Fin.

And here it is.. Breakfast 365. A year ago today I was nearly 6 months sober. I was also ultra depressed, a little lost (but totally determined), very malnourished and I needed something to hold me accountable in showing up for myself. Breakfast may not seem like a wild revelation but it is if you are having a hard time just functioning in life. Getting out of bed, feeding yourself, doing the dishes… these simple things can be nearly heroic when you are in the thick of a depression. Being as vitamin and nutrient deficient as I was (from years of drinking and taking minimal care of myself) I had zero energy. These are the reasons I chose to make myself breakfast and document it every day for a full year. I have also always wanted to be a writer.. but I wasn’t writing. I wanted to have a consistent creative outlet but I wasn’t sticking to that either. This was a strange and challenging year for sticking to anything but I did it. Huzzah! While I didn’t post every single day - I did eat. I made myself something beautiful and nourishing every single GD day. To regain my health, my self trust, my self worth and I’m here to say it worked. I put on some weight, began to balanced out my hormones, balanced out my mind. My relationship with myself. It changed the choices I make around food. It changed how and why I indulge myself. It helped with my anxiety more than words could say. I am crazy grateful for all of that but the biggest thing this year gave me is the strength to be vulnerable. I didn’t really set out to talk about my sobriety. A year ago today - being sober was still really just for me. Something I only really talked about with close friends. It didn’t feel too much like anyone else’s business. At some point though I realized it was inauthentic to leave it out of the conversation. I was not ashamed but I was afraid of becoming defined by something I do not do. Afraid of being judged if I fell back into drinking. If I failed - again. Of course one of the gifts of getting sober and having a clear mind is fully knowing that the only person who can judge or define you is yourself. Logically of course I knew that all along but it took some time to really feel that truth in my guts and my bones.. and my heart. I want to thank everyone for reading and subscribing. For all the emails and messages. For being vulnerable with me. That was something I could not have imagined when I started this and if ever there was a year I needed that it was this one. I am going to continue to post here. To keep talking about food and philosophy, pop music, sobriety and recipes for things to help others on their healing journey. I have some new things in the works that I will be able to share soon too.

Day 365: Quinoa and kimchi cakes with sautéed kale and a poached egg. I made 3 cakes but dropped one. Gravity, man.. a gift, a curse and often the source of a good laugh.

Eccentricities

I feel that in sobriety everyone comes to the fun realization that they are a bit eccentric. That’s probably one of my favorite things about the sober community. We are a surprising bunch. You never know what we will get into. As we regain our energy and find that we have more time on our hands we start to spend it in new surprising ways. I have friends who took up mambo lessons, opened a bike shop, or started making their own fireworks, guitars, guns, bread, caftans… Others who learned to speak mandarin, train dogs for a living, remodel homes, become MMA fighters, counselors and well, the list is just endless. I too have done a lot of things with all my new energy and time that surprised me. Things I maybe talked about but never followed through on. Some things that had never dawned on me before. I went back to school, I taught myself how to animate and then even took some classes on that front. I finished a series of paintings (depressive, still-life, shy nudes - I like to call them). I picked up my camera again and got to know my neighborhood really well and then… I started foraging. Weekly. Sometimes daily. If you would have told me I’d be nearly forty and roaming around my neighborhood with a big fat grin on my face shaking down and climbing up all my neighbors trees on the reg I would have felt very misunderstood but, you would have been right. This year I have come home with peaches, dandelion greens, blackberries, loquats, onions, pecans, grapefruits, limes, chives, mustang grapes and herbs that helped me survive the heat and any anxiety that was creeping around. Right now citrus is in season. These little satsuma oranges are sweet, easy to peel and to pilfer as it turns out. Before you wag your finger at me for thieving - I only forage things I see going to waste. A lot of people around here ignore their fruit trees. I’m simply filling the void and showing my gratitude for the abundance I live in. What grows in your neighborhood? What seemingly weird hobby have you picked up in sobriety?

