Such a Mama's girl

There I sat on the lip of the tub, watching while she looked at herself. Her eyes flicked up and down, stopping at certain body parts that caught her eye. "You know," she said, without pulling her eyes from her reflection, "When I was younger, I made up a rule about my thighs: if they touched, I knew I had put on some weight. If they didn't, I was OK." I looked at her with adoration, thinking that if this perfect woman thought she was so flawed, I had no chance in the world.

My mother was the kind of woman who wouldn't enter the kitchen without her "face" on. Though a bit of a hippie earth mama (she did, after all, make all my baby food from scratch), she never quite got into the whole "natural" thing. "I just always liked to shower and smell good too much," she explained. In fact, she's still angry that my Dad didn't wash his hair the morning of their wedding. My mother actually smelled like a shower. A clean, moist shower with delicate floral notes. Every morning I found her in the kitchen wearing her decidedly short silky kimono robe while floating from one counter to the next making us breakfast and packing lunches. Though I never offered to help, I watched her intently. She toasted sourdough bread with butter or poured bowls of Kix cereal on most weekday mornings and whisked together cornmeal pancakes on the weekends. I mimicked her movements in my mind as she packed carrots into little baggies, cut PB&J sandwiches into adept triangles with the crust left ON, and wrote loving inscriptions on the crackled brown paper bags. "I love you :) Have a great day! Love, Mom".

She was born a mother. The type of girl who dreamed of being a mommy before knowing how one becomes a mommy. I, on the other hand, had no desire for motherhood and nearly broke my mother's heart the day I told her so. As a child, she played incessantly with dolls, brushing their hair and putting them to sleep. She even claimed her next door neighbor as "her baby", though Michelle was only 2 years younger (kids aren't really interested in the math). My mother waited very impatiently for me, 32 years to be exact, and never missed an opportunity to regale me (and anyone else who would listen) with the tale of how she discovered her pregnancy. She was sitting in a large rocking chair in the room she hoped would one day be a nursery. All of a sudden she felt a shock go through her body. It was as if someone had taken her by the shoulders and screamed, "You are pregnant...and it's a girl!!" Of course my parents had been trying for a baby (I always avoid imagining this part of the story), however she had yet to experience any signs of pregnancy. Just this weird premonition. Off she went to the doctor's office to find that yes, she was indeed pregnant, and yes it was a girl. "I always knew who you were," she'd glow.

This "knowing" kept me aggressively bonded to my mother. I always kept a close eye on her, attempting to emulate her delicate, womanly mannerisms, her deft mascara application while driving, or how she braided challah on Friday nights. So when she scrutinized herself in the mirror, weighed herself every morning, or worried about a few extra pounds, I did the same.

Amidst all of her food love (she was a big advocate of ooohing and aahing during meals), she struggled with her eating. Though no one ever knew my mother to be overweight (not even voluptuous, she was always slender and fit), her "chubby", acne prone pre-teen years had left a devastating gash in her self esteem. Her struggle was less about poundage, but rather the fear of poundage and the unending mental berating that saddled up next to her eating adoration. Diets came in spurts. There were the months of weighing food on a little scale she kept in the cupboard, then the fat-free fiasco when the house swarmed with various Entenmann's cakes and ice cream. "It's healthy," she promised. "See, all fat free!" What the hell did I care? All I knew was that it tasted good and had enough sugar to power a small car. Then came the year she really committed to "losing a few pounds". She decided on "The Cabbage Soup Diet", a recent craze suggested by a neighbor. For two weeks I came home to what smelled like an elderly Eastern European couple's home. The sulfurous cabbage smell permeated the entire house...even my pillowcase smelled like bubbie's sweater. Let's also get one thing straight: this was not a soup. This was cabbage and tomatoes boiled in water. No flavor, no fat, no fun. And that is exactly what my mother became. No fun!

