Kale-almond crispers

Gluten and dairy free eating has gotten easier. Sometimes I forget that I am not eating sugar - I've completely stopped craving it. But lately I miss the ease of snacking. Who doesn't love snacking?

Luckily, snacking on kale can be more satisfying than slamming a bag of potato chips. Here's what I've been up to: it only takes 5 minutes of prep and about 10 minutes of broiling. Then get yo' snack on!

Oh, P.S. there are only 4 ingredients. Yup. Perfect.

Ingredients:

1 bunch of kale

raw almonds

avocado oil

fennel salt

Directions:

In a bowl, lightly cover 1 to 2 cups of almonds (depending on how many you want to make - they keep!) with avocado oil and a few pinches of fennel salt (you can add more later once you add the kale.

Spread almonds on a cookie sheet and broil for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, chop kale, place in the same bowl, and drizzle avocado oil until kale is covered but not saturated with the oil. Sprinkle fennel salt to taste.

Once almonds are almost toasted completely, sprinkle kale on top of the almonds, then carefully "stir" the almonds and kale.

Place the cookie sheet back under the broiler until kale is crispy.

Serve in a bowl, or just eat straight off of the cookie sheet like me :) 

Scenes from today...

My day today plain and simple

My first day of illuminated journaling was fair. 

To give the program credit, it began in the most spectacular way: I sat by myself under a Jeffery Pine's shade, sunken into a meadow to such a degree that my head was at the same height as the grasses and sedges. AND I was looking up Lee Vining Canyon at the Mono-Yosemite volcanic/granitic divide. All I had to do was doodle and write. I was even given a water-soluable pen and a water brush, both of which I'd never futzed with, but am completely enamored with now.

I heard chirping, turned around and a brown creeper worked it's way around the trunk of the Jeffery, then around a low hanging branch. Willows and grasses all tilted to the left as a mellow breeze, just enough to keep the meadow from bee-ing too buggy, sustained their movement. Perfection. An hour of perfection.

The rest of the day was not perfection. 

A-person-who-shall-remain-nameless (not like it matters, because she is so unaware that if I used her name and she happened to read this blog - even though there were only 5 other people in the class- she would have no clue who I'm referencing) could not stop talking. Don't. Stop. Believing. 

Honestly, I should have known right from the introductions, which went something like this:

Hi, my name is A-P-W-S-R-N. Yea, so I'm from Berkeley, but I grew up in San Francisco, and wellllllllll, yea, I really have been taking a lot of different art classes since my cat died.

WAIT A SECOND! First: if your cat dies, you party, right? I like doing art, so I give her the benefit of the doubt and think maybe that's how she's celebrating. WRooooonnngg.

So I have done a lot of textiles and pottery. Ohhh, yea, I really liked my pottery, and then I was thinking that when I was really young I liked to draw, and then I bought a bunch of books by authors that you probably don't know but I'm going to reference them like you do know them, because I'm from Berkeley, and the books taught me how to get in touch with myself and my cat, and so I found that I drew my cat a lot and journaled a lot because I was dealing with my cat dying and I wanted to remember her when she was alive so I drew her in my journals.

And then the rest of the day was tinged in the background/foreground drone of APWSRN. You want more? I'll give you more:

Soooo where else is there to eat [we are eating at the Mobile restaurant - "fancy gas station food" where she ordered the only $20 salad with terrible looking halibut instead of a delicious piece of pizza]? Ohh. So, there's a sit-down restaurant? Is it like this? Because, I'm from Berkeley and this food.... well. THIS food is NOT the standard in Berkeley. Yea. They would never serve this even in like, food court places. Yea, not the standard at all. Is there somewhere where there is decent food...? BECAUSE I'M AN UPITY BITCH! [emphasis and entire last sentence added].

Hannah! Hannah! [our instructor] SOoooooo, I'm not really understanding what you mean by proportions. I think since we have different sized pencils that this isn't making sense to me. What kind of pencil do you have? I think that your eraser is a bit longer than mine, and I don't think we are using the same weight of paper so I really am just not understanding how to draw this chair. Sooo, I have this book in my hotel room that I'm going to go get because he explains how to draw a chair to proportion better. I mean, Hannah, you are okay, but like, he just kinda did it in a way that I really understood better, so yea, is everyone going to be here a while longer? [yes you stupid woman. take as long as you need. we will be here enjoying the silence in your absence. go piss up a rope]

On and on and frikin' on. It didn't stop. The entire day. She didn't breathe, she didn't really do any art, and she didn't stop when other people were talking. Literally, you would attempt to answer her question and she would continue talking over you in a way that was only comical because, since you didn't have to answer her question, you could spend all that spare time deciding what her parents must have been like. Because who actually is that rude and so self-UNaware?

So in conclusion: her cat killed itself.

Sleep well, readers. XOXO

 

Illuminating my field journal

I grew up doodling, sketching, whatever, with my dad. Somehow my sister Lizzy still ended up with all the talent, and I am stuck in mediocrity per usual. 

However, sketching brings calm and relaxed activity to my bedtime routine many a night, and I use my sketchbook as a field journal as well. Turns out, Hannah Hinchman (Google search this woman - she's brilliant) has been teaching classes on illuminated field journaling since the 80s. What is that, you ask?

Incorporating illustrations and text in your journal, silly.

I'm bad at that. Well, what I discovered is that I simply never thought of it. Which strikes me as strange, since one of my eight professions? Graphic design. Huh. Maybe that's why graphic design isn't my only profession... Jess. Darnit.

