The World’s Most Interesting Man

Yacht races: what could possibly be more glamorous, luxurious, and filthy rich-sounding?

If you answered “nothing”, you would be correct! After all, Nothing sounds more rich and high-rolling than a yacht race.

The proof is in the picture!

Whenever the Memorial Day weekend hits the United States, we– the citizens of Victoria BC– are hit with a yacht race: the Swiftsure International Yacht Race, to be more specific. At the end of May each year, hundreds of luxury yachts cruise into the Inner Harbour and prepare to race up to 140 nautical miles in the Juan de Fuca Strait. Visitors pour into our humble city in the hopes of snapping some impressive photos of the yachts in action, and the locals are whipped into a frenzy as well, either because they love a good yacht race, too, or because they can’t freaking find a solitary parking space downtown, for the love of god!!!

Anyway. My dear husband– artist, entrepreneur, and general Man of Mystery– created a new, yacht-themed painting just in time for this year’s Swiftsure Race. It featured the race’s most prominent, recognizable, and well-decorated catamaran: the Dragonfly. We had it on display at our booth this weekend, and guess who scored an invitation to be an honorary crew member on a yacht because of it?

Yep: Marty!

Marty was invited to grace the Legend 45 with his handsome, interesting, and hopefully-not-seasick-prone self for the shorter of the Swiftsure races– not the full 140 nautical mile race (obviously), because that would involve suspending his better judgment for 24+ hours. The Legend 45 needed an extra crew member for the inland race, and what better crew member to recruit than a man who had never been sailing in his entire life before?

At least he can *look* the part!

“Do you have any boating experience?”, the skipper asked my dear husband.

“Nope” came Marty’s honest answer.

“Well, do you know how to handle ropes or tie any nautical knots?”

Again, “Nope” was the answer, offered with utmost sincerity.

“No matter– we’ll see you at the docks tomorrow morning at 8:30 am!”

I was pretty excited about Marty’s upcoming sojourn on the sea. How glamorous! How exotic! How luxurious! I pictured my suave partner donning a gold suit and ultramarine dress shirt for the race, his (rather short) hair whipping in the wind to the delight of his fellow 80s band crew members. There would possibly be suggestive hip-juttings and sultry poses on board as the yacht sliced through choppy waves at blistering speeds, but these questionable antics would all be in the name of High Fashion, Glamour, and Princess Diana’s Pop Music. (Hey– the only mental image I have of yacht races comes courtesy of the iconic Duran Duran video, Rio– what can I say?):

My dear husband: stand-in for the fabulous Simon Le Bon?

I could have been the Exotic Other on board, but I declined the invitation to be the Token Female amidst a bunch of crude, middle-aged sailor men.

Marty was a lot more nervous about the Swiftsure Race, however. His mental images of boats at sea were drawn more from disaster movies like A Perfect Storm and perhaps also Jaws, so he worried about getting tossed overboard into dark and churning waters or having his hands get mangled by ropes as he furiously attempted to secure something-nautical-or-other on deck:

"Watch the hands!! I need these to paint!"

Both of us agreed on one thing, though: the Swiftsure Race would be fast and the winds would be furious– our opinions only differed on the degrees to which we assumed (or even hoped?) that expensive gold suits and ultramarine-saturated dress shirts would be involved.

Imagine Marty’s utter deflation, then, when this year’s race turned into a dreaded “Driftsure”– a weekend of little to no winds. The starting gun fired, and instead of hurtling forward in a dazzling display of coloured sails and skilled seamanship, the Legend 45 drifted backwards. Verrrrrry slooooooooowly. The entire inland (short) race was expected to take between 4 and 5 hours to complete, but the Legend 45 required a full 4 hours to make it back to the starting buoy– so much was it struggling against tides, currents, and a decided lack of breeze!

(Clearly, the whole point of the race is to sail, not to use any motors to power the yachts forward. The sails were up, but the wind was definitely down.)

I was at the Harbour this whole time, daydreaming about Marty’s unexpected promotion into the upper echelons of class and wealth. Marty! Sailing! Yacht race! Richness!! (I chose not to dwell on the skippers’ professed love of beer swilling in these fantasies and mentally substituted any real-life crassness or crudeness with Simon Le Bon hair and velvet 80s vocals, respectively. Her name is Rio…)  I was quite surprised– nay, shocked– to get a phone call from my dearest a full hour after he was expected to return to the Harbour, confirming that the real racing was just getting underway. Driftsure, indeed! He ended up docking at 8 pm, which meant a full 10 hours were spent at sea.