Day 310: Sautéed kale, scallions, red potatoes, leftover steak, loads of garlic and serranos with pumpkin seeds, pecans and bloobs. I cooked it all with a little ghee and added some lemon at the end. The citrus helps you absorb all the iron in the greens and having been anemic back in my drinking days I do what I can to keep anemia at bay.

A for Effort

Focus on the effort - not the results.. that is what they say. This is a good rule of thumb when it comes to engaging with other people. It is true after all. The only thing we control is the effort we put in. The rest of it is out of our hands. We have no say over what someone else might do. How they may react or respond. I am beginning to believe that this may apply to gluten free baking as well. I feel like I’ve been showing up but something isn’t being reciprocated. I remain patient and optimistic but no longer have any expectations. That being said I have to admit it.. the zucchini bread hurt my feelings (and my jaw). So I got up this morning to give it one last go. I got the waffle iron piping hot and set out to make some “redemption waffles”… Sunday is a good day for redemption. I had to keep trying. My gluten free experiments have felt like throwing pasta at the wall and watching it hit the floor, repeatedly. For the record, I am willing to bet that gluten is what makes pasta stick to the wall in the first place. I just want to simply be okay at this. I like an alternative or progressive recipe. I want to be able to omit, replace and make substitutions in the kitchen, on the fly. I feel like I pulled it off this time! I am pretty satisfied with these here waffles. Sure I could see them being forcibly removed from a Waffle House at 2am for being nuts but that’s a right of passage. Right? I kid. That only happened to me once and it was because I played 1999 on the jukebox 12 times in a row. They were the ones who gave me all those quarters! Haters gonna hate. But anyone who gave this recipe a spin couldn’t honestly hate these waffles.

Day 186: Almond flour waffles with peanut butter, blueberries and bananas. Topped with more bananas, fresh bloobs, maple syrup and seeds. Pro tip: mix all your favorite seeds in a jar and leave it on your table with the salt and pepper to garnish everything. Get that extra nutrients in.

1 large egg (separated)
1/2 cup almond flour
2 Tbsp preferred sweetener (I used brown sugar because that’s what I had)
1/2 tsp gluten free baking powder
1/4 tsp sea salt (use sea salt of the mineral content)
2 Tbsp peanut butter (or any nut butter, peanut is what I had on hand)
1/4 unsweetened almond milk
2 Tbsp butter or coconut oil
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 banana
1/4 cup bloobs aka blueberries

Whisk together all your dry ingredients in a big bowl.
Melt your butter (or coconut oil) and nut butter together
Slice your banana into 1/4 inch thick pieces
Whip your egg whites until stiff (do this with a hand mixer unless you are glutton for punishment)
Now it’s time to add all the wet stuff to your dry stuff together but save the egg whites for last and gently fold them in. You want the volume of the egg whites to lift the batter.

Grease your waffle iron and add 1/2 a cup of batter per waffle. Throw some banana slices and blueberries on top then close it up. I let my waffles cook a little longer so they’re crispy and the fruit gets a chance to caramelize. You can peak in on them from time to time. Takes no more than 6 or 7 minutes.

Change

Today my neighborhood is loosing one of it’s farms. Yes, luckily we are blessed with a few but.. this one has been my favorite. Eden.. that’s what they called it. And rightfully so. I walk or ride my bike there two times a week and it has been that way for years. This land fed me through quarantine. The lovely folks who tend to it donated food to a recovery center I worked with. They have been my neighbors and a beautiful part of the culture in this place I call home. Beyond feeding me this farm played a big roll in the early days of my sobriety. Like many of us who quit drinking I found I had more time for hobbies. I bought a camera. A Pentax K100, like the one I had in high school. I took with me to the farm every week for a year. I was newly waking up with sun and the farm was on the same schedule. It was constantly shifting and growing too. In a variety of big and small ways. Some overwhelmingly obvious and others like a rumor. All of it had this rhythm that I needed to reconnect with. I was so out of touch with myself. I needed sun and dirt. I needed to witness things get dug up to make room for new crops. New seasons. I needed to be reminded that everything eventually becomes compost. How the ease of the morning sun becomes relentlessly bright, wilting everything in its path before it stretches out and breaks into shadows around rush hour. The process and evolution of it all was something I had forgotten. but could relate to. In a very grounded and natural way. Bringing my camera along helped me remember that there is always another perspective. I am so grateful for these photos now. Not simply because soon that land will have yet another condo building on it.. but because they remind me how beautiful change can be despite how challenging and uncomfortable it tends to feel in the moment. I will miss the convenience and the energy if the farm but I’m comforted in knowing that they are not done. They are simply moving to a new space. I hope their new neighbors appreciate them as much as I have.

