Friends for Life? It Takes Time. And Effort.

L to R, the Wimer Women: Linda, Nona, Annie, Jeanne, ,JoAnne, Margaret, Michele, Betty 

I enjoyed a spirit-renewing weekend recently with eight "old" girlfriends. By "old" I mean women with whom I've been friends since when PK and I, in our twenties, landed in Southern Oregon. I met the first of them early on when we were both substitute teachers and carelessly disguised hippies in a conservative logging community. We recognized a kindred spirit when we saw her!

During the next five-or-so years, the others drifted into our shared geography—coming from California, mostly.  We all lived near Wimer, just a dot on the map eight miles east of I-5. It was in the 1970s, and is now, a loosely organized community of old-time farming and ranching families and newcomers on their five-acres of Southern Oregon paradise. Most of us lived on small acreages in the boonies, five to 15 miles from the nearest town. We had gardens, and chickens, ducks, pigs, horses, cattle, and goats were not uncommon. Neither were outhouses, propane stoves, wood heat, and long, rutted dirt driveways. PK and I lived closer to Rogue River in a burnt out trailer. The trailer is gone, but we haven't budged from the land.

Most of us built homes and live now exactly where we landed, or not far away. Many of us still heat with wood and get our water from wells. We share, or have shared, country life in a beautiful part of the world never more than a half hour from wilderness. That says something about how and why we connected. We love digging in the dirt, walking in the woods, hunting herbs, wildflowers and mushrooms, rafting rivers, and gazing at the night sky from a wilderness camp—or our own backyards. We ain't city people.

So much happened over the next nearly 40 years. Nothing unusual, really. We had children—some gave joy; others pain equal with pleasure. Some husbands philandered. One treasured child died. (Still makes my heart skip and stomach plummet.) Divorce and disease took their tolls. A dear friend died.

We partied, celebrated and grieved as families. As "just women," we did wilderness hiking trips and impromptu walks on Super Bowl Sundays. Later, it was wild and scenic whitewater rafting on the Rogue River. We shared so much, including some of our best years as young adults.

Then we drifted apart. The demands of jobs, kids, husbands, and other obligations created distance, even though all but a few of us still live in the same telephone prefix. We made other friends connected to work, church, whatever. We grew in different directions. We got too busy. Two of us moved away. (One could not make it to the gathering.) The other was the catalyst for this remarkable weekend of gut-level reconnection.

Her name is JoAnne, and she knows how to make friends and keep them. Keep us.

JoAnne on the Rogue River trail.

She moved out of this area in 1982—30 years ago! First it was Alaska, then Seattle, now Port Townsend, WA. Most people who relocate make new friends, get a new life, and leave the past behind. Not JoAnne.

Periodically throughout the years, she's made the effort to DRIVE here from wherever to reconnect. Each time she has skipped from friend to friend to spend an afternoon or a night or just meet for a chat over coffee or wine. We've had group dinners and a hike or two.  She repeatedly made the effort. It was not small.

Hiking the Rogue River trail with the Wimer Women.

It's taken me awhile to recognize what she's done, and this past weekend, I appreciated her more than I can express. She contacted me months ago saying she wanted to visit in April and this time, she would love to spend a weekend with everybody all at once rather than piecemeal. Could I help put something together? She listed the people she wanted to include. I hadn't seen some of these women since the last time JoAnne visited, and although I had mixed feelings about a whole weekend,  I booked a vacation rental on the river not far from Grants Pass.

We hiked (on the only nice day in two weeks!) to Whiskey Creek
on the Rogue River trail.

JoAnne's vision for our time together didn't end with us arriving at the same place at the same time and just letting the chips fall. She asked that we all do a "check in" to report our individual  emotional, spiritual, and practical status. Without going into detail that might violate extravagant and wonderfully shocking secrets, the weekend was a peak experience and a lesson in the joy of long-standing yet still-developing friendships.

Nona and Margaret enjoy the Limpy Creek Botanical Area not far
from our weekend retreat.

Without a high-paid facilitator or an agenda, we explored our shared and individual territories with humor, insight, compassion, and love. This took HOURS. Hours that flew like the years that have disappeared since we all met so many years ago. Our  vacation rental lacked media. We weren't distracted by computers, phones, TV, radio or music. We were unplugged from the outside world but connected on deep levels of shared memories, common values. We drew strength from the well of the past—and the power of the future.