Cheap green anoraks are the new expensive gold suits, don't you know..

Luckily, the experience was not entirely for naught– Marty captured some great photos of the race and the colourful sails that he would never have been able to get from our station at the Harbour (when all the sails are down). He also got to cross “Race a Yacht” and “Re-Enact a Classic 80s Music Video” off of his Bucket List. And as for me? I had that stupid What do you do with a drunken sailor? song stuck in my head all day, and it miraculously ceased when my dizzy but victorious sailor set his sea-legs back on dry land. Thank goodness!

Try A Little Tenderness

Hello, world– and welcome to my week-and-a-half-ish check in! Yes, it has been nearly 10 days since I’ve posted (and an equal amount of time since I’ve found the time to comment on other people’s blogs- whoops!), but instead of pummeling my fragile self over this, I’ve decided to adopt a more novel approach: I’m just going to be okay with it.

Image borrowed from http://www.anonymousfatgirl.com/

‘Why so gentle and understanding of the circumstances so suddenly’, you might ask?

Last week, I happened to attend a speech on Marty’s behalf. He wasn’t able to attend the talk himself because he had a cycling race that night. (This was a tad ironic, because the talk was all about thriving in competitive athletics on a vegan diet.) Anyway. Being the considerate person and loving wife that I am, I signed up for the talk for Marty’s sake and rode my bike there, notebook and pen in hand. I didn’t expect that this talk would have any personal relevance for me, given that I am not at all a competitive athlete and that I am practically a vegan anyway (I haven’t even eaten eggs in a few weeks because the time needed to prepare them– 10 solid minutes– has escaped me!) So I was blown away when the talk started out something like this:

“Are you here to learn about the foods that can help you succeed as a vegan athlete? (yes) Are you here to lose weight? (why, yes!) Are you here to learn the secrets of raw veganism? (sure, why not?) Then you might as well leave right now and get your money back, because you already know the answers to these questions.” (um, pardon me?)

To my pleasant shock and surprise, instead of being a (probably boring) speech about vitamin B12, plant enzymes, probiotics, and protein, this gentleman spoke for over 2 hours about the psychology of eating and emotional eating. I was enraptured. Totally consumed by every word. Convinced that this person had been sent to Victoria by God himself to give this talk specifically to me. It was amazing. I actually felt a little choked up listening to it! And it took every bit of will power and focus I had not to blabber on like a Creepy Super Fan when the time came to thank the speaker in person afterward.

OMG! You are my super hero! I loved every single word you spoke tonight! Can I have your autograph???

This talk was all about the things we do as people that inadvertently/subconsciously sabotage our efforts to “get healthy” or “go vegan” or “[insert grand ambition here]“. He talked about how we declare to ourselves that we will “Go Vegan!” or “Go Raw!” or “Lose 25 Pounds!” or “Run A Marathon!“, but we rarely start out from the real starting line on our journeys– i.e. from a place of accepting ourselves as we are already. When we stand tall and boldly declare that we will Fit Into A Size Six!!, we are secretly saying to ourselves is that we are not okay at any other size, which means that we are probably not okay with ourselves as we are, right now. The way the speaker put it was that we are trying to start at the finish line of our race. The marathon of life (or weight loss, or veganism, or whatever) is starting miles and miles away from us, but there we are at the finish line, looking into the pretend mirror and saying stupid affirmations to ourselves like “I am a winner! I succeed at running! I can run a marathon and be a beautiful, fit person!”… all the while not actually running or actually doing anything to move forward.

Image from www.deviantart.com

Wowza.

Suffice it to say, after 2+ hours of listening to this pure genius talk about all of the issues that were eating at my very soul, I left feeling full of thankfulness and gratitude. I don’t want to beat myself up or hate myself over trivial things and circumstances that are beyond my control. I want to be gentle and accepting of myself and to try a little tenderness! Even two weeks ago, my strategy for Life in General went something like this: Eat perfectly, work perfectly, blog perfectly. exercise perfectly, sleep perfectly, and look fabulous doing it. No mistakes or deviations from perfection allowed!! Now, it’s a little more like this: Eat the best that I can, even if it means ordering take out food or buying treats; accept that we work a lot during the summers and be thankful for our pretty awesome source of income; blog and comment on other blogs when I can, even if it means I won’t crack the 10-post mark this month; exercise when I can; sleep when I can; and look fairly decent doing it!

The new strategy seems to be working alright so far, but I’ll admit that sometimes it feels like I am still liking myself out of pity and sympathy instead of actually liking myself “just because”. (To use the earlier analogy, occasionally I find myself standing at the finish line of Liking Myself instead of working through the starting issues of not always liking myself 100%. I’m working on it!) Mostly, I am just thankful to have been directed to that talk last week. I really needed to hear it. (Should we all hold hands now and sing Kumbaya?)

