The Gloden Golbes

I’ve decided to award my own version of the Golden Globes because, as usual, despite the winners being totally okay I felt like some really truly excellent work was steamrolled and ignored… Drumroll please!

A gorgeous, lyrical film, Beasts of the Southern Wild was as dramatic as any historical French musical, as brave as Zero Dark Thirty, as poetically filmed as Life of Pi, as quirky as Moonrise Kingdom… you get the idea. I’m giving it best MOVIE of the year.

Oh yeah, and while we’re at it, this child (Quvenzhane Wallis) out-acted pretty much everyone nominated this year. And if we’re going to even give Lincoln another over-rated second of discussion, let’s talk about David Strathairn out-acting Daniel Day-Lewis up and down that stage-lit movie set. (The makeup was fantastic, though…! Ahem to my awesome friend Shelley…!) 😉

And as far as a television drama… You know a show’s really got to be something special when you can get a bunch of crime serial/sitcom/reality tv watching Americans to sit down and rabidly devour an English period drama like Downton Abby. Just sayin’. I totally like Homeland but lawd I was going for Downton…!I don’t even want to talk about Walking Dead not even making considerations… and Mad Men…?! What the heck happened there…?! Gar.

-e

 

 

 

Juicing My Way

So I juiced my first juice yesterday…

After days of pouring over juicers online, I finally decided on the Breville Compact Juice Fountain, partly because of its great reviews and price point, but then I ultimately chose it because it’s the juicer he uses in Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead for a 60-day juice fast, so I know it’s gonna go the long road… In his case, literally, from the back of his car, but I digress… 🙂

It arrived on Wednesday. (It’s also significantly cuter than the other one I was torn between. Aesthetics, folks, gotta have ’em.)

There are a ton of juicing recipes online, but I stocked my fridge with fruits and veggies that looked good to me and I’m just going to try a little trial and error for the next week or two until I find my groove… I didn’t really buy any supplements other than spirulina, so that’ll be a whole ‘nother thing.

I decided that my first attempt should be a green juice, since those are the ones I like to drink most often. I decided to go with spinach, kale, apple and kiwi.

I also threw in a few spirulina tablets as a protein supplement and some lemon…

Overall, the juice totally rocked my world and I couldn’t be more pleased with the juicer! I glanced at the assembly/disassembly directions but found the whole process to be pretty self-evident, i.e. everything fits one way in a certain order and there aren’t a ton of parts.

After making the juice you just take it apart piece by piece, dump out all the pulp, and then rinse or wash it. Viola! You’re done!

Today’s juice was more of a smoothie, and tomorrow I think I might go a little V-8-y on this piece… 🙂 

 

Have a lovely day!

-e

 

 

 

 

A Plant-O-Riffic Plan

I mentioned the other day that I’d watched Vegucated, a film full of information  about American food processing standards (which are gross) and it also touched on the industry’s total disregard for the well-being of the animals during their sad little lives. I understand why we eat meat although there are non-animal proteins and fats we can consume; often it comes down to the fact that bacon is just plain delicious.

What I cannot get on board with are the miserable lives these animals have, regardless of whether they’re being raised for eating, for their milk, or for their eggs. I mean, SUPER UNNECESSARILY MISERABLE. Free range chickens and antibiotic-free cows are being treated perhaps LESS BAD than the others, but there’s just no reason to treat any animal like a non-living entity.

I don’t want to get too into it (I recommend watching the movie on Netflix instant view if you’re interested in the topic), and I’m not trying to control everyone else’s diet or moral compass… But for now, C and I are gonna try to take a hiatus from meat, eggs, and dairy for the majority of our meals.

Armed with some vegan product recommendations from a few good friends (see my on-going Pinterest board if you’re interested), I whipped up my first vegan meal last night. I think the term “vegan” has a negative stigma to it, though, so let’s say that I just made “my first delicious plant-o-riffic meal.” ha.

Gotta work on my nighttime stovetop photos, but I made lentils and rice with a squeeze of lemon, and stuffed portobello mushrooms.

Vegan Products Used:

Trader Joe’s Steamed Lentils: Designed for easy microwave or stovetop preparation, these were totally easy and quite tasty, already slightly seasoned and ready in like 3 minutes. I’ll probably go back and buy these in bulk.

Daiya Mozzarella Style Shreds: Looks, smells, and tastes like mozzarella – I was shocked! Between saving on fat and calories plus the added bonus of being vegan, I think I’ll keep buying this product on the reg.

Uncle Ben’s Instant Brown Rice: I don’t know if the instant rice is less nutritious but I’m a busy gal with a busy schedule so I’ll keep buying it.

(Plus kale, garlic, lemon, balsamic vinegar, sea salt and hot pepper flakes.)

So vegan  plant-based, dairy-free meal #1 turned out to be totally tasty and just as quick and easy and fulfilling as my other favorite standby; steak frites. Go team.

Hair today, gone tomorrow.

For the last two-ish years I’ve been growing my hair out, which means pulling my hair back out of my face because I’m just not that girl who’s gonna spend 45 minutes in the morning blowdrying and straightening. I finally decided there was no point to having longer hair -FOR FUN- if I couldn’t bring myself to do anything fun with it! (Example A, below, from Christmas, a pretty standard look.)

Despite years and years of having short hair, I was a little anxious, but once we got going it felt more and more like the right decision.

These are morning bedhead photos so time will only tell if I’ll figure out how to style it and ahem, HAVE FUN with it… But I think I’m up to the challenge. Now off to school – it’s our first day back and I’m ready for a new start!

-e

 

2013 and all its Resolutions.

Well, weeks and weeks ago I said I wanted to start the blog back up after a few months of hiatus for school… and then it turned out that I wasn’t ready/was too tired and creatively spent/didn’t have anything to say. Ha. 

But like most people, I made some resolutions last week and getting the blog back up and running was one of them. I don’t know how often I’ll post, or if I’ll talk about the same things as before, but let’s just see how it goes!

To start back, some resolutions…

1). I decided…To Blog Some More.

2). I would like… To Move More Towards A Plant-Based Diet (I’ll do a whole separate post on Forks Over Knives, Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead, and Vegucated at a later date…)

3). It’d Be Nice… To Do Some Spinning and Kickboxing for funsies.

4). And I Really Want… To Travel, Adventure, Live Life To The Fullest, and Be A Little Crazy Sometimes… 

So, in the spirit of craziness, I bought some Vegan yogurt called Amande today, and here’s my first Vegan attempt and review… 

Um, it was actually pretty good! As you can see, I bought the coconut kind and it’s vegan, soy free, gluten free, and fruit juice sweetened cultured almond milk. It’s got lots of crunchy little chunks of coconut in it that I enjoyed, and while it has kind of an almost overly sweet start to it (15 grams of sugar, yikes!) I would totally eat this in lieu of ice cream or with some oatmeal etc. Maybe frozen would be really good…? 

So I’ve got to say, experiment #1 was a success! More vegan products and recipes to come, as well as cute interiors, clothes, makeup and hair phases, and so on! Happy New Year and thanks for sticking with me! 

-esther