I have instituted a new rule: The Thirty Minute Rule.

I shall not entertain any job that requires me to commute more than 30 minutes. I’ll happily walk or bike up to half an hour, but no more. My current job is between 31 and 45 minutes and the last 5 minutes are the most challenging. The last 5 minutes involve riding up a ramp to cross over the highway (my knee is NOT a fan of this activity) and biking through the Gateway intersection. This is a 4-way intersection involving cars coming off a highway into an industrial/retail heavy area into which they just threw a major hospital. I have to cross through 7 lanes of traffic and there is a crosswalk in only one direction, not on the way home at night.

The other night, I was leaving work and stopped at the traffic light for a full 8 minutes. Stopped. Why? Because no cars were behind me (I left work late) to trigger the light to turn. I shifted my bike to stomp on the sensor thingie in the road to no avail.

I wish to pause in my story to observe my two reactions to this lack of success.

1. For cryin’ out loud! Why can’t a bicyclist trip to stupid light sensor! You’d think a woman of my zaftig proportions carrying provisions for two meals and a change of clothes for work would be heavy enough to be felt.

2. Thank all the trees in the forest I’m not so heavy that I trigger the sensor meant to register automobiles!

I now return to the narrative.

So, there I am, pondering if I want to walk the bike way out of the way to take advantage of the only crosswalk available to me, or if I want to risk life and limb (and break a law or two) and ride through the intersection. I may have been in favor of the latter if they hadn’t taken the one little island that used to exist away. No island of refuge, just 7 lanes of serious traffic. I decided I loved life too much and was just about to start walking when I noticed a white pickup heading my way from behind.

“Yay!” I thought.

My white knight was a woman who decided to stop her truck a full two car lengths behind the sensor area of the road. Mind you, I’m in the crosswalk area by this time and no where near the sensor. I tried to make eye contact.

Never in my life have I seen someone enjoy a cigarette more. I watched in utter fascination for at least a minute while she completely blissed out on the act of smoking. Meanwhile, time’s ticking and I really, really, want to get home and go to bed (remember, I’ve still got my whole bike commute in front of me). I finally made eye contact and began waving her forward. Her windows are closed so she can’t hear me. It took me another full minute to pantomime the importance of her creeping forward in some strange hybrid of Marcel Marceau meets an air traffic controller. I eventually prevailed in coaxing her up to the sensor to trigger the light.

I assure you, I raced through that intersection like the Four Horsemen of the Apolcalypse were on my tail light before the forces of evil could find some other way to detain me from hearth and home.

I’m thinking that intersection is probably a shadow duplicate of one appearing in some level of Dante’s Inferno. Every day, now, I expect to see Sisyphus working his way up the foothills to the north.

Hey, it’s a 32+ minute commute. I need to entertain my mind somehow. Feel free to judge me, if you will. I’m good with that. *grin*

Anyway, that’s my new rule. Anywhere worth working will be 30 minutes or less away from me. Period. A girl’s gotta have standards, right?

Breathe deeply,
Laugh with abandon,
Love wholly,
Eat well.

MiLady Carol
www.GreenTeaLady.com
http://miladycarol.com
Dazzling jewelry that reflects sparkling personalities!

Saturday afternoon, I volunteered to help in the kitchen at a fund-raiser event to benefit women who can’t afford mammograms and breast health care.  It was sponsored by a bevy of Red Hat Society ladies and held in a church with a kitchen.  I had heard about the High Tea at my Woman’s Resource Network meeting this month, so I volunteered to help.