This diet, like the many others, thankfully came and went. What ceased to disappear was my increasing anxiety over my mother's inability to be happy with her body and my own growing desire to be thin. To be the thin like my mother wanted to be, whatever that looked like. We were so much alike, my mother and I, that I often thought of us as the same person. I picked up her joys, her silliness, her coping mechanisms to different types of stress. When my mother openly worried about her figure, I took the cue and worried about mine. And yet, she too was influenced by her own mother's relationship with eating. My maternal grandmother loved crazy diets. Things like drinking water and vinegar while standing on your head. And the more gimmicky, the better! And knowing all this, it's no wonder my mother thought the cabbage soup diet was a good idea.

Children, especially girls, are like sponges soaking up each and every nuanced action or event in their surroundings. My mother's actions certainly influenced my perceptions of self in the world but she was not the only one. It takes a village to raise a child and mine was full of villagers with very odd food and body relationships.





My Mother's Challah

This is the bread my mother still makes almost every Friday night. It is moist, doughy, and has just a touch of sweetness. Pure heaven!

The recipe is adapted for use with a bread maker. If kneading the dough by hand, follow these instructions. Start with "Mixing the Yeast Slurry" and stop at "Shaping and Proofing the Dough".

1 packet or 1 tablespoon yeast
1/3 cup organic maple syrup (warmed)
2 cups plus 1 cup organic white flour
2 cups organic whole wheat flour
2 teaspoon Salt
2 eggs plus one egg
1/2 cup organic butter
1 cup warm water
sesame and poppy seeds

Set your bread-maker for manual mode:

Place the yeast and the warmed syrup in the bottom of the bread-maker loaf container. Add 2 cups of both the white and whole wheat flour, the salt, 2 eggs, butter and warm water. Start the bread machine. Slowly add the extra cup of flour to the mixture a little at a time, making sure that the dough doesn’t look too stiff. It should form into a ball that moves easily when being mixed. If the dough sticks to the side of the container, add a little more flour. If the dough forms a nice ball when being mixed before all the flour is added, don’t add the remaining flour.

With the machine on manual, let the dough mix and then rise. This should take approximately 2 hours. Once the dough has risen, remove the dough and place it on a lightly oiled surface. Cut the dough into half. Take the two halves and separate into 3 balls of dough each. Roll each ball into a long tube about 10 inches long. Take 3 pieces and braid, making two loaves. Place the 2 loaves on an oiled baking sheet and cover with a cloth.

Let the bread rise for another half hour then remove the cloth. Beat the remaining egg and brush it over the challahs. Sprinkle with poppy seeds, sesame seeds or a combination of the two.

Bake the loaves in a 325 degree oven for 25 minutes or until golden brown. Enjoy!

Tahini's take on Tuna Fish

High school was tough for me, as it was for most people I assume. Within these bizarre four years I was completely inundated with unhelpful hormones that attacked my brain, making me at once a giggling, drooling horn-ball AND a Type A overachiever freak. Let's not even mention the everyday societal pressures of trying to be smart, pretty, and cool all at the same time. With all this swirling around in my 16 year old head, high school wore me out.

I went to a very competitive private high school in the San Fernando Valley. My graduating class had 35 people making it cozy and definitely a place where everyone (including all the mothers) knew your business. I'd never been one for unnecessary conflict, so I tended to hang out with the boys in my grade to avoid girl drama. Even though I wasn't into the ladies daily emotional blood bath, I certainly created my own internal carnage by vowing to be both valedictorian and the hottest, thinnest girl in school. (Neither of which happened.) It all happened innocently enough. A month before starting my junior year I decided to lose 5 pounds. That's it, just 5 little pounds. However, being born with a nature heavily dosed with obsessive tendencies, I took it a little too far.