And how are you doing lately?

Bring me up to speed in the comments section below! (Maybe I’m more likely to succeed at reading short paragraphs about your recent goings-on instead of 5 long blog posts every week? There’s only one way to find out!)

PS: The talk was given by Tim VanOrden of Running Raw fame. Without sounding like I’m the president of his Teenage Fan Club, I thought his talk was awesome.

“Balance” and Other Figments of My Imagination

It would be misleading and downright dishonest of me to brag about the small successes I’ve had in my personal Beauty Detox Journey without also sharing the challenges I’ve faced and the obstacles I’ve encountered. For one thing, I haven’t exactly been diligent when it comes to monitoring my intake of sweet foods and (randomly– since I haven’t eaten them in a while) baked goods. For another thing, I have put on more than 5 pounds in less than 5 weeks, which may or may not have anything to do with the resurgence of my sweet tooth. What do you think?

Funnily enough, shortly after posting an online confession about my sordid history of sneaking food and eating copious amounts of candy, I started craving sugar again. I had been fine for a relatively long period of time before writing that post, but getting that secret out into the open must have kicked up some old, sugary dust. I found myself gravitating towards homemade truffles in Costco-sized servings and soon afterward, I developed particularly violent yearnings for homemade berry cake, also in Costco-worthy portions. What gives?

While I was busy inhaling family-sized portions of homemade treats (I bake in bulk!), I told myself that things could be much, much worse: I could be eating Twinkies washed down with Dairy Queen Blizzards and Pepsi every day. I could be camping out at the Lil Debbies’ headquarters every night. It could be worse… right?

Yes.

But it could also be better.

When I outgrew my ‘off-season’, regular-sized pants and had to squeeze into my roomier, ‘Harbour-sized’ jeans a full 3 months early, I knew the gig was up. I had (disappointingly) (hopefully only temporarily) failed at the Beauty Detox Program.   (<— that’s how sad it was to get to this point, very recently I’ll confess. Sad x 3)

Obviously, I’ve been finding it particularly challenging to establish balance in my day-to-day life since returning to work on the Harbour. A prototypical late-June baby (Cancerian through and through!), I am a creature of habit, and having my normal routines disrupted substantially by my new work hours has left me floundering. A lot. When I’d normally be cooking, working out, doing chores, or blogging, I am now down by the water. Working! All day long! With nary an all-access pass to Ye Olde Internet! I’ve been especially cranky lately, and my poor body has been going into overdrive trying to reclaim at least a semblance of balance again.

What does this have to do with balance? This, my friends, is photographic proof that I have been doing other things besides working at the Harbour-- in this case, hiking-- even if only for a few precious hours.

Unfortunately, my body’s idea of “balance” doesn’t necessarily involve striving for moderation in everything. Instead, it overcompensates for any perceived extremes in my life by hurtling me in the exact opposite direction until a zero-sum state of equilibrium has been achieved.

E.g.: Eating monster-sized portions of leafy greens and other healthy foods? Better round things off with Godzilla-sized slabs of cake! You can thank me later!

Lost 8 pounds recently with careful attention paid to diet and exercise? Whoopsies! Guess we’ll have to tip the scales back up to your starting weight– nothing lost, nothing gained! LOL!

Taking a healthy step back from work-related tasks during the off season? Looks like it’s time to work around the clock again! All work, no play! Back to the grind, little miss! xoxo!!

I must say that I’m pretty mortified (bordering on devastated) to find myself in this predicament, especially so early into the Harbour season. I hate not being able to blog, and it irritates me to have my entire life revolve around work (even though I’m extremely fortunate to work where I do and I love working with Marty as well. I know that I’m a very lucky lady, which apparently gives me permission to whine excessively about trivial matters. Heh.) I know that my weight, especially, is just a stone-cold number on a icy-hearted machine, but still. It’s no fun having to bust out my stretchy pants ever, let alone way ahead of schedule. (Long-term readers will recall that I have recorded an 8-pound weight gain during both of my previous two Harbour seasons. At least I’m consistent! (??) *Frantically trying to look on the bright side. Also: Grasping at straws.*

I know, I know. I mustn’t beat myself up over the decided lack of balance in my life (or those extra pounds in my pants, to be more specific). It’s time to just pick myself up and move on like the Big Girl I am. (Literally. Har har.)

Do I look as weary as I sometimes feel these days?

