toss a few into your purse. Ever had a sugar pack erode or tear in the bottom of your purse? You get my drift.

Not only is John an entrepeneur who thinks on his feet from the red shores of PEI but he's a solid Maritimer with good values. I don't know him personally. In fact, I've never spoken to him, but while looking at the Honibe website, I can see that his company, a honey business, donates 1% of their annual revenue to environmental organizations. Before the economy even took a nose dive, PEI potato farmers were complaining about not being able to give away their potatoes, having to send them on ships across the ocean to Russia, or burying them in open fields. Life is never easy for a small business owner, let alone one who works in the agricultural sector. Thank you to people like John who look at the world through such generous lenses.

Honibe has just announced a distribution agreement with Tree of Life, a Canadian organic and natural food distribution company.

Retro Cocktail Glassware or Spring Cocktail Time

I am always on the hunt for new glassware. Unique drinking vessels. Fun ways to imbibe my alcohol. Although I'm a bonafide nightly wine drinker -- white before dinner and red during -- when spring rolls into town, and starts cooking up summer, well, I sure do love a good cocktail. I'm not particularly a martini kind of girl and I've also never been a vodka soda boobs in La Senza bra twirling hair between fingers and pursing glossed up lips kind of woman either; I tend to favour Campari and soda with lime, preferably while wearing Capri pants on the isle of Capri, but a back deck is okay too; my father's gin and 1/2 tonic, 1/2 soda (best ever made hands down attested to by many cottage guests); and, sweet vermouth on the rocks with a slice of blood orange. Mojitos and rum punches and sangrias are delicious too but only when made with the real deals and usually best taken in their natural habitat, i.e. Cuba, Caribbean, Cordoba. The other fun thing to do is to invite a new lover* over to your place. Buy fake colourful leis from a dollar store. Get out flashy, festive, hotly coloured cheap melamine plates. Order in tapas or make your own nibble food. Put on some sort of rhythmic music that features a blend of Portuguese fado singers, Brazilian bongo drummers, salsa beats, slow Spanish guitar strumming, a little Cesoria Evora, well, you know where I'm going... and put on a strappy tulip red or hydrangea pink or celeric green cocktail dress with flipflops. Make a goofy toast. And drink your drinks.

*Or old or ex or potential or friend with benefits. Just don't blame me the next morning.

Glassware was bought at Seasons in Creemore, Ontario. It's a fabulous new antique/refurbished/consignment store on the main street. Really reasonably priced retro furnishings. 

Fleur de Sel de Guerande & a Recipe for Stuffed Artichokes

I have an older sister who, bless her heart, forgets the house-warming presents, or hello I haven't seen you in many months presents, or sorry I missed your birthday presents, that she has given me just prior to the current receiving of her present. There was a period of time, a few years, where my presents were hand knit linen dish towels that were very Belgique, where she lives, with pictures of local fruit painted on. Luckily for me, as I favour more dish rag sorts of towels because I use them as napkins or paper towels or bibs too often to have to worry about whether the expensive ones are out, she decided to start giving me the locally available fleur de sel, and now that is her theme.

I don't fault her as she has four children plus she lives in Belgium, close enough to the salt marshes of  Brittany, France, so why not give away what's worth gold in some circles. I am currently the proud owner of one smallish, pinkish container of the traditional Fleur de Sel de Guerande which I love to dip raw radishes into and sprinkle over grilled meat, a large container of Sel Marin de Guerande Gros Gris Seche (coarse dried salt) which I like to blend with unsalted butter and spread over nut bread or toast with a drizzling of honey. The final gift of this particular kind/brand of fleur de sel is mixed with ground pepper, coriander, rose hip, shezuan pepper, green pepper and black pepper and it is so magically pungent and spicy yet subtly aromatic and enticing that it knocks your socks off if you simply sprinkle a bit on a plain salad of bitter lettuce (endive, escarole, boston, dandelion) with some good olive oil and a touch of lemon juice. Best Salad Ever!

David Lebovitz who is based in Paris believes that Fleur de sel de Guerande is the finest salt available. As he writes, most brands of fleur de sel are mechanically harvested, but the salt marshes of Guerande are gently hand harvested without disturbing the underly coarse gray salt beneath the delicate surface. It's rather a moving experience to sprinkle the distillation of an ocean across the world onto your lunch but that is what occurs and it originated in the year 868. As David writes, this sort of specialty salt isn't really a cooking salt, it's more of a finishing one, something that you add to your meal before eating and savour its raw, unrefined flavour. I would suggest that you splurge a few dollars and buy a fleur de sel at your local organic market and then buy a standard iodized salt and compare and contrast the two. It will SHOCK you!

