Goodbye Grains

Turns out my body doesn't like ALL grains.  Not just wheat, barley, and rye - the typical gluten related stuff that gluten free people avoid to the max.  I won't go into the details here in blogland regarding symptoms, or lack of, now - gratefully...(only to spare you the yucky details of the toilet/derrier combo).

But it's official.  Completely grain free improves my quality of life so much that I,  both plainly and simply, don't miss it.  Don't crave it.  Don't dream about it.  Nada.  

It's looking like legumes may be getting the boot, too.  But this is still in test-mode.  

And more than two bites of a Stephanie friendly chocolate bar (there is only one bar of one brand I can eat) gives me some seriously mad heartburn.    

Apparently lectins and too much fructose (can lead to fructose malabsorption) can cause havoc on the intestinal system- especially, I suppose - to those who are already much too sensitive (but perhaps this is really a good good thing - to me, anyway - in terms of simplicity).

What a strange concept that I am gradually embracing - it really is wonderful to be able to understand and know my body well enough to know WHY it feels/reacts this way it does and HOW to go about altering lifestyle choices to feel optimal.

But, like everything in this thing we call life, this is an ever going process and there is something to be learned everyday.

Beautiful.

Visuals - goals and kiwifruit

It worked.  I posted yesterday in blogville that I planned to run this morning.  And I did.  Therefore, all logic points to blog being responsible for my glorious run this morning.  It worked!!

Ok, so we all know it's more likely willpower than blog that is responsible for my glorious run this morning.  But perhaps putting goals in writing creates a visual effect rather than something your brain is trying to remember it has/wants/needs/intends with all seriousness to do only have life's endless distractions get in the way.  And of course there is the phenomenon known as procrastination.

Another goal to quickly verbalize (in typed words) to blog: I'm challenging myself to only buy single ingredient food/drinks.  That's right.  If one ingredient is paired with another or chills out in groups of three or more, I must veer away.  I must JUST SAY NO.

So far it's working (I've been food shopping twice).  And surprisingly - and I really am being honest here - it's so much easier to shop.  I will continue to call it a challenge, just to challenge myself (but secretly, this challenge is far less challenging than I thought it could be).  Which is not really bad.  Plus I just feel so darn good.
 
But maybe there really is something (for me) to put things in writing.  To visualize differently.  I'm gonna keep trying.

Here are some more visuals! - Fruitpicking style.  I'm telling you, it's true.  That is my hand picking a kiwifruit.  And below that is a big bin full of the fruit we picked.  Per team of people, we picked 40+ of those suckers on a full picking day.

The fruit in these bins are not ready to eat - in fact, they are very nearly hard as a rock.  But maybe they are traveling to a grocer near you.  And if that's the case and we picked them ripe, then they would be full on rotten by the time they got to you.

I will admit, vine-ripened kiwifruit is sensational.

I appear to be VERY happy to pick that piece of fruit.  That's because I am happy.  Must be.  I'm smiling huge.  But I'm happy not because I've discovered my dream job, but because it's our last day of picking.  In fact that may very well be my last fruit picked.

 So like I said, fruitpicking is not my dream job.  Nor was it always fun.  But I thoroughly enjoyed working with the other pickers.  And honestly, it's a fascinating process.

I am quite grateful I don't dream of vine after vine of kiwifruit anymore the moment my head hits the pillow.

I need to swim this week.  That's my next written goal.  It's been ages.  It'll be a baby swim - and FREEZING. but it's a start.  a baby swim is a better swim than no swim at all.

A Vision for Blog

Ok, so here's the deal.  A first for me.  Yes, this will (potentially) become something of a training blog.  why?  you ask.  why not?  I ask.  Certainly couldn't hurt. Don't worry, I will continue to tell the tales of New Zealand life, and life after that.  Hopefully a bit more frequently.  But I also need direction.  I need to put my (race) goals and training intentions in writing.  Strangely - or perhaps it's more normal than not - if others are aware of my goals (I will use goals and visions interchangeably - perhaps to be explained, one day), it is easier to for me to stick to them rather than veer off track.  Keeps the vision alive and well.

I'm simply joining zillions upon gabillions of humankind in posting my goals for the lands of blog to observe.  Will it help?  Time will tell.  Do you really care??? I have no idea.  But at least it's my blog.

Ok, so I've been running a lot lately.  My first blog vision: run again tomorrow.  In the crisp morning air.  Before that (like tonight) I need to discover, via google, a solid workout. any ideas?  I need help.

I'll let you know how it goes.  I also have a fruitpicking update...with photos of the spiffy, efficient kiwi-fruitpicking bags.  I so CAN'T WAIT to share.

