Food Geekery: Back in the swing of things.

It is all your fault, Marilyn.

If you hadn’t invited us over to your lovely home (complete with dream kitchen) and made a splendid meal, simple yet elegant, I wouldn’t be doing this now.

Graduate school was good for me in many ways, but the time it greedily consumed kept me out of the kitchen for a couple of years at least (all told), and got me out of the habit I’d cultivated, especially while living in Germany, of thoroughly enjoying both the process and the results of cooking a meal.

Now, in Stuttgart, I had company. Six of us international students got together and made meals, every Saturday night, and we took turns collectively providing each other enjoyment and, well, nourishment. One week I and the other two women did the food, the next week the three men did; whoever didn’t do food brought wine.

The problem coming back to the U.S. from this relative Eden was living alone. It’s much more difficult to arrange these things for a table of one, when you’re quite used to serving and seating six. Joel soon joined the party, however, so that number expanded to two, and I generally got back into what I call survival cooking, and only truly relishing all sides of the culinary experience when I made meals for special occasions.

I’m not sure if pregnancy hormones are playing a role here, or if recent changes in Joel’s employment status are completely responsible for me re-adopting the food frugality I learned from my grandmothers (both children during the Depression), or if awareness of the food shortages plaguing so many areas of the world aren’t simply making me more mindful of, grateful of, and conscientious with the bounty we can truly enjoy here, especially at the beginning of the local producing season. No matter the reason, cooking virtually every meal at home has become one of my top priorities.

The effort I put into enjoying that process is, however, as I detailed above, entirely Marilyn’s fault. Sharing a leisurely meal with her and her family reminded me just how much I delight in culinary undertakings, from start to finish, and that it was worth investing time and mental energy into preparing and enjoying good food.

I’m also, very occasionally, taking pictures of what I make. A post is coming up (probably) on tonight’s experimental dessert: banana pecan bread pudding.

My creativity is coming back in the kitchen, and a heap of joy is following.

Before I retire to the fainting couch

… after a Really Long Day on Not Enough Sleep, I had to do something that made me feel better.

So, may I present, a cute puppy outside:

Fly-by: Feminist Humor Kudos, plus a little narcissism

A message-board acquaintance of mine has a new blog, in which she logs the exploits of a misogynist asshat who works with her husband, who counters this dude’s (named Dan) stupidity and bigotry with (generally) calm yet firm, logical replies, taking the wind out of Dan’s sails.

The FAQ page “What is a Dan?” is comedy gold.

Go visit, and enjoy: The Dan Chronicles

Edited to add: Someone googled my username here (and on various boards) and found this blog. I’m just a little flattered someone was googling me. ^_^

FA, HAES and Pregnancy.

I’ve noticed something about people, since I’ve gotten pregnant.

They like to commend me on my lack of appetite for sweets. For those of you who know me personally, you understand precisely how bizarre a turn of events this is for me, and that it must be dictated by pregnancy hormones, because I would rarely pass up on the opportunity for dessert, or something sweet, no matter the reason, occasion or time of day.

People say what a Good Thing (TM) it is, that I don’t want a lot of sweet foods these days. They congratulate me, like it’s some sort of moral achievement or personal victory.

Newsflash: I’m just eating what my body tells me, just like I did before I got pregnant. It’s called Intuitive Eating, folks.

The problem that is tangled up with all this is the (erroneous) assumption that there are Good Foods (TM) and Bad Foods (TM). I can assure you, that from the standpoint of a pregnant woman’s stomach, the only bad foods are the ones that sound like they’d do a number on my digestion, i.e., foods that would not be the best choices for me at the moment.

That, however, is absolutely NOT what is meant by Good and Bad Foods (TM).

We have somehow come to this notion that foods have some sort of moral value. If it’s something you’d eat to try to lose weight, it’s Good (TM). If it’s something you’d be told to avoid on a diet, it’s Bad (TM).

Food doesn’t have moral value. It has nutritional value. Any food. Anything that your body can derive energy from (described as “calories”) is food, and if your body can fuel itself with it, then it’s got nutritional value.

I see, so often, in discussions of FA/HAES, this formulation when discussing Intuitive Eating or refuting the Good/Bad Food assumption:

“Sometimes I eat X, sometimes I eat Y.”

