Eat less, weigh more

At this time when zillions of people resolve to lose weight in the new year, a friend of mine is wondering how to gain weight.  Especially now that she's cut sugar and all meat but fish out of her diet, she's having a hard time keeping her weight up.  The months of nausea that have made all food unappealing haven't helped either.  Like many women, she struggled with keeping her figure trim in the past.  Now she's struggling to avoid looking skeletal. 

In one of those cruelly unfair twists of fate, my friend, athlete, non-smoker, and mother of two small boys, has been undergoing cancer treatments for more than a year.  She attended our wedding with her family just after finishing the first round of chemotherapy.  I was too caught up in the whirl of the day to notice how gaunt she was.  The treatments, along with the changes she's made in her diet to maximize nutrients and minimize toxic chemicals, have made it difficult for her to sustain her normal weight. 

Her current search for healthy, nutrient-rich foods made me realize how much I take my body and all it can do for granted.  I can feed it junk, I can feed it vegetables, still it (mostly) does what I want.  (Though as I get older, I definitely feel more sluggish and spacey when I gorge on refined sugar and white flour than when I eat Brussels sprouts.)

Like so many other people, I resolved to get into better shape in the new year:  lose the seven pounds I gained over the holidays (an extended bout of the appetite-killing Demon Cold seems to have taken care of that), stop eating fattening foods, eat more vegetables, get into aerobic shape, do more yoga.

When my friend wrote looking for advice about what foods could help her gain weight, I had an inspiration.  I am going to "give" all my rich and fattening foods to her.  Since she wants to gain weight, and I want to lose weight, I am going to "give" my nuts, cheeses, ice cream, pastas, etc. to her.  Whenever I want to eat these foods, I'll symbolically pass them off to her, imagining her gaining weight and reclaiming her former strength and vitality.  And I'll grab a carrot.

This will help me be more conscious of what I eat, and it will remind me of healthy, hearty foods that I can suggest to her.  And hopefully, the constant stream of positive thoughts in her direction will have a positive impact on her health.  At least, I hope so.

What are your favorite weight-inducing foods?  Leave them here - even recipes! - I'll pass them on to my friend, and your diet will be lightened for the year.  My friend doesn't eat sugar, so the ice cream, cookies and chocolate (my downfall) are still yours to handle.

From the land and back again: A Virginia farm wedding

Let me present Exhibit A in my case that weddings can be gorgeous, green and environmentally-conscious.  Marisa, who blogs at Park & Belmont,  responded to my call for stories and inspiration about planning a consciously sustainable and eco-friendly wedding.  Oh boy, did she ever succeed!  The flowers for the wedding, and much of the food, were grown on her family's farm, where the wedding was held.  Even better, the biodegradable cutlery and plates went back into the land as compost after the wedding.  Talk about coming full circle.

We spent about $12,000 on our wedding for 250 people which took place on my family's farm in Rappahannock County, Virginia.

The Place:  A family tradition

Padua is an extremely important place to our family. It originally was owned my great-grandmother and my grandmother, and though my parents are the primary "owners" of the house and the fields, when I refer to "our family" I'm also including my father's 8 brothers and sisters and their children (my cousins). It is an important and wonderful place to all of us, and I hope a few of my cousins will decide to get married at Padua as well.

While the venue was taken care of, it look a lot of sweat to get the farm in order. We spent many weekend planting and seeding the garden and building rock walls. Getting the farm in order was hard, but it was also a moving experience as both sides of the extended family came to help on several work days.

Jon and I are up there quite a bit (though not as much as we were prior to the wedding).  It is a small farm, but it is functioning. My mother sells her produce, flowers and pies at the Charlottesville farmers market every weekend and we have six cows which roam the numerous acres at their leisure and which will eventually become organic grass fed beef.

The Wedding Vision: "Local, seasonal and beautiful" [and clearly a ton of fun!]

Our primary goal, was that our wedding be local, seasonal and beautiful. We also wanted a wedding that was laid back, fun and inviting.  

My dress was J. Crew and came from OnceWed. It was a steal ($58!!!!).  

