My Foodie Holiday

had a majorly cozy weekend in my country house with the 'rents

which, naturally, involved some baking, or half-baking, i guess

oh, yes i did.

made some of Mama Pea's Cookie Dough Balls :)

pre-bake:

those were the only two balls (lol. sorry can't stop myself) "officially" eaten by moi. i probably ate about 6 or 7 in actuality.

The Best Balls you'll Ever Have  :P

I basically just used Mama Pea's recipe and switched margarine to butter, pb to almond butter (it's all i had but it turned out sooooo well) and peanut butter chips to butterscotch chips (which were AMAZING)

                                               hey, it's mah face! vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

this one does NOT need to be Extra Large

I thought i'd take a pic of myself enjoying one just so you guys know that i actually exist (and that i'm not actually a forty-year-old man pretending to be a teenage girl...ew) ha i like never put pictures of myself on here :)

i saved a little bit of room for dinner, of course. my dad made this delicious butternut squash soup. so yummy (and photogenic)

my parent's friends came over and brought Gingerbread!

I usually dislike gingerbread but this was so good. It just tasted like a brown-sugary cake, not too tangy.

my adorable dessert plate.

before...


and after.

isn't food so much more fun when it's cute?

I also picked up this edition of Newsweek. Has anyone else read it?

it's really fascinating. Miller talks about how what we eat reflects our social class. She says that "17 percent of Americans—more than 50 million people"are "food insecure"- aka don't necessarily have enough money to adequately feed themselves and their families on a day-to-day basis.

   (http://www.newsweek.com/2010/11/22/what-food-says-about-class-in-america.html)

While it certainly may not help someone who is still entrenched or actively sick in their eating disorder to ask them to think about statistics like this, I think that in recovery opening your eyes to the reality and harshness of situations around you can really make worrying about food and weight seem pretty trivial and ridiculous.

   (http://www.newsweek.com/2010/11/22/what-food-says-about-class-in-america.html)

That is, of course, not to say that having an eating disorder or that struggling is "ridiculous", but rather that sometimes it can be really motivational or eye-opening to step outside of ourselves and look at other things in the world which can easily make the-ever-worried- about -calories seem like not so big of a deal.

  chestnuts roasting on an open fire...

On that note, i watched The Cove on Sunday and was throughly moved/disturbed by it. It's about the murder of dolphins in Japan. Has anyone else seen it? As soon as i finished watching it i went to the website that they give a link to, because i really felt touched by it and wanted to do something. Again, it's that internal passion that i feel so intensely as of late. But really though, when there are so many other things to feel excited/passionate about, who has time for an eating disorder???

So guys, i apologize because i was going to write a more important and involved post but i got busy and then i missing y'all and really wanted to post/say hi tonight so i'm just gonna go ahead and post this, insignificance and all.

Hope you all have had a good start to the week thus far!

P.S. Can you think of any ways in which you (personally, on a day-to-day basis, or maybe even in a larger sense) see how the food that "we" eat is reflective of social class? What else does it reflect, do you think? Is this a touchy topic for some?

xo

rose

Beauty in America (and everywhere else) & Giving Thanks

I went to the bookstore last weekend with my mom.

Sometimes i find bookstores really overwhelming.

It's like there are all these things that i need to read. So many things to learn, or look at or try to understand i usually end up freaking out because there are at least 10 books that i absolutely must get now- aka they are going to change my life or they are just fascinating or they are about something i have never even considered before, etc etc etc. And then i end up feeling helpless because there are so many things that i want to read and know and experience that i can't possibly do it all and i am just so in love with everything that i am at a loss for any kind of containment. 

i might have asked my mom to get this for me for Hannukah :)

Guess where we ended up going right after the bookstore?!

hot tea for a chilly day

Sarabeths. 
mmm. Favorite bakery ever.
Hence why i'm so excited that i am going to have the cookbook soon and perhaps i will make some delicious concoctions from it. 

chocolate dipped butter cookie. mmm.

my favorite cookie ever, aka the "cloud cookie".

My rant at the beginning of this post did have a point to it.

