Fit to Blog

Today is going better than expected, considering that the Greendale faultline felt the need to wake the whole  damn city at 3.30 a.m.  It took a while to get back to sleep and, as an added extra, I woke up to find that the shaking had broken the wireless network (gaaaaaaaah!). Luckily I have an on-call Programmer, that also happens to be handy with .. that other techy stuff. 

One of my first waking thoughts this morning was that musician Dave Dobbyn was in town last night. This is probably because the direction of the wind and the proximity of the stadium meant that Razzy and I got a free concert last night while snuggled up with our hot water bottle in bed.  I wonder what DD thought of the extra round of applause, courtesy of Canterbury's cranky terra? He really should tweet, like the rest of Christchurch, so that we know. The radio news reported that people got up, tweeted, facebooked and went back to bed. I don't know what to make of it. I tweet, therefore I am?

It's a weird thing, life in Christchurch right now. It's normal, but not. The aftershocks are unsettling, but I find the most unsettling thing is venturing somewhere I haven't been since pre-quake times (BQ). I've acclimatised to the damage in my area. It's the new normal. Today, however, I made some deliveries out near Shirley and, for the first time, saw houses that had sunk in to the ground. The houses looked normal, but had tipped forward, so the front was embedded in the ground up to the level of the windows.

I got that 'can this really be happening?' feeling. As if my brain couldn't process the surreality of it. I felt my emotions start to loosen and tangle up. And so, to get myself back on even keel, I got home and got creative in the kitch. It's my therapy.

Almonds. Nice, normal almonds.

These are the soaked almonds that debuted in the last post. Yes, I did shell them. All of them. It took bloody ages and hurt my fingies a little. Soaking almonds activates them. Essentially, they sprout (although you can't see a 'sprout' as such), which deactivates the enzyme inhibitors and makes them easier to digest. They turn from raw food to living food, which is an important distinction.

I had these dehydrating at low heat in the oven all day yesterday.

This morning I made amaretti (mmm... not sure about these, the egg-white to almond ration was off) and macaroons (win!).

Recipes shall be forthcoming. The macaroons are vegan, I think. They have maple syrup and honey as the sweeteners. I'm not sure if honey is considered vegan or not, maybe one of my vegan readers can enlighten me? Bees are animals, after all. But does honey from a bees bum disgust a vegan? I don't know. I also don't know if honey comes from a bees bum. I should do my research before stating such things.

The Icecream of the Day (Tageseis?) was a banana, chocolate (raw cacao powder), avocado, maple, maca, WPC extravaganza.

I feel like writing I die, when I see this pic, but just can't do it without envisaging myself as Rachel Zoe and that.. makes me feel all funny inside.

That's my week done! The plan is to get a DVD and settle down for a relaxing evening. I had a dinner guest coming, but they cancelled at the last minute, which was totally fine. Over the weekend I've got to get to grips with anthropometry - the study of the proportions of the human body. This is all to do with assessing nutritional status and body composition. It looks nerdy. I thought nutrition was supposed to be about eating? We must get to that bit later.