SomaCow

In a world…
One man stood alone against a pancreas that would not produce.

By eating produce.

Hi, I am Geoff, I have the Sugar Aids, and this is a blog about me recapturing my life. Eating things right I once ate wrong, and hoping, each time, that the next eat… Will be the eat Home.

I am starting to wonder if I am becoming a vegetarian. I could never have imagined, but I just ate a bite of jackfruit, Brussels sprouts, beet stems, and beet greens for dinner. I had black beans and green beans with garlic for lunch.

I have beet marinating in my fridge. Not chicken, not pork, not a side of beef. Beet.

They are so beautiful. I like golden beets, too, but these are just amazing.

I am really enjoying learning to cook this stuff, too!

Tonight, courtesy of the Wingo (TWAMB), I tried the Gonzilla method of Brussels sprout cooking. Normally I go full onions, broth, stewing, and basically cabbage the hell out of them…

But the Brussels sprout is actually a tender, sweet little broccoloid.

Sometimes, you have to squeeze. Sometimes you have to say “Please“. I gently sliced her and 40 of her sisters in half, down the stem. I lay her down on the oven sheet, lightly dusted her with some olive oil spray. I covered her in seven spice petals, caressing her tender folds with a gentle cascade of seasoning and herbs.

I whisked her and her sistren into the 375 degree oven, and let her bask for about 30-40 minutes (it’s an art, vegetable love is).

When I took her out, she screamed for me to take her there and then. Damning the consequences, I gingerly lifted her, blew on her fevered flesh, and took her in my mouth.

OleRacea!

Jen, Baby Rowan and I are now eating them bitches like popcorn. I am not ashamed. They are so good, so complex, with crunchy thin outer shells and tender, moist inner layers!

You want a second recipe? How about those beets? When you get them at the store, they are attached to their leaves. First, some cutwork.

Remember that our ancestors used this shit to paint with. Plan and protect yourself, accordingly, unless you want to be purple. I can dig it. Purple is very sessy.

Separate the leaves from the stalks from the bulbs.

Chop the stalks into managable pieces. Skin the top layer off the bulbs, and slice them as thin as you need (I like a cm to half a cm, for beefy bites o’ beets!)

Wash everything with a nice rinse.

Chop the leaves (some stem can stay with these, just get the lion’s share off).

So what do we have now?

Leaves with some bits of stalk – throw these in a medium high pan with a tablespoon of olive oil, maybe some sautéed onions. Run em around the pan, chasing with a bit of salt and peppery as you see fit. They will act like Big, Awesome Spinaches, reducing, letting out some moisture, and tasting like goodness in minutes. Enjoy!

Stalks and Beetslices remaining – These go in a ziplock or marinating tray. Hit them with your favorite herbs spices, I go with most of the Italian team (oregano, coriander, basil, parsley, sage, salt, garlic… look, people… spices are not rocket science. What you want is a set that will lend itself to sweet (beets) and hot (pepper and paprika and chipotle)).

Get that going on, plus some apple juice, maybe some white wine vinegar, and a bit of olive oil all in the bag. Soak it overnight. Toss the bag about like it was a cheerleader and you were a power rapist basketball player.

The next day, you can roast them in the oven, if your Brussels sprouts are open minded, or you can throw them in a grill basket and flame ON! Hell, you could even pan fry them in a pinch. I highly recommend the grill. Roast them til they get just a hint of char on the edges.

They will deliver to you sweet, roasted beetflesh, completely devoid of that sorta ganky “Beet” taste your mom’s beets had.

I am not sure if that helped you. I do not care. I love what I eat these days. For REAL.

Coming soon – Thanksgiving Menu! Thanks for the idear ‘dere, Perpetrat’in’!

I am Geoff. I host SomaCow, a show where I talk about everything with my friends, Mickey, J, and Ross. They are great guys, intelligent, funny, flawed, and it sure would be a shame were I to die, and not know them anymore. If I am to live, then I need to change.

I have rarely prayed in this life. Only for things I could not control, had no power over, or wanted desperately to get out of. Don’t Take the Girl, Feed Jake, Man, I Hope She Isn’t Pregnant type stuff. Real country music haw yee.

Maybe that comes with an astoundingly shallow belief in God. Oh, I believe someone made all this, I just wonder sometimes at the reasoning, and perhaps the motives. But then who am I to judge?

I suffer from Conan Logic.

For those of you born in Brandon, Florida, allow me to explain.

Conan was a barbarian child, with a good mother and father. Marauding religious douchebags came and slew his family and enslaved him. The religion was called Divorce.