This is a recipe I found on the New York Times website that I slightly amended and that I think fleur de sel Guerande Poivres et Baies would be absolutely ravishing.

Stuffed Artichokes with Lemon Zest, Rosemary and Garlic
Yields: 4 servings
(adapted from a recipe published in the New York Times on April 17)

1 1/2 lemons, zested, and halved

4 large globe artichokes

2 1/4 cups plain bread crumbs

1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh rosemary

8 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled

2 carrots, peeled

1 1/2 tablespoons chopped capers

1 1/2 teaspoons fleur de sel Guerande Poivre et Baies

1 small onion, thinly sliced

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling

1/2 cup dry white wine.

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Fill a large bowl with water and squeeze juice from two lemon halves into water. Cut off artichoke stems, peel them with a vegetable peeler, rub them all over with remaining lemon half (this prevents browning) and drop them into water.

2. Use a heavy, sharp knife to cut top 1 1/2 inches off an artichoke. Pull out pale inner leaves from center. At the bottom, where leaves were, is a furry bed, the choke. Use a spoon (a grapefruit spoon works wonderfully) to scoop out choke. Next, using kitchen shears or a pair of scissors, trim pointy ends from outer leaves of artichoke. As you work, rub lemon half over cut parts of artichoke. When you are finished trimming, drop artichoke into bowl of lemon water. Repeat with remaining artichokes.

3. To prepare stuffing, in a large bowl combine lemon zest, bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, chopped parsley and rosemary. Mince 6 garlic cloves and add to bowl. Finely chop one carrot and add to bowl along with capers, 1 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Toss to combine.

4. In a small roasting pan or baking pan large enough to hold artichokes, scatter onion slices. Add reserved artichoke stems, 4 sprigs parsley and remaining garlic cloves. Slice remaining carrot into rounds and add to pan.

5. Holding artichokes over stuffing bowl, stuff choke cavity and in between the leaves with bread crumb mixture. Stand stuffed artichokes upright in pan and generously drizzle olive oil over center of each artichoke.

6. Fill pan with water until it reaches 1/4 way up the artichokes. Add wine and remaining salt and pepper to water. Cover pan with foil and poke several holes in foil. Bake artichokes for about 1 1/2 hours, or until tender; when done, a knife should be easily inserted into artichoke and a leaf should be easily pulled out.

Toronto Food Policy Council

For those of you based in Toronto, learning about the TFPC might interest you. I have been subscribing to their newletter and articles for a few years now. Here's an article that describes a bit about them. And if you know Wayne Roberts, well, he's the brains behind it all.

Toronto Food Policy Council- An Example for the World

Posted in Models, RDAG by Devin Maeztri on April 16th, 2009

The City of Toronto created the Toronto Food Policy Council (TFPC) in 1991 in the absence of federal and provincial leadership on food security.

TFPC partners with business and community groups (including City Councillors and volunteer representatives from consumer, business, farm, labour, multicultural, anti-hunger advocacy, faith, and community development groups) to develop policies and programs promoting food security - the TFPC has been instrumental in putting Food Security and Food Policy development squarely on the municipal agenda in Toronto

aim is a food system that fosters equitable food access, nutrition, community development and environmental health. They operate as a sub- committee of the Toronto Board of Health, have a small staff and modest budget. They have no authority to pass or enforce laws yet are free to make their own decisions on food policy issues.

This innovative and effective arrangement has gained international respect from public health, community food security and sustainable agriculture organisations. The staff and council members serve as catalysts and brokers bringing people from different organisations together to help them find new ways to solve old problems.

The Council is a forum for discussing and integrating policy issues that often fall between the cracks of established departments and research specialities. Staff and members advocate for policy change at the municipal, provincial and federal level.

To find out more about the Toronto Food Policy Council visit http://www.toronto.ca/health/tfpc_index.htm.

This is from "Social Innocatins in Victorian Food Systems,' case studies by Ferne Edwards.

Red-Curry Crusted White Fish with Cucumber Lemongrass Salsa adapted from Canyon Ranch`s Cookbook: NOURISH

At some point in the upcoming weeks I would like to do something interactive with recipes from this new beautiful cookbook I just received so that others may glean some inspiration from what the book refers to as "indulgently healthy cuisine". I am all too often disappointed when I buy a cookbook. I have many that sit on a shelf in the kitchen with nary a recipe ever tested. But when I received this cookbook I immediate set myself up with a stack of orange and green and pink and yellow page flag post it notes and now the cookbook looks like a lit up sparkler - flashes of colour darting out at every angle. (And I only went through the salads, sides and fish chapters.)