My mother, her two best friends and my maid of honor created all 11 bridal bouquets, all 28 table centerpieces, and "aisle" flowers for the wedding. 

All of the flowers were seasonal and were grown locally by our family or my mother's friends.  They were absolutely stunning.

The Food:  Regional delicacies

We have large families and good food is important to both sets of relatives.  Having good food was definitely the most important aspect of our wedding. Jon's family is from Wisconsin and so our appetizers were Kewaskum cheese and summer sausagues, driven down from Kewaskum, Wisconsin by Jon's amazing aunts and uncles three days before the wedding. 

We hooked up with a local county caterer who used lots of veggies from our late August harvest in her recipes, thus discounting the total fee and ensuring the food was local.  Rather than serve one main course, we had pulled pork barbque and 20 different salads.  We had pie for dessert, all baked by my amazing and awesome mother, made with apples from Nelson County, Virginia.  

Seriously, so much love went into the food - it was the best part of the wedding and there was more than enough food for everyone.  The beer was Starr Hill, brewed an hour and a half away in Crozet, Virginia, (the brewery provided biodegradable cups), and the Wine was Gabrielle Rausse, a Virginia vinter (and luckily a family friend) located just outside of Charlottesville, Virginia.

The Special Touches:  Edible, Reusable, Decomposable

We had clearly labled [composting] bins that were obvious to even the tipsiest of guests.  The day after the wedding was spent properly composting the plates and cutlery with my brother in our family's garden. [Eds. note:  Call me a green geek, but this is my absolute favorite detail of the wedding!  I love the idea of the party leftovers returning to the ground to enrich the soil at the family farm.]

Our wedding would have been squat if it wasn't for our family and friends.  They helped us so much- our DJ was a dear friend, and his wife (one of my bridesmaids) made chocolate covered pretzel favors for guests.

 The majority of our guests camped out, but those who chose not to were bused in and taken home at the end of the night, thus reducing the number of cars on the road and preventing DUIs and accidents.

Again, our wedding would have been nothing without the love and support of our family and friends.

The amount of effort that goes into creating a sustainable, practical, local wedding is huge.  Not only was September 5, 2009 the day that Jon and I promised to love and cherish each other for the rest of our days, it was the day that two families came together as one community, and had a rocking good time :).  The fact that everyone participated and enjoyed themselves  added even more value to this already important day. Jon and I felt so unbelievably loved it was incredible.

Our photographer, the wonderful and amazing Denny Henry, is a former co-worker of mine, and did a fantastic job capturing the mood of the wedding.

I asked Marisa what prompted her to plan her wedding with an eye to environmental sustainability.  She said:

I don't think anything really prompted us to take considerations for a green, local, sustainable wedding--it is just who we are, as a couple and as a family.  My parents have always tried to live and create a sustainable lifestyle and it has rubbed off on me...lucky I have married a man who embraces sustainability whole-heartedly. Growing up in Charlottesville, we had a large garden and chickens in our back yard (for eggs), we never had a dishwasher, always recycled, composted and always sun dried our clothes (my mother has never even owned a dryer, and I don't think even knows how to work one).  As a kid, I think I was sometimes embarrassed of how "into sustainability" my parents were, but now that I'm older I'm so grateful that their values have been ingrained in me! The wedding just was the way it was because that is how our family operates, we are frugal, like our food and flowers fresh and local, respect the earth, and are blessed with amazing and creative friends and family.  I don't think Jon and I could have had a wedding that was any other way. It was just us. We felt comfortable, we felt like ourselves. It was beautiful. 

Beautiful, indeed!  Thank you so much, Marisa, for taking the time to walk us through the details of your gorgeous wedding, and for sharing inspiration for other sustainability-minded brides and grooms!  

This wedding has so many wonderful sustainability-oriented principles and practices, not the least of which is giving the guests a place to camp overnight, so they don't have to worry about drinking and driving.  And, composting = love!   

I'm looking forward to sharing other examples of weddings planned with environmental sustainability in mind.  If you've got something to share, please send it my way.  
Green smooches to all!