See the blue phone? That represents Cat, the woman who couldn't make it.
She did a "check-in" from Northeastern Oregon.

The point is that without someone initiating this remarkable weekend, it wouldn't have happened. Those of us who still live just miles from one another would have continued on our mostly separate paths in ever-widening circles away from the centering value of our friendships.

Keeping friendship alive takes effort. Thank you, JoAnne. And for so many beloved friends from long-ago and the more recent past, expect to hear from me soon. I've been reminded of how much you mean to me.

Low carb. No wheat! Spinach/Pesto Frittata

Two eggs, tons of fresh spinach,  a little feta and pesto. Yum! Good for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

I'm reading a book that's pushing me beyond low-carb nutrition toward life without wheat. (I know that some friends who have endured my ravings about carbs will now be girding their loins against coming assaults on wheat. Don't worry. I'm low on the learning curve, but it IS looking like wheat-free reinforces all the low carb premises—and promises. And then some.*)


The book is Wheat Belly by cardiologist William Davis, MD and published by Rodale. It was a NY Times bestseller in 2011, but it escaped my attention. Now, however, it has me seriously thinking. There's a lot of obnoxious hype on some sites trying to sell this book. It is, after all, promising weight loss. I'm a lot more interested in the longterm health implications*, although, of course, I could stand to lose a few pounds. 


The way of eating proposed by Dr. Davis differs from the low-carb life I adopted almost 10 years ago in that it is WAY more low-carb. In my "maintenance" state, I've fudged on grains by eating low-carb tortillas made from oat fiber, wheat, soy, almond meal and sesame flour.  Only 4 net carbs and 7 grams of fiber. Virtuous! They've been a mainstay. I have also become accustomed to toasted organic sprouted grain bread, net 13 carbs, a few times a week. Although I adopted numerous other breakfasts, I never quite got over toast slathered with peanut butter and cream cheese.  I'm going to have to get over it after reading this damn book. A dear friend, recently reconnected via Facebook, turned me on to "no wheat" and essentially no grains. She wrote:

Turns out the oats and oat bran I was eating every morning (1/2 cup) were the carb that was causing me to have huge blood sugar spikes resulting in debilitating episodes of hypoglycemia every day for the past 20 years. No oats=no spikes. I don't eat any grains anymore, either. After reading 'Wheat Belly' I will never eat wheat again. Coming from someone who was a pastry chef and avid baker of things wheat for 40 years, that's saying a mouthful.

A super-creative cook, Grace also mentioned some of the great creations she uses to replace the oats. I'm hoping she'll share recipes to pass along. How about that homemade sausage using garden herbs, Grace? And the egg cups lined with prosciutto  and filled with asparagus, cream and goat cheese? We're waiting.


In the meantime, the Wheat Belly book sparked an idea for something easy and delicious using frozen pesto cubes,* which happen to be in abundance in my freezer.  This recipe is for one person. Adjust for however many you're feeding.


If you're using pesto with cheese already in it, don't add it until the spinach is wilted and the eggs are nearly cooked. Directions for using prepared pesto are in red.

Spinach, Pesto and Feta Frittata

1 pesto cube* without cheese, thawed, or a tablespoon of prepared pesto 
2-3 eggs
2-3 generous handfuls of fresh spinach
feta cheese to taste
1 tbsp olive oil (if using pesto with cheese)


Over medium heat in a nonstick skillet, add the spinach and cover until wilted. If using a pesto cube,  mix with the wilted spinach.
If using pesto with cheese already in it, add olive oil to the spinach and mix.
Crack eggs over the spinach/pesto and break yolks. Season with salt and pepper. Stir gently  to cook the eggs. 
When eggs are nearly done, add prepared pesto, if using, and mix gently.
 Sprinkle feta over the egg, spinach, pesto mix and cover. Remove from heat until feta is warmed through. It never hurts to add a sprinkle of hot pepper flakes and a dash of smoked paprika. 


*Health benefits of wheat-free diet 

*Making pesto cubes at home

Taking Stock. Making Soup.