Aloha and happy goal-sharing!

Jetboil Inspirations

Jetboil Soup Recipe - Veggie Avo Zestiness

Bicycles equipped with touring gear allow for a tad more flavor filled meals than an ounce counting backpacking trip may allow. I'll admit, I've made some pretty tasty meals on the road...and of course, the barely edible as well. More recently, I had an entire CAN of chickpeas on me. And a carrot, zucchini, lime, a small pumpkin, avocado, mustard, and salt. Mind you, most of the veggies I got on the side of the road at a veggie stand a few hours prior to stopping for the day. One of the great wonders of cycle touring - fruit and veggie stands to fuel your depleting tank. The best ones are when they magically appear when your tank is very nearly empty.

So, here's the magical mixture of a can of chickpeas, mustard, salt and a load of by-the-side-of-the-road-veggie-stand vegetables via a Jetboil (please note, this can completely work on a regular house stove as well).

       *please note, pumpkin missing from picture - it's shy.

1) Add water to pot

2) Add chopped veggies to water in the pot...and bring to boil- I used a carrot, zucchini, and small pumpkin

3) In a separate bowl (the one you will eat out of if you are camping), add a scooped out avocado, squirting of mustard, a squozen lime, and salt (mustard, salt and lime to taste - I like a lot of lime and mustard).

4) I forgot to say, salt the boiling veggies to taste - also, go ahead and throw in the leftover lime rind to the pot of cooking veggies - might as well get as much out of that lime as you can :)

5) Let the veggies boil to al dente style...well, I like my veggies cooked al dente style - you can cook the crap out of them til they are soft and mushy if you want. Up to you. Do NOT drain the water - this is your oh so flavourful broth...can't waste perfectly good water out in the woods.

6) Open and drain the can of chickpeas...then dump the can - well the chickpeas rather than the actual can- into the pot of cooked veggies

7) Add the avocado mixture to the pot and mix together.

8) Taste test - how does it taste?? More lime? salt? mustard? Is it just perfect?! Chances are if you are out on the road it will be just perfect cause your tummy is grumbling for fuel and doesn't really care about the extra lime juice...but add as desired.

9) If it all taste yummy, then eat and enjoy (either out of the pot if you are camping, or into that little tiny bowl and/or cup you are carrying with you - or if you are at home, you can serve it up into a proper bowl and enjoy with a slice of bread, crackers or as is. Up to you).

It's limey and tasty. The squashed up avocado gives the soup a creamy-ish texture and makes the broth green - doesn't everyone love green these days??

Ok, ya'll so the one piece of each veggie is due to the fact that I was traveling solo. The great thing about this meal is that you can add more veggies/can of beans to suit your quantity of people needs.  You can soak/cook your own chickpeas, too.

So, the soup itself is a great gluten free meal as well. In fact, it's completely grain free. Yes, I'm pretty sure my body is advising me and waiting so patiently to go completely grain free. Still some sinus issues when I eat rice. But this is worthy of it's own post.

Now it's your turn to test out some made up creations in your kitchen - or campsite. Some of the tastiest things are just a bunch of random, what you have in the foodbag/kitchen food items thrown together - and using your gut as well - both literally and figuratively.

Does anyone have any tasty creations via the tent-life wilderness they'd like to share?? If tent-life wilderness is your house, that's ok too!

Fruitpicking 101 - A day in the life of a genuine kiwifruit picker...

A day in the life of a kiwifruit - from vine to crate...and eventually in your belly.

This can only mean that YES, I am finally employed again after months of working my butt off and not getting paid, aka cycle touring, aka one big fat holiday (vacation).

Fruitpicking is a fairly common way for the working holiday visa traveler to make some extra cash on the road. It's definitely a seasonal gig. Right now is kiwifruit. March on the South Island was cherries. Mandarins are just about to finish up. And in the wine-making regions, grapes are going mad. Later on there will be pruning and trimming jobs. And there is also work in the packhouses. It's minimum wage. Different than the US, though, minimum wage is $13.50 an hour. At least that. But it's too bad tipping isn't a habitual practice here, otherwise my butt would be waiting tables in a heart beat. But table waiters make $13.50/hr as well. So I figure might as well do something new. And fun, right?! hmm.

I wouldn't by any stretch label fruitpicking as my dream job. But it's not horrid. Yet. Granted, I have only been at it two days. I must say though, that I am genuinely fascinated by the process that the kiwifruit I buy at the grocery goes through to sit on the shelf waiting so patiently for me to buy it so I can gobble it up. Yes, that fruit that you are eating may have been picked by me!!