By January of that school year, everything started to fall apart. I was class president, prom committee chair, cast in the school play, and I felt like I was in a padded cell. In four months I shaved 25 pounds off my 5'3" frame, putting me at 99 pounds. I had this bizarre notion that if I could control my weight I could control everything. My grades, the college I got into, the boy I liked, everything. When people said I looked skinny, I took it as a complement. When the boy I loved picked me up and said I weighed "nothing", I could have died from sheer joy. Every day was a battle against my body and the gnawing hunger inside my belly. Instead of giving into the hunger I turn it into a game. I decided hunger pains meant I was doing well, on the right track and that all my sacrificing would pay off. My diet did not ever waiver. Grain in the morning, fruit (ie sugar) before lunch, and only protein and vegetables for dinner. For almost a year I ate:

Morning: 1/2 cup of oatmeal with 4 chopped walnuts
Mid morning snack: 1 small apple or orange
Lunch: romaine lettuce with 1 can of tuna fish and fat free Asian dressing
Mid Afternoon snack: 1/2 cup cottage cheese
Dinner: steamed broccoli with turkey marinara sauce

I sat in the breezeway at lunch watching my friends and teachers eat. I put on a happy face and cracked jokes, but every few seconds I'd sneak a glance at the forbidden morsels they all put into their mouths. "How could they eat that?", I thought. "Don't they know subway sandwiches and rice crispy treats will kill you!" The worst though was when Jacqueline sat with us. Entire rooms quieted when she walked in. With her long thin legs, blond hair, and unbelievable rack, everyone including teachers, couldn't help but watch her. I stared at her like I stared at food, with desire and hate. Jacqueline's favorite lunch was a veggie sandwich. This leggy vegetarian had the balls to sit in front of me with cheese, avocado, sprouts, and hummus squeezed between two pieces of, dare I even say it, BREAD. These were foods on my "DANGER, WILL MAKE YOU FAT!" list (minus the sprouts) and she ate them without gaining an ounce. To make matters worse, she took each bite with painstaking slowness. First she looked lovingly at her sandwich then finally took a long slow bite, making sure to gently push back in any renegade avocado. Then came the chewing! She chewed each bite somewhere around 30 times, making sure to let out a little squeal of joy at every 5th chew. I dreamt of eating like her. It baffled me how someone could take so much joy in their food without remorse or guilt. I on the other hand, ate a quickly as possible, with the thought that if I did it fast it was like it never happened.

My actual anorexia only lasted a year. Pretty short as those things go. It finally ended when my mom sat me down and confessed she hadn't slept in months over my weight loss. I found a great therapist (after my first one told me to drink Ensure!) and began to unravel the pain and suffering I had created. Let's be honest, I still occasionally struggle with negative self talk, comparing, and jealousy. Old patterns die hard but I now have the perspective and tools to quickly get me out of that downward spiral. Life certainly is a delicate balance between holding tight and letting go. Of knowing that every experience, though sometimes painful, is a gift. It is my past experience that allows me to support and guide my clients the way that I do. My new thoughts also remind me how good it feels to be emotionally free and love my food for the nourishment it provides. I'll take that any day!





Tahini Tuna Fish in Lettuce Wraps
Serve 1

After eating canned tuna fish every day for an entire year, I was tunaed out! In fact it took me 8 years to come back around. I'm not a mayo fan so this is a delicious Mediterranean take on the mayo-based classic. Feel free to toss in a few kalamata olives or capers. So good!

1/4 cup tahini
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 garlic cloved, finely minced
1/2 - 1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons warm water
1 tablespoon freshly chopped parsley
1 can line caught tuna or boneless skinless sardines
4 large red lettuce leaves, washed and dried

In a small bowl mix together the tahini, lemon juice, garlic, salt and warm water. If the sauce is too thick for your liking, at a little bit more water. Mix in the fresh parsley. In a separate bowl add the tuna or sardines. Break up the fish with the back of your fork. Begin to add in the tahini sauce, 1 tablespoon at a time until you've reached your desired consistency. Tear the lettuce leaves in half. Drop a few tablespoons of the tuna-tahini mixture into a lettuce leaf half, roll it up and enjoy!

**If you want to be particularly decadent, top each lettuce wrap with shaved carrots, avocado, and tamari pumpkin seeds. So good!

Lemon Barley and Mushroom Pilaf VIDEO!!

Wellness for Life with Jamie Dougherty (Episode 2) from calico on Vimeo.