Creamy soup made with last summer's canned  tomatoes,  a pesto "cube" etc.
Simple and delicious recipe below.

I had a reality check recently as my dwindling list of rainy-day activities led me to take stock of what remains from the 2011 harvest. In a word: plenty. We have a small chest freezer, and its bottom quarter has not seen daylight for months. Ditto the pantry, where home-canned and dried goods are stashed, along with a box of still-perfect onions (!) a few heads of deteriorating garlic, and bags and boxes of fragrant richly colored dried peppers. More than enough. Ridiculous excess!

In a world with so much hunger and need, this is embarrassing. Two people—it seems we could feed the world, or at least the neighborhood. We need to share more and also get a grip on garden quantity, unless we decide to supply our larger community. In the meantime, we are loaded with everything tomato and enough beets to supply an army of borscht-starved Ukrainians. Thus I developed a menu plan to plumb the depths of our stores during the coming weeks (days?) when the Adventuring Son will be home for a visit. I shall strive to replenish any caloric deficit that he may have developed during his four months in Africa and a couple weeks in Brazil.

I think he goes to sleep hungry sometimes, not that that would be unusual for the native people in the far-away and exotic and sometimes dangerous places he finds himself. (Do you know anybody who has illegally camped, unprotected, on a river beach in a tiger reserve in India alongside huge paw prints? I do.)
Chris and his exploring/adventuring/risk-taking pals sometimes go for days with only what they can carry in their kayaks, and villages along the waterways don't always have food to share or sell. I know he's gotten by on candy bars and skinny dried fish, full of bones. So big mama here enjoys cooking up a storm when he occasionally alights on home turf.

Coming soon, all including remains of the 2011 harvest:

• Jambalaya
• Chili
• Lasagne
• Eggplant Parmesan
• Rama Shower - Thai curry dish, which uses a huge amount of spinach plus the peanut sauce in the freezer
• Borscht (beets, beets, beets!)

Then: young beets happy in the sun and soil.
Now: frozen beets wondering what the hell?
And there I go again, anthropomorphizing food!

I'm sure I'll revisit the simple tomato soup I made in a big hurry after I discovered how many canned tomatoes we have! I'd call it tomato bisque, but I've learned that "bisque" applies primarily to fish-based creamy soups. (Dang it, Wikipedia!) So instead, let's call this—ta da!


Creamy Tomato Delight Soup
1 quart canned whole tomatoes, preferably home-grown
1 medium onion, cut into quarters
1 large celery stalk, cut into 2-inch lengths
4 ounces cream cheese or sour cream (or more)
1 heaping Tbsp pesto (one pesto cube)*
salt and pepper to taste
ground pepper flakes to taste
Top with grated Parmesan cheese or dollop of sour cream, if desired.

Liquify the canned tomatoes in food processor and dump into a sauce pan. Add cut-up onion and celery. Cover, bring to a boil, then simmer for 30-45 minutes til onion and celery are soft. With a slotted spoon, remove onion and celery. Reduce the soup if it seems too watery. Add the basil cube, or pesto. Add the cream cheese. (May substitute sour cream). Mix with an immersion blender til smooth. Do not boil after cream cheese or pesto is added, if the pesto includes cheese.
Season. Serve with grated cheese and pepper flakes.

*About pesto cubes below.

The low-carb breakfast? No Problem!

Berries, cream, instant flax/almond cereal, and Stevia—breakfast with a low-carb count.

Forget the corn flakes, the Wheaties, the typical oatmeal-based granola and the toast and jam. Avoid the pancake-pushing restaurants and the carb-clown muffins. Instead, bring on the eggs, the sausage, the bacon, the cheese—the real goods. You're not counting calories now, but carbs, so just get over it about the fat, ok? But when you tire of eggs and breakfast meats, consider these tasty and easy alternatives. Most require advance prep, but are so good! They also work for vegetarians. They include:

• Instant dry flax/almond cereal to reconstitute with boiling water
• Low-carb granola heavy on nuts and seeds—and great taste
• Low-carb tortillas with melted cheese and/or eggs etc. etc.
• Sprouted-grain bread with nut butter and/or cream cheese (maintenance program)

Half and half is good, but you could also use plain yogurt in the
flax/almond cereal with berries..

