One of These Days...

...I will be able to eat cookies again but for now I'm sticking with these gluten-free, cane sugar free, dairy free super delicious super healthy chocolate bean truffles and their friend bean fudge. Beans, yes, the "magical fruit" kind, specifically red or adzuki beans. Today marks day 36 in my 40 day anti-candida fast. For 36 days, I have not eaten a crumb of any gluten or flour of any sort, any sweetener besides honey or maple syrup, and not a drop of alcohol. The first few weeks were the hardest. I was achy, cranky, tired, depressed, hungry, and sick to my stomach. And then after one Monday three weeks in, the worst day, I was great! I felt happy, energized, awake, healthy, and just craved greens! And although I crave raw vegetables all the time now, I still have a sweet tooth. (Concerning my ayurvedic dosha, I tend towards the pitta appetite rather than the kapha. I'm a pretty evenly split pitta-kapha)

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Desperate, I found this absolutely amazing website called Affairs of Living. Written in blog style, each post gives a break down of what the recipes do and don't have. For example, a recipe may be egg-free, dairy-free, gluten-free, cane-sugar free and, ACD (anti-candida diet). No recipes on the website have gluten, and many are raw. All are nourishing. Many recipes don't have ingredients that your grocery store might not have, like liquid stevia or xanthan gum. Affairs of Living is inspiring. On the website, I found out about how miraculous beans are. Really! I whipped up a batch of truffels and a batch of fudge in under an hour, and had to keep from eating the unchilled "dough" right out of the food processor. For a true 'Never Fail Fudge' recipe, click here. I made mine without the orange or chili powder, just to try it out. And for the quick, easy truffle recipe, you can click here. I put cocoa in the truffels, and melted chocolate on top. Imagine rolling them in crushed tree nuts, coconut, or flakey sea salt!! Both recipes call for tahini, but you may use any nut or seed butter. Imagine chocolate peanut butter fudge!

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Give one of these a try and be amazed. Just remember the little song, "beans, beans, the magical fruit, the more you eat them...." because just even when turned into fudge or truffels, their properties remain the same, if you catch my drift. ;) Now, to try bean ice cream...

♥ emily

NEST: an assortment of homes

This year in January, I visited a bookmaking class for two days and learned a bit about how to construct books. A piece I have been working on was made from a deconstructed book on letters and shapes. I used the cover of the book and a few pages and fashioned a new book out of it, calling it NEST. The pages saved from the old book are ones that spell out the word 'nest.' At the time it was assembled, there were little to no plans for it. I just like nests and think they are aesthetically pleasing. But, after pressing the pause button on academia, having just moved into a new house, and thinking about the possibility of moving back in with my parents, I started to think more and more about this word 'home.' Why can we feel 'at home' in places other than where we rest our heads at night, or where our mail is delivered? What does it mean to be home?

This scrapbook includes written reflections, images, drawings, really anything that helps the reader better grasp the concept of home. It will include pictures and drawings of animal homes as well, for example honey comb, bowerbird nests, a weaverbird nest, an others. I'd also like to include sorts of human homes, like teepees and tents, boat-houses, trailers/RV's, pueblos and other earthen homes. NEST is a collaborative piece. I'm asking friends to add something to the book, because this word 'home' means different things to different people, and gathering more than one perspective on the topic is important in trying to grasp its meaning.

The book was made from a book disected: the pages carefully removed from the cover, bound to empty ones, and glued back into their cover. Originally, it was about shapes and letters. The pages N, E, S, and T present themselves throughout the book. I embroidered the cover on green canvas duck cloth leftover from a couch we had recovered. The button in the embroidered nest was sent by a friend in the mail. I let her know that I was searching for an egg-shaped button and she stitched it to a letter, then sent it to me! The three little birdies are cut from vintage fabrics and the button on the back cover is from another friend's grandmother's button collection. Before it was even filled, the book was a collaboration! There are a few more pages in between the cover pieces than can fit comfortably which is why the buttons have been sewn on. A piece of string wound gently around the buttons keeps it closed. Right now, I'm looking for just the right cover papers to hide the places where I glued the fabric to the inside of the cover.

If the topic of 'home' intrigues you as well and you would like to contribute, please e-mail me and I will let you know the size of the pages so that your contribution fits.

♥ emily