Here are some favorites from that year. I shot black white film almost exclusively at the time and I think it was because so much of me wanted the world to be simple like that. If you’d like to see more shots from the farm or if you want to see some other places I wandered around aimlessly with my camera they can be found here.

Day 185: Scrambled eggs with pesto and Parmesan.. with my attempt at a gluten free savory zucchini bread… was it the worst thing I’ve ever made? No. But It was dry enough to have me worried that I might choke to death alone in my apartment and become a statistic. So thumbs down on this experiment.

What is new and good? II

A while back I mentioned that all of my work calls start off with a little round of “What is new and good?” I want to turn that into Monday ritual here on Naked and Eggs. Kicking the week off with some gratitude couldn’t hurt. So let’s get into it! I’ll go first. What IS new and good?

1. I have taken on a few private clients as a health coach and they have all been a lot of fun to work with! This new line of work is proving to be even more satisfying than I originally imagined. I feel more optimistic right now than I have since maybe January. Can’t spit at that.

2. My handstand game is getting strong! It is amazazing what daily practice will do for you.

3. All my tomatoes are starting to come in and they are beautiful! I generally do not eat a lot of night shades. They can cause inflammation. BUT in an effort to eat more (or strictly) seasonally I’ve decided to just let myself enjoy all the tomatoes, peppers, potatoes and eggplants the world is dishing out right now with wild abandon. My gut tells me that the Mother Nature knows what I need to be eating and when so I’ll roll with it until I am given a reason not to. Come what may!.. As they say.

That feels like a good place to stop. I’d love to hear from all of you in the comments! Let me know what is new and good in your world.

Day 159: Kale salad with coconut oil and brags amino acids, cucumbers, zebra tomatoes (grown by yours truly), marinated tofu and sesame seeds. Not pictured: The banana I ate while I made this salad situation happen.

Look Mom! No hands!

Last night I was prowling around on my bike. Watching the moon come up. Racing the fire flies and sweating out the day. I’ve been feeling more confident on two wheels lately. Cruising the back streets I finally did it. I stretched out my arms and flew down the road, hands free! Queen of the world! I know this seems like something I might have mastered in childhood but truth is I have been heavily bike-afraid since I was 10. I had an accident that resulted in a month long hospital stay, major emergency surgery and 187 stitches on the right side of my head. Riding at all feels fairly heroic to my inner child. So a hands free cruise is kind of a huge deal. I was scared but it was great! …She said repeatedly throughout her life… I am totally going to do it again. I never thought that this is what crowding 40 would look like. That this is the kind of thing that’s got me still surprising myself. I’m not sure I ever imagined it all that well. I feel like my mind drew a long gray blank between 35 and 50. Some kind of dead zone. Like the actual place where the side walk ends or the closet door opens only to reveal a desert full of hungry two headed Saturnian sandworms.. you know, a decade (and change) long bummer. I’m grateful to be feeling well balanced and optimistic about whatever is ahead.

Day 130: Hot Salad for life! Six minute egg, kale, Hungarian wax peppers, crispy leeks, seared golden tomatoes, tahini, feta, dukkah and.. blueberries. I’ve decided that blueberries are a fine addition to anything at all. Full of antioxidants, vitamin C, K and Manganese plus they are about 85% water. They help repair your DNA that has been damaged by free radicals (a thing I feel has yet to earn its ultra fun title). Plus, studies show that blueberries can delay the aging of your brain. Keeping you sharp for whatever happens in the dead zone and beyond.