Good Friday supper turned out a wee bit different than I had hoped, but then again, it's been a regular see-saw of misplaced expectations and tsunami-sized disappointments. It has also been one of the strangest 8 months of my life. Strange as in insular, remote, cut off from social and societal fulfillment and validation, and at the same time ending a long term relationship (slowly, painfully, abusively, sadly, gleefully) AND being in close enough proximity to my parents that a friday night usually resulted in joining them at the town hall for some keg beer and a hootenany concert. As I said, it's all been very strange. I've also never had so much time on my hands for such an extended period but been unable to cope with the void, the vacuity of meaning when it doesn't matter what day of the week it is, or the heightened sense of self that results with too much introspection blotted out a few hours later by the absolute diminished sense of self that also results from too much introspection. Give me a schedule. I never thought I'd want a routine back. But I do. I'm sure you have the things you do each day not quite realizing the significance of each single act. I miss the camraderie of having office mates cum on-call therapists/neck massagers/stylists/relationship advisers for whom I could be all the same things in return.

The weirdness is about to end. Or at least new weirdness is on its way in, turning the corner in step with these early days of spring. I am currently whistling in the last breaths of country air. I have moving boxes piled all around me so I can prepare for my 8th move in 7 years. Sigh. Yawn. A little whitefish was sort of what I needed.

I had bought enough fish for two, but as I wrote, Good Friday turned out to be different than I thought, so I ended up cooking for one, but sticking to my recipe plans, and tossing the fish leftovers into the salsa and spooning onto romaine lettuce leaves the next day for lunch. Wonderful. 

I blended two different recipes and sort of made up the rub by mixing red curry paste from a jar with a dollop of Russian honey mustard. I have no idea why I thought these two flavours would meld well together and I can't say they did because the flavour wasn't distinct enough. In fact, I wouldn't have wanted to put more than 2 tsp of curry paste on my filet because it would have been too overwhelming but it didn't particularly stand out as identifiable. The salsa was very tasty, a perfect balance of lemongrass freshness with salty tamari and a blast of fresh mint. The fish sat atop a vegetable blend of julienned carrots and peppers that had been gently sauted.

The following recipes serve 2, or 1 plus leftovers.

Broiled Red Curry Crusted White Fish

Two 4-ounce whitefish (salmon could work) filets

2 teaspoons red curry past

Preheat oven to 400F. Rub the filets with 1 tsp red curry paste. Lightly coat a large saute pan with canola oil spray. Sear the fish for 1 minute on each side over medium-high heat. Transfer to a baking sheet and bake for 5 to 10 minutes, or until the fish is opaque at the centre, and flakes easily with a fork.  

Cucumber Lemongrass Salsa

1 cup peeled, diced English cucumber

1/2 tablespoon finely minced fresh lemongrass

1/2 tablespoon minced fresh ginger

1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro

1/2 tablespoon chopped fresh mint

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1/2 tablespoon tamari sauce/soy sauce

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

Mix all the ingredients together in a small bowl and set aside or refrigerate until ready to serve.

Rainbow Vegetable Saute

1 teaspoon virgin olive oil

1/2 cup julienned carrots

1/4 cup each julienned red, yellow and orange peppers

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

Freshly ground pepper

Saute the vegetables in the olive oil over medium heat until they begin to wilt and are just cooked through. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Miniature Tri-Coloured Sweet Peppers

Kids will LOVE these sweet and tasty, not to mention colourful, little peppers. They're about the size of your fore-finger and they come in multicoloured groups; it just depends on the tray you pick whether you get more reds or oranges or yellows. They taste less spicy and less pungent than your standard green pepper and even more sweet and subtle than your typical red pepper. They'd be great served whole on a dipping tray with hummous for a bunch of children.

I came across them because I ended up in an overpriced supermarket doing the night before a stat holiday shop in a resort town. I was scanning the aisles for that night's dinner - homemade pizzas and salad - and Good Friday dinner - whitefish, a pepper/fennel/baby bok choy braised side dish, rice. I look in the vegetable stalls for some of the small companies that the big grocery stores are beginning to carry. You can find packages of sugar snap peas, fresh peas, mache lettuce, multi-coloured carrots (purple and white!), heirloom hot peppers, and these mini peppers. The entire tray, about 10 peppers, cost $1.99; that said, they are hardly organic (but doesn't organic now mean the usage of more land? and isn't local better than organic? but what about healthy looking produce from afar when you live in the snow belt? I need colour on my plate when my vista is gray!) - the label is an odd read in itself: distributed by a farm in Indianapolis but produced in Mexico with a thumbs up regarding Vitamin C and a Disney logo and fairy emblem in the top left corner. I have have no idea what this actually means. But I can't imagine they are any worse than picking one of the larger peppers in the large bulk piles.