Summertime Heaven: Homemade Lemon Gelato

Take Meyer lemons, handpicked from the tree out back.

Heat cream and eggs 'til steamy.

Stir in sugar and vanilla.

Cool, then...

Whirl in one of these:

KitchenAid, at Williams-Sonoma

Add you've got a little slice of summer heaven. Can't get enough of the stuff.

I was going into withdrawal after we returned from Italy, where we were on the constant lookout for the best gelato - which meant tasting many different varieties. Grom was declared the winner. Oh, you lucky New Yorkers - you've got one nearby!

We'll have make do with the recipe I found here.

So far, the ice cream maker might be our most-used wedding gift. Every time I use it, I remember the sushi and ice cream dinners my friend and I used to have. Could there be two more perfect foods?


This post has no affiliation with KitchenAid or Williams-Sonoma. I just love homemade ice cream.

Zen and the art of Thanksgiving

Wedding planning is not the only social occasion to have been professionalized and perfected to the point of making ordinarily sane people crazy.

In the age of local, free-range, organic, fair trade food, Thanksgiving has its own conundrums (conundra?), including whether to serve turkey at all.

Consider, as the New York Times explains:

Your grandmother did not have to worry about this; a turkey was a turkey. Your turkey, however, must be free range and organic, and your sweet potatoes should be heirloom and local. Not only should you pick our own pumpkin, you should process it yourself (while hearing the voice of Martha Stewart say that she would never throw away the seeds — such a tragedy that would be!), and not only should you make your own fudge, but you should use the appropriate (fair trade and high cocoa content) chocolate. It’s a wonder you’re not making your own marshmallows, though Martha thinks perhaps you should.

Put this all together, along with your own sense of inadequacy (if you don’t have one, congrats — but are you sure?) and you have a situation that cannot be other than overwhelming.

Given all this pressure toward perfection, the Times has a perfect Thanksgiving recipe: just relax. After all,

When did performance anxiety and guilt become prerequisites for offering family and friends nourishment and hospitality?

Words the queen of social stress needs to hear! It's so easy to focus on what could go wrong, rather than on what will inevitably go right when dear ones are gathered at Thanksgiving, a wedding or any other social event.

We'll be joining friends and colleagues in San Francisco -- so much easier when someone else plans the menu!

Wishing you all a happy and relaxing Thanksgiving!!!

Wed Head

Do you ever get this?

If my day starts with wedding-related stuff (today it was cake tasting - yum!), it is ridiculously hard to switch back to the serious, theoretical pre-professor I'm supposed to be. (Not quite a prof, but I play one on TV ;-) ).


Rather than focusing on that chapter I'm supposed to finish, visions of sugar plums, and tinted icing, and raspberry filling, and sugar silkscreened postcards are dancing through my head. Along with rings, and a dress-fitting, and the invitation design, and flowers, and centerpieces... oh, and the ceremony! Right now (four months out), there seems to be a lot to do, with all of it demanding attention.

I've got a bad case of wed head.

That said, I think we've found our baker, the lovely Edith Meyer. We met her at her 1921 Craftsman house that sits in the middle of a gorgeous fruit and vegetable garden, and sampled a delectable array of cakes and icings.

She works with locally-sourced organic ingredients, organic fair-trade chocolate, and free-range organic eggs. (The fair-trade chocolate is a huge bonus because much of the world's supply of chocolate comes from West Africa, where the production of chocolate often depends on child slavery. Ah, yes, briefly coming back to my pedantic profession. I learned the hard facts about chocolate only last summer, from a colleague. These little facts can help us become more conscious consumers...)

Back to sugarplums... Edith's cakes are not only socially-responsible, they're downright gorgeous, with a clean, modern aesthetic.



She copied the design on the bride's gown for this one.

Though we've steered away from the Alice in Wonderland theme idea (despite the fact that it would incorporate croquet and make a great play on my name) this cake captures the ideas that we discussed with her the best.