Hello All. I wanted to pass along my latest Wellness for Life cooking class recipe. I have to admit, this recipe is amazing! The combination of meaty mushrooms with the chewy barley and tinge of lemon is to DIE FOR. I had 20 people in the audience and made 40 servings, to be safe. Well, was there anything left over for me to take to my hungry husband? NO! He will just have to come to my class next time to get any dinner ;) This dish is a definite crowd pleaser and perfect for meat-eaters and vegetarians alike. It also serves up beautifully cold, so feel free to take it to your next BBQ or picnic. Eat well, enjoy the video, and pass it along!

Lemon Barley and Mushroom Pilaf
Serves 4

1 cup pearled barley, rinsed and soaked overnight
2 1/2 cups chicken or vegetable stock OR water
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme
2 cups fresh mushrooms, sliced (Trumpets are my favorite)
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoons fresh parsley
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup toasted almonds, chopped
Sea salt to taste

In a medium pot, bring broth or water to a boil and add the soaked barley and a pinch of salt. Reduce to a simmer and cook for 18-20 minutes, or until the barley is tender. (Cook for 40 minutes if the barley is not soaked.) Drain in a colander and place in a ceramic or glass bowl.

Heat the olive oil in a medium sauté pan. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Add the fresh thyme, mushrooms, a bit of salt, and sauté until the mushrooms are soft and have a nice golden brown color to them. Squeeze in the lemon juice, mix thoroughly, and add to the barley. Sprinkle with parsley, Parmesan, and almonds and enjoy!

Baked Vegetables- Greek Style

For all my love of Rome, and promises to move there, the food is actually not my favorite of the Mediterranean cuisines. WHAT!, you gasp. It's true. Though I am a fan of their artichokes, pizza napoletana, and prosciutto, most of the cuisine is too heavy for me. I'm also not interested in pasta or risotto, which is a cardinal sin in Italy. I actually once read an article where an Italian chef stated that he refused to serve anyone who did not eat pasta (save those with a doctor's note). I know what you are thinking. "OH, she doesn't eat that stuff because it's unhealthy". Not true. I simply don't enjoy the texture of pasta and am not a lover of creamy things (i.e. risotto). I think both pasta and risotto, when made with fresh ingredients, can certainly be enjoyed in moderation.

Anyway the point, let it be revealed, is that my favorite Mediterranean cuisine is Greek. So my plan is to live in Italy and vacation in Greece. Sound good? Greek food is simple. Very simple. In fact that's the only condemning word I've heard against it. However, that's the beauty of the food, just like its islands. Clean, fresh, and perfect for enjoying the sun. I've eaten my way all around Greece but the dish that introduced me to Greek food is still one of my favorites.

It was 4 years ago, and Gray and I had just arrived in Athens for our honeymoon. We landed at 10 am so instead of sleeping, which is what I really wanted to do, Gray dragged me around the ancient ruins of the city. We got back around 6 pm and promptly asked the concierge where to eat. Just FYI, when asking a concierge for a recommendation, always ask him or her where they eat. You don't want any tourist trap restaurants. Our concierge recommended a lovely locals restaurant a few blocks away and off we went down the steep streets of Kolonaki to our first Greek culinary adventure. We arrived at about 7 pm to a completely empty restaurant. I would have walked out had it not been for a gigantic, tanned, cigar smoking man who begged us to take a seat. Before we even had a chance to open our menus he said, through a thick smile and yellow teeth, "Do you eat meat?" "I don't. But he does," I said, pointing a quick thumb at my new husband. I was just waiting for the waiter to say, "No meat! That's ok, I'll bring a lamb", a la My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Instead he replied, "A ha! I know exactly what to bring. No menus for you!" With that, he snatched our menus and tromped back to the kitchen. What he brought out was better than I could have imagined!