I envy the people who can (or already have) achieved real balance in their lives and who don’t have to obsess over maintaining it every waking second of every day. Wouldn’t it be nice to gravitate naturally– almost effortlessly– towards a perfect state of equilibrium? An equal amount of time spent working and playing? Online and offline? Eating healthily and occasionally indulging? (Do such people and lifestyles even exist?)

I’m not there yet. But I’ve got my eyes on that prize. Yes, you heard me, Balance: I’m watching you…

No one does this quite as well as De Niro does, am I right or am I right?

Fermented Food: If It Doesn’t Poison You, It Will Make You Healthier (…Right?)

I have never been a big fan of cabbage: let’s just get that out there in the open. Cabbage and I have a surface-level friendship at best, one whose stilted conversations (at mandatory social functions such as summer barbecues and family reunion picnics, etc.) are fraught with long and uncomfortable silences. Oh, hey Cabbage– I acknowledge your existence as a vegetable… I guess. [extended pause while Cabbage and I telepathically affirm our decided lack of common ground.] Well, I’ve got to go now. Have a good day, and easy on the mayonnaise!

I have never ordered coleslaw in a restaurant or made it myself at home, and cabbage is definitely not at the top (or even at the bottom) of my grocery list. Cabbage is like the Ugly Duckling of the vegetable kingdom; the socially awkward kid you used to say hello to in the hallways at school just to be polite; the stinky and inexpensive last-resort foodstuff; the least glamorous item in the produce aisle. No seriously, Dana– tell me how you really feel.

It is in this context of general cabbage hating that I inexplicably launched into making my own Countertop Sauerkraut a short while ago. Yes, me! And cabbage!! Who knew that I– She of the Cabbophobia and Upturned Cabbage Patch Nose– would ever purchase copious amounts of the green stuff, ferment it in a jar, and then actually attempt to eat it, all the while praying that I wasn’t going to contract some deadly strain of food poisoning? Never say never, my friends: Never say never!

Preparing for the solemn sauerkraut-making task ahead

Of course, this was all undertaken as part of my Personal Beauty Detox Journey. Kimberly Snyder provides a recipe for what she lovingly refers to as “Probiotic and Enzyme Salad” in her book. I was all excited to try this exotic-sounding dish until I realized that it was basically cabbage. Fermented cabbage at that. Blech. However, in the spirit of trying new things and blossoming into a shimmering goddess of radiant health, I forged ahead with the recipe and made my own, honest-to-god raw sauerkraut! (Naturally, with some pitfalls along the way. What else would you expect from me? Almond milk, anyone?) Allow me now to outline how I managed to eff this really simple recipe up not once, but twice, before finally getting it right. Heh.

My First Attempt At Making Raw Sauerkraut

There are a total of four ingredients in this particular sauerkraut recipe: shredded cabbage, fresh ginger, miso paste, and water. The instructions are basically “mix” and “put in a jar”, but somehow I still managed to get things wrong from the get go. (Leave it to me, right?)

My Vita-Mix blender and KitchenAid food processor: partners in crime!

My first mistake was purchasing a medium-sized cabbage that apparently wasn’t “medium-sized” enough. Thus, my inaugural batch of sauerkraut ended up looking like shredded cabbage soup in the jar– there was a ton of liquid and not nearly as much cabbage.

Something about this looks a little... off... no?

The recipe is supposed to yield 12 cups of sauerkraut. My modest-sized cabbage was on par to yield me 3 or 4-ish cups of kraut and 4-5 cups of brine… if I was being overly generous with my cabbage tally and grossly underestimating the amount of liquid I’d have left over. Is this how my sauerkraut is supposed to look?, I asked myself doubtfully as I tucked my jar of sloshing liquid into the back of a kitchen cupboard. For some reason, I think this is supposed to look more cabbage-y.

Yes, this definitely doesn't look right.

Nevertheless, I let the gigantic jar of brine (and a modest amount of shredded cabbage) sit in my cupboard for the recommended 5 days. Then I let it sit for an extra 4 days when it didn’t seem “fermented” enough to my untrained eye. (What does “fermented” even look like? Should it bubble? Froth? Foam? Smell? Snap, crackle, and pop? Hiss? How should I know?)

Finally, after ten or so days of stealing wary glances at this jar of suspicious liquid, the moment of truth arrived: it was time to eat a half-cup of the fermented kraut with my dinner. Could I do it? Could I overcome my lifelong aversion to cabbage? Would my decision to eat fermented cabbage come back to haunt me in the form of food poisoning, violent projectile vomiting, chills, fevers, rashes, or even an untimely death?  

