Primal Journal (sbhikes) page 42

[Crabbcakes]

Hey sb!

I think you look really good!! You really should embrace your body type - this isn't just some platitude. My four daughters have different body types, and I have told them from Day One that it isn't the body type, it is the fitness of the individual, coupled with their heart and their head that makes sexy happen.

My mom is a 5-foot-1 ball of muscle, from head to toe. She has muscular legs that she hates, and never wears skirts, except to extraordinary events - like my wedding. But, the thing is, she is so fit, and she carries herself so erect, and she is a sincerely nice person, that she is sexy, and cannot see it because she is obsessing about the stocky legs.

Short of putting you and my mom on the midieval rack, you two aren't going to be taller, but I have seen your smile, sb, back a few pages when you put up your hiking photos. Woman, you could light up a room! You look nice and tight to me - keep on hiking and Primalizing!

(FWIW - I am 5-foot-5 with my mom's muscular legs...)

[sbhikes]

Thank you. I'm really close to my goal, which has always been pretty informal seeing as how I thought losing any weight at all would be impossible. I wonder if just keeping this up can get me there or if I need to have another big adventure out in the mountains. Well, I need to have another adventure regardless, so we'll see what happens...

[sbhikes]

Yesterday was a very lazy day. It was hot so I sat around reading. Then at 6pm I went to play music for a dance. There was a potluck and we musicians got to eat first. The key to a potluck is to take the salads and the meats, so I piled a lot of salads with fresh cherry tomatoes on my plate and took several pieces of chicken. There were a few vegan items at the far end so I took something that had quinoa as the main ingredient. Wow, how bland. I feel sorry for vegans. I was still hungry after my dinner and wanted more salads but we had to play so that was it for dinner. Desserts were all full of wheat so I just drank a lot of wine for dessert. This made playing the dance more fun. I skipped attending a Sierra Club hike so that I could play the dance and I'm happy I did because apparently it was around 100 degrees where they went. I don't like it when it's that hot.

[sbhikes]

P.S. Being such a hot day, I pried all the aspic away from my leftover oxtails and had it cold for lunch. That was mighty tasty. I may try to intentionally make beef jello. I think all I would need to do is put more liquid in the pot with my oxtails.

[sbhikes]

I saved the fat that formed on the top of my oxtail aspic and tonight I used it to fry thin slices of garnet yam. The fat has a really nice smell, different from rendered beef tallow. It bubbled in the wok. I think it has more moisture in it than regular tallow, perhaps it has some of the gelatin or something.

After I made the fried yams, I cooked Chinese long beans in the remaining fat. I added chopped red bell pepper, garlic, ginger, oyster sauce, fish sauce, rooster sauce and fancy shrimp. It was pretty good.

Cooking with lard makes meals really satisfying in a way I never knew before the whole paleo/primal thing. I can see even when I serve it to my boyfriend. It calms him and makes him happy. A way to a man's heart maybe really is through the stomach. Of course I didn't tell him.

[sbhikes]

I plopped a piece of pork belly into my crockpot last night and ate half this morning for breakfast. When I recently bought pork belly from Whole Foods it came out a lot better. There was more meat and it didn't have the skin on. When I get the pork belly from Santa Cruz Market it has the skin on and this piece I have was a lot more fatty. It's a little difficult to eat when it's so fatty and so full of skin.

I wonder now if I took the remaining piece and turned it skin-side up and broiled it to crisp up the skin if that would make it delicious. The skin as is is edible, but not fantastic. Maybe crisping it up is what's needed. I might try that tomorrow. I'm determined to make pork belly come out good.

[tomi]

wow! You have come a long way in a year! I wish I could wear a bikini again someday --- but I doubt that pregnancy sag will ever tighten up and be nice and flat like your little tummy! You look great!

[badgergirl]

pork belly with fennel seeds is sublime - there's a great recipe in the Moro cookbook Iron Age Pork recipes - Roasted Pork Belly with Fennel Seeds and the crackling is the best bit!

[sbhikes]

I put the pork belly under the broiler, skin side up. I got a little of it to crackle. I should have kept it in longer. The crunchy skin is good. I should have added salt. Next time. I think I'm getting close to making a good pork belly. I'm kind of also starting to really like the stickiness of the skin. Ew the strange thing I eat nowadays, but with so many organs and parts to try it's like the variety you get with vegetables.

[sbhikes]

I made cow tongue for breakfast. I have never had it before. I bought the book Odd Bits this weekend but the recipes are just way too complicated. I don't like to babysit my cooking so much, removing things from pans, putting them back, soaking things for days. At least she has sections for each odd bit to tell you basics of what parts to cut off and generally what to do with the odd bit. So since soaking in brine and long slow cooking were suggested for tongue, I compromised and stuffed the thing into my crockpot, poured a bunch of salt and water in and left it going over night. Voila! Breakfast! Or about 4 or 5 breakfasts. The taste is good. It's like shredded beef. Bigger shreds at the base and really fine-textured shreds along the tongue. I ate the tip and a little bit of the base.

Rode my bike to work. I'm very sore. We had a different exercise instructor yesterday, a lady as big and ugly and old as me. Kinda strange to see your own ugly self up there on the stage. She made us do squats for about 10 minutes straight. It was like when on earth is this going to end? She did all the exercises like that. At least 5 minutes. I'd be dying toward the end of each one. Now I'm very sore.

The Man has been acting very nice to me lately. I mean, I cooked with bacon last night, with my usual inner bracing for the grumbling, but he was actually thrilled by it. He's been talking to me with happiness in his voice instead of the usual anger. I wonder what's up with him. Maybe he's found someone else, or maybe he's just found bacon.