First of all, I could smell our food before it hit the table. With his giant hands, he placed two plates in front of us. Gray received a side of pork, glistening in unctuous juices with peeled and boiled potatoes. Before me lay a gorgeous pile of Romano beans, slow cooked in fresh tomatoes, oregano and a hearty Greek-dose of olive oil. Gray and I looked at our plates, then at each other, and immediately dove in. The beans were perfectly cooked, soft but not mushy. While the sweet acidity of the tomatoes balanced perfectly against the rich, silky oil. We both cleaned our plates, sopping up any remaining juices with crusty bread. When the waiter returned, he appeared quite startled at how we, two relatively small tourists, polished off the food. "You liked it, huh? You should come back!" We never did but I often think of my dish, and that man with his excited, loving smile, and eagerness to feed an American non-meat eater. That was my first taste of Greek food and hospitality. What can I say, it is mine kind of country!



Briam Fournou- Baked Vegetables
This is an adaptation of my Romano bean dish. Because I couldn't find Romanos, I used zucchini, potatoes, and bell pepper. Eggplant and green beans would also go beautifully. Experiment with different veggies and see which you prefer. Enjoy!

Serves 6-8

2 pounds potatoes
2 pounds zucchini
3 onions
2 green bell peppers
1 28 oz AND 1 14.5 oz can of fire roasted crushed tomatoes (I use Muir Glen)
1 bunch of parsley, washed and chopped
1 tablespoon dried oregano
3/4 cup olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
Feta cheese (optional)

Clean and wash the potatoes, zucchini, onions, and bell peppers. Slice them into 1/4-1/2 inch pieces and place in a large baking dish. Mix in the tomatoes, parsley, oregano, salt, pepper, and olive oil. Stir until well combined and place in the oven for 1 1/2- 2 hours. Check at 45 minutes to stir. If necessary, add a little bit of water at this point. When the vegetables are done, remove from the oven and sprinkle with feta cheese. Serve and enjoy!

Ice Cream and the Freshman 15

"I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!" This was the Greenwood family chant every time we needed a cold hit of creamy goodness. Even mom, the health nut, would play along and down we'd go to grab a half gallon of our favorite low-fat flavor, Cappuccino Chocolate Chunk. That flavor was like crack to my family, I swear. We didn't even pull out bowls; we'd just hover around the carton taking turns digging out huge spoonfuls. Ice cream was always a staple in my life, basically one of the main food groups actually if you take into account how many chocolate and butterscotch chip ice cream balls I ate on my 8th birthday (I had banned birthday cakes years earlier).

However insane our ice cream ritual may sound, it only happened a few times a month. It wasn't until I went to college that I decided to take my ice cream devotion to the next level. I arrived at Lewis and Clark college, a wide-eyed freshman looking for a good education and great-looking boys (I believe honesty is the best policy). The education certainly was fantastic with the statistic of 12 students to every professor; however, the "boy" situation left much to be desired. Firstly, out of 3,500 students over 2,000 were female. I knew this stat before I enrolled but it didn't quite hit home until I saw it with my own eyes. Every one of my classes brimmed over with girls and then, if you looked hard enough, you could see a few boys peppered among the ladies. And these boys were prized possessions, let me tell you. Whether cute or not (and most of them were NOT), to get a man at Lewis and Clark was quite a feat. Boys I would have never even acknowledged in high school soon became attractive...very attractive.

So after getting over my initial shock of NO MEN, I decided to channel my collegiate sexual angst into more productive avenues. I took an African drumming class, joined the school dance troupe and began eating an inhuman amount of ice cream. I ate it in the morning, I ate it in the evening, I ate it twice a day without batting an eye. I easily justified my copious consumption with the fact that I also ate salad twice a day. "They totally cancel each other out," I surmised.

The Lewis and Clark cafeteria, ironically named "The Bone", always had a well-stocked ice cream bar. Now, I'm not talking about lame Souplantation all-you-can eat soft serve. It was more like being behind the case at a Baskin Robbins. Legend has it the long-time wish of a wealthy alumni was to always have ice cream available to the sugar-bereft student body and that his ample donations could go to nothing else. TAKE THAT, Women's Studies department! I honestly praised that man every time I wrapped my lips around a scoop of Maple Walnut sunk deep in a sugar cone.

