On Life As A Picky Foodie

This is my baby girl just a couple of weeks ago: peaceful, at home in London, oblivious to the changes about to take place.  Although we made a book to explain that we were going to be moving, that we were leaving London for New York, I was well aware that it really was more for us grownups than for the sixteen-month old toddler who pointed out the big red busses and the airplanes in the photographs much in the same was she did in the street.

But the Grand Bus Rouge was replaced by the Grand Bus Jaune and I don’t know whether she expected everything to be so different.  I am familiar with New York, I knew what was coming, and the changes are still intense.  DW has been commenting about how different I am in the city.  Calmed somehow, he says, more at ease.  And bizarrely, I feel just as much at home here now, at age thirty-five, than I did the very first time I landed at JFK, over twenty years ago. 

We said goodbye to London in the best way we knew how: we walked through Hampstead Heath and to the Marylebone Farmer’s market.  We smelled the cheese at The Fromagerie one last time, we stopped by our favourite neighborhood café to swap general complaints.  There were people to take leave of and traditions to enjoy. 

But really, it’s the little things that make a place feel like home.  And wandering the streets of New York City, it becomes clearer with every step that London doesn’t feel mine – never has.  I loved it like a tourist on an extended stay, but I have missed the crazy fucking place that is New York.

When we were drowning in boxes, I couldn’t quite get past the questions of what we should keep, what we should sell, what should come on the plane with us, what we should leave behind.  It felt like an interminable list, constantly circling around in my head, piercing my brain like ice picks in the middle of the night.  What about the high chair?  What about the sofa bed?  What about the …?

October fourth, the day of departure, came way too quickly.  In about five seconds and after a hundred years.  I wasn’t ready.  I had never been more ready.  The taxi arrived to take us to Heathrow at 10:15 sharp.  We loaded our eight bags, the stroller, the car seat, the foldable cot – travelling light wasn’t an option this time.

The moment of realization had come earlier, as DW and I walked up the street to say goodbye to our friends at The Kitchen Table, where we spent gazillions of hours over the years.  On our way up the road, we had held hands, feeling each step in silence, knowing that we would not be making this silly little walk, which we had so taken for granted, again.  They had greeted us as they have every day for the past four years.  And we had said goodbye much in the same way we had so many times before.  DW and I laughed as we crossed the street and headed back home.  It all felt so… normal.

An hour later, the tears flowed. 

Saying goodbye is tough.  Because even if you return to the same places and see the same people, nothing will ever be the same. 

Someone else will be living in our house.  Another family will inhabit the walls where my baby girl came into the world.  They will cook on the incredible range, and take that same wander up the block to order sandwiches and fantastic coffee at The Kitchen Table.  They will live fifteen minutes from Hampstead Heath while we …

We are heading into this new chapter in our lives.  One in which nothing is clear or determined yet.  In the past few weeks, we have been in turn excited and terrified, elated and suspicious, relieved and regretful, sad and joyful and everything in between. 

As the taxi pulled out, a weight lifted off my shoulders.  I could do nothing more, even if I had wanted to.  What was packed would be packed, what was being shipped we would see again in a few weeks, what would be would be.  And if I wanted to avoid motion sickness, I needed to keep looking forward.

I don’t know if I actually laughed out loud, but I felt like doing so.  To go from being worried about what box contained my fermentation pot to not caring in the space of half a millisecond knocked me off balance enough that I was grateful to be sitting down.  The only thing that mattered wasn’t whether we should or shouldn’t take the furniture, or how many tea bags I should take on the flight – it was the two people sitting on either side of me, my husband and my daughter. 

And then, just like that, we find ourselves wandering the streets of New York slightly in awe, but also bizarrely at home already -- we know where we like to eat, where we like to shop for groceries, who we need to call, what we need to see, do, explore, experience.  Only unlike in the past, there's a little person involved and at the same time everything is new.  

Vida Lev is now toddling along, which means she has little time to be in her carrier or her stroller.  So we let her wander the streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn to her heart’s desire.  She waddles, holding her arms up on each side of her to keep her balance.  And then every so often, she squats down in a kind of downward dog to recalibrate before taking off again.  This child fits right in here: already she is in a hurry.  People wave, people smile, people ask whether her boots come in adult sizes.  If you think New Yorkers are rude or unfriendly, you should set a beaming toddler loose in the streets: never have I seen such love, enjoyment and pleasure in people’s faces as in the past few days with my little girl. 

On a final note, I will say this: we have gone from a four-bedroom house in London to who knows what in New York (though I know for a fact that whatever we find will be smaller than what we were in).  The stress, which was can I keep this?,  has now become why in the world did I hold on to that?

Life.  The jokes never stop coming.

Recipe: Breakfast for Globetrotting Parents 

When you're moving continents and running after a very energetic little girl, breakfast needs to power you through until God knows when.  This one might seem complicated and filled with scary, unknown ingredients, but people often ask me what I eat so I decided to share this latest favourite which has kept me sated, grounded and happy for many a challenging morning recently.  I won't lie, this is one greeeeen smoothie but it's choc-full of good fats, minerals, protein and awesome quality slow-burning fuel.  Plus, in my opinion, it's delicious though I am aware that my palate is greeeeener than most people's so consider yourself warned.  The great news is that all you have to do is blend so it's super simple to make.  And if you let the mixture sit for a few minutes, it will thicken up into a pudding.  I like to top mine with juicy berries and crunchy cacao nibs for something to chew on, and eat it with a big old spoon.