Conan spent years dully pushing a massive mill wheel, grinding futilely away, day after day. The wheel’s name was School.

Conan learned that he could enjoy camaraderie, riches, and the finer things in life by fighting. Day after day, he took on all comers, and with each vanquished foe, he grew in status, and banged more chicks. His battles were in the style of Drugs, Alcohol, and Excess.

Conan earned what he had, enjoyed the immediacy of things desired, and rarely exhibited patience. If a camel or a horse annoyed him, he punched them in the face with his fist. The camels and horses all worked as cashiers and service personnel.

At one point, Conan is asked what is best in life. His answer is, “Crush the enemies, See them driven before you, Hear the lamentation of their women.”

There was a time where that answer worked for me. Nail those who need nailing to the wall upon which nailing is done.

Unfortunately, I was never as cool as Conan. My mantra might have been something like, “Be snarky, Yell at Brighthouse employees, Overtip at a buffet”

Or maybe, “Play some video games, smoke a bunch of cigarettes, kill ten Double Krystals with Cheese”

But really, “Wheeze when you pee, Fail to perform in the sack, Look like you are about to burst, generally”

I have gone right off this analogy.

The point is, Conan is a fucking allegory for what man is, a boy corrupted by his environment; what tarnished him eventually tempered him, and through his trials and losses and curses and adversity, he emerged as a pretty buff dude with a decent set of morals, for a thief.

I’m tired, but my beans are making me feel incredible. Did I tell you the secret to beans already? I think I did. They really are a superfood. The difference in how I feel is incredible. The secret is to soak them overnight in fresh filtered water, never cook them too fast, and always use plenty of homemade stock to cook them.

I walked around Lowe’s and Home Depot this evening, looking for materials for a project. I currently have a few open projects, I realized.

1. Clean the porch, utterly.

2. Sell the books and other crap, utterly

3. Locate and begin the pond, goddamnit

4. Design and build the Advent Dome, yo

5. Till the soil for the garden, and plant some em effing cabbages, yeah

Lots to do, and I have next week off. Where should I start? Task me, You!

By the way, let me teach you a secret about till and ’til.

A till is still, ’til you ask for the bill. You till ’til dusk, or until your back tilts.

See? “til”, is really just a short, “until”. A TILL is either the place a business keeps cash, or a verb describing soil readying. So stop saying “I blew dudes till the cows came home.”

It’s just silly.

See? Grammar, Movie Talk, and Choose the Fatty’s Adventure - All for YOU!

I am Geoff. I am also a woman. It is true. I cried watching Toy Story 3.

I had a bad scare last night, some hypoglycemia came to pass, but for those of you that asked, I feel as right as rain today. I have made some decisions today, though, some of which you may agree with, others you may not.

1. If it is this late when I get home, I might just skip the blog entry, because it is 9:50 pm, and I should be dreaming of Cabbages by now. I keep forgetting how important sleep is, and I really need to remember that almost all problems, from wakefulness to irritability to weight loss stalling to low sugar to bad digestion all stem from getting solid sleep.

2.  I am not eating out for lunch any more unless it is special, like a birthday lunch or a meetup with my wife. I had Panera for lunch. The Chicken Cobb thingy.

1120 mg of sodium? 140 mg of cholesterol? Screw it. I can make something three meals from that, and not pay 10 bucks doing so. I think salt plays a much more powerful role in weight loss and healthy living then people think, and being a fat diabetic, I need to stay away from that much, certainly. I do not want Heart Rot, damnit! I have enough on my plate with Sugar Aids.

3. I need some new clothes. I asked my friend today at lunch, and he said it looked like I was taking a dump when I walked. Do You Want To Buy? I am not yet ready to buy, so I let the belt and shoe guy in our local mall drill me FOUR new holes.

When I get into the second to last hole, I will get new clothes. I just don’t have the money to buy two wardrobes, and I plan to lose another 100 lbs over 2011.

Man, I ask a lot of that belt.

I also ask too much of my shoes.

Speaking of which, I think I lost some width “down there”! I used to wear 4E width, but now I am swimming in those. I definitely need new shoes this week. Tried the mall today, everything was sort of flimsy. I want a solid, heavy, thick soled, no-plastic siding walking shoe. New Balances have gotten shoddy, I am sad to say.

4. Exercise is now an hour of walking, every single day. I want the health bennys, I need the calorie burning, muscle toning, and cholesterol action. I can always do more, but I cannot do less.

5. I cannot work like you anymore. For fifteen years, I worked how I had to in order to advance, survive, succeed, or maintain. I drove my body into the ditch, I went to extremes. I will not do that any more. More on that another day.