Lime and Tangerine Spring

 

I remember standing on the beach, with only minutes left of my vacation, saturating myself in each brilliant blue and green shade of the ocean, the white gold of the beach, and the unbelievable azure sky, thinking to myself "absorb it all, Becca."

Our family just returned from a week in Akumal, Mexico, thanks to the unbelievable generosity of my hubby's parents. Spring here in Utah has been almost non-existent, weather going from rain, to sun to even snow two days ago.  So, I have been pining for the brilliance of that beach ever since. 

As an extremely visual person, the striking colors of the Yucatan make the dull grey spring here in Utah pale in comparison. I think these colors are trying to spill out of me this last week, as every new item I have been making is super bright, with green and orange felt scraps plastering my desk. 

So, hopefully Utah will catch up a bit and act like Spring/Summer this week and I will not have to express my color-longing in my felt play food as much.

A Drowning Foodie... A Meatless and Dairy-Free Life

I am food challenged. It sucks. I admit it. Please note that I am not a card-carrying vegan with an environmental cause, but feel like I have had my dietary challenges forced upon me by some cosmic force that is poking me in the gut and laughing sadistically. I have been taking a serious look at my dietary history, and the issues it has caused me, so that I can finally eat and feel well.

Now, I was a "normal" kid dietetically speaking, eating most foods I wanted and not caring what went into my mouth, though most of it was cereal - my favorite food at the time. And with that sugary crunchiness came GALLONS of milk. Seriously. But my unintended consequences were obvious, even if not to me. Battling weight and self-esteem issues, (because of all the fatty-growth hormone-infused milk I drank, and sugary crap I ate), adding serious insult to injury - constant colds. I kid you not, I packed a full roll of toilet paper in my backpack to school and blew  through it (bad pun) in about 3 days. Coming home and emptying a full backpack of used tissues should have raised some red flags that there was something wrong with my body, but I was a kid and; never considered such a prospect that I could actually feel anything but sick and miserable about myself. I have seen family photos of me holding my trusty roll. How sad is that?

Now, I must give credit where credit is due - my Mom is wonderful and was very conscious of my health, and did make great healthy food - no white bread (to my horror at the time, can you imagine eating brown bread at the lunch table while all your friends have that deceptively beautiful white bread framing their PB and J?) So no Twinkies, chips, candy or other such refined fodder in our house. My Mom made homemade vegetable and meat dinners- made with all the love that a mother can give. But a kid still gets the crap at school, right?

At the tender age of 14 while staying with my über-fit, mountaineering brother, I finally discovered that I was dairy-intolerant. A week of drinking rice milk and almost constant exercise, I felt better than I ever had. Who knew that there was life outside of constant colds, hay-fever, and cases of Kleenex?  So, with a week of drinking Rice Milk, and feeling "snot-free" for the first time in my memory, I ecstatically told Mom and Dad that I was allergic to milk, and ran to the store to buy my first box of Soy Milk.

So my life in the world of alternative foods began. I got my second job at Wild Oats when I was 16, and an entire universe of dietary choices opened up to me. I never knew about meatless diets, vegans, raw-foodies or natural living and healing with food. I was never vegetarian or vegan, but began to make great changes in my diet and felt wonderful!

Which brings me to round 2 of my food challenges, that has just been revealing itself in the last few years.

I guess it has been a long time coming, but since I turned 30 four months ago, my body has completely shut down on any dairy or meat. Crap. I used to be able to eat small amounts, like butter on my toast, or ranch dressing on my salad, and an occasional serving of grilled chicken at a family party, but no more. I have spent more sleepless nights in these last few months, curled fetal-position on the floor of the bathroom, my stomach twisted in spasms of excruciating, kick-in-the-gut pain, wishing to throw up (which doesn't help, by the way), than I have ever experienced with my worst bouts of stomach flu.