What I am Reading. Or What I am Feeding of Off. Or What is Inspiring a Feeding Frenzy in My Belly. NOURISH: Canyon Ranch's Cookbook!

I have not been to Canyon Ranch Spa but I have heard of its food, and in the year 2000, it was named Best Spa for Food by Gourmet Magazine. Today I received via Federal Express a nicely padded package with this heavy, hard covered, 2 inch thick, full of colour photographs cookbook. While sitting at my computer and eating my own lunch, I flipped through its covers, wondering if I would find inspiration to cook for one this Easter holiday. As you can see by my little stickies up top, I found many. My time is winding down here in the country along Georgian Bay. After a harsh winter, and snow is still on the ground, it is time to pack up the kitties and the dog, box up my 3,000 books, unscrew my cedar post bed, and put a few more scratches in all my antique furniture as I make move #7 in just 4 years. The moving truck will rattle its way down the Highway 400 passing all the cars of folks driving north in the opposite direction on their way to their lakeside cottages for spring cleans. What I've liked best about being here in relative isolation is the sense of being left entirely alone. Once you slip into that frame of mind, days pass where the telephone becomes an annoyance and you find yourself not answering it, and random, far off social events loom at the back of your head with a cobwebbed sort of dread. I joined a book group of local women thinking the comraderie would do me well. I only made the first meeting. I became a victim of my days schedule, and any puncture, or shift, felt catastrophic. It's a good life, this quiet, introspective union with the seasons, but its perhaps not the healthiest mentally for too long. In the city, I can never hear myself think. Time feels so fleeting and in that desperate grab it sometimes feels less true. If anything will save me from piloting myself to hermetic insanity it will be money. Luckily, I have a slightly superficial aspect to my personality. I will not do without cut tulips, chilled wine, and a few finds from the vintage shop, I Miss You Vintage. So back to Toronto I go to earn money. In the meantime, over the weekend, I'll be cooking from Nourish, indulgently healthy cuisine, sharing recipes with you, and hosting a contest give-a-way.

I'm looking at a Frisee Salad that has sherry vinegar, fennel, mangoes, roasted cashews and crumbled feta included in its ingredients. A Fatoosh Middle Eastern Salad looks delicious and like something I could eat every single day of my life. There's a gorgeous picture of Za'atar-crusted Lamb Chops with Pomegranate Molasses that are singing my name, and served with soft corn polenta and roasted fennel make a perfect Sunday dinner a deux. And two fish dishes that stand out to me are a Coconut-crusted Mahi-mahi (not easily accessible here in Ontario, I'll probably pick a fish that has a similarly dense flesh and flavour) served with bok choy/slivered snow peas, and either Coconut Black Rice or Horseradish Mashed Potatoes, and Chili-Rubbed Tequila Shrimp combine a few of my favourite ingredients, so won't pass this dish by. Check back in with me to see how the cooking goes!

In the meantime, have a wonderful Easter.

Fruits and Vegetables - How to Eat 5 Servings A Day and Save Money

• Drink a glass of grapefruit juice instead of a 5th cup of coffee.
• Cut up celery, cucumbers, radishes, carrots, daikon, peppers, when you first buy them and put in sealed snack bags to take to work or toss into your purse.
• If hit with a hunger pang when out and about, buy a large ripe banana and a bag of baby carrots. Both cheap, healthy, don't need washing, and can be found at local green grocers/larger convenience store type places.
• Do as I did for a day trip (see photo) to the city: I packed my breakfast - a tupperware of canteloup and blackberries, and my lunch - salad with white beans, yellow pepper, escarole lettuce, sunflower seeds, lightly dressed in lemon juice and olive oil with sea salt, and a snack for the afternoon - a bag of green seedless grapes. I have a green and white bag that is lined with plastic and insulated. It fits a few tupperwares into it, or I take it with me when I grocery shop and put my freezer/cold stuff in it with an ice pack.
• At the movies, instead of popcorn, take a refrigerated can of V8 juice and sesame snaps. Or if you insist on eating popcorn save yourself the $7 coconut oil sodium injection and pop your own corn at home in sunflower oil, and season with salt and ground pepper. A jar of organic white popcorn kernals will set you back about 37 cents.
• Buy frozen packs of strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, mango, etc and keep in your freezer for making morning shakes with vanilla soy milk and bananas. Buy bananas that are starting to brown and on sale. Peel them and put them in freezer bags.
• On Monday's during a break or at lunch time, go out and buy fruit for the week that you can keep at the office. That way you will have it on hand when you are hungry and you won't have to lug it in each day, plus the more fragile kinds like pears, mangos, peaches, nectarines, bananas, etc., won't get bruised or beaten up.
• Anyone else have suggestions?