Flax/Almond Hot Cereal

From Dana Carpender's 500 Low-Carb Recipes 
Did you used to love cooked oatmeal and cinnamon? Try this. It actually tastes better, and contains lots of protein and healthy fat. 


Ingredients
1 cup ground flaxseeds (pre-ground or grind your own)
1 cup ground almonds (I use my Cuisinart. Any food processor will do. It's noisy but effective.)
1/2 cup oat bran
1 1/2 cups wheat bran
1/2 cup vanilla flavored whey protein powder
2 tsp cinnamon


I grind flaxseeds in a dedicated coffee grinder, but they can be purchased pre-ground. I process whole raw almonds in my Cuisinart and stop short of pulverizing to mealy. This mix should be refrigerated due to the ground flaxseeds and almonds.
To prepare:  Boil a cup of water, add as needed to 1/3 to 3/4 cup dry cereal mix. Leave room to add some cream and berries sweetened with Stevia or Splenda. (I'm moving toward Stevia as sweetener of choice, although it doesn't work for baking.) 

Sorry this is blurry. My hands tremble when I'm near
this stuff—flax granola!

Flax granola

Adapted from Dana Carpender’s Every Calorie Counts cookbook.

This granola is high in fiber, protein, and healthy fat, but low in carbs. It is great with fruit and yogurt, sprinkled atop cottage cheese, or eaten alone as a healthy snack. It has a lot of ingredients and takes a couple hours to make, (mostly baking time) but a little bit goes a long way. Not at all like oatmeal-based carb-heavy granolas.

Ingredients

2 cups flax seed meal (I buy seeds in bulk and grind them in a dedicated coffee grinder, store in the refrigerator.)

’1/2 cup oat bran

3/4 cup vanilla whey protein powder

1/2 c Splenda

1/2 cup sesame seeds

3/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

1 tsp, cinnamon

pinch of salt

1/2 cup coconut oil, melted (it’s expensive! Use unrefined. It tastes way better than refined.)

1/3 cup real maple syrup (or sugar-free pancake syrup for lower-cal, lower-carb.)

1/4 cup water

1 cup chopped pecans (or walnuts) 

3/4 cup sunflower seeds

1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts

1/2 cup pumpkin seeds, roasted (or not. Doesn’t seem to matter.)

1/2 cup sliced almonds

Preheat oven to 250

In large bowl combine flax meal, oat bran, protein powder, Splenda, sesame seeds, shredded coconut,  cinnamon, and salt. Mix well.

Melt the coconut oil and stir together with the syrup and water. Pour this mixture over the stuff in the mixing bowl and mix until it’s evenly dampened.

Spray a big roasting pan or jelly roll pan with cooking spray, or rub with coconut oil,  and turn the flax mixture into it. Press it gently into an even layer. Bake for an hour.

Pull it from oven  and after loosening with a spatula, break the mix into bite-sized clumps. Then stir the pecans, sunflower seeds, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, and sliced almonds into the clumps. Return the whole thing back to the oven  for another 40 – 60 minutes, stirring once or twice, It should be lightly browned. Remove from oven and cool. Break up larger clumps. Store in a tightly lidded container in a cool place.


Sprouted grain products include bread, tortillas, English muffins, and who knows what else! The theory goes that since the grains are sprouted, they will hit the bloodstream more slowly than refined grains. Also, these products are generally higher fiber, and fiber also slows the glucose effect. One slice of Alvarado St. Bakery sprouted multi-grain bread has 13 net g carbs (after counting 2 g of fiber). This is OK for maintenance, but take it easy if you're in weight-loss mode. The low-carb tortillas are a lot better if you are being super strict about carbs.


Several brands of low-carb tortillas are available. I like Tumaros Gourmet Tortillas, 5 g net carbs and 6 g fiber. Use them like any tortilla, and expect an adjustment period if you're keen on those white gummy flour tortillas that torpedo many a Mexican meal. 

Hitting the Slopes with Diehards

This is Steve, grand poohbah of our recent ski trip to the Grand Tetons and powder-snow maniac in chief. He's the one who says. "Visibility is way over-rated," and "You can just let your skis go and feel your way down the mountain." Which is what HE does. Me?  Not. I was the odd-person-out in my group because I believe in seeing with skiing,  and visibility was iffy most of the time. 