So, on that lovely, personal note - we move on. ;)

As I live with the new developments of my dietary challenges, I figure I can take a glass-half-full or half-empty attitude about it. I have found delicious substitutions for most normal foods - have you ever tried Coconut Ice Cream??! I'll never feel jealous at an ice cream party again. I have discovered some amazing blogs out there that have the most amazing food I have ever tasted, or dreamed of tasted. I have found an excellent website dedicated to Non-Dairy cooking, other various food allergies, and general good health, called Go Dairy Free. 

One of my favorite blogs is Yasmeen-HealthNut - in which I have spent hours reading and drooling. Our new family favorite is Yasmeen's Cardamom Mango Panna Cotta with Honey Peach Sauce.

I also love the Non-Dairy Queen's Blog for her fun and delicious alternatives to dairy and gluten-free cooking.

I must note that this post has been written mostly for me, as an honest self-analysis, and you lovely people just happen to be the bystanders in my dietary therapy session. Hopefully, my sad childhood food experiences can shed some light on unknown issues with others' health issues and maybe help a little.

Earth Day is Coming!

In celebration of Earth Day this Thursday, I am going to post a fun DIY tutorial of something you can make to help reduce garbage and green up our earth! I haven't made the final decision on which project to make, so keep your eyes peeled in the next day or two for some crafty green fun!

The Big Ta-Da

You know the feeling when you work on something you are really proud of, are just itching to finish it and show it to the world, because it is the most spectacular, wonderful and brilliant idea you ever had - and its conception has been barraged through the gauntlet of design vs logistics for weeks... Know what I mean? That is my experience with my new items - BBQ Spare Ribs.

To my knowledge, I haven't seen any other felt food item quite like these (and this is after many many Google searches), which is why this idea has been bouncing around the idea room in my head - banging the door down before someone else snatches this one up. Because in the felt food world, there are only so many felt food items that can be made before you have "seen it all" - of course there are variations of a food item - color, design, etc... but most play food items have been done-to-death by everyone and their grandmother (me included), so when the opportunity to create a totally new item comes up, I snatch it! The funny thing is, it wasn't even totally mine - my husband is the creative genius who gets credit for this one. My favorite part of this new design is the magnets that can be added to the small piece so the ribs can be "pulled apart" like the real thing. My kids giggle, and I smile.

I am a vegetarian, so the idea of me creating drippy meat play food is laughable. So as I sit with my kids, playing with their new play food pieces (my kids get the first crack at the new designs) I pretend we are gnawing on delicious soy-protein and tofu "riblets" dipped in organic vegetarian rib sauce. Or a meat popsicle. One of the two.

New Designs

I am grinding my teeth today as I am working (wrestling, more like!) with a new design for a felt food item that has been sitting in a corner of my brain, poking me to let it out. I need to tell this little "brain design" that ideas and logistics don't always play well together. Oh well. I plug on and hope that I can nail this design down tonight, so it can have its big debut tomorrow. This one is a never-before-seen felt food item - at least I haven't found any like it in several searches, so it should be fun!!

And the Winner Is....

Christina and Tyler!!!

Thanks so much to everyone for participating in the giveaway and answering the survey.  I had great fun reading your answers and hearing what you all had to say. I didn't post all of the comments received, as some had email info and I couldn't figure how to delete it in the post, but i DID receive all of your comments and they were so helpful.

This was great fun and I will definitely be doing more giveaways very soon! Thanks again!

Friday GIVEAWAY!

I've got an amazing Giveaway today from my shop, Bug Bites Play Food - a French Toast set with Strawberries, Blueberries and Whipped Cream. Who doesn't remember sitting down on a Sunday morning to a steaming stack of cinnamon french toast, berries & cream? Now your Little Chef can return the favor to you with this French Toast set.

Perfect for little hands, this set contains 2 life-sized pieces of toast, hand-stitched strawberry slices & hand-stitched blueberries, all topped with a hand-stitched dollop of whipped cream.

You can enter by completing this SURVEY and leaving me a comment on this link, or below. The winner will be selected randomly using random.org and announced on Tuesday, April 12.  

*Note: I’ll notify the winner using the email address they list when they comment. PLEASE include your email address in the comment - these will NOT BE PUBLISHED.

Good luck!