Edith's blog

We walked in thinking that we would get a simple white cake decorated with flowers. After going to a cake tasting yesterday where every additional design element added twenty-five cents per serving to the cake cost, we were in the mode of thinking conservatively in order to stay within our budget. However, Edith's pricing system is different, and she encouraged us to think outside of the (round) box. She worked hard to brainstorm with us to figure out what sorts of themes and ideas would represent us well.

When I mentioned the postcards that we used as Save The Dates and will probably use for table assignments, her eyes lit up. So the cake may incorporate design elements from the invitations that reflect our love of the outdoors, and pick up on the postcard theme to represent our love of travel. Woo-hoo!

I feel so fortunate to have met so many wonderfully skilled and creative people during the wedding planning process!

Notes from the field: a progressive dinner

When we last left Data Monkey and Mountain Man, they were departing from their wedding ceremony in the redwood grove amidst a swirl of bubbles. So beautiful!

The guests adjourned to a patio near the redwood grove for drinks and nibbles, while the nearly-married couple had a moment alone. I believe this is originally a Jewish tradition - well worth borrowing, given the general excitement and busy-ness of a wedding day or weekend.


The next phase of the evening took place in the Meadow, requiring a short walk through the beautiful Pema Ose Ling grounds. (I stopped by the car to trade my heels for flip-flops at this point). We strolled past the temple that housed an enormous statue of one of the great teachers of Tibetan Buddhism, and arrived at an al fresco dinner, where we re-met the couple.



The adorable newlyweds shared a sweetheart table, surrounded by round tables of eight to ten guests. Dining while the sun set on a warm spring evening was pure delight.


And how 'bout that lighter-than-air veil, and lace-up corset back of the dress??? Pure poetry!

The final stage of the progressive dinner took us back to the dance hall, next to the patio where we began, for cake cutting, and cutting the rug.


(here's another look at that spectacular veil!)

Fine dining, finally

For five years, I lived in an apartment without a dining room. Entertaining was limited to brunch in the backyard, because the picnic table could seat more than the tiny cafe table in the kitchen.



I finally got a dining room in Dec. when I moved into an actual house with Mr. Barefoot.

However, years of the peripatetic student life had left us both with only a few sticks of furniture. And certainly no table with presence enough to fill our sunlit dining room.

Enter the Wooden Duck's moving sale. If you need furniture, and you're in the Bay Area, you can't get there soon enough! Did I mention this stuff is HALF OFF?!?! Beautiful solid wood, sustainable furniture for half price - or less! They were selling a bunch of pine chair for $30 each.

The Wooden Duck makes beautiful furniture from recycled, reclaimed wood. This is solid, high quality stuff that will last forever, and no forests were destroyed to make it. Plus, the aged wood has a special patina, and suffers less from shrinking and warping.

We found the most beautiful coffee table made from a huge slab of polished, recycled walnut, complete with sanded knots and burls, and a raw edge. It has such great organic style.

(like this, from here, as there are no images on the Wooden Duck's website.)

But even better is the dining table, made from recycled Douglas fir, probably from an old barn. This thing is SOLID. The tabletop must be two inches thick.

We picked out a bunch of simple, solid reclaimed teak chairs to go with it. The chairs, along with the sideboard, are going to get stained to match the table. All of this stuff was half price!

I can't wait until they're delivered.

Veggie love

From here, via FFFFOUND!

Having been a vegetarian for more than twenty years - and having convinced my family to stop eating veal when I was just seven years old - I never considered serving meat at my wedding. We don't serve meat at dinner parties, so why would we at the Dinner Party of the Year? I don't want to go to a party where I can't eat the food (though people keep warning me that I won't have a chance to eat at the wedding. This one gets cranky without food, so I will have to find time to eat).

Earth Friendly Weddings takes up the issue of vegetarian weddings today, asking "Can a Vegetarian Meal Ruin a Wedding?", with a comment from Yours Truly. My take on it: Serve what you'd like to eat, thoughtfully prepared for your guests.

I do enjoy fish (yep, not a perfect vegetarian, and believe me, I've been taken to task for this many times over the years. Why vegetarians are expected to by completely consistent paragons of virtue is beyond me...), so we may serve some seasonally, sustainably caught fish. Or not.