Then came Thanksgiving.

I hadn't been home in almost 3 months and was excited to see my family. My grandmother soon arrived and made her usual grand entrance. "Jamie, darling, come here," she cooed. I kissed her lovingly on the cheek and then stepped back for her to greet my other siblings. As she brushed passed me to enter the kitchen, I felt a little tap-tap on my tush. "Someone's put on a little weight, haven't they?" I could have died at that very moment. Yes, I had been eating ice cream like a child at a church social, yes I had poured myself into my "skinny" jeans, and YES I had substituted food for the lovin' I was supposed to get as a new collegiate. But these facts didn't make her remark hurt any less. I walked into the kitchen, the emotional wind having been knocked out of me, and looked at my grandmother. She was completely oblivious of what she had said. Completely unaware of the impact of her words. I ate very little dinner that night and excused myself early to go to bed. I went back to school the next week and, upon arrival, said goodbye to the ice cream bar. I said goodbye to my beloved Maple Walnut, the only lover I had ever known. I never again indulged in the ice cream of Lewis and Clark and instead, begrudging, turned my sites to another lover...the gym.



Sweet Potato Fries
I know you were hoping for an ice cream recipe, but alas, I don't have one. Rather, this is a recipe that will help knock out those pesky sugar cravings. These fries are a great snack or accompaniment to any summer BBQ. And of course, you can have organic ice cream for dessert. (I found you a few good recipes here and here!)



2 large Japanese sweet potatoes, washed
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
sea salt to taste
1/2 teaspoon turmeric or curry powder (optional)

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Cut the potatoes into 1/4-1/2 inch thick strips, similar to steak fries. Place the potatoes in a large bowl and mix with olive oil, salt, and the optional spices. Lay the potatoes in a cookie sheet, making sure they do not touch each other. Bake for 25 minutes, stir once, and then bake for another 15-20 minutes. Fries should be golden brown and crispy. Enjoy!

Tasty Travels: First stop, Italy

I'm moving to Rome. That's it. Done! Goodbye house, friends, family. It's been swell, but I gotta go. This is how it plays out in my dreams anyway. Having been back from our Mediterranean vacation for 2 weeks now, reality has finally set in that I will not wake up in the Eternal City any time soon. We cruised to Sicily, Naples, Athen, Rhodes, Santorini, Mykonos, and Kusadasi and though they all offered amazing sights, sounds and culinary delights, Rome felt like home. Upon arrival I quickly picked up a few lovely words that seemed to fall out of my mouth every few minutes. If Gray stopped to look at a building or peer into a book shop I yelled, "Andiamo (Let's go)!!" Alternatively, if I saw any type of food store (which was about every 500 feet) I'd scream, "Andiamo", and dash inside to peruse the wares. I also had a sweet little habit of saying "Ciao" at every passing scooter. Just FYI, almost everyone rides a scooter in Rome. Gray claimed my Italian verbosity was annoying (granted) but it made me feel like a friendly local. Ciao, Ciao, Ciao!



Our first morning in Rome I peeled open my jet-lagged eyes to the smell of freshly baking bread. I would soon find out it was not just any old bread, it was croissants. Hot, buttery croissants that arrived at our breakfast table in a shamefully overflowing basket every morning. Now I try not to eat bread very often (it puts me straight to sleep) but that first smell on that first day set the tone for the entire trip. Bread, Miss? YES PLEASE, and lots of it. When in Rome, right? We walked all over the city, stopping only to walk inside one of the million churches or grab a snack. My favorite stop however was the open air market at the Campo Di Fiori. This is the market in Rome and after walking down the first isle I was in tears for lack of a kitchen. The produce was absolutely gorgeous and I loved seeing all the Romans in their everyday shopping rituals. I walked around each stand, pretending I was there to pick up ingredients for my upcoming dinner. At one point I was actually asked for directions by an Italian, which created enough tingle in my toes that I completely forgot my burning desire to cook.






