More on Green Smoothies

Today's smoothie is much sweeter than normal. Chris requested that we have a "sweeter" one today than normal, so I cut back on the greens a bit and added an extra banana (also, the bananas are going ripe really fast with the heat, so they need to be used up).

Chris came across a video of Sergei Boutenko (Victoria's son) making a smoothie on their website www.rawfamily.com. According to Sergei you should reduce the number of items in your green smoothie and stick to only one variety of green at a time. This will reduce the chance of toxicity (via alkaloids) of any of the leaves to build up over time. He suggests rotating through a series of greens throughout the week. So, following Sergei's advice, here is our recipe for the day:

Recipe for today's smoothie:
- 2 bananas
- 1 large peach
- couple handfuls strawberries
- 1/2 bunch italian kale

Green Smoothies - Day 5

Today is day 5 of our foray into "green" smoothies. We were turned onto them by some friends of ours at church whose doctor recommended these concoctions after one of them was diagnosed with a heart blockage and went in for an angiogram/angioplasty. They were turned on to a book called Green for Life by Victouria Boutenko who has helped many people turn to a healthier lifestyle starting with green smoothies.

Green smoothies are a fruit smoothie with a kick... they have leafy greens added to them for additional fiber, chlorophyll and nutrients that can only be found in dark green leafy vegetables. They are comprised of approximately a 60/40 mix of fruits and leafy greens and are processed either in a traditional blender, or more ideally a Vita-mix blender - which we just happen to have!

Victoria challenges anyone who thinks they might benefit from better nutrition to try at least 32 oz. of green smoothie every day for for 14 days minimum, and ideally 30 days, to see if they notice any changes. Victoria claims that people have noticed a wide range of changes in their health in just 30 days. Anything from better nutrition & regularity (duh!), to clearer skin, more energy and sleeping better... all the way to extreme claims such as fewer wrinkles and less gray hair. These last couple of claims seem really extreme to me. However, I can't deny the fact that Chris & I definitely weren't getting our RDA of fruits and veggies, so any means of getting more of these into our diets would be a big boost for us... anyway, we decided to embark on this endeavor.

Chris & I are now on day 5 of the green smoothie regimen. And while it's too early on to notice a lot of difference in our lives, I have noticed a few changes for myself personally. First of all, I think I have a lot more energy during the day. I am also getting my digestive system back on track. Also, I have noticed some changes that I didn't really expect; namely reduced cravings for coffee and for sweets. I'm not saying that my desire for these has gone away altogether, but I'm not rummaging around the house looking for something sweet to satisfy me all the time. The amounts we are blending up makes not quite 2 quarts of green smoothie... the 2 - 20 oz. "Snapple" bottles and a 16 oz. glass. I have been drinking the glass of smoothie for breakfast, one of the bottles with my lunch and then the 3rd bottle in the evening as a dessert substitute.

How do they taste? Well, Chris really likes the taste of them. For me, I would say it's a bit more of an acquired taste. They're not bad at all... in fact, some of them are quite tasty, it's just that if you go in expecting a super-sweet straight-from-Jamba-Juice fruit-smoothie taste, that's not what you'll get. I've heard of many people struggling not with the taste, but with the color of them... they aren't exactly appealing to the eye... and when you add blueberries or blackberries they go from the green color you see above to a dubious shade of brown.

Today's smoothie recipe? While not my favorite of the ones I have made this week (the carrot taste was pretty strong initially), it was definitely better after chilling for an hour or so...
- 2 Peaches (organic - with peel)
- 1 Banana (organic - no peel)
- 1 to 1 1/2 C Strawberries (organic - with green tops left on)
- 2 Carrots (organic - with green tops left on)
- 1/2 bunch parsley (organic)
- 1/2 head romaine (organic)

Lately I've been trying to buy more and more organic products, especially as they become more available, but I haven't been really dedicated to it. However, Victoria has some charts in her book that are truly stunning when comparing the amount of nutrients in "commercial" vegetables vs. organic ones. For instance, commercial tomatoes have approx. 4.5 mg of calcium in them whereas organic ones have approx 59.2 mg. That over 13 times the amount of calcium! And this is not the most dramatic difference in the charts she hast listed, based on a study done at Rutgers University. Anyway, this was a real eye opener for me and I will try to buy more organic products just based on this alone.

Victoria and her family are raw-foodies. They eat no cooked or processed foods or any animal-based proteins at all. I can't say that Chris & I will ever end up at that point, but I think we will continue on the green smoothie path for a while longer and see where it leads.

Our trip to Yellowstone

We just got home from Yellowstone last week. We had a great time there - of course we saw lots of geothermal activity, but we also saw lots of wildlife... I went there as a kid with my family and it's still one of my favorite vacation spots 30 years on...

The Velveteria!

As many of you may or may not realize, some Portlanders have adopted a motto for the city of "Keep Portland Weird." You see it around town on bumper stickers and such. Well, in an effort to show you that Portland really is weird and has no worries about losing its weird status, let me present the Velveteria...

The Velveteria is a museum devoted to the art of the velvet painting... yes, that totally cheesy class of art once relegated to only the best dives in town has now been elevated to something worthy of a museum... Caren & Carl have spent the last 10 years of their lives collecting these fuzzy paintings; there is now a collection of over 300 in the museum plus, the added feature... the blacklight room!

The Velveteria hosts a variety of themes including clowns, banditos, as they call them "lovely ladies" and their current featured image is the "Unicornicopia". Alas, this image is not on their website. It is too precious to display to the unappreciative masses.