I'm not just going to leave you with some senseless ramblings about bookstores, don't worry, i'm not that scatterbrained. (i hope)

That bookstore experience is 100% true to my real life. I always feel so overwhelmed because there are so many things that i want to do or learn or see. Reminds me of a previous post i wrote about the possibilities of saturdays, in particular.

couldn't decide, had to try both the soups. Ended up eating both for dinner.

 It also reminds me of a quotation from one of my all-time favorite movies, American Beauty. 

"...there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much. My heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst."

needed to hop on the bandwagon and join the pumpkin fad

pumpkin and chocolate. who knew?

 Amanda wrote a post recently where she mentioned this kind of phenomenon. 

This feeling of having so much to take in.

And it's definitely flying around recently, especially with all the Thanksgiving posts that are infiltrating my reader, everyone seems to have so many things to say and appreciate, how can we possibly keep track of it all?

delectable. ate one of these for breakfast every day this week.

 I love so many things. 

Sometimes there is just so much in life that i want to be a part of, and i just have no idea where to start. Maybe that's just a blessing of being young. I also feel like it might have something to do with the time that I feel i've lost to the eating disorder, all the days that i let go by when i was just stuck in a different universe of weight and food and calories while the world was outside spinning and definitely not waiting for me to wake up.

I guess i kind of feel like I just woke up and am just re-entering the world and life and it's only now that i'm finally seeing all these things that just  make me so excited and thrilled and scared that i won't have enough time to love and appreciate all of them. 

adorable necklace charms that say things on them like "no regrets" "inner peace" "a good nights sleep"

 Sometimes i feel that way about blogs, too. Sometimes with Twitter and Facebook and Tumblr and blogs i just feel like there's too much going on that i can't possibly appreciate and understand and filter all of it in order to really get a grasp on what's happening with the world. I am following close to 100 blogs right now and i find more every day that i love and that intrigue me and sometimes i get so overwhelmed trying to keep up with everything and everyone. Whether it's new science information about eating disorders & mental illness or new insightful posts or just new foodie or art pictures, etc, sometimes i just feel my brain go into over-load and i feel paralyzed and i can't take it all in.

i'm thankful for the 2nd grade girl who is little, naive and loved enough to write this.
i hope she never has to feel otherwise.

 that, my friends, is my long-winded explanation for why i haven't posted/updated in a while & a description of my current state in the blogosphere, as an overwhelmed reader and lover of anything and anyone.

it's also my way of recognizing thanksgiving and all it means to me.

i used that American Beauty quote in my "eaters' agreement", which was something that they made us write at my treatment center for our "graduation" ceremony, and it was basically our promise +description for ourselves and everyone else of how we would take care of ourselves. 

Here is the rest of the quotation...

"I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me, but it's hard to stay mad when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much. My heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst.And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it. And then it flows through me like rain. And I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life. You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry, you will someday." 

I hope you all had a lovely thanksgiving. 

Thank you so much to everyone who read or commented on my poem from before. I'm glad to be back. :)

xo

rose

use your words & eat your food

DON'T eat your words and use your food. k?


I wanted to say thank you to everyone who commented on my last post. Your words helped me more than you know. 
I've hopped back on the recovery bandwagon and am feeling much better because of it.
I'll post more later, after i go out to dinner & hopefully write my religion essay but i wanted to share this poem that i wrote with all of you. 
I had to write a poem based on Allen Ginsberg's Howl for Carl Solomon for my english class.
If you haven't read it, Howl is a great poem. Ginsberg writes about the suffering he experienced and it speaks to the "outcasts" of American society (those who are more focused on love and meaning in life, rather than material "success") and he does it beautifully. We had to write a poem "to someone who understands" (you). I wrote to to a dear friend of mine who i met in treatment. I changed the name for the sake of her privacy, but i thought you all might appreciate it.

Whisper

For Sarah Halper

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by hunger,

Fakeness, lonesome, searching for something beautiful.

Abandoned and unloved, they paint their mouths shut with silence.

Whispery silhouettes run down the sidewalks of insanity,

And stop to glare at grotesque fun-house mirror projections

Of fat and tired limbs,

Glistening with the sweat of hate.

