November 2012 – Page 4 – a hippie with a minivan

Too much of a good thing…

I have fond memories from childhood, making popcorn with my mom and then with friends and topping it with tamari and nutritional yeast. It was one of my favourite snacks as a child and still is.

And now it has become a favourite for my children as well.

Popcorn drizzled with Tamari and sprinkled with Nutritional Yeast

Not only do the kids like the Nutritional yeast on popcorn but they also love it on rice and other savoury dishes I make and I have to admit, there is not much that it doesn’t go with. Wilhelmina especially loves it and has been known to sneak a handful when I am not looking.

This morning I hadn’t noticed that she was already up when Khéna came and got me out of bed way before the usual time saying that Wilhelmina was in the yeast jar. I got my glasses on, got my house pants on and came upstairs and took the jar away and cleaned up the mess. I helped them grab a quick bowl of cereal, got my coffee and sat down and then I looked at Wilhelmina. I saw a bit of red on her face and thought that it was strange that she still had raspberry on her from yesterday… I mean, she did have a bath.
When I glanced again the red had spread and her whole body was become beet red. OMG! I thought about Khéna’s hives from a few days ago and brought her to the bathroom to check her out more. But there were no hives, just red all over and she was itchy and she wanted to wash her hand which still had a bit of yeast stuck to it.
The yeast! I went to the computer to see if there are cases of Nutritional yeast reactions and a post on a forum mentioned Niacin Flush. I have never heard of it so I looked into that quickly and guessed that it was probably what was happening.

Nutritional Yeast is very healthy and contains Niacin. Niacin is great for cholesterol levels by raising good cholesterol and therefore decreasing bad cholesterol. Niacin also helps dilate blood vessels and can cause a warm feeling which is the “Flush”. This is a very common side effect of having too much Niacin. Some people do this on purpose taking enough Niacin that will dilate the blood vessels enough for them to go beet red. If you haven’t taken too much, the flush will last about 10 minutes and will go, but if you take too much it can last up to an hour. Either way, it is a vitamin and though it could overload the kidneys if there is a problem with the kidneys, it will just be flushed out of the body naturally.
Wilhelmina’s Flush lasted about 10 minutes and then disappeared.
Though I knew that nutritional yeast was healthy along with being completely delicious, I never though that you could have this reaction from eating too much of it…

She knows that she became red because of the yeast and I think she knows better now… I hope!

(Just as the Flush was leaving… a minute or two before this, her whole face and body were the colour of her cheeks… you can still see her neck is pink)

A few things that caught my eye…

First Check out Mark…

Today he left from BC and is hitchhiking across the country hoping to arrive at the Stanfield’s Factory in Nova Scotia in 21 days to raise money. What is so special about that? He is doing it in his underwear, in November, in Canada… to raise money for “Below-the-Waist” Cancer research.

You can support him by donating or even picking him up for a ride along the way! Gitchhiker.com

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This is Disturbing..

I know it dates from last year but it popped up in my Facebook news feed today and it still quite disturbing: Genetically modified cows produce ‘human’ milk. I really can’t get my head around it.

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Here is one about birthing:

“The low-tech approach to delivering babies in one Amish community may offer clues on how to safely reduce the rate of Cesarean-section deliveries in the United States, researchers say.”

Amish offers clues to lowering US C-section rate

Is this really news? Hospital have been failing women and jeopardizing their health and the health of babies for years. Pregnancy and birth are not diseases and the more hands-off a caregiver is the better the outcome! It isn’t rocket science, it’s Nature! Why go to the Amish? they could have looked at most midwives and the natural birthing community has been saying for years! Of course, this won’t change a thing.

Update on the braided table runner…

I am loving how this table runner is coming together!

After I had bought the fabric and was putting it together I thought that I had made a mistake with the choice I made but once I brought the colours together in a different way, I knew that it would turn out pretty and it is even better than I would have imagined it would be.

The top is now finished and I have sandwiched it with the batting and the backing and “all” I need to do now is to quilt them together and then finish the edges. I have the “all” in quotations because though I know I will like it when it is finished, actually putting the needle down and figuring out how I am going to quilt it is the hard part.

There are some definite mistakes in it but I don’t think it all that bad for a first try at the design with no pattern or instructions. I also think the overall look of it can make the mistakes seem quite minimal…

Kitchen Trick: Choosing Lemons

Yesterday, when I was at the grocery store an older woman stood next to me as I choose my lemons. She asked me what I was looking for as I took each lemon in my had and felt the skin with my thumb. I shared my secret with her and I though that I would share it with all of you also.

This is a trick that my step-dad Miguel taught me years and years ago.

When choosing a lemon you want a fruit that is heavy and firm. That is a given, as it is in most fruits and vegetables. But what you are really looking for when picking up a lemon is a peel that is completely smooth with little, or better yet, no bumps at all.

Smoother lemons often have a thinner skin and will yield more juice, But what is really great is that the smoother the lemon’s skin, the less seeds it will have and often it will have no seeds at all. Isn’t that amazing… no need to pick out the seeds when squeezing fresh lemon juice into your favourite recipe.

Do you love lemons as much as I do?

What a day…

Yesterday I left my house just after 7am to grab the ferry and head over to the northern shore of the St-Laurent river. My mom was waiting for me at her house so that we could both head to the cabin to pack her things up. My uncle and her have been fighting and because it is his property she has decided that it is time to move out completely.

I’ll miss the place but then again, we can still go as anyone in the family is welcome there and we hope to be out of the province at one point soon also.

When we were leaving her place I asked her if she would like to take my car. Hers is not in the best of shape and is really on its last miles. She just had work done on it but I am still not that comfortable in it. She declined my offer and we headed out to the cabin in her car.

We got to the cabin about 30 min later, lit a fire, heated some water for tea over the wood fire, and started packing. By lunchtime we were both hungry and headed to the village for lunch. As we pulled in the parking lot we smelled gas, we had noticed it at the cabin also, but it happens at times when my uncle fills his chain saw and some spills out and we had checked under the can quickly but had seen nothing. This time though, not only was there a small but trailing from behind the car was a 2 inch line of gas.

There are no garages open on weekends anywhere around so we knew that we would have to call a tow truck. My mom started stressing out. The gas was only leaking when the car was running so we went and ate lunch any way and decided that we would head back to the cabin and finish what we could before calling a truck to bring us home.

We spent the rest of the afternoon packing and then when we both couldn’t look at doing another box again (and there was not much left to do) we decided to head home. We went and parked in the village church’s parking lot to be able to be easily found and we called the tow truck. It was cold out and they said that we would have about an hour to wait and because we couldn’t keep the car running (and we were not appropriately dressed) we were freezing. We finally got a call and the guy was looking for us. The Village is tiny. There is one intersection and the church it pretty big, it wouldn’t be hard to find us. When I explained in more detail we realized that he got the call inverted and he was 30 min away at our destination. He told us he was turning around. About 15 min later his partner arrived who was luckily just ending a call closer to us. Of course, the guy didn’t have the details of the call so he was riding with his girlfriend which meant that we had to squeeze into the cab with them. The whole ride was awkward.

We should have taken my car…

Finally we got home and had a glass of wine to leave behind some of the stress of the day and then I helped make supper and I headed home. Though it wasn’t a particularly physically active day, it was a stressful one and by the time I got home I was falling asleep.

It feels like the end of an era…