Regarding Vampires

Well.

18 straight days of vacation. 2500 pages of vampire-related fiction. 1000 pages of fiction in general. 1500 miles travelled.

Lemme tell ya kids, it's been an interesting month.

Other than all the beach and all the traveling and all the eating, the biggest part of my life has been tearing through the 4 Twilight books on my birthday-present Kindle. I'll spare you all my rants and raves (it's a good thing I was reading it on my Kindle otherwise there would be book-shaped dents in my drywall) about why I disliked the books so much; those of you close to me have had to hear enough of it. What I'll say is this: how can you write a book about one of the most sexually charged characters/archetypes from history/literature/myth and NOT have any sex scenes? I don't want to live in a world where vampires care whether or not they have sex before marriage.

On the culinary front, I'm fully moved on from the raw-vegan madness that was late spring. Fun as it was, being a raw foodist, I don't think it's for me. Too much of a "lifestyle" and "lifestyle" is just a caftan and a new haircut away from being a cult so, no thank you ma'am. I still eat lots of raw veg and salads but now I throw in cooked pasta, jasmine rice, fresh bread, and cooked veg into the mix. And of course fresh fruit smoothies. If nothing else, raw foodism has made a smoothie addict out of me. (See previous post). Fun to make, fun to eat, fun to say: sm-ooooo-thie!

So before I hit the road once more (Athens to Marion, Marion to Cleveland, Cleveland to Ontario, Ontario to Philadelphia, Philadelphia to Marion, Marion to Athens...phew!) I'll leave you with another smoothie recipe.

Dr. M's Patented Anti-Vampire Fig 'n Grape Elixir (patent pending)

4 cups seedless black grapes

1 cup black mission figs (fresh are best, but if you use dried, cut off the hard stem parts)

1/2 cup cold water

1/2 tsp vanilla

pinch of cinnamon (optional)

2 cups ice cubes

In a high-speed blender, puree the grapes until smooth. Add the figs, water, vanilla, and cinnamon (if using). Blend until completely smooth. Add the ice and blend until the mixture has a slushy/smoothie consistency.

Notice how deepred and blood-like this drink looks. This will fool a vampire into drinking the smoothie. The resveratrol (in the grape skins) and the mucin (in the fig seeds) from the smoothy will begin to work against the vampire's internal systems, pulling out toxins and free-radicals. Since a vampire is entirely toxic, this should effectively kill him or her.

Should the vampires plaguing you be fictional in nature, drink the elixir quickly through a straw. This should give you a brief - but potent - brain freeze, allowing you to forget how freaking HORRIBLE!! sparkly vampires without fangs are. Use the temporary memory lapse to start another book (Ilium by Dan Simmons was effective for me), watch Nosferatu or True Blood, and/or listen to some Itzhak Perlman.

Repeat as necessary until all traces of the vampire scourge have been erased from your life.

Good luck.

Shore 'Nuff

Hello friends and enemies from sunny Hilton Head Island!

As is tradition, my family spends the first two weeks of July at the beach. We rent a giant house with a view of the ocean, run the annual Firecracker 5K, watch amateur fireworks displays, listen to kick-ass live jazz, build gigantic sand castles, and more or less seize each day beach-bum style.

This change of scenery was the perfect time/excuse to ratchet my raw foodism down a few notches. For those of you just tuning in, I've been attempting to re-balance the culinary part of my life after getting entirely too wrapped up in raw veganism. Even good habits can become bad if they start to take over one's life. I've always been able to convince myself to do and try different things when I'm on vacation because vacation is not "real life;" for two weeks out of the year I can completely re-invent myself, even if it is only temporarily. More often than not, though, the changes I make while living it up in the sand and sun end up following me back to Ohio and for better or worse, become "real life." Does this mean I am constantly living in a state of vacation? Possibly. I can think of worse fates.

Anyways. Though I made a few raw snacks before I hit the road (macaroons and grawnola and smoothies), I left my dehydrator at home. I brought my blender but so far it's only been used to make pina coladas. I've been raw before dinner the whole time, but I've also enjoyed grilled veggies over jasmine rice, pasta with steamed artichokes, pizza from the Mellow Mushroom, chips and salsa with my cousin's homemade guac, and Thai Red Curry & Summer Vegetables. Some days I eat all raw, others I don't. Mostly I'm eating and doing what I want, when I want.

And that, kids, is the true meaning of vacation.