I arrived a bit later than the rest of the kitchen volunteers due to a yoga class, so I just started right in without understanding where anything was in the kitchen.  My first task was to bake the savouries in the oven with one of the lovely ladies.  There were many boxes of Trader Joe’s little philo dough thingies and some little tarts to bake.  We preheated the oven to 400°F and started opening boxes.  The little philo dough thingies were presented in plastic trays that, the box said, were meant to go in the oven.  I cautioned that I thought it was a bad idea.  We were baking trays of these things at a time and plastic in ovens is a bad idea.  She assured me she’d done it before and we loaded two cookie sheets with these plastic trays and set the timer.  Fortunately, I was standing right there 10 minutes later when I saw open flame in the oven.  I opened the oven, pulled out the bottom cookie sheet, then set about looking for tongs to move the melting plastic off the element.  Suffice it to say, I managed, with help, to put out the fire and continue baking while the other ladies addressed the smoke alarm and the windows.  The event proceeded and I don’t even know if they knew there was ever a fire.

The point to my story is, it is ALWAYS a chancy thing to put plastic in high heat.  Plastics, generally speaking, are made from chemicals that often leach into whatever is in them when exposed to heat.  Then there is the potential fire hazard. In a perfect world, I’d have pulled out my Pampered Chef stuff and transferred everything out of the plastic before heating it. At home, you can bet that’s how I’d roll.

There are oodles of articles all over the Internet from highly reputable sources that warn about the dangers of BPAs and false estrogens that may leach into our food from plastics.  Just Google “plastic leaching into food” and take your pick.  Some are optimistic, others condemning, and not all of them state their sources and who pays their bills.  I’ve been following this issue for years and there’s no way to be sure, no matter what they say, that under every circumstance, they are NOT leaching into my food.  On that conclusion, I’ve taken action.

• I have very few plastics in my kitchen.  I’ve replaced almost everything that was plastic with bamboo, wood, glass, stainless steel, and stoneware.
• The plastics that remain never see anything hotter than room temperature.
• I’ve taken control of how my food is prepared by doing most of it myself.  I make most things from scratch in my own home – it’s very empowering.

I prefer to err on the side of caution.  Does this mean I refuse to eat at restaurants?  No.  I’m well aware that industrial cooking often takes shortcuts and heats plastics, yet I’ve made the conscious choice to reduce my daily exposure by changing the way I cook and eat 95% of the time.  There’s nothing I can do about years of my childhood and young adulthood.  All those microwaved plastic bowls for lunch, all that Teflon, and every plastic baby bottle of milk I consumed in ignorance can’t be changed.  I shudder to think, so I try not to dwell there.  Instead, I spent a couple of years replacing my kitchen tools – often one piece at a time – and making changes.  I focused on the forward.  While far from perfect, I’m on a happy path and I feel good about that.

Who’s with me?  If you’re in my local area and want to have a plastic kitchenware recycling party, let me know.  I’ll bake us some yummy treats and we can fill the recycle bin while we talk about the great new tools we’ve bought to make our cooking happier and healthier.
Breathe deeply,
Laugh with abandon,
Love wholly,
Eat well.

MiLady Carol
www.GreenTeaLady.com
http://miladycarol.com
Dazzling jewelry that reflects sparkling personalities!

I love rice porridge! It’s my favorite breakfast food… it’s warm, it’s tasty, and it’s a great way to start my day. On the weekends, I’ve been known to make fancier versions of my breakfast porridge that include marbled eggs. They are tasty and always pretty.  This, by the way, is not a traditional Chinese recipe, this is my own version.

Chinese Marbled Tea Eggs

6 – 8 eggs
½ c soy sauce or Braggs
zest from ½ an orange
1/8 c orange juice (freshly squeezed from the same orange, if possible)
2 star anise
1 tsp sugar
½ tsp ground peppercorns
½ tsp lapsang souchong tea leaves (for a smoky flavor)

Place the fresh eggs in the pan, add an inch of cold water, bring to a boil, and cook for 5 minutes. Cool the eggs under running water and rinse the pan.

When the eggs are cooled, gently tap the shells with the back of a metal teaspoon to make the webbing patterns. Keep the shell in tact so it holds its integrity in the next cooking cycle. Return the eggs to the pan and add the rest of the ingredients, and add enough water to cover the eggs completely. Bring it back to a boil, then simmer for 30 minutes, covered.

