Reason # 1,295 that I love the Davis Coop: Almond Milk coffee drinks. You’d think more people would have caught on to the idea that soy and dairy are two big allergens, and would offer something else. But it’s a rare occasion down here for that to be th case. The Coop is leading the pack with the revolutionary idea of offering almond milk in their coffee drinks AND having Stevia.
Why almond milk over rice? For me almond milk is trumping rice milk because it is lower in sugar, calories and has a richer flavor than rice milk. I currently stock up on Silk Almond milk in the half-gallon at Safeway when I’m making my own drinks, or buying a quart for $1.69 at Trader Joe’s in Sacto!
Other coffee houses, like Common Grounds, in Davis will make a drink if I bring the almond milk, but I still get charged full price, so it gets spendy.
yay for Coops! They also make their own vanilla flavoring and use cocoa powder instead of sugary cocoa syrup.
What about you bloggies, what are your favorite coffee shop kunundrum solutions?
Just read an article listing the 20 most sugar beverages in the USA right now. Pretty s scary because we see them everyday at the store, in schools, at work, and maybe in our houses (gulp…hey, not shame here, I’m right there with you on the sweet warm beverage front).
I like how this article put the beverages neck and neck with some sugar foods, so you can see how the sugar content measures up. There is this weird misnomer about beverages ‘not counting’ but really in a lot of ways they can be worse becuase we don’t ‘count’ them as much, tend to over consume them because they don’t make us full, and they are a cheap form of lots of sugar!
I’m proud to say I’ve drastically cut my sugar sweetened beverage intake (aka, hot chocolate and sweetened decaf coffee drinks) in the past month. It was getting out of hand, and getting spendy. Now I only have them on occasion, which I think is how they are supposed to be enjoyed. What changed for me? I guess you could say I was just willing and ready. It had been far too long and it was getting far too ridiculous. Almond milk, at $6/gallon, is too expensive to be guzzling a 16 oz hot chocolate everyday, and the other drinks are LOADED with sugar and who knows what else…and I get addicted. So there it is.
Healing comes in all shapes and sizes. If you would have asked me a year ago if I thought that bread would offer me some kind of therapy I would have laughed at you! I would have said “no way, bread is what drives me to NEED therapy”.
But oh, how this universe likes to surprise us. It all started when a classmate offered up some Amish friendship bread starter casually in class one day. Intrigued by the idea of anything fermented and edible, I gladly accepted. Now I’m hooked.
I’ve baking bread every 10 days since! I discovered something magical about the process of baking bread. It’s slow. It requires patience. Like a fine wine, the starter gets better with age, so every turn of the dough (10 days) offers up something new. It’s kind of like creating a culinarly legacy. I hope that over time I can create my own unique flavor of homemade breads.
The process of making bread is therapeutic in itself. Diving my hands into the dough, feeling it run through my fingers is extremely liberating and just plain fun. Working with my hands soothes me and it’s a great compliment to my studies, which get me caught up in my head way too often!
aah, the joys of kneading
And oh, how the house smells so warm and comforting when fresh bread is baking. I love the responses I get from my hubby and landlord. It’s like the pied piper calling when that bread comes out of the oven.
The best discovery of all is how good I feel when I share this bread. I’ve given start to some friends and classmates…now we have fun chatting about it, swapping ideas, and going off on tangents about other edible creatings. I’ve even sent some in the mail to distant friends and it warms my heart to think that they are keeping the process going.
Bread is one of the most fundamental foods of life. We break bread together to nourish our bodies, but also our spirits. I’ve realized that I was missing a deep sense of connection to people. I’m around people all day, but that is not the same as being connected. By making bread and sharing it, I feel like I’m doing some sort of kindness to people I care about, and in return getting kindness back. Everybody loves homemade bread. It’s something we can all relate to and to receive something hand made is a treat in this modern world.
So, me, the offwhite girl, must pay homage to the thing I’d gone without for so long. Funny thing, the more I make it for others, the less I want to eat it in excess. It’s too special to abuse with mindless eating or binging.
So, if any of you want some start, let me know. It’s my own little brand of offwhite sourdough and it’s delcious!
You don’t have to be a gardener to enjoy an awesome garden. So much inspiration for the UC Davis “Good Life Garden”. I wish more organizations would support such an endeavor, as it beautifies their surroundings and offers the community a chance to learn, taste, and experience whole foods at their finest.
I wrote about it at Davis Life Magazine. Click HERE to read that article. It’s short with good pics!
I’ve expanded my blogging horizons and now write a column called “mindful moments” for Davis Life Magazine. First article came out today – it will be about all things “wellness” in Davis.
creative menu options and nice presentation at the DC
tonight Matt and I ventured out to the Davis Dining Commons – the very same one I frequented as a college freshman oh so many years ago! Dang was it GOOD. I’m so impressed at how they integrate healthy options (quinoa burgers) and sustainability (Getting most of thier produce from the local campus growers). I wrote about it for Davis Life Magazine (Check me out on Monday in “mindful moments”!) but thought I’d share the post with you too, as it won’t be up for a couple of days on DLM.
This reminds me of how tasty the food was at Willamette Univ in Salem too. Apparently we weren’t the only ones who thought so because Rachel Ray even stopped by on her $40/day TV show back in the day. So maybe this will inspire you to seek out some uncommon dining options in your neck of the woods.
tabouleh salad and quinoa, oh my!
Pop quiz: Where in Davis can you get two freshly prepared dinners that include burgers on whole grain buns, customized salads, curried fish pasta, drinks and dessert of your choosing for $12 a person?
You scored an “A” if you said the Segundo Dining Commons on the UC Davis campus, and that is the very grade I’d give them too.