Almost all of the goods were recognizable, except one. While sweating over which olive oil to buy, I noticed an elderly woman and an equally elderly vendor vehemently haggling over the price of apples. Of course, I couldn't understand anything the woman was saying but her eyes, flailing arms and intonation said it all. After 5 minutes of back and forth the vendor abruptly changed course and convinced the woman that apples weren't the way to go at all. He quickly reached down and from behind the register produced a basket of mini strawberries. She stopped cold, grabbed at them immediately, paid full price, and scurried away. I walked behind the man to get a better look at the oddly recognizable fruit. They were definitely strawberries, just tiny. I wasn't sure how to get my hands on them, besides following the old woman's example of screaming at him in Italian. (Andiamo! Grazie! Ciao!) He seemed to be guarding the little red jewels for dear life, which of course made me want them more. I thought for a split second about miming the universal sign for "I want your berries", but upon reflection and envisioned embarrassment, I sadly moved along down the market. We soon went to lunch at a restaurant just off the Campo that had outdoor seating outside the front door. We were basically seated in the middle of the street, with waiters dodging scooters to serve us our cloud-like gnocchi. Man, I love Italy! For some reason I decided to look at the dessert menu first. Three lines down in the middle of page I read, "Fragoline di Bosco- Little Strawberries." Bravo!



So, where am I going with this story? I can't really tell you. All I can say is that in Italy, just ask, and you shall receive. It is a beautiful, historic, luscious city that is filled with delicious foods, gorgeous sights, and gracious people waiting to share the love of their city. Go as fast as you can!

Spring Pea and Pulse Salad
Serve 4

I found this recipe in a beautiful Italian cookbook off Piazza Barberini. The recipe caught my eye immediately and I memorized it so as to give it a Jamie Living twist at home. The marjoram really makes the dish so do not leave it out. I also made two other revisions adding roasted potatoes and braised baby artichokes respectively. Both were to die for. Experiment and enjoy!



1 cup English shelling peas, shelled
4 scallions, chopped
2 handfuls arugula, washed
1 tablespoon fresh marjoram, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh sage, chopped
2 1/2 cups Ayecote Morado beans, cooked and patted dry (you can also use kidney or cannellini beans)
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 cup sugar snap peas, ends trimmed
Sea salt
Extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar (my fav is Bariani as you know)

In a sauce pan, boil 3 cups of water with a liberal dose of salt. Add the shelled peas and cook until tender, about 3 minutes. Remove from the heat, drain, and set aside.

In a medium sized bowl, add the chopped scallions, arugula, and fresh herbs. Set aside.

In a large saute pan add 2 tablespoons of olive oil and heat at medium. Add the cooked beans and allow them to crisp up (if the beans are not dried properly they will not crisp). After 5 minutes add the sugar snap peas and cook until the peas are just browned, about 2 minutes. Add a pinch of salt, stir well, and add the mixture to the arugula and scallions. Toss in the blanched shelled peas and drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Season with salt and pepper and serve!

Love of a Lisp plus a Strawberry Crisp

Her name was Karissa Casserman and I loved her. Seriously. She was the most perfect 2nd grader in our class and I wanted to be just like her. Reflecting on this now, such a feat was truly impossible. Karissa's long thick toe-head hair shot straight down her back like a white waterfall. Every single hair was in place. The girl had never had a frizz a day in her life. Her eyes were crystal blue, a type of blue only found in the coloring box. To top off her unbelievable cuteness she had a brilliant speech impediment that turned her "r's" into "w's". "Hi, I'm Kawissa Caswwerman". Everyone ate it up. Parents, teachers, the school staff. They ate that crap up like kids at a dessert buffet. And so did I. Little 8-year old Jamie knew this verbal affect was nothing but a ploy, a ginormous trick "Kawissa" used to get her way. But I didn't care. I fell for it like all the other schmucks. Every time I heard, "Hey Jamie, do you wanna come ouvuew to my house?", I was in heaven. It's important to understand that throughout my childhood until my mid 20's I attached myself to girls I idolized. Women I wanted to be. Prettier, thinner, more feminine (though NEVER funnier) friends that I simultaneously adored and hated; a constant reminder I had to always strive for a unachievable and quite narrowly defined type of beauty.

