HAPPY (HEALTHY) EASTER!

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!

So, I don't really do the whole chocolate thing anymore for Easter; well, period. But my favourite new Raw Food Coach Karen Knowler dug up this Raw Chocolate Easter Eggs recipe. I get one awesome raw recipe a week, among other cool raw tips, advice and inspiration by signing up for her free weekly newsletter. She's amazing...and such an inspiration. And this coming from a severely depressed person. Even if you're not into becoming raw (which I am but I can't because I would miss seafood too much), there's no pressure. She's just trying to make us all healthier, more body-aware people. It's great to see that there are ways to cheat the junk food habit, like with these raw chocolate eggs. It's just about living a healthier life. Check her our sometime. Couldn't hurt to click. I've also got an ad up for her in the right column.

Raw Chocolate Easter Eggs
This week's recipe comes courtesy of Russell James, one of my favourite raw food chefs and also our in-house chef on my Raw Coach Trainings. This truly delicious Easter egg recipe makes 3+ good size eggs with chocolate left over for making whatever you desire (see end for Russell's tip on this).

Ingredients:

* 2 cups cashew butter (1 16oz jar)

* 2 cups cacao powder or if no cacao powder available, use 1cup milled cacao nibs + 1cup carob powder

* 2 cups grated cacao butter

* 2 Tablespoons vanilla extract or the inside of 2 whole vanilla pods 1cup agave nectar

Directions

1. Put the grated cacao butter in a bowl and place in a dehydrator at 115 degrees F. The idea is to turn the butter into liquid for use later on in the recipe. You can also achieve this by placing the bowl in a sink of hot water.

2. In a food processor mix the cashew butter and cacao powder (or cacao and carob, if using) thoroughly. This will be easier if the cashew butter is at room temperature.

3. Transfer this mixture to a large bowl and add vanilla extract (or pods) and agave. Mix in by hand.

4. When cacao butter has liquidised, pour into chocolate mixture and mix again by hand.

5. Use a spoon to spread chocolate into egg moulds (I got my egg moulds from Lakeland). If you're using cacao nibs and carob you may find that mixture is a little to dry and stiff to work with so you can cover and put into the dehydrator for about half an hour to loosen it up. Be sure to save some chocolate mixture to seal the 2 halves of the egg together.

6. Put egg moulds in freezer until chocolate has set. This could also be done in the fridge if you're not in a hurry. Eggs should now easily pop out of the mould.

7. Use your fingers to apply the chocolate you saved to the edges of one of the egg halves. This doesn't have to be perfect and you can be quite liberal with it as you're going to wipe off any excess.

8. Push the 2 halves together and use your finger to finish off the seal and get a smooth join. Egg can then be put in the fridge.9. Eat while weeping with joy (Karen's words, not mine! :-))

RAW COACH'S TOP TIP:* Russell recommends making chunks of of 'fruit and nut' from the leftover chocolate mix. This can be achieved by adding raisins and pieces of your favorite crushed nuts to the left over mixture and putting into ice cube trays.

© Karen Knowler, The Raw Food Coach 2008, www.TheRawFoodCoach.com

I FUCKING LIVE FOR THIS SHIT

For the first time since October the sun rose on Saturday in the small town of Longyearbyen, Norway.

I stole this bit of article from StarTribune

Elke Morgner and Allison Bailey, two graduate students at the research institute here, were hacking though ice six miles outside of Longyearbyen this week to take measurements from the underlying tundra when they saw a sliver of sunlight peek around a mountain. Despite temperatures of 4 below (-40 with windchill), they put down their tools and stared.
Then, as they worked, the shaft of light grew to fill a large swath of the valley. On their way home, they made a beeline with their snowmobiles for the light. And there it was, between two mountains: the sun.
"Look at it!" they shouted in unison. "Look at it!" The scientists hugged, did little jigs in the snow, and then stood motionless, awe-struck. Back on campus in town, advance reports about the solar spotting filtered in, and other students headed off on snowmobiles to check it out.
"How did it look?" a student asked, as others clustered around a returnee peeling off his outer clothes in the lobby of the institute, University Studies in Svalbard, named for the island. "Beautiful," he said. Then he thought for a moment and added, "Bright!"