While dining there tonight (btw: I had the quinoa vegan burger, baked fries, salad and hot chocolate), I caught up with manager Mike Baldocchi to ask about the emphasis on health and sustainability at the DC. Simple strategies like switching to baked fries, reducing the oil usage, offering a huge salad bar with lean protein and local veggies, eliminating trays at each station (to avoid overloading the tray with food), and offering a Farmer’s Market meal every 2 weeks are just a few of the ways that the DC helps its patrons enjoy a healthy, mindful eating experience.
Most impressive were the Vegan food sections, Gluten free breads, creative dishes, such as Chicken Afritata and Tabouleh, and the colorful presentation. This is not your typical dorm food. Portions were perfectly sized (about 8 oz/plate) and you have to walk all the way to the back of the DC to grab a soda (time to question, do I really need that?).
I especially enjoyed loading up on fresh spinach, garbanzos, beets, chopped egg and turkey meat during my trip to the salad bar, and was delighted to see 8 oz coffee cups (as opposed to 12 oz or bigger!) when I treated myself to hot chocolate at the end of my meal. This place just screams balanced eating! To be sure, there are your typical DC treats – pizza, regular burgers, cakes and cookies, but it’s nicely mixed with other options. Even better, the DC get’s as much of their food as possible from local growers (even on campus) and they encourage patrons to be mindful of wasting food and napkins to support sustainability.
Oh, and most importantly the food is really good! Seriously. Go see for yourself!
Recently I had a chance to reflect upon how the Davis Good Life Garden impacts me. It’s a garden on campus that allows it’s ‘members’ to come and pick the bounty, while also being a vehicle for teaching, learning, and an event venue. So cool, and it’s right on campus. It got me thinking about the pieces in my life that really support me living an Off- White lifestyle. This garden is more than just an inspiration to eat veggies, its a place that I find comfort and peace when I’m on campus. School and life can cause me great anxiety, which causes me to want to turn to my vices like sugar to escape or numb out.
I really can’t maintain a balanced relationship with food unless my relationship with my life is in balance. I am a high maintenance person that way and need multiple avenues for stress relief, inclulding being in beautiful outdoor environments, even if just for a short period of time. I’m learning this about myself – this aspect in me that needs to be regularly grounded and calmed in order to manage the rest of my life. It’s a good awareness, for sure!
If you’d like to read the article, click here. While you’re at it, check out the Good Life Garden website in general, as it’s really well done.
I am prepping for my Grains class at the Davis Food Co-op on Wednesday, and I came across a handy-dandy website about cooking grains. I must be hungry because the recipes all looked fantastic too. My next adventure is going to be in toasting grains before cooking with them – an inspiration I just gained from the site.
Also, stay tuned because yesterday I made gluten-free crepes for the FIRST time and they were fabulous. Easy, light, and less carby than a pancake -love it! We ate them with sauteed asparagus, onion, and spinach….pics on the way 🙂
I’m just popping in to share a random but interesting musing I came across recently. I It’s an observation about the benefits of moving and learning at the same time. I relate – I prefer to walk and talk things out to learn and prefer walking with friends to chat versus sitting…and it’s not just an exercise thing, it simply ‘feels’ good to my brain.
Empty yourself of everything.
Let the mind become still.
The ten thousand things rise and fall while the Self watches their return.
They grow and flourish and then return to the source.
– Lao Tzu
This week I experienced emptiness. True, physical emptiness. It was grand (well, it was grand after it was miserable). My emptiness occurred out of pure accident. Food poisoning (PC term: Food born pathogen), left my husband and I in, eerr… a rather precarious state for about 36 hours. I’ll spare you the details, except for the glorious feeling that I had once the trauma was over.
Physical emptiness feels enlightening to me. In part, this is because I really rarely allow myself to feel it. Hunger is uncomfortable for me, so I’m always rushing to fill its need. Yet here I was, able to survive on little but tropical fruit (the only thing I wanted) and bubbly orange water and ice for nearly 2 days. Once I felt better, I felt truly refreshed – like I’d been ‘reset’ by some divine force of nature. It was refershing to allow my body to NOT have food it it and to allow my mind to NOT think about food.
Physical emptiness is also enlightening because it creates internal space. Not just physical space, but emotional space. Lying on my back, with little energy to do more than watch HBO movies and sleep, I could think in a way I’ve not given myself permission to do in a long time. I could think without boundaries, expectations, deadlines or pressure. I allowed my mind to be idle. I wish that I could tell you I devoted some of my illness time to deep meditation or even journaling, but I didn’t. In a way, this is my journal entry of all those feeling that fed my spiring during my hiaitus from life.
You all have heard me say, in one form or another, that my relationship with food often mirrors my relationship with life. Of late, I’ve been cramming it in – food and life. Going too fast, expecting too much. Not allowing space for emptiness or freedom from the ties that bind. So nature found its own way to set me right again. It dawned on me that it had been a long time since I simply thought about doing creative things just for the sake of them, or since I just took a walk for a reason other than to boost my cardiovascular health or that I allowed myself to rest, to just be. Why do I forget how essential these elements to life really are?
So, I’m going to thank my period of emptiness for helping me resent my mind and body, and for reminding me of how far off the mark I tend to get. Happily, I found myself eating much less today and appreciating what I did eat for what it was -a nourishment to my body and spirit instead of something to soothe my worrisome soul that has been overworked and under played for the last 8 weeks (School!).
We live in a time where emptiness only comes when we get ill or we deliberately seek it out through fasts or cleanses. How lucky are we? Fortunate yes, but also I think we miss out on something really powerful that only happens when we do go without, even for a short while.
Off White Living 