Anyway, the photos below will serve as a "BEFORE" shot. BEFORE Hannah Hinchman got ahold of me to teach me her ways. I'm SUPER excited about this two-day field seminar. I'm planning on poetry, illustrations, and learning. All weekend.

Oh, and did I mention I'm on the clock? What? Yep. I feel your envy through my keyboard.

Love love!

Literature, poetry and NYFW

Occasionally I step aside, take a deep breath, and frantically create diagrams of how my life could possibly fit together in a single career. IMPOSSIBLE.

One side of Jess = writer, reader of classic literature, annoyingly excessive editor of copy, re-writer of every line, wear the same crisp white T-shirt and black slacks to work with matching tortoise-shell glasses to focus on work, take no prisoners, work hard, drink coffee, stay up late, chocolate croissants in the morn. Screw cigarettes only because it's 2013 and that's gross, but otherwise would be totally chic.

Side two = naturalist hippie, scraping shins on overgrown sagebrush while I chasing Maxdog through high desert, no need to shower, no need for a serious job, journaling and keeping extensive sketchbooks chronicling each and every petal in each "Y" of the nude buckwheat, sleeping under stars and loving each sunrise because it's fresh and made just for me. Coffee? Sure. Always with coffee.

Side three = social marketing business owner, hip to the times (except when I say shit like that), constantly stressing about advancing skills in graphic design, web design, marketing design, product design, designing myself to fit life in the wiz lane. iPhone, Mac, noise-cancelling headphones always in tow with hip tunes to tune out life. Coffee black and in tiny cups that don't do anyone ANY good. But money makin' and HIP AS SHIT. Or not. Because this world won't let that happen.

Oh. And then there is New York Fashion Week. I have a strange obsession with NYFW. Maybe because I never had a lot of girlfriends growing up (or now). Or maybe because fashionistas getting along long enough to decide how each of the three sides of me are going to dress for the following season befuddles me.

Either way, pretty colors and spot-on social media make me generally stare for long periods of time. And once my mom told me that my "colors" were fall, and it's the fall NYFW, which means everything should match my skin tone. Or so they want me to believe.

Anyway, in case you're into fashion as marginally(OBSESSIVELY FOR ONE WEEK) as I am, there are a few beauts you simply must check out dahhhling.

fashionsquad.com  I like this one because once every few months, the girl in it smiles and you feel really special that day.

abeautifulmess.com This blog, managed by two sisters, passed muster due to the fact that I would wear almost nothing that they style, but yet I still follow it daily. Additionally, they always make killer recipes that I can't eat (glute- and lactard unfriendly), but make my mouth drip at lunchtime. Cheers to that.

manrepeller.com Um, just check it out. You'll spend your first few visits trying to figure out if she is serious or not. Is she? I'm not telling (she is and Vogue thinks it's cool).

whowhatwear.com I feel grown-up and super in-the-loop when I spend #$%@ hours looking at their themed slideshows with links to shopping. Poor, but grown-up.

withlovefromkat.com Kat reminds me of my sister Sarah, so I look at this blog and remember when we used to live together and she always looked cuter than me, but then I could later steal her clothes since I paid rent on the closet she kept them in. I just ended a sentence in a preposition. It's getting late. One more...

cheetahisthenewblack.com First of all: cheetah is NOT the new black. Nothing will ever be the new black except more black. Especially animal print, which we will all look back at and say "wow, that's almost as bad as the early '90s!" Despite this minor pitfall, and the fact that I pretty much don't really like her styling personally, I've come to appreciate this blogger's writing style (she actually ... writes ... sometimes. Shhh don't tell!), and the fact that she rocks some pretty ugly stuff, yet has a super great time livin' it up with "her man" in New York City. I just really want to be her friend, is the LATS of it.


Oh. And as for the short stories and poetry I referenced earlier: my friends (and I, marginally) publish thebaconreview.com monthly. It is far classier than the classiest of the fashion-weekers, and way hipper. Plus, you don't have to shower off the feeling of wasted time post reading.

Positive clouds

I'm pushing the parameters of my "blog-a-day" because it may be passed midnight once I post this, but I promise you this: I started around 10:30pm, with most distractions checked off the list.

For now, here are some non-edited photos of clouds - because it's now reached 11pm FACEBOOK - of which have been going craycray here, as fall approaches. Darn Labor Day! All I can think about is fall. Leaves changing, temperatures cooling (OMG I'm about to be forced to close my windows at night?! No. Refuse. THIS girl will sleep in a down jacket and booties all winter.)

Facts are, we all must Fall. Ladies - dig out your Uggs (you KNOW you weren't wearing them all summer now, were you?) and leggings. Gents - those really thick flannels will do. Everyone ready? Hot cocoa in hand (made with coconut milk if you are a lactard). Check. These clouds may make you crave marshmallows of the Lenticular sort.

Clouds. Scene.

The sunny side of a quick workout

Lately I've been working. A lot. So much, in fact, that other than walking Maxdog, working out has fallen sadly out of the schedule.

SO, the answer? A yoga mat, headphones, and the Nike Training app. Fifteen-minute "Ab-Burner" workouts or 45-minute "Body Buffer" in my sunny bedroom make workouts slightly more palatable because honestly, I cut out the drive to the gym, the chat with the front desk staff, the dressing, undressing, etc. that comes with gym workouts. 

The saddest part is that I have cut down the time allotted for working out every day that normally makes me really happy. Thus, the quick 45-minuter can't continue for too long. Soon winter will be upon us and things will slow down... right?