Our caterer does amazing things with vegetarian food - I'm pretty sure that everyone will be so busy enjoying the food that they won't pause to wonder where the chicken or steak is.

Beyond the amazing flavors and textures of vegetarian food, it also costs less. The per-head cost our caterer quoted for an all vegetarian meal (no fish) was significantly lower than her lowest per-head cost for a chicken meal. We will be able to offer more dishes for the same price per head, if we don't serve meat. The dinner will actually end up looking more lush and magnificent, with a greater number of choices!

Serving locally-sourced vegetarian food helps reduce the carbon footprint and environmental impact of the wedding. To take just one example, three times as many fossil fuels are required to produce a meat-based diet, as compared with a plant-based diet. (more info here).

For vegetarian cooking at home, I love:

• Fields of Greens, Anne Somervill.
• Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, Deborah Madison.
• The Moosewood Cookbook, Mollie Katzen.

Our weekly CSA box from Farm Fresh to You includes a batch of recipes for using seasonal vegetables, too.

From here, via FFFFOUND!

Take Your Wine Bar and Lazy Susan, and Skeedaddle

I came across this purportedly cost-cutting article via Another One Bites the Dust. All I can say is thank goodness I'm getting married on the west coast and don't have to deal with this sort of snobby New Yorkers (yes, there are definitely snobby people everywhere, but blessedly few in my social circle. Maybe because we're all impoverished grad students.)

This article seems to adhere to the brilliant line from one of the commentators at A Practical Wedding that weddings often turn into a game of "Let's Pretend We're Rich." NY Mag seems to feel that everyone is obligated to play, and wins only by convincing their guests that this is the case. Any sign of thriftiness is a sin and should be shunned. The only way to stay within budget is to pull one over on guests in such a crafty way that they won't realize that we're not rich.

Another One Bites the Dust took umbrage with this line:
No matter how tight your budget, do not have a cash bar. A wine-only bar’s thriftiness is just as obvious.

Whatever. If our guests are drinking our carefully chosen wines, I hope they'll enjoy, and not wish that is was something else.

I drew the line here:
Draw the line at family-style service. What’s next, wine bottles on a lazy Susan? Honestly, you’re better off eloping.

Now there's a serving idea! Common at Chinese weddings, I imagine, where the condiments and dishes are placed on a central lazy Susan for everyone to reach.

Thanks for the advice, NY Mag. We'll have to cancel our contract with our site and lose our deposit, since the only food service options they offer are family style and buffet (which I'm sure you, NY Mag, think is even more declasse). hrmph!

We could also debate the value of this line:
If the florist tries to charge you for the arrangements in the bathroom, don’t bite your tongue.

Um, flowers in the bathroom? Really? Maybe we'd save some bank if we didn't put flowers in the bathroom, rather than arguing with the florist about whether we'll be charged for them.

Hmmm... I wonder what NY Mag would have to say about the unisex bathroom (singular) at our site?

Egad, the more I read, the more incensed I am.
Don’t get a fresh-from-ICP artist to shoot your wedding. You’ll regret it, always .... You could opt out of the engagement shoot and save about $500, but that’s when you’ll realize if you love your photographer or if you’ll have to prepare for more of this kind of creepiness later

Huh. "Opting out" of the engagement session suggests that its mandatory. Isn't purchasing a service from a vendor more like "opting in"? We never considered having an engagement session, especially since we don't know anyone who has done this. I asked my married BFF about it, and she looked at me like I was from Mars: "what, you're not movie stars!" (Which is not to say that you shouldn't do an engagement session if you have the time and cash. I'd love to have some nice photos of us - but we have neither time nor cash right now.)

NY Mag crossed the line when they crossed Miss Manners:
avoid engraving, letterpress, and shapes that don’t fit into regular envelopes. And, print all of it at once. Skimp tastefully. Example: A save-the-date magnet isn’t the best idea.

As we have learned from Miss Manners, handwritten or engraved invitaions are the most proper. We do want the guests to feel warmly invited and welcome, even if they're only going to get to drink wine, and may be called upon to pass serving dishes to the person on their left.