Ingredients:

1 T coconut butter

1 T hemp seeds

2 T chia seeds

1 t spirulina

1 t chlorella

1/8 t kelp powder

1 t cinnamon

1 t vanilla powder

1 dropper Oceans Alive

1 banana

3/4 c raspberries

1 dried fig

4-5 kale leaves, stalks removed

1 cup water

For the topping (optional): 

small handful fresh blueberries

a sprinkle of cacao nibs

Instructions:

Combine all the ingredients in the blender.  

Blend well -- you might need to add a little more water, depending on the strength of your machine.  

Allow to thicken for a few minutes.  

Top with blueberries and cacao nibs (optional). 

P.S.  Happy Birthday to ME!

This week, New York passed a law legalizing gay marriage.

Like most people I know and love, I am overjoyed.  But I also have a personal reason to celebrate.

When I was growing up, gay was weird, scary, a name the meaner kids hurled at you to indicate there was something wrong with you.

My father is gay.

He never came out to me.  Instead, I found out by accident, when reading a book – one of those teenage coming-of-age novels where the parents are divorced and the protagonist is trying desperately to figure out where she fits in.  The father in the book had a best friend who was always coming over – just like my Dad – and, much like my father’s buddy, the best friend was an excellent cook.  At the end of the story, the girl’s dad admits that Greg is more than just a friend…

I couldn’t just come out and ask him though.  My father wasn’t that kind of person.

Two years passed.  I studied every reaction, made note of anything that could hint at some kind of clear-cut answer.  Was that hug they shared a little too close?  Why was the best friend using his spoon to give my Dad a taste of his dinner?  As a child, I loved the Harriet the Spy series, and now I had a chance to use those skills for my own research. Sadly, Harriet ends up losing all her friends and as he felt me watching him, my father became increasingly uncomfortable.  Our relationship became fraught, difficult.  He blamed my adolescence but I know now that it was to do with the secret I was making it more and more difficult for him to keep.

(even today, as I write these words, I still feel a chill running up my spine)

Secrets were popular when I was growing up.  Around me everyone had secrets:  secret lovers in other cities, secret children with former flames or personal assistants.  Somehow, though, sexuality was different. 

“I wouldn’t talk like that,” a kid in my seventh grade class retorted when I told him to shut up, “if MY father was like yours.”

The rumour mill in my hometown is a Monster.  Created by bored housewives and perpetuated by their husbands and best friends, it has a life of its own.  Constantly starving for new prey, this Beast feeds off the weak, the deceived, the deceptions. 

My father, forbade me from telling anyone.  I was completely alone bar the one person I confided in.  When someone else hinted at it, I attacked my confidante thinking she had betrayed my trust.

Then there was the day I read a story in Time magazine, written by a girl my age who had sewn a square on the AIDS quilt in memory of her father.  It was a tiny sidebar, a barely noticeable post scriptum, but it changed my life. There were two of us!   

Growing up in a small community was hard for someone like me.  From day 1, I was an outsider – having moved at age six, there was only my mother, my father, my brother and I, when almost everyone else seemed to be related.  I didn’t fit in.  And then there was our family secret.  It took me a long time to find out that everyone knew because nobody talked about it.

The problem with secrets is that the people keeping them are always the last to know when it’s not longer a secret.  You are afraid of every word that comes out of your mouth, of even accidentally alluding to what you know you shouldn’t. You become obsessed with the one thing that’s off-limits. Everything sounds like it could be a tip-off.  

It’s so clear now how deeply this secret affected me and the course of life. 

Secrets are the opposite of healthy.  They sit like a knot in your stomach, clamping down on your digestive system and your ability to openly love. 

My first period, which I got while on vacation with my dad. The time(s) when my boyfriends were older than his. The tasteless meals, the charred BBQs, the people I met, the Thanksgiving when he wore a blue shirt with white stars and red and white striped suspenders. The words he uses when referring to my mother or women in general.  His obsession with cars and expressions like "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink." All of these things are about him, what kind of person he is, what kind of father he is. If you know my father, you know what I'm talking about. But none of this has to do with his sexual preference. And it's about time people realized it.

So I rejoiced this week for New York City.  Because allowing people to get married – regardless of gender, age, class, sexual preference -- is the right thing to do.  But also because I hope and pray that no one ever again needs to grow up with the burden of keeping the kinds of secrets I did, not for their parents, not for themselves.

I leave you with this celebratory green smoothie.

Pride Green Smoothie

Ingredients:
-  1 cup frozen raspberries
-  3/4 cup frozen blueberries
-  1 frozen banana
-  1 handful spicy rocket (arugula)
-  ¼ cup water or more (you need enough so the blender can do its job but this mixture needs to remain thick like ice cream so add 1 T at a time)
-  1 t cacao nibs and coconut flakes (to sprinkle on top, optional)

Instructions:
Blend greens and the water until completely broken down.  Then add the frozen fruit and blend until a thick ice cream like texture forms – you want to do this as fast as possible to ensure it will remain as cold as possible.
Sprinkle cacao nibs and coconut flakes if using.

Go outside, put your feet up, sit in the sun and enjoy with a small spoon, sloooooowly.