My sauerkraut jar, after 10 days spent in the back of my kitchen cupboard

Nope! (Obviously, it didn’t kill me, since I am still alive– enough– to tell you this tale.) I ate the kraut, after fishing some lonely cabbage flakes out from the virtual pond of brine. Amazingly, it was delicious! Super delicious, in fact– I was beyond surprised! Emboldened by my success at Winning Sauerkraut (despite technically failing the easiest sauerkraut recipe on the planet), I went ahead and made another batch.

My Second Attempt At Making Raw Sauerkraut

[I have no accompanying photos for my second go-round at making sauerkraut. The reasons for this will become evident rather quickly.] This time around, I bought a much bigger cabbage. I also purchased different (smaller) jars to put the kraut in so I could have multiple, cuter jars of sauerkraut available in place of my Big Mother Sauerkraut Jar. (By my reasoning, the new jars would look more quaint in the fridge after the fermentation process had been completed, it would be easier to fork sauerkraut out of smaller jars vs. one gigantic and deep jar, and did I mention that the smaller jars were cuter looking?)

The shredding of the cabbage and the mixing of the ingredients came so easily and naturally the second time around– I was sure I was going to be a Sauerkraut Making Professional. Everything fit so snugly into the cuter jars. My cabbage looked so great and perfect when I lovingly tucked it into my kitchen cupboards to ferment. I win countertop sauerkraut!, I announced to myself as I washed the prep dishes afterward. I deserve silent congratulations and a symbolic pat on my own back!

When I went to check on my jars after 24 hours had elapsed in the cupboards, I noticed that they were sitting in small puddles of liquid. It was then that it dawned on me, the Perpetually Slow Learner, that I had possibly– nay, definitely– packed my cute, small jars too full of cabbage and brine. The fermentation process had started, but there was not enough breathing room left in the jars for the mixture to properly expand. Something would have to give, and that something would most likely be glass. Images of shattered mason jars and shredded cabbage all over my kitchen cupboards came to mind.

Uh-oh.

I resigned myself to utilizing my Big Mother Sauerkraut Jar once again (pictured above). I would just transfer this newly fermented cabbage from the two small jars into the one big jar. Easy peasy, right? WRONG! Because my brain is wired to be School Smart and Not At All Street Smart, I simply opened the first of my stuffed-to-the-top cute jars like I was mindlessly twisting open a container of peanut butter.

This was not a wise move.

Suddenly unencumbered by the protective vacuum seal, shredded cabbage and brine exploded all over the kitchen (and over my clothes, and into my hair) with the force of one of those t-shirt cannons they use at half time for football games. Kapow!! Fermented juice and smelly cabbage EVERYWHERE!!! On the walls, on the ceiling, on the floor, on the countertops, on my jeans, all over my girly top– sauerkraut was literally everywhere. What a way to suddenly round third base with the otherwise awkward and socially inept cabbage patch kid! Who knew I would get so up close and personal with cabbage??

[This is why I did not take any photos. I was too infuriated and otherwise occupied with picking shredded cabbage out of my ponytail to care about documenting this ordeal on camera.] Through gritted teeth, I salvaged what I could of the mixture, stuffed it into my large jar, and then braced myself to open the second small jar.

This time, I opened the jar carefully and in the safety of my kitchen sink. It still went KAPOW!!, but most of the carnage was inflicted on the sink instead of all over the kitchen (and, more importantly, on me!) Again, I salvaged what I could and transferred the cabbage into my Big Jar for fermenting.

This batch, despite the trials and tribulations I endured to make it, also yielded delicious results, so when the third time comes around for making my own raw sauerkraut, I’ll be totally prepared:

1. I’ll know what size of cabbage constitutes a “medium”.

2. I purchased an extra cute jar so I won’t have to stuff my original ones so tightly with cabbage again.

3. I will never again open a vacuum-sealed jar of still-fermenting cabbage right in front of my precious face and slower-than-average brain. It’s not worth it!

—————————————————————

PS: My middle sister, who is a Raw Foods Champion and also an honorary She-Ra of Foods That Are Good For You, expressed shock and concern over the miso paste and ginger that are used in this particular recipe. (Apparently she makes her own Countertop Kraut using nothing but cabbage and some high-quality sea salts, but who was I to argue with a recipe that Kimberly Snyder explicitly calls “sacred” in her book?) I have since learned from K.S. herself that the miso and ginger are basically just added for yummy flavour, so if you decide to embark on your own kraut-making adventure, these two ingredients aren’t 100% necessary. Otherwise, go nuts!