The magnets? I love 'em! Our fridge is covered with save the date magnets from our friends.

So save yourself the time and angst. This is one article on wedding budgeting that you can avoid.

The bottom line is in the article's final line:
A great place to start: Event-design companies Fête and A Wedding Library offer free one-hour consultations. Go, and don’t waste a minute.

Nice advertorial, NY Mag. I wonder what these event planning companies paid for this sort of free publicity???

Yum!

That looks like a wedding cake to me!


From aptly named Love at First Bite, from which I brought Mr. Barefoot cupcakes for his birthday after we'd been dating a few months.

However, I think Mr. Barefoot would like something a little more traditional.... maybe we'll get this for the "groom's cake."



he, he! And then we'll have this chocolate confection as the 'bride's cake.'


Super spectacular, from Edith Meyer, organic baker.

But what I'd really like is a luscious tiramisu



or amaretti cake, from organic Crixa Cakes.
Must get over there to taste right away!

Things I Didn't Know I Needed #2

We haven't made a gift registry yet. We haven't even thought about it (much). Though we've both been living on our own for a long time, we've both been students much of that time. When we moved in together, we discovered that we had duplicates of lots of things - but that a lot of those things were pretty crappy. And then there are major gaps: dining room table, anyone?

I imagine our registry will be pretty eclectic, aimed at filling in gaps and upgrading (cookware, especially) to things that will last a lifetime. (wow. I don't think I've ever typed or said that phrase before!)

Here are some current contenders, awesome gadgets that I didn't even know existed until recently.

Apparently, a mandoline makes the slicing of veggies, and therefore food prep, infinitely quicker.



I love, love, love seltzer water, or spark, as the Flower Boy calls it. But I hate, hate, hate the waste generated by oodles of plastic bottles, so I rarely buy it. I mainly drink it overseas, where you can get it in reuseable glass bottles. But if we had a seltzer water maker, I could drink bubbly to my heart's content.

Sunday brunch?

Brunch is my absolute favorite meal: waffles, strawberries, mimosas, omlettes, lox, home fries and salsa:
such great combinations of savory and sweet that you don't get at any other meal. Plus endless cups of coffee, and (usually) endless hours to while away with conversation and the newspaper.


So why anyone would question whether brunch is appropriate for a wedding is a bit unfathomable to me -- maybe people are less likely to drink and dance in the noonday sun.

But the idea of hanging out with friends the day after the wedding is pretty irresistible to me. My model is my friend Tina's wedding last Nov. The day after the wedding, diehard partiers lounged in the deep shade of sprawling trees at her father's farm.

We're still working out our Sunday morning plans, but they'll definitely involve plenty of french-pressed coffee and sunglasses.

Whatever we decide to do, I know what I'd like to wear...


so sweet. from Sunday Brunch, via The Sassy Kathy

Favors - 2B or not 2B?

We've been thinking that we'd probably not do favors, as we didn't want to give people another bit of useless, plastic kitsch that they'd have to get rid of afterward.

That said, though, I have a few favors from friends' weddings that I really treasure. When a dear Korean friend, let's call her Style Doc, got married, everyone got a pair of small hand-painted wooden ducks that are a symbol of good luck and happiness in that culture. As I write, these ducks are on a shelf just above my computer, and remind me of my friend... and the fact that I owe her a thank you note for a birthday gift... Another friend, who is a mosaic artist, decorated hundreds of glass votive holders with brown and copper glass. These candle holders look great amidst the plants in my sand-and-sage-colored living room.

If I had the crafty skills, I'd love to make something cool and memorable like these lovely favors. I've had a hard time coming up with anything that seems feasible, yet.



But I do like to bake, and when I saw these adorable labels, I thought maybe we could just make dozens of chocolate chip cookies in the weeks before the wedding, freeze them, and offer them in little goodie bags to take home. Homemade, local, organic, delicious, and consumable. Sounds like a winning combo! (But will I really be able to bake dozens of cookies in the weeks before the wedding? Stay tuned...)