Warning: May Cause Tastebuds to Spontaneously Combust

After a stressful morning and afternoon, I turned in the evening to cooking experiments. I figure if I self-medicate with healthy food, it's okay. Ha.

Since my last post I made another wallet-denting market trip, realizing that- hey, summer doesn't last forever and blackberry season is even shorter than that. Thus we have Exhibit A:
Dangerously tantalizing little things, aren't they? One more, because I can't help it.



That, right there? That's what blackberries are supposed to look like. Not those flavorless things you get at the grocer, which shouldn't even be allowed to call themselves blackberries. They taste more like weak orange juice really, nothing at all like the flavour you get from these. Real blackberries bleed purple juice all over your fingers. Mmmm.

The nice lady at the market warned me that whatever berries I didn't eat tonight I should freeze, because they were already so ripe. I've been making smoothies out of these guys and other fruit, so that sounded fine. I freeze the berries as they are, or chop bananas into chunks or scrape out all the mango/peach/apricot pulp into a bowl and freeze that, before throwing it in the blender with a splash of milk and a pinch of stevia. Heaaaven.

But today as I made my usual cyber walk around the gluten-free foodie mecca that is our internet, I saw the lovely Heather at Healthy Indulgences had recently posted a sugar-free blackberry ice cream recipe. No ice cream maker needed.

Ohgoshohgoshohgosh.

The only ingredient I was missing was the heavy cream, so I set out to Martin's to get some (and of course ended up buying a pile of Bob's Red Mill Flours I'd been wanting to get... me + good food and new recipes to try = empty wallet). I'm going to make gluten-free soft pretzels soon!

Anyway, blah blah blah, here is the result. It's beautiful. The texture is much better than I expected from the pictures- not too hard, not too icey- it feels absolutely delightful in the mouth and tastes aaaamazing.



As always, those of you not trying to cut carbs or gluten or sugar can substitute the sugar back in and do it that way. I understand- erythritol is expensive stuff (but so worth it!).

Want a bite?

Go to your Farmers’ Market. Buy some food. Drool. Eat. Savor. Repeat.

My first job was working at the Eastern Farmer's Market on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, selling produce for Marshall Farms. I think I was ten years old? Back then I didn’t eat much of the produce I was selling. Eggplant looked terrifying to me. Squash was untouchable. Even tomatoes were too strange, although I gladly handed out samples, explaining to customers that some were sweet, some tasted more acidic… parroting what I’d heard people say, and faking a southern accent. City folk trust southern produce.


There are a lot of socially conscious reasons to buy local, but my primary motive? Taste. Nutrition. A better, fresher, more flavorful and delicious peach than you could ever find at Food Lion. An heirloom tomato from Takoma Park that takes a sandwich that was alright and makes it heavenly. Blackberries too delicious to talk about without blushing. ..I wish I’d taken a picture before I ate them all. The carnivores will find happiness, too, enjoying flavorful, fresh cuts of beef, chicken, turkey, lamb, pork, and so on. The fresh butter is delightful. The eggs are scrumptious and hooray! –chemical-free. A necessity for allergy-crushed kids such as myself. My kitchen currently boasts farm-fresh peaches, cantaloupe, tomatoes, cucumbers, beets, two types of squash, zucchini, cayenne, turkey, butter, and eggs. There are some things worth spoiling yourself over, and I think splurging on food that’s healthy and delicious is more than worth it.

I admit I’m selfish in that I target much of my activism toward personal benefit. Obesity-prevention initiatives to lower the costs of fruit and vegetables by taxing sugary drinks? Sign me up. Network neutrality to protect my precious internet? I’m there.

By buying local food, I get much bang for my buck. The food is delicious and nutritious. I know most of my money goes right to the farmer. I’m stimulating the local economy. I’m preserving the genetically diverse and thus varying flavors of heirloom produce instead of mass produced food only in the most easily shipped and preserved varieties. I’m taking care of my environment by taking trucks off the road and conserving energy. As I sit eating a piece of cantaloupe, I feel conscious and spoiled all at once. Glorious.

For my Blacksburg crew, the market is on the corner of Roanoke and Draper Roads and is open on Wednesdays from 2pm-7pm and Saturdays from 8am-2pm. Come out August 22 for the Tomato Contest and taste over 40 different tomatoes!

For everyone else, find local farmers’ markets by typing your zipcode into LocalHarvest.org.

Enough from me. Why do YOU buy local food?

Ani Tix Winner: Jennifer Heit!

Congrats! Names were pulled from a hat, and you won two tickets to the Ani Difranco show July 9th. :)

Send me an email for confirmation: jessicalforrester@gmail.com.

To the others- Keep checking back for freebies and general blabber.

Jennifer- See you at Rams Head Live!

I'd make a graphic but most unfortunately I am without laptop this week, and so I am without Photoshop. I suppose I could mess with GIMP, but I'm not feeling so inclined.

Here's hoping HP gets it back to me soon.. Four days without it feels like torture. I think these are the signs of addiction, no?

Win Two Free Tickets to See Ani DiFranco at Rams Head Live

This feisty, smart, ambitious (but conscious!), guitar-string-bustin-punk-rocker-with-an-acoustic is heading to Baltimore, MD’s Rams Head Live on Thursday, July 9th. I’ll be there. Will you? I have two tickets to give away to one lucky reader.

For a shot at the tickets, leave a comment here!

Contest ends at 8 pm on June 30. I will put the names in a hat and have my grandmother pick a winner. I realize that you have no way of knowing whether I’ll actually do this. Guess you’ll just have to take that chance. :)

Didn’t win? Don’t stress! There will be more give aways, and tickets to Ani aren’t sold out yet!

How to Dance with Girls at the Lantern

There's this awkward exchange I keep having, and I'm not sure the solution to this. I'll be dancing at a club, and some guy will come dance with me. So we're dancing together, I'm having fun, and then he'll ask me to dance with him.

But... we already are dancing.

What he really means, isn't, "Can I dance with you," but rather, "Can I touch you." To which, the answer is, "No."

I love dancing with guys when they don't invade my space. A guy who can really dance moves with you without being all over you. I love to dance with a guy who can play off of the way I move. And I'll play off of the way he moves. And yeah, it's possible at some point we'll end up touching each other, but the whole ordeal isn't two people seeing how many parts of their bodies can possibly be smashed up against one another at the same time. See the picture for a good example. Notice the large space between us?

I mean no hurt feelings to anyone with whom I've had this awkward exchange. I appreciate, at least, the politeness of asking rather than just grabbing like some men do. But you'll earn a lot more points by figuring out how to move with a lady. And if you can't do that, don't try! Just dance next to her and have fun and let her do her own thing. I'm going to be more attracted to a guy who's rocking out next to me having a blast than the same guy attempting to dance with me and failing at making me comfortable. The women around here are free-spirited. We go out to dance and move to the music. If you hold our hips too tight and take away our ability to choose our own pace, you're not earning any points.

-Jess