If you ask any of my five companions about our recent five-day ski vacation at the wonderful Grand Targhee ski resort in western Wyoming, each would enthuse, "It was great!!!!"
Ask me? I would say I had a good time but was disappointed. Why? The weather sucked. The visibility, except for day one, was, uh, compromised. Snow and wind blasted atop the peaks, and clouds slouched upon the crests. What is wrong with these people? PK and two other couples, people I love and admire, chose to ignore these facts.  

Here's what was right behind our resort lodging. The magnificent Teton Mountains.
I copied this photo from the Internet. We never saw this scene. 

Grand Targhee is incredible. I hope to go back, even though weather could wreck another trip for me.
But not for THEM! The weather-and-visibility deniers. Unfortunately, their rosy attitude
wasn't contagious enough to liberate me from vision dependance. 

The morning view from our slope-side lodging.
Sadly, this is what we saw much of the time. Well, sadly for ME.
The visibility situation didn't seem to matter in the least to my companions. Nor did the wind or the blowing snow. Steve, grand leader LIKED that snow was falling because that meant POWDER, light fluffy stuff you see in all those incredible ski photos. I didn't take any photos on the mountain as I didn't want to expose my camera to the elements. 

Wow. This looks great! Deep powder and blue sky! I could get into this big time. I copied this photo from the
Grand Targhee website.  I only skied powder up to my thighs, as I mostly stuck to "groomed" runs and lower elevations.  THEY had it flowing over their heads! And loved it, loved it. Even though they couldn't see it.

Here are the poor-visibility and bad-weather deniers. One of them exclaimed "Carpe Diem" several times a day.
 I am so with her! Seize the day, dammit. But for me and skiing, it's carpe diem the day you don't have to intuit your way down the mountain. I have lots of friends who would be with me on this. They just didn't happen to be there.

On the other hand, we drove almost 1,800 miles roundtrip. You can't gamble that you'll be able to see where you're going, or that the weather will be good. You're there and you just go. If powder snow is the objective, as it was, that is the best attitude. I know this was their thinking, and, I admire it. I just couldn't muster it.
I'm not saying I didn't have a good time. I did, even though I spent maybe only a total of eight hours in four days headed downhill on my new Dynastar skies, guaranteed to pump me up to the next level.

The first day was cloudy but not socked in, and I joined a guided tour-the-mountain trip and met a bunch of people with a Road Scholar group. Thanks to this, I saw and skied much of Grand Targhee.

The next day, which was blizzard-like, I took a lesson and ended up in a group of four frisky skiers with whom I'd toured the mountain the day before when visibility was decent and the snow was inches deep rather than thigh high. (My companions, meanwhile, were blasting through powder pockets in ungroomed terrain.) The frisky guys encouraged me to join them with the understanding that we were the "top dogs." I liked the top-dog idea, and foolishly fell into this ego trap. However, with limited visibility and my first experience skiing in deep powder, I floundered. I was right on their heels the day before, but was holding them back today, and I dropped out of the group.

That was good. For the next hour, I had to myself a 23-year-old instructor, Corey, who I followed like a baby ducky through the thick ridge-top fog. I could make out his yellow jacket 10 feet ahead as we slipped and turned  on a steep slope through the wonderful fluff. He taught me how to handle the deep powder—not really all that difficult, as it's virtually weightless. I fantasized about a clear day. I longed for it.

But conditions deteriorated. The next morning lifts were delayed opening because the chairs were encased with ice. Visibility was worse than ever. Winds howled. Snow swirled. I didn't even buy a lift ticket. As usual, the gang hit the slopes with good cheer. By unspoken agreement, comments on how ugly it was were not uttered, although I did hear a few remarks later in the day indicating conditions were less than ideal. I kept my mouth shut.

This has been a tough post to write. I was a wuss—and also the least skilled skier/boarder in our group. The experience provides insight into the angst of the slowest person on a bike ride, the dancer who can't feel the rhythm, or the runner who comes in last.  Is it wrong to want to see to ski? Am I really a loser? And then I think of how fortunate I am to have been there to do what I could do. My bruised little ego can just go to hell. Carpe diem. Next time. Maybe.