In these instances, the given value of X is “some food associated with good health and/or dieting” and the given value of Y is “some food associated with poor health and/or fat shaming”. I don’t think that FA advocates are missing the point when they use this phrasing — I think it’s an attempt to communicate with others who are still under the delusion that some foods are morally good while others are not*, when all that distinction is used for is trying to bully people who don’t fit the mainstream ideal “Thin” into complying, or to bully folks who DO fit the ideal into continuing to comply.

There’s something complicated in all this too — about keeping people in line, oppressed, although I can’t quite tease it out yet.

So, if I say, as I might in normal conversation, “I don’t really want any Y; I don’t have much of a sweet tooth these days” — that is precisely what I mean: Food Y doesn’t appeal to me at the moment, thanks. It has nothing to do with any moral value others may ascribe to Food Y, nor does it stem from any desire of mine except what my stomach dictates.

Believe me, I miss sweets. I can’t wait until half a cup of homemade pudding doesn’t give me heartburn, or the thought of chocolate cake doesn’t turn my stomach or simply not appeal at all. I take no particular delight, as others seem to expect me to, in the fact that I can’t enjoy the foods I loved before I was pregnant.

There is no “side benefit” to not wanting dessert. I don’t want to lose weight. I’ve long since given up on the dieting myths that say self-deprivation is the way to socially-accepted health status. My goal is my actual health — not some outside view of what that should look like.

This is Fat Acceptance. This is Health At Every Size. That I get to define, for myself, what healthy feels like, and do what I consider the best things to achieve and maintain that health. Weight is an arbitrary number, and size is not an automatic indicator of health. I’m more healthy now, because I listen to my body and do what it tells me it needs to do, than when I was starving myself in high school or trying to avoid the candy dish so as not to top 150 lbs.

Because I love my body, and want it to last a long time, I do what it indicates is good for me, instead of trying to force it to be one way or another. I, and my health, are much better for it.

*Leaving aside people’s personal beliefs regarding moral eating practices. Veg*nism, religious beliefs, etc., aren’t something society at large touts as moral food choices, at least not in the U.S.

This blog is paved with good intentions.

One of which, naturally, was to do an I <3 my body post on Valentine’s Day, which has, of course, come and gone. I will still put that one up, I think, although in my own time. I hadn’t read much on FA and HAES in a while, but it struck me that the one love letter I could truly write (well, semi-publicly) was one to myself.

As it is, life happens, and my energy isn’t what it once was. For good reason, of course. The first trimester does that to a woman, I understand; and I’m understanding firsthand these days.

That’s right, I’m going to be a Mommy-Blogger.

One of the reasons that FA and HAES are so important to me right now is for that very reason: that my body is about to undergo some massive changes, and that if I don’t start out from a place of acceptance, I’m just going to drive myself crazy. What energy I have left that isn’t being sucked away to support the Plus Sign (as I have affectionately termed the growing embryo/fetus) is being devoted to keeping me sane and happy, generally taking care of myself, and resisting the years of self-criticism and self-judgment based on my physical form.

I mean, seriously. I was embarrassed by how ‘fat’ I was when I had to buy a size 10 swimsuit, even though I’m much bigger now. I have stretch marks already, and have had for years. I’m going to do some of the things that mothers everywhere recommend (lotion daily, exercise, prenatal vitamins, yoga, etc.) but they have to be for my health and well-being, and not for those pesky niggling ideas from the outside world that basically boil down to “I’m not good enough”. (I am extremely grateful not to have cable right now, thereby cutting down on said messages a bit.)

So. I have to do the lotion thing so my skin will feel good/better, and not because I’m afraid of getting More Stretchmarks ZOMG! (TM). I have to exercise because it might help me fight lethargy, and not so I will Lose Weight (TM).

This, to me, is the essence of Fat Acceptance: caring for the body because it’s my body and it deserves to be cared for, and letting the results be what they will be. I want to be strong, and flexible, and active. Thin is no longer important. If I have to buy new pants, whether larger or smaller, it does not matter. What matters is that I’m improving my health and enjoying my life.

Fly-by: Political Kudos

Go forth and read this: Robin Morgan, Goodbye To All That #2.

You will then know why I, too, am rooting for Hillary Rodham Clinton. I wish that I could be as articulate as Morgan, and to know why I think the way I do about the first woman to be a viable presidential candidate.