We start the day in a team of ten people. In my group, I believe seven of us are backpackers and the remaining three are kiwis. We have these rather handy bags designed especially for fruitpicking. They are functional and surprisingly comfortable and extremely effecient. There are rows and rows of kiwifruit which grow on vines (?) that are above our heads (intentionaly done), so it's like we are walking underneath kiwifruit tunnel after kiwifruit tunnel. I'm 5'4", and on average I reach maybe 1/2 a foot above my head to pick a hanging fruit.

These are finicky fruits. They have a soft skin that can easily be damaged, so we have to pick the fruit without any of it's stalk still attached. We can't let it rub against any branches or it may scratch it open exposing it's bright green flesh. The fruit isn't quite ripe yet, so it is still rather firm.

We use our special designed fruitpicking bags to let the fruit rolls gently out the bottom of the bad - then we have to strap the bag back to itself so the bottom is hole-less...make sense?

Today it rained. Rain makes the fruit wet. Did you know that? :) Well, wet kiwifruit is even more finicky then dry kiwifruit so we have to be even more careful.

So yes, it rained. And it continues to rain. More on kiwifruit picking and how it lands on the grocery store shelves into your belly coming soon.

Now my thoughts are rolling to my tent (home for several weeks) and hoping it will hold up in the rain day in and say out (the forecast - which likely will be wrong, at least :)

Cheers from up North

Tail End of the Whirlwind

Whirlwind...what a whirlwind. 6 months of whirlwindiness that New Zealand has been graced with my presence :)

6 months have come and gone. What a beautiful country. Kate and I finished our trip just a few days ago and she has taken on on a jetplane back to the States. How sad and strange. But she is off to new and exciting ventures. I'm still here in Rotorua scheming my next scheme.

Originally, I'd be heading back down South working and playing in the mountians and snow. Now my heart/gut/intuition/desire/wants etc are pointing me North. to the ocean. to the warm climate. to the sea. to the history of these lands. the the kauri trees. to the abundance of produce. to employment. to native forests. to the lands I've yet explored. I'm excited.

We finished our trip on the South Island in the lands of the Catlins - along the rugged coastline of the southern chunk of the South Island. What beauty. If the winters weren't so far south and frigid, I'd easily choose this area for my next stop. Instead I'm heading north where the winters are significantly less frigid...in fact, often the winters in the Northland are classified as winterless. Oh Hawaii, how you have changed me.

One of the most fasciniating places we visited on the trip for me was Curio Bay. The rare and solitude seeking yellow-eyed penguins were are sight all to themselves, but what captivated me were the ancient trees. Felled. Living lifeless in the sea to be seen only when the tide leaves the shore. These trees and their trunks were knocked down years ago. Like 180 million years ago. Some sort of volcanic ash preserved the fallen trees and fast forward 180 million years later, I am fortunate enough to be awe-inspired by such an ancient forest and the process it took to preserve them for so long. You can read about the basics of Curio Bay and the ancient forest here http://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-visit/southland/southland/curio-bay-porpoise-bay/features/fossil-forest/

And you can see some visuals taken straight from my camera here:

The above is a fallen petrified tree from an ancient forest during the Jurassic Period.  Can you see the lines?! This sucker fell 180 million years ago!

Beautiful Moonrise second night in the Catlins near Kaka Point.  Right - it is beautiful - and the moon was sooo bright and full that I think my camera mistaked it for the sun :)


The penguins also reside here and all along the Southern coast...these are a different sort of penguins than the ones you might have seen in that one movie - "March of the Penguins," right? Have yet to see that movie, but I wanna.

This pic (above) is cool because it shows all the main things that Curio Bay has to offer - the penguins and the ancient forest.  The long flat rocks in the water are the petrified fallen trees and the round-ish looking rocks poking above the water are the tree stumps. 

As you can see from the sideways trees in the pic above, the Catlins being so far south catch a bit of strange weather pattern - as in LOTS of wind.  Fortunately what we encountered was fairly minimal compared to the type of wind that causes these trees to grow at an angle!
Ok, cool. Northland is next. Intending to be in that region for most of the rest of my visa period. Intending to live S.I.M.P.L.Y. Ahhh, I am so ready for that.

And I really want to find some kale.

To ponder

Time passes. This is a fact. What are we going to do with it? This is unknown...until after the fact, of course. Then it is history. Right?

We've been on the road just over two months. This is a fact. And history. Now. But now is neither history or unknown. It is.

Is is good.

Now is good.

That's what I think.

Hmmm.