Birthday weekend wrap-up...

Birthday weekend started Thursday and ended today. I was spoiled rotten! Hikes to scary woods, eating (and shhhh, smoking) all the things I'm not supposed to have, shopping like you wouldn't believe (thanks baby -- remember, it's only once a year!), hanging out with friends, watching fireworks, and capping it all off with Wall-E. Righteous.

I am blessed with good friends. Still life with birthday brunch at La Note:














Another highlight was ferrying to San Francisco for a day of Ferry Building goodness, thrifting (lucked out with a beautiful Jil Sander top for $4) and fro-yo.

You can't tell from this photo, but San Francisco looks like a toy city from the ferry...














Okay, and now shhhhh -- time for a secret...

Today I dropped into one of the better high-end second-hand clothing stores and treated myself to a really cool and fairly expensive ginormous leather handbag. Checking out all of the pockets afterward, what did I find but a little suede bag from Pave. Inside were large Tahitian black pearl earrings! Oh my god, they are gorgessity.

Part of me feels bad, even though, 1) I will never know who they belonged to, 2) I love black pearls, 3) I will never be able to afford earrings like these, and 4) it's my birthday. Okay, those last three things don't really factor in to whether or not I should feel bad, but I need something to assuage my unjustified guilt. I think I just feel bad because someone lost some really badass and expensive earrings, and now I have them. So, anyway, I am but a twig floating in the stream of fate. Or something.

It's been 5 days of loveliness -- back to the real world tomorrow.

Oi, tomorrow! Tomorrow I have acupuncture. My acupuncturist is going to feel my pulse, sense the bacon and ice cream coursing through my veins, and then promptly kill me with his disapproving gaze.

But I think it will be worth it. :)

Okay, so y'all know I've been seeing a new acupuncturist who is giving me something that smells and tastes like pee pee to drink for part of my treatment.

What y'all don't know is that I'm also on a detox diet for the duration of this treatment. I am supposed to abstain from:

sugar
caffeine
alcohol
beef
pork
fried food
rich food
spicy food

And, it goes w/o saying -- my occasional yummy Nat Sherman.

Which, you know, pretty much means abstaining from MY LIFE.

But the funny thing is, the tea I drink twice a day actually helps me not crave this stuff. And I've lost 5 pounds. So it's all good, right?

You would think so.

Today we went to a poetry reading at McNally's, home of the best damn Guinness pour this side of the Bay. And good god, I almost cried because I couldn't have one.

So, today, an ode -- to all the foods I've loved before:

Alcohol:


















Sugar (my ultimate chocolate bar):


















Rich and Fried and Pork (homemade pork gyoza at Rikyu):














Caffeine (Blue Bottle espresso):














Sigh.

Where's the spicy food? Forget it -- that one actually hurts too much to post anything. I regularly eat so much spicy stuff that the evidence would just be a picture of me with a big grin. So sad.

Oh my, look what my new acupuncturist gave me to boil in a gallon of water:














Yeeee! No more pre-made formulas for me!

I knew this guy was the real deal the second I walked in his office -- degrees/licenses in Chinese, complete with those little black and white Communist passport photos; cramped, packed to the gills space that looked more like a storage room than a place for medical procedures; a no-nonsense, super practical demeanor which meant he interrupted talking with me about my treatment in order to answer his phone. And most telling...everywhere you looked, paper towels.

Old school Asians love paper towels. Today my acupuncturist even used a paper towel with a rip in it as a stand-in for a disposable face rest cover on his massage table. I was stoked at his ingenuity. You know how much the real thing costs? At least $12 for a 50 pack. A roll of paper towels? Maybe $2.

In addition, my face rest was made of a block of foam with a crudely cut hole in the middle. Ugly, sure, but comfy.

Paper towels, practicality, and penny-pinching -- that's right, represent!

But lest you think these ghettofabulous touches were indicative of bad business, au contraire -- my acupuncture was top-notch, and my massage was better than some I've had at spas (and it was half the price, yo). And I got a personalized bag of crazy shit to boil down into sludge and drink twice a day.

Yes!

So, my awesome acupuncturist has been telling me I need to cut back on the dairy and up my fermented food intake (yay, more natto!). But the problem is, I love parmesan cheese! Especially cheese on anything with tomato sauce. Staples of my life.

Enter a recipe staple from my college days that is tomato goodness without the need for heaping handfuls of parm. So good I have to share. And oh my god, I am a not a vegan but I am a spicy vegan vegetable jambalaya culinary rockstar!

Check it, yo:

1/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup white wine or rice vinegar
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp brown sugar
4 cloves of garlic, chopped

Mix these ingredients together. Be sure to dissolve the brown sugar. Set aside.

Cut into bite-size pieces:

1 large onion
1 head garlic
4 stalks celery
8 large mushrooms
1 green bell pepper
1 red bell pepper
2 Anaheim chili peppers
2 zucchini

Heat two tbsp olive oil in a soup pot over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, a couple good turns of the pepper mill and a pinch of salt. Cook, stirring, for three minutes. Add celery and stir for a couple more minutes. Add mushrooms, ditto. Add all peppers, stirring occasionally for 10 more minutes.

Add to pot, stirring after each addition:

2 tsp cumin
1 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp ground mustard seed
the liquid mixture from step one

Simmer for a couple of minutes. Then add:

1 28 ounce can of chopped tomatoes
1 package tempeh (yay fermented foods!) or tofu, cut into small cubes

Simmer for 10 more minutes, stirring occasionally. Add more salt or honey to taste. Serve with steamed brown rice.

NP: The Make Up, 'Pow! to the People'