I leave my eggs to steep overnight. The longer they steep, the more flavor they have and the darker the marbled patterns will be. I’d say, steep at least 3-5 hours.

Options: Sometimes, I take out the anise and add cumin for a spicier taste. Many people add a cinnamon stick.

If you try it, let me know what you think!  And if you have a different recipe, I’d love to hear it.

Breathe deeply,
Laugh with abandon,
Love wholly,
Eat well.

MiLady Carol
www.GreenTeaLady.com
http://miladycarol.com
Dazzling jewelry that reflects sparkling personalities!

I was recently asked what teas are appropriate to drink while pregnant and nursing. There was a four-year period during which I was trying to become pregnant, so I had a lot of time to research this. Throughout that whole portion of my life, I lived as though I were pregnant – just in case. *smiles*

I’ll begin with the things one shouldn’t drink so we can end on a positive. *grin*

The big thing to avoid in beverages while pregnant is caffeine. That eliminates all black, oolong, and green teas – you know, real tea that comes from the Camellia sinensis bush. Also, steer clear of anything from the cocoa plant and any tea with maté (yerba maté). Both of these contain a lot of caffeine.

There are a few herbs not recommended during pregnancy that should be avoided in both teas and as rubs or flavorings in cooking.

• chamomile
• ephedra
• licorice root
• raspberry leaf
• anise
• sage
• rosemary
• hibiscus
• lemongrass
• sassafras
• nettle leaf
• fennel

Fret not. There are oodles of wonderful teas and herbs you can drink with impunity. I often made my own chai tea blends with peppermint, ginger, lemon zest, peppercorns, and finished with a shot of almond milk. The peppermint and ginger might even help with nausea in the first trimester. Just be sure to read the labels of any blended or bagged tea you may buy.

Another whole group of safe herbal drinks are the Rooibos teas, also known as African Red Bush tea or Honeybush tea. It is naturally decaffeinated, full of Vitamin C and anti-oxidants, and naturally sweet. If you buy a flavored variety of Rooibos, just make sure it doesn’t contain any of the herbs on the Not Recommended list. I was thrilled with the Orange Blossom Rooibos, myself.

As with everything in life, extremes are less than optimal. I understand that caffeine is not advised while pregnant, and I intentionally avoided it when I could yet, given the amount of water I drink, I felt that small amount of caffeine was negligible. Caffeine, and any other stimulants, raise the heart rate and could possibly stunt fetal development, so they are best avoided, yet I refused to panic over small amounts. Just remember to keep off the espresso and chocolate as best you are able. The same applies to the other herbs on the No-no list. If someone cooks an amazing dinner with a tablespoon of rosemary flavoring all the stew, I wouldn’t panic.

The best and most important beverage anyone can consider during pregnancy and breast feeding is an excellent quality water – and plenty of it. When someone is properly hydrated, it goes a long way toward washing the system of anything less than optimal. The best idea is to drink no more than 2-3 cups of tea or juice per day and let the rest be water.

Does anyone have any tips or tricks they’d like to contribute? I’d love to hear what you drank during your pregnancy!

Breathe deeply,
Laugh with abandon,
Love wholly,
Eat well.

MiLady Carol
www.GreenTeaLady.com
http://miladycarol.com
Dazzling jewelry that reflects sparkling personalities!

Today’s spotted wildlife while walking to buy a cucumber and snow peas… deer! Just nibbling on the foliage in a neighbor’s front yard.

Enjoy!

Breathe deeply,
Laugh with abandon,
Love wholly,
Eat well.

MiLady Carol
www.GreenTeaLady.com
http://miladycarol.com
Dazzling jewelry that reflects sparkling personalities!

This week in gardening involved how to manage growing something with nothing. We’re far enough along into spring to see what has survived the winter and what hasn’t; what needs to be repaired and what can be replaced. Every year sees gardening challenges, and this year sees the ante being raised.