So, the next time anyone is in Portland looking for something to do, check out the Velveteria. It has made a name for itself and has found notariety from the media, including Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations and CBS Sunday Morning, as well as a segment on NPR. These shows would certainly not lead you astray...

I don't think...

The Maryhill Museum

Chris & I took a trip up the Columbia River Gorge yesterday to the Maryhill museum. It's about a 1:45 minute trip from Portland, about 20 miles east of The Dalles, overlooking the Columbia River, on the Washington side. For those who don't know, the Maryhill was originally a mansion built by successful business man and entrepreneur, Sam Hill for his wife, Mary. However, Sam stopped construction on the house in 1917 and before they ever moved into this house, Sam was convinced to turn the home into a museum at the persuasion of his friend Loie Fuller. Although born in the U.S., Loie was an influential interpretive dancer whose well known friends were among some of the most influential artists in Paris in the early 20th century. She helped to amass the art collection forthe museum, including over 80 sculptures by Auguste Rodin.

Hill also enlisted the help of his friend, Queen Marie of Romania, a Scottish-born noblewoman who married the king of Romania, to assist in building the collection for the Maryhill. Queen Marie dedicated the museum in 1926, almost 10 years after construction was originally stopped on the home, even though it was not yet ready to open to the public at this time. In Queen Marie's personal diary she commented on the house/museum built in the middle of nowhere: "that strange uncouth cement building erected by the just as strange old Samuel Hill. ... I knew when I set out that morning to consecrate that queer freak of a building that no one would understand why; I knew it was empty and in no wise ready to house objects for a museum. I knew there were scoffers about me, even hostilities, but a spirit of understanding was strong in me that day and I managed by my own personality, by my words, by my spirit, to move all the hearts beating there this morning. ... I knew that a dream had been built into this house, a dream beyond the everyday comprehension of the everyday man.

Queen Marie was also an accoplished artist in her own right. She wrote several books, was a talented painter and carved many pieces of furniture that adorned her home. Many of these pieces have been moved to the Maryhill and set up on exhibit there. When she came to dedicate the museum in 1926, she also brought with her $1.5 million in paintings and statuary as well as donating the gown she wore to the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II and Tsaritsa Alexandra.

The museum has some wonderful pieces in its collection, of which only about 20% is on display in the museum. There are also beautiful grounds surrounding the museum. Apparently, Sam Hill was a big advocate of setting up new road systems and using new materials in these roads. To this end he built approximately 10 miles of road on the grounds around the Maryhill. According to some accounts, these were the first paved roads in the state of Washington.

Chris & I had an enjoyable afternoon both in the museum looking at the collections and around the grounds looking at the amazing scenery. One other item of note about the museum, the grounds are the home to many peacocks (I think I counted over a dozen of them) which were added to the museum in 1970. Alas, the peacocks had molted most of their glorious plume of feathers, but they are still a sight to see were just one more bright spot on the day.

Siberian Wooden Houses

A few years back I found a graphic artist who created not only commercial art for clients, but also some great wallpapers/ backgrounds for your computer. He is a Russian that lives in Irkutsk and has a site called Vladstudio. His wallpapers/ art range from beautiful scenery to whimiscal creatures and I recommend them for anyone who is looking for a change of pace over the standard fare for desktop wallpapers.

A few days ago I was looking around on his normal site and came across a new sub-site that he had started. Apparently a while back he went around Irkutsk with his camera to take pictures of the beautiful old wooden houses around town that are falling into disrepair. These are some truly amazing houses with incredible, detailed woodwork. I have put one of the pictures up on my desktop wallpaper both at work and at home.

Each time I sit down to my desk I find myself staring at the pictures with all the detailed woodwork. My mind ends up drifting; thinking about the people who did this incredible work in a time when precision laser cutting machines weren't available. I reminesce that even if these craftsmen had jigs to aid in this work it would have been and incredible, labor-intensive act of love. Alas, I also end up thinking about how these houses are falling into seeming ruin. No one appears to be stepping up to rescue these houses from their inevitable fate.

My hope and prayer is that soon someone will step forward to save these houses and recognize the amazing gift this city has been given with these pieces of art that a person can actually live in. I invite you to also go look at these photos and ponder the talent of these amazing craftsmen of the past.

http://www.vladstudio.com/siberianwoodenhouses/

Kitty Redecorating Service

The cats have put aside their cat wrestling (mostly) for a more "grown-up," sophisticated hobby - home redecorating. Our entire house has been receiving the special decorative touches that only this exclusive kitty-provided service can offer. This week, the focus was my office/craft room where the girls decided that their artistic touches were needed. So one night after Chris & I had gone to bed we heard a crash coming from the room across the hall. When Chris went to investigate, he found that the girls had knocked over a rack of 100+ spools of thread, had continued to disperse the spools throughout the room and wreaked some other havoc in the process. Of course, they thought it was an improvement. I wasn't so sure...

My office is not the only area of the house that they have re-decorated of late. They decided they didn't like the window coverings in our bedroom arranged as they were, so they generously offered their services and "fixed" them for us. They also decided that they didn't like a lamp that was in our garage waiting for repair - apparently it didn't match the decor in the rest of the house, so they knocked it over and made it so we don't have to repair it now! How lucky for us! If any of your are in need of the Kitty Redecorating Service, just let me know... I'd love to lend them out to you for a few hours or even days so your home too can receive that special artistic vision that only 10 month old kittens have. But don't forget, these fickle artists only do their best work after you have gone to bed - so don't be too disappointed if they don't get to work right away. Believe me they are thinking about your home and how best to fix it up to make it a true kitty masterpiece once you head off to bed!