Shells of women who sit on concrete

Smoking endless cigarettes, burning up their lungs

As payback for continuing to swallow air

Organs stubbornly gripping to life

Even when a fragile heart patters like early rain

It beats at the wrong

Moments.

They damn their stupid hearts

For beating at all.

They drink whole pots of coffee

Black liquor, free of sins.

Poured into sad paper cups

During early hours of black mornings

When the rest of the population

Finds solace in quiet minds, minds that

Have not forgotten how to rest, to dream.

Sleepless with self-loathing and malnutrition

They grip fire-hot mugs

Blue-boned fingers, numb and cold

Sipping freedom liquid.

Girls who spend all the seconds

Of melancholy

Photographing mental x-rays

Of beauty beyond their grasp.

Who look at dirt and see holiness,

God and redemption incarnate, sad skeletons.

Twenty thirty and forty-somethings

Trapped in the pain of adolescence

Who never found their way out

Of uncertainty and un-belonging.

Stuck in a sea of mental agony

Riding waves of want

Trampled by harsh, un-caring waters

Hitting the ocean floor over and over again

Choking on salt, gasping for breath

They flail their arms in vain

And No-one sees them drowning.

They hunger for love and affection

Skip lunch, dine on crackers and wine.

Or gorge themselves on cakes of saints,

Stuff themselves to the gills with counterfeit care.

The rumble of their bellies, the pangs in bed at night

Fails to make loneliness seem less Encompassing.

Sarah, I’m with you at midnight

When the crack of light dawns on your kitchen floor

And all before you, you see breads and soups and chocolate

The beginnings and end of your love.

I’m with you in Colorado,

When you play houseguest as your Norwegian father

A connoisseur of disaster

Offers you the finest cheeses,

Not knowing that all you wanted was a second glance.

I’m with you when you read my words

And your mind insists they don’t apply to you

That nobody knows you, that you are not one of us.

I’m with you in Los Angeles

Where hippies disguise themselves as buddahs

And bow down to vegan, soul-less gods,

Chanting the words that will save you.

I’m with you in Santa Monica

Where you hide from yourself

And look to better women of the past

Who might teach you how not to need, not to be so much.

I’m with you inside heavy- closed doors,

When you cry salty tears,

Asking anyone to make you less.

I’m with you in Agoura Hills

Where hypocrisy and beauty made us sick to our stomachs

And we were terrified, tranquilized, frozen in time.

What is beauty? You will ask.

Beauty is the warmth of your cheek

As you embrace my shaking body.

Beauty is the flash of your teeth when you laugh.

It’s the crackle of the fire near my chilled feet.

Beauty eludes us, dear Sarah,

In our search for something unconditional.

It’s a receding horizon, a firefly we’ll never catch.

A glow we can only see in front of us

Never to be held, contained within a see-through jar.

If beauty is love

And love is food

Well then, we are screwed, you say.

I bite my tongue before I suggest

That perhaps, you should come for supper.

help a girl out

today has been freaking hellish.
i'll explain with bullet points because full sentences are for the fair of heart. 
things that suck right now in my life

• food. today has been a nightmare of a food day. i have myself to thank for this. i basically starved myself all week. don't ask me why. i don't want to talk about it. it was more than a week. i reverted to restricting for a good week and a half and tried to ignore it and then today i tried to start eating normally and all hell basically broke loose. i'm not gonna go into more detail than that because i don't want to think about it right now but. i . need. help. Where do i start tomorrow? i want to just go back to my normal-recovery-life but i'm scared and i feel gross after my chaotic eating today and i need some help, i think.
• HOWL. not like coyotes, that would be cool. the poem, by Allen Ginsberg. I had this english assignment due today based off it and i didn't do it. I left it for the last minute and now i still haven't done it because i've been feeling like s*** all day and yeah. so now i need to do that. and email it. and hope i don't get marked late, i guess.
• sick. yep. literally woke up sick today, AGAIN. second weekend in a row! Really, now? bummer. I've had a headache all day and and used an entire box of tissues and now i just feel icky after being in bed all day. 

whine whine whine.

sorry. i guess we're all entitled to our whiny-ness once in a while.

but really, how do you get back on track after over a week of eating disordered hell-ish-ness without getting into some kind of awful bingeing and purging or bingeing and restricting cycle or just awful HEADSPACE? any experience/advice would be greatly appreciated.

this is me being vulnerable. i hate asking for help. i have a feeling you guys won't mind though. <3

(source :http://saintsandsluts.tumblr.com/post/1361540205)

You will never be pretty

i'm really really trying to work on my procrastination issues.

it's a long story and its a habit i've had for pretty much ever but i talked a lot about it in therapy yesterday and i really want tonight to be "good", so i'm not going to spend a lot of time online (hopefully).