May she be the nominee, that I may vote for her properly.

Because I really really have nothing better to do

I had to share this little ditty with you.

Fly-by: Art Kudos

Kit has a new work up on her deviantArt account: an altered clock. Go look, and say nice things.

Also: The photobucket.com slide show on the LJ post features some close ups, if ya wanna.

Atheism and spirituality

So.

Some of you may know that I’m a 12-stepper. Which particular program is irrelevant; the main is that for some years now, I’ve been following a spiritual program to help me deal with life (on life’s terms), and one that shies away from defining the divine for you, instead encouraging each person to come to a concept of “God” as ze understands it to be.

What I have come to believe recently is that the idea of “God” just doesn’t make sense to me. Basically, that I don’t need to believe that there is an external force for my own good, because I have an internal force to that purpose.

At a meeting last night a woman shared some things about her concept of God, and I realized while I was listening that I could reconcile my burgeoning atheism with the spiritual program that had effectively saved my life*.

As she talked about wanting to be more Higher-Power centered, she mentioned that her HP had her best interests in mind. I thought, “there’s a part of me that has my own best interests in mind; the part that gets guilty-feeling when I act against my own best interests.” Maybe you’d call that a conscience. She was calling it God.

Before I started trying to define God for myself, I took the biblical Christian God, because that was the one I’d been presented as a child. As I got older, and as I started to question the nature of that religion’s beliefs, I found I could get the idea of a Holy Spirit — an invisible force that connected all life with each other**. God the Father, which I understood to be the God of the Old Testament, felt flawed to me, more like the Greek pantheon than any ‘one true God’ that people talked about in church. Jesus of Nazareth was an interesting figure, to be sure, and was really quite radical in his beliefs and treatment of people***. The literalist view of the virgin birth I thought quite unnecessary to hir good message, which essentially boiled down to “peace on earth, and goodwill to all”.

This is where I was when I started to define divinity as I saw it. The Christian God had failed to save me from crappy things in my life (the drive-you-to-thoughts-of-suicide kind) and I couldn’t trust that The Man Upstairs was really all ze was cracked up to be.

The concept of Higher Power I can get behind. I see this as functioning to keep me 1) humble and 2) from trying to pull myself up by my own bootstraps, i.e., not asking for help when I need it. There are many things I put in this place, sometimes the collective wisdom of the group, sometimes nature, since I obviously can’t make it snow, or stop it from snowing, or make grass grow, etc. Sometimes I returned to a more traditional spiritual being and called it God.

I still occasionally talk about not being able to screw up The Plan, meaning that a decision on my part is not going to make a radical difference continuously for the rest of my life and for everyone else around me — basically that I’m not that powerful. I’m only the center of my universe, not everyone else’s.

What that woman at the meeting said helped me realize that I have the guidance I need, because of working this 12-step program to heal from my sick ways of thinking, and that I don’t need to believe that some great cosmic force is Out There to help me. I can help myself. I can listen to what might still be called that “still small voice”, the one Mohandas Gandhi called “the friend inside”, and make the best decision I can for me today. I don’t have to feel like there’s a great Plan for me and everyone else. We’re all just bungling along, trying to live. And what I want to do is live as fully and with as much unconditional joy as I can.

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* Definitely the quality of life, if not also the quantity.
** Yeah, it’s kind of a Star Wars spirituality. The idea worked for me.
*** i.e., that they were people, no matter where they came from, what they looked like, or whether or not they were adult or male.

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I was part of something good.

I sent a rather nasty letter to Picasa, expressing my disappointment with them that this woman’s post-breast-cancer-surgery pics were pulled yesterday, but I managed to find pornographic images still on the site.

Late yesterday, the pictures were restored. Apparently, the outpouring from friends and internet acquaintances and coverage in The Consumerist were enough to get Google to look at the photos more closely, or simply put them back up, complete with comments.

I am really very glad that I did something. It wasn’t much, but I was so angry that, yet again, images of women in scanty-if-existant clothing arching their backs or, in the case of the example photo I linked in my message, bound and gagged in a pose more like torture than anything else, that these were “acceptable” (they aren’t) and this woman’s scars weren’t.

For now, I’m keeping my Gmail account. For now. This was one instance, but it would be naive of me to think that it’s the only one there has been, or ever will be.