Water, water everywhere!
The most troubling – and potentially most expensive to fix – is the lack of a back yard spigot. Toward the end of winter, I noticed that it was just gushing water from behind the paneling of the house. The prevailing opinion seems to indicate I’ll need an actual plumber to crawl around under the house to replace pipes. As many times as I’ve been spelunking in the bowels of the house, I’m thinking I’m not qualified for major plumbing repair. So, until I have an income, that is an unusable water source. I do have a spigot on the front of the house, so I’ve rigged a couple of hoses together so I can water all my beds. This is doable and it insures I can still reach everything I need to water. Yay!

Garden expansion on the cheap.
Also, with the lack of funds, there will be no garden expansion. Instead, I am working with last year’s harvested seeds to save the expense of new ones and I’ve found some old barrels left at the side of the road perfect for veggies. I’ve shifted some of the soil from less used parts of the yard into the containers and placed them in Sunset Alley – the only place in the yard with more around 4 hours of sun – in the hopes of more sun reaching them. No expense there, so yay times two!

Not a whacky summer ahead.
I also count, among the fatalities of the winter, the loss of my weed whacker. My little rechargeable Black & Decker unit no longer will hold a charge. Not one little spark. I wouldn’t complain about the demise of an 11 year old machine save for the fact I cannot replace it in this moment. Well, at least the rechargeable mower still works. R.I.P. weed whacker.

A little green for some green.
I did spend a little money on a new rosemary plant, an additional oregano start, and some spinach babies. The winter was distressingly hard on some of my plants and herbs. I lost most of the rosemary I’ve had for years, only one of last year’s fuchsia made it – and it’s not very well, and the old oregano plant is slow in returning. The new rosemary has taken well and the oregano has already been harvested once.

And now, the food!
I’ve decided to try a different approach to the beans this year. Instead of training them up my round trellises like DNA, I’ve hooked some hemp rope from the fence to the rocks of the raised bed and planted a couple seeds right under each twine. My plan is to train the vines up the ropes to make picking the pods easier. Last year, they were so wrapped around each other I could barely see the pods in the mess of leaves and vines. I’m optimistic this will keep the pods very visible to make picking easier and allow more access to sun. I’ve reserved the other half of the bed for the nasturtium, spinach, and lettuces. The scallions, onions, and garlic I planted last year are thriving there in the moment and should still get plenty of sun under the beans. The tomatoes really didn’t do well there last year, anyway, so they are bound for the pots in Sunset Alley.

Well, even if all is not perfect in this moment, I am loved and I am capable. Hey, at the very least, I am enjoying a lovely cup of tea on the deck in the sun with a warm breeze wafting the scent of lilacs to me while the laundry dries on the line. If it’s not downtown Perfectville, at least I’m living in the same county.

Breathe deeply,
Laugh with abandon,
Love wholly,
Eat well.

MiLady Carol
www.GreenTeaLady.com
http://miladycarol.com
Dazzling jewelry that reflects sparkling personalities!

Our five-year-old friend, Skyleigh, has been spending a lot of time at our house. When it’s time for lunch, she begs for macaroni and cheese – and by begs, I mean she chants, sings, dances, and all-around celebrates the mere possibility that mac’n cheese might be a part of her day. On those occasions, the celebration is followed by her dragging the stepstool out so she can assist in the making of her lunch. It is, indeed, an event.

All this fanfare has reminded me of my own early forays into cooking. I was always the first one up on weekend mornings. The budding artist in me woke to watch a 6 a.m. Saturday morning show instructing me in the basics of sketching. After that show, there was another 30 minutes before the other heavy cartoons were broadcast, so I’d make myself breakfast. Sometimes, breakfast was breaking out a box of macaroni and cheese. I know, probably no my Mom’s first choice of morning cuisine, yet, I was just as excited then as Skyleigh is now by the creamy, cheesy goodness. I’m not sure what it is that really draws us to that particular comfort food, yet it is widespread, indeed.