Karissa's perfection was topped off by the sandy location of her house. In the land of my birth, the strawberry capital of the world otherwise know as Oxnard California, there were two types of people. The happy, lucky, beautiful people who lived at the beach and the rest of us inland lame-os. I loved visiting Karissa for though her house was only 15 minutes from mine, if felt like a world away. A lovely, sun soaked community where bronzed blond mothers watched their equally tanned children frolic in the waves and served Lucky Charms cereal for lunch and sour apple Jolly Ranchers as a snack. Alright, fine, that's not completely accurate. Karissa's mother never actually served us Lucky Charms, but when she gave us the run of the kitchen every weekend, that's certainly what we pulled out. Karissa would grab two huge white ceramic bowls from the wooded cabinet. Out came the non-fat milk (a staple in my house as well) and the loudly colored box of Lucky Charms. You know what I'm talking about. That magnificently colored cereal box which is housed exactly at eye level in ever grocery store. I was a Trix girl myself (loved that rabbit!) but I wasn't about to complain. If Lucky Charms was the cereal of this particular beach goddess, I was all in. "Kawissa" was in charge of both cereal and milk pouring, a job she took with painstaking precision. During the pouring procedure I tapped my foot nervously, praying to the soggy cereal gods that she wouldn't add too much milk. She always did! The second she stopped pouring, I'd dive into my cereal in an attempt to inhale each marshmallow before they formed their bizarre slimy coating. Karissa picked at her bowl like a lady, choosing each nugget to create the perfect spoonful of cereal to marshmallow ratio. If a golden strand of hair strayed during consumption, she gently lowered her utensil and smoothed back the hair, then flipped the lower half of the strand to land perfectly on her upper shoulder. There was no flipping or repositioning my hair during eating. Hell, my head looked like it had been through the tumble cycle by the time I finished my bowl. Think Tasmanian devil meets Fran Dresher's The Nanny hairdo. I was certainly a sight next to that shining angel of femininity!

My summers with Karissa didn't last long. There was only one actually. By the time we hit 3rd grade my curly Jew-fro and bionator (a cousin of the head gear) were simply too much for any popular blond bombshell to handle in a friend. And so the invites ceased as did our sugar shocked luncheons. By 4th grade Karissa had moved to a different school and I was on to another girl to admire and admonish myself for not being more like. However, I never forgot "Kawissa" (obviously!). I wonder where she is, what she's doing, and more importantly, what she looks like. Maybe she is sitting some where, right now, enjoying a bowl of Lucky Charms and pushing her non-existent fly-aways back into place.



Strawberry Crisp
Serves 6

As an homage to Oxnard, CA my hometown and strawberry capital of the world (if you don't believe me, look it up) I bring you a delicious strawberry crisp. I've also been eating this for breakfast the last few days so I thought it appropriate. Feel free to throw in other fruit with the strawberries if you like. Plums and apples work particularly well.



4-5 baskets organic strawberries, washed and thinly sliced
2 heaping tablespoons kudzu root (a natural thickening agent, like cornstarch)
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon fresh lavender (optional)
1 cup whole rolled oats
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup sunflower seeds, shelled
1/2 cup cashew pieces
1 cup walnuts, chopped
1/4 cup pecans, chopped
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 cup brown rice syrup
1/4 over-flowing cup maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons organic butter or coconut oil

Preheat the oven to 350. Place the sliced strawberries in a 11x13 Pyrex baking dish. In a small bowl or mug combine the kudzu root and water and stir until the root is completely dissolved. Add to the strawberries and mix thoroughly.

In a large mixing bowl combine oats, coconut, sunflower seeds, nuts, spices, brown rice syrup, maple syrup, and vanilla extract. Work the ingredients with your hands until everything is evenly coated. Add the butter into the bowl and combined so as there are no large lumps. Spread the topping on top of the strawberries and bake uncovered for 35-40 minutes or until the fruit has softened. Enjoy!