I can just imagine how much of a big deal that is. I would die out there, as I think I am one of those people with S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder), where the dreary London weather can fuck up my day. But all the same, ever since I sadly sat through 30 Days of Night, I have gained a sort of obsession with going out there, either Alaska or Norway, or any of the other Arctic towns that have to dish out alcohol ration cards to their pale inhabitants in the dead of constant night. I think as a writer, that would be a fucking awesome thing to sit through and moan about in a notebook. I can totally picture my diary entries.

Monday 6th January

Still no sun. I have already finished the one bottle of Jim Beam given to me for the week. I should go to Jack around the corner who makes really authentic fake liquor ration cards but he's probably out skiing. I'm screwed. I guess I'll go back to bed. Was that a vampire at my window?

I am so there...one of these days. I should start saving up for the expensive ass winter gear I am going to have to buy. The coats I buy in London hardly do shit because I choose them for fashion and price over function. So it really boils down to the coat I wear out there. Because if I'm freezing, and I haven't got any liquor, I'm going to give that town hell.

HAPPY WORLD BOOK DAY!

Just as the title says. To you in the raspberry beret, to you with the cigarette hanging from your lips, to you the geek, and to you and you and even you too! This year March 6th is World Book Day! So DO take a sliver of time from your busy day today and read something, anything; be it from the phone directory or a coffee table photography book. Doesn't matter.

I for one am reading a bit of Hanif Kureishi today - "Midnight All Day"
As well as my Writing Contexts core text "What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers" by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter

Maybe you'll catch me in Starbucks today. I'll be the one with the ratty hair, dirty Chucks with dirty pink ribbon laces and want of sleep. In the corner. Iced Coffee only!

GREENERY

Well, I started thinking about the trip to Ireland my friends and I were gonna make in April for St. Patrick's Day. So far, we don't really have the money, or at least, haven't started planning. I thought I would just have a little Paddy's fun on Polyvore. Enjoy.

MY VALENTINE'S DAY WILL BE THE 15th

I GOT THE CALL! Remember how I said different countries celebrate V-day on different days? And that if you weren't ready to celebrate it just yet, for lack of a significant other/dinner date/fuck buddy/valentine then it was okay to wait until you acquired one to then take on la Jour d'Amour? WEEEELLLLLL My ex called me all the way from San Jose, CA at 11pm on the 14th, while I was busy sleeping away the day (by accident. I went to bed at noon), to ask me to be his valentine! AND I SAID NO!

Just kidding, dorks! I got giggly and hyper after that and decided to arrange some surprises for him out there. I put on some Britney and had a photoshoot. Above is one of the LESS personal in the bunch/stack/heap *giggles*. WHAT? I'M SMITTEN, OKAY? I really got carried away and must've taken like 8 dozen!

I also had the great fortune of hearing my neighbours on my left scream in ecstasy while they thought their sexual epiphanies were being drowned out by their R&B/Slow jams CD. While to the right of my wall, my other neighbours were having a serious fight. I heard a girl crying like a mouse with its tail cut off, and she was running away in distress clattering down the hall, then coming back in love; back and forth, back and forth while I tried to slide down the corridor out of her way with my plate of rice and korma, and my best comforting smile. *sigh* Tis Valentine's Day in halls of residence.

I also gathered together all the old emails since April 2007 that my valentine and I have had and sent them to him all in a pretty little document. I'm about to go over them now, which could take a good 45 minutes so I thought I would blog first. I tried to write him a new sonnet but I encountered something that I wouldn't exactly call Writer's Block; more like Lover's Block. BUT, IT'S NEVER TOO LATE FOR LOVE. I'll try again another day. Hope everyone had a splendid day yesterday. I'm going to enjoy mine today! :)

ITEM OF THE DAY

Once again, I'm letting things get a little crazy around here just because it's Valentine's Day. What else am I supposed to do if everyone keeps reminding me about it? Even my mother called me from Dubai to wish me a happy v-day. *Sigh*

So, if there ever was a way to describe love, I think this sonnet by William Shakespeare would be it. Yes; the two S's of love- sonnets (which are a type of poem traditionally on the topic of love) and Shakespeare, the tragic lover himself.