This all leads to me standing in the bulk section of the grocery store yesterday. There was a 15% off sale, so I was happily refilling all my jars and bags to restock my pantry. I rarely buy any pasta save capellini, yet I found myself drawn to the tri-colored shells with images of cheese sauce filling their little bowls. Well, once the idea was planted, I began smelling butter and cheese melting around the pasta, so I grabbed a pound of pasta and headed home.

As a result, for the first time in years, I stood before the stove making cheese sauce and cooking shell macaroni. As I did so, I remembered all those times as a kid I grabbed for a pre-packaged box, ripped the powdered sauce bag, and poured it into the hot milk. I remembered, for a stretch of time, loving the addition of ketchup. I remember another period of my childhood where I used to chop a fresh tomato into the bowl. As an adult, I eschewed the pre-packaged varieties in favor of making it from scratch wherein I’d add fresh broccoli or spinach to the pot. Ahhh… flashbacks of youth. It’s amazing how the smell and taste of food brings such a flood of memories.

So what is it about a steaming bowl of creamy macaroni and cheese that makes it the American institution it is? My husband is Chinese and was raised in Australia, and he can’t wrap his head around why I’m so excited about it. As a matter of fact, he doesn’t like it at all. He opted for the pot of chicken noodle soup I’d made earlier in the day after two bites of my comforting pasta dish. Is it because he’s Asian and just wasn’t raised with much dairy? Is it because of my European genes and their strong desire for cheese? I don’t know. Do you? Please share your ideas and stories – oh – and include what you best like to eat with your macaroni and cheese! Bacon bits? Ketchup? Chocolate chips… just kidding!

Breathe deeply,
Laugh with abandon,
Love wholly,
Eat well.

MiLady Carol
www.GreenTeaLady.com
http://miladycarol.com
Dazzling jewelry that reflects sparkling personalities!

Once a month, a group of local Pampered Chef consultants volunteer at Food for Lane County. Last night was my first time there and I had a blast!

Food for Lane County has an amazing facility with a huge kitchen area equipped for dozens of people to pitch in help feed our community. It’s all grunt work – repackaging bulk donations into smaller packages, cleaning, etc. – with the most amazing people! Dan, the man who works there, has to be one of the most chipper fellows I’ve ever met. A father of two teenagers, he manages 20-30 volunteers a night with ease and laughter. Add to that an opportunity to work closely around the table with other women in our Pampered Chef family and I’m totally stoked to work again next month.

I’ve also done some volunteer work with St. Vincent de Paul’s and seen their operation. Now I know the source behind their pantries. We spent the evening bagging dried mushrooms, parceling out potato soup, prepping bags, and setting up food samples. It was a wonderfully rich experience and I’m so glad I’m involved in a company that really supports our local needs.

Oregon has one of the highest unemployment rates and is one of the hungriest states in America. We are in big trouble. The statistics are completely depressing. People are out of work, have no health care, are delaying dental and medical care in favor of more immediate needs like food, and are still not making ends meet. Requests for Emergency Food Boxes are on the rise and we’re having trouble meeting people’s needs. I’m even more jazzed than ever about my cooking shows where I talk about how we can each stretch our food budget by preparing healthy meals at home. Every tip and every trick helps, so I’m thrilled to be able to share my experience.

I’ve also learned that Food for Lane County has some gardens in which rely upon volunteers to grow local produce. One of them is right near a friend’s house. We were just talking yesterday about how we’d like to find a place where she and her six year old can volunteer together. How perfect is that?

Breathe deeply,
Laugh with abandon,
Love wholly,
Eat well.

MiLady Carol
www.GreenTeaLady.com
http://miladycarol.com
Dazzling jewelry that reflects sparkling personalities!

