Month: August 2015

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Banana Nut Crunch Protein Smoothie + Win a Blendtec Designer 725 Blender and Twister Jar!

A recipe for a healthy vegan Banana Nut Crunch Smoothie with lots of protein, plus a chance to win a BlendTec Designer 725 Blender and Twister Jar!
Banana Nut Crunch Smoothie Recipe

Thanks so much to Blendtec for providing me with the BlendTec Designer 725 Blender and Twister Jar — and for providing one for a lucky reader to win! All thoughts and opinions are my own, as always.

I’ve been drinking this banana nut smoothie from a little restaurant here in Raleigh like it’s going out of style, but I think I like the idea of it more than I like the taste. Honestly, my reaction when I took my first sip was, “Eh. I could do better.” It tasted like banana, but when I think of “banana nut,” I think of the deep, rich flavor of banana nut bread — not the sweet, raw flavor of fresh bananas.

Fast forward to me lying in bed with a fiery porcupine of a tonsil in my throat, unable to swallow, much less speak. I’ve battled my ornery tonsils (especially the left one, that jerk) for decades. Whenever my left tonsil swells up to the size of a small vehicle, I know I’m in for a solid week of unsolid foods.

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cakes

Roasted Peach Skillet Cake (and 7 Meditation Apps)

Check out Apps to Get Your Om On: The Best Loved Meditation Apps

by Julie Ruble at Mode

Thanks so much to Mode Media for sponsoring this post!

Roasted Peach Skillet Cake Recipe
Roasted Peach Skillet Cake Recipe

In a few short hours I’m packing up and heading off to Maine for a trip with my tiny 9th grade class. We’ll paddle for hours to reach a remote island where we’ll set up camp. We’ll have transformative conversations (and roasted marshmallows) around a campfire. What we won’t have are computers.

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Easy Chicken Shawarma (+ Why You Should Not NOT Foster a Rescue Dog)

Easy Chicken Shawarma
Easy Chicken Shawarma

Wait wait wait. Just take a second to make sure you read that title right. This post is not about why you should not foster a rescue dog. It’s about why you should not not foster a rescue dog.

You’re probably thinking that I could’ve made things easier and just called it, “Why You Should Foster a Rescue Dog,” but that’s not quite right. What kept me from fostering for a long time isn’t that I needed reasons to do it. Instead, I needed someone to tell me why all my worries about fostering were silly. In other words, I needed reasons that I should not not do it.

So what is fostering a rescue dog, anyway? Fostering isn’t just a nice way to give a dog some time in a home before he’s adopted — it literally saves lives. Many animal rescues don’t have a central facility where dogs are kept, or if they do, it gets full very quickly. This means they can’t rescue dogs from animal shelters (where they’re at risk of being euthanized) unless people volunteer to foster them. Fostering is caring for a dog or cat in your home. You take it to vet visits, play with it, feed it, do basic training. All of this is paid for by the rescue. All that’s required of you is your time and attention. The reasons to become a foster parent are obvious: you save an animal’s life, you get kitty or pup snuggles, and it’s all for free!

But I can hear the objections popping up in your head. They popped up in my head, too. So here’s why you should not not foster a dog:

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cakes

Coconut Cream Snack Cake

Coconut Cream Snack Cake
Coconut Cream Snack Cake

Sitting in Chick-fil-a right now on a wobbly booth seat. Equipped with large Coke Zero and free Wi-Fi. Ready to write.

A plump-faced child in the booth in front of me is throwing straws at his grandmother. Another kid is standing on her booth seat to grab forks and ketchup from over the divider. They are all screaming. Every single child is screaming. From the sound of it, there are 8,000 of them. One little angel is loudly petitioning for cherry ice cream. She has repeated her request approximately 8,000 times. Her father is pretending not to hear her.

SOMEONE GIVE THAT KID A CHERRY ICE CREAM.

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Fully Loaded Baked Falafel Pita (vegan) and Anti-Racism for White People (Post 2)

Fully Loaded Baked Falafel Pita Recipe
Fully Loaded Baked Falafel Pita

Welcome to the second post in my series about anti-racism for white people: Identifying and Dealing With White Fragility. Thank you to all of you made a commitment to read at least the first two posts! (Here’s the first one if you missed it.) At the end of this installment, you’ll find the dinner recipe that Mike and I are currently crazy about, which happens to be a great way to use the quick-pickled radishes I posted last week: an (incidentally vegan) Fully Loaded Baked Falafel Pita! You’ll also have a chance to share your experiences and resources in the comments. Let’s begin in a rather unlikely place: the skating rink.

When I was 8, I broke my arm at the skating rink. I’ve told you the story before, but I want to focus in on one aspect of it. I was rude to the concession stand cashier when he wouldn’t give me ice to put on my injury, and my friend encouraged me to apologize to him. I want to focus in on the feelings I went through in that moment, which consisted of discomfort, pride, indignation, anger, humiliation, defensiveness, and guilt.

Discomfort because I was in a pickle and I had to either back down or continue fighting; the former felt embarrassing while the latter felt stupid and scary. Pride and indignation because I had just sassed this dude to stand up for myself and now I didn’t want to back down. Anger because I felt like he should’ve given me the ice, which would’ve prevented all of this discomfort in the first place. Humiliation because deep down, I knew I was going to have to admit I had been rude. Defensiveness because part of me was still insisting that I hadn’t been rude: HE had been rude and I had just defended myself! I knew because my feelings were hurt and why would they be hurt if he hadn’t hurt me? Guilt because underneath all of my swirling feelings was the understanding that I had done something wrong.

All of these feelings were valid. Feelings aren’t right or wrong, but they require some analysis to interpret. And it wasn’t the concession guy’s job to sort through them and arrive at a place where I could make an effective decision about what to do — it was mine. What does this have to do with racism?

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