However, i saw this over at cynosure, and just HAD TO SHARE IT WITH YOU ALL.

Seriously. 

If you do nothing else tonight, please, watch this video.

But we're all mad here, right?

do you ever feel like your brain is about to explode with thoughts?

A drawing by my good friend Lauren.Isn't it awesome?
It shows freaking exactly what i'm sure we all feel like sometimes.

sometimes, and i know that i've mentioned it before, as other bloggers also do sometimes, i feel like there are days when i have so many things in my head that i want to share/get out, that sometimes it becomes too much and i just can't express any of it. Black and White thinking, much? Yep, i know.

Today when i got out of therapy, all of a sudden i felt really sad. And intimidated...ya know...by the girl in the waiting room going in after me. I hate eating disorder treatment sometimes. I think that kind of "competitiveness" (aka when you and another person kind of size each other up in a not-so-discreet-lets-see-who-can-give-the-most-deathly-stare-i'm-so-cool- way) is part of high school just generally, but i think when you know that someone also has an eating disorder, that kind of weirdness is sort of intensified. I hate that. It just sort of pushes my metaphorical knife (sorry lol i'm in such a weird writing mood) of self-dislike further and further in, and i hate that awful kind of insecurity. 

I bet other people feel this just with other bloggers even. Perhaps at foodbuzz, which i've been reading a lot about? Yes? No?

Anyway, so i came out of therapy feeling weird/sad/shaken up for some reason. Or for a few reasons.

And then i put my ipod on and got on the train and was just thinkingthinkingthinking and before i knew it i wished i had a journal with me because i had all these thoughts that i didn't want to lose and that i wanted to share with you. And i hate it when i feel like my brain is exploding.

Am i making any sense here? Maybe i'm more sleep deprived/caffiene jazzed than i really thought.

Enough self-doubt, i'm gonna keep writing.

What i wanted to say was this. When i was on the train and feeling confused/sad/whatever, i kind of started saying cheesy things to myself in my head. Things like "I like myself" or "I can do anything i set my mind to" ...(in normal person speak i think these would be called affirmations ;) )

I automatically felt better. Saying these random affirmations to myself, even though i didn't believe them kind of helped. And then i realized something. 

I think that's one of the things that's so great about blogging. When i read the comments that i get on my posts, i instantly feel so loved/supported and i'm just so grateful and i just feel better about myself.

That's because, often times, you guys say to me things that I can't yet say to myself. 

It reminds me of when I was in treatment and i felt really supported, because my friends and I would all kind of root for each other, until we eventually, little by little, learned to root for ourselves. I guess that's what's so great about this. Is that hopefully, someday, after hearing it enough times from our friends/whoever is nice enough to give a damn, we will be able to say encouraging things to ourselves, and then, possibly, live out our lives in ways commensurate with those positive thoughts, etc.

Make sense? i hope so.

alright, well, if you made it through this weird/rambly/non-sensical post, i congratulate you tremendously and will personally send you a cyber hug ;) oh, sometimes i wonder how i even have friends. if you met me and i was being this weird wouldn't you jsut want to beat me up and throw me in a trash can or something? Don't answer that. :P

shutting up now!

xo

thank you all for just being amazing readers/commenters/inspirational people who keep me going :)

-rose

Confessions of a Chocoholic

okay guys.

i might very well have a problem.

i'll let the pictures do the talking.

don't tell me you don't want to eat that.

and these.

and definitely these.

i baked on friday.

it was lovely. i actually was sick on friday and stayed home from school but in the afternoon i got antsy and needed something to do so i decided to make some delicious chocolate chip cookies. Recipe taken from my new favorite blog, Joy the Baker. I actually just read a post by the lovely Rebecca about how baking helps her/ is a good reward/pass-time for her. I wanted to write about that too, although, I'm not sure i could say it more eloquently than she did. 