It’s been a whirlwind month of learning and adventure. I have just passed my 30-day mark with Pampered Chef and I’ve successfully met my first goals:

• • Earn a 50% refund for my initial kit cost
  • Earn the Pampered Chef personal website free for 3 months

The refund for the kit cost was the biggie for me. The initial cost for becoming a consultant is $155 for a kit containing $550 worth of kitchen tools, marketing materials, and business supplies. It even comes with its own customer tracking management software. How cool is that? I thought I would have to go find my own and adapt it to my needs, yet that was taken care of for me – one of many unexpected pleasures. With the 50% refund, everything cost me $77.50. Outstanding, eh?

I also earned three free months of the Pampered Chef website so I can synchronize the cooking shows with an online version. That way, folks that can’t make the actual show can still place orders online. The site is not incredibly personalized, yet it’s very handy. If you want to check it out, go to http://www.pamperedchef.biz/carolanne

In summary, I’m proud to report that my first thirty days of Pampered Chef has paid for my initial investment, provided me with some added income, presented me with some really plush kitchen tools, and, most of all, been incredibly fun! I’d say I win! AND I’d highly recommend Pampered Chef as a great way to earn some extra cash and have oodles of FUN!

There are some open show dates for me in April if anyone is interested. There’s a great Mother’s Day special on the Trifle Bowl, plus a lot more.

Breathe deeply,
Laugh with abandon,
Love wholly,
Eat well.

MiLady Carol
www.GreenTeaLady.com
http://miladycarol.com
Dazzling jewelry that reflects sparkling personalities!

Diana Gabaldon’s newest book in the Outlander series was published in 2009. After a very long waiting list at the library, I finally got my hands on it last week.

Since this is the latest of a (to date) seven book series, I shan’t reveal any of the plot. Suffice it to say that it is a love story wrapped in historical fiction with a dash of mystery sprinkled on top and served on a gleaming platter of eloquent writing. If you are interested in reading her books, it’s absolutely necessary to begin at the beginning with Outlander. I’ve pretty much read everything Diana Gabaldon has written and wish I could clone her so she could put out more books in rapid succession.

Ms. Gabaldon has found a niche in the 18th century. Well, actually, volleying between the 18th century and the 20th century. You see, Claire (the female lead in Outlander) has some genetic propensity to time travel through standing stones and henges. She discovered it quite accidentally, I assure you, and this has led to an amazingly complex tapestry of characters and events woven through time. We begin in Scotland, move to France, back to Scotland, travel through the Atlantic Ocean and several islands therein, and move through Revolutionary War America. Make sure you have a valid passport before reading. *smile*

In these seven books she’s spanned about 32 years of her characters’ lives. Oh, and such lives they have! Ms. Gabaldon barely gives me room to relax between calamities. I have to force myself to put the book down well before I actually intend to sleep or I’d not stop reading. I’ve occasionally found myself physically breathless as the characters work their way out of all the trouble the author throws at them. If I couldn’t tell that Ms. Gabaldon truly loves her characters in the writing, I’d suspect she hated them for all the dangerous circumstances she thrusts them into for the sake of suspense and plot development.

I greatly enjoyed this latest book in the series and have the highest regard for Diana Gabaldon’s wonderful brain. I can only imagine she has a huge chart the size of her study wall with all the characters involved since she continually harkens back to people we’ve not heard of for three books and plops them perfectly back into the running plot.

Also, I’d like to make an additional recommendation for the audio book versions read by Davina Porter. She is absolutely brilliant and I’ve lost count of how many different accents, pitches, and languages she acts. Every one of the main characters is distinguishable as she reads.

Please let me know what you think of them. They are amazing and I’m sure you’ll enjoy them.

Breathe deeply,
Laugh with abandon,
Love wholly,
Eat well.

MiLady Carol
www.GreenTeaLady.com
http://miladycarol.com
Dazzling jewelry that reflects sparkling personalities!