SONNET 130
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

It's basically about a woman who looks NOTHING like Angelina Jolie but he has the hots for her anyway, to put it quite frankly.
P.S. WRITE YOUR LOVER A SONNET! I've done many, but they were because I had to for homework and he was the easiest thing to write about. BUT, I still sent them to him anyway. He was completely flattered and smitten. :D

QUIT BEING A SOGGY-FACED EMO ABOUT VALENTINE'S DAY!

I meant to say in my last post, before I got so excited about it, that from now on I will be trying to remember to post a Japanese phrase everyday, that should help me on my way to striking up a convo with Takeshi Kaneshiro if I ever see him, as well as teaching you guys a little sumthin-sumthin interesting.

And as today is Valentine's day, which I have, by the way, Superpoked my friends on Facebook to boycott, I will give you a love-related phrase:

ai- love

ai shiteru- I love you

Also, here's an interesting link on how the Japanese celebrate Valentine's day and what the colour red symbolizes for them.

If you're not fond of Japanese and want to show your significant other how many languages you can express your love to him/her in then here's how to do that. From Spanish to Maltese to Borat's native tongue.

And if you're simply not ready to face the 'holiday' just yet, did you know different countries celebrate it different days? Different months even!(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine). September in Colombia, June in Brazil, ALL the way back around in January for Wales, or just like...a week later in Romania (in case you have 'the bitchy fits' A.K.A. your period that week or something. I mean, you can totally wait 'til you find a love interest first then choose the nearest V-date after that, instead of O.D.ing on Rockie Road on the 14th. (I hope people don't actually do that in real life)

What are your plans for V-day, or as my friends are calling it, S.A. Day (Singles Awareness Day)? As I don't have a valentine this time around and have never really celebrated it, I plan to catch a movie with a dear friend, who just so happens to be male, and maybe I may treat myself to some long-desired okonomiyaki and mochi ice cream; maybe even some Asahi (japanese) beer. There's also an Anti-Valentine's Day celebration on tonight at one of the campus bars, held by the Deviant Society, which I supposedly am a member of. But I went to that last year and decided that if I felt lonely and shitty in the evening, when I knew across the globe my ex-boyfriend was preparing to host a V-day singles party at his flat, I would check out this cool underground lounge/club called Ginglik in Shepherd's Bush that is having a small V-day tribute with live bands etc. So I am set! HAVE A GREAT DAY EVERYONE!

HAPPY ASH WEDNESDAY!: LENT ANYONE?

And so here we are again in that Lenten time of the year, for you devout Christians and Catholics out there. I now like to think of myself as secular and a non-practising Catholic but I always like a good challenge. About 4 years ago for Lent, my friends dared me to cut out meat, and I did, and I thought that it was so easy and liberating after a while that I ended up cutting it out altogether. Still do. I've been happily Pesco-vegetarian up til now, and counting.

My friends have put up some interesting status updates on facebook about Lent. Here are a couple:

SJW gave up using facebook for Lent...sooooo...yeah...leave a message! xoxo

DSP shall do the fecking impossible by going 40 days alcohol-free...starting NOW!

...and THIS JUST IN! We have confirmation that my carnivorous Filipino ex has given up meat. He says he'll try but there is no 'try' in the word 'lent' so we all know what THAT means!

And what have I given up you ask? Well, most of you are probably going to have your toes writhing in your ankle boots for this one. That would be...shopping. 40 days no shopping. Somehow I feel kind of comforted, because just two days ago I bought a bunch of great staples, and I think I have MORE than enough clothes. In fact, EVERYTIME I shop I think that I have more than enough clothes. Well, I guess it's time to put that to the test. Time to see where my creativity in mixing/matching/layering/accessorizing comes in. I think Daddy, the money dealer, will be very proud of me. Wish me pots of gold luck!

What are you giving up, huh?