I love baking. Moreover, I love chocolate and everything i can make/eat/share when i'm baking.

On friday i brought two of my delicious cookies (they turned out better than my chocolate-sourcream muffins...don't worry!) to my dietitian when i went to see her and she told me that she had been craving exactly that all day. I love that feeling. Being able to give to people you care about.

I originally justified my baking on friday because i was making them for my friend K, who was in the fall musical that i went to see on friday and i wanted to bring her something because it's always nice to get a little gift after a performance, non?

I love baking because it lets me feel productive. Often times, with my school work and other things I never really reap the full reward, or feel accomplished or like i've actually done something worth s***.

When i bake, there's a concrete finish that i can see(and taste) for myself and give to other people and that allows me to share my love for other people and hopefully with myself, too. 

I haven't been a "baker" for very long.

In fact, the first time i really started baking was this summer, when i was feeling bored, lonely and at a loss for friends & something to do. Baking really helped me. It gave me a goal and an outlet...dare i say it  , in some ways, replaced some of the functions of my eating disorder?

Perhaps.

I mean, think about it.

I also made pancakes for me & my parents yesterday morning.
Buckwheat double chocolate chip+ just plain buttermilk.
yum.

I know a lot of people with eating disorders who say that their eds made them feel special or that their eating disorder is their "thing". I, personally have never related to this but i know for a fact that a lot of people do. Well baking makes me feel special. When i bake and i give my food to people, i'm giving them something that is all mine. They have me to thank for that delicious taste in their mouths. Not my friends or my enemies or my parents, me. There is something about that that i love. I love the feeling that those particular pancakes (yeah, up there, see them, the incredible mouth-watering, makes -me- wanna -drool- i- need -a-second- breakfast- NOW- ones?) Were mine and only mine. In that very moment, something belonged entirely to me, and their is something very uniquely rewarding about that.

legit foodgasm.

Baking is a time-killer. Its a hobby. And its definitely more fun than running/calorie counting/or bingeing and purging. 

It gives me something im "good at" or something that i can set goals for myself with.

It's a heck of a lot cooler to set myself goals of "Make the Best Chocolate Chip Cookies EVER" than "lose five more pounds", right?

right.

Dinner on friday @ Whole Foods: Incredible Carrot Soup + Savory cheese&something i don't remember scone.
thought i'd show you that i do, on occasion, eat thing that are not chocolate.

 There's also the obvious fuck you that baking is to my eating disorder, and i love/hate it. I made myself a promise recently that i would never, never never ever throw up something that I baked. That's just not cool. When i bake, i put myself into it, and it would just be sinful almost to get rid of that. That would be like giving myself the finger, which is something i try not to do these days. ;)

The lovely Tatianna recently wrote about eating disorder fears + challenging yourself in recovery, and i kept on reminding myself this weekend that my eating what i make/bake is a way to challenge myself. Plus, it's delicious and fun.

Never in my eating disorder would i go to that length to nourish myself with something delicious. I just ate whatever was "safe" for me, or when i was b/ping i ate whatever the hell i could get my hands on. 

Eating pancakes and cookies is freaking hard dude. I love chocolate, and its also one of my biggest fear foods. 

It's for that reason though, that i know its so important to my life that i keep on baking, and eating chocolate when i feel like it, whether that means i have a little bit at breakfast, lunch and dinner, or if i just have it once a day.

I need to be gentle with myself. And i need to challenge myself also.

That's what baking does for me.

Vegan chocolate cake that accompanied above dinner.
Point proven (note my title.)

xo, hope you all had a lovely weekend.

i've been sick and in bed the past two days, so i'm just living vicariously through the other bloggers out there right now ;)

P.S. Do you have any recovery challenges? What about fear foods, do you have any? Have you tried to tackle them or is it just too hard? 

Oh and also, am i the only total chocoholic out there???