Where do we turn?

Today marks the first day of fall quarter in my second year of obtaining both my masters degree in nutrition and clinical health psychology. After 8 hours in class, my mind is racing with excitement, anxiety, and eagerness. I feel that I am overstimulated with the amount of information given in the first day. It is as if each professor gives you a snapshot of what the next 10 weeks will be like, as I sit and ponder how I am going to be a master of the material they are presenting in such a short time. There are some classes that I could study the material for years and years, and at times I feel that I get cheated by only studying it for such a short time in my academic career. However, I suppose that is the purpose of obtaining a PhD, which I won't begin to discuss the intense pull that I have felt in that direction, especially since 2 of my profs today had both their RDs and PhDs.

However, despite the overwhelming amount of information that was given to me, I once walked away from the day, satisfied that I am indeed in the right field and pursuing my dream. Last year, I would sit and ponder if I was making the right decision about my future, and I am grateful that my overall feeling today consisted of trst more than anything else. Especially sitting through the first lecture in my Global and Ecological issues in Food class, I was captivated by what my professor was talking about how the missing link in nutrition today is the failure to look outward and to see how our food supply provides us with essential information that communicates messages to our bodies. This shift in focus from internal to external is one that I am eager to explore and so grateful that my education at Bastyr allows to learn.

It was especially helpful to receive a message from my mother this morning, talking about how proud she was of me and my decision to pursue nutrition and psychology. I think she is beginning to see what an intense passion i have for both fields and I am hoping to continue to share this passion with others. A goal that I have for this quarter is to spend time with my studies so that I can explain it to others, so that they not only get my passion for the subject, but a practical view of food and their relationship with it.

Well hopefully there will be more coming soon. I would like to say that I will contribute regularly to this blog, but with school beginning, I am hoping to post at least 2 times a week. Lets start with that, and I will be surprised if I am able to muster up more than that.

Here's to learning, and pondering and being okay with never having all my questions answered all the time!

Welcoming Fall Soup

So this evening I made a Thai Pumpkin Soup that filled the entire house with scents of fall and warmed me up as if I was sitting by a warm fire. It was the perfect ending to my first day back to school, especially since it was a bit hard to leave home last night. Cooking the soup tonight made the entire house warm and cozy which is exactly what i needed. I also especially liked using coconut milk in this recipe, because I have been on a coconut milk kick lately. Today at school, me and a classmate experimented with a new smoothie using coconut milk, mango, banana, and ginger. It was so smooth and creamy. The coconut milk stuck with me all day and I contributed it to my sucessful run around greenlake this afternoon. We are using coconut milk in our smoothies at the Juicebar and I am excited to allow students the chance to try this non-dairy milk in their drinks.

Tomorrow is the start of classes, which is one of the main reasons I cooked tonight, because I had the TIME to! It felt like the calm before the storm, but honestly, I am hoping to continue to make time to cook. It is always so hard to go to my clinic shift each week and talk to clients about making time to cook dinner and experiment with new recipes when I can't find the time to. So I hoped that tonight I set an intention to cook during fall quarter, and to view my meals as a time to relax and nurture myself. If I can just remember the feeling of cooking tonight in a calm environment, just like I had all the time in the world to experiment in the kitchen, because whos to tell me that I don't!

Here is the recipe I used tonight: I experimented a bit with Goat milk instead of the non-fat milk and I also added more coconut milk for a creamier taste. Dried thyme can be replaced with rosemary.

Thai Pumpkin Soup

1 Tbsp butter
1 small onion chopped
1 Tbsp peeled, fresh ginger
1 clove garlic
2 cups canned pumpkin
1.5 cups coconut milk
1.5 cups nonfat milk
1 tsp thai green curry paste
pinch of dried thyme
1 tsp lime juice
salt, pepper to taste
1/3 cup chopped peanuts

Melt butter, saute onions, ginger, and garlic.
Place 1 cup pumpkin, coconut milk, nonfat milk, curry paste, and thyme into a blender. Add onions and puree until smooth.
Pour the puree into a pot, add the other cup of pumpkin, and cook over medium heat for 5 minutes
Season with lime, salt, and pepper. Top with peanuts and enjoy!

Frosting Fun

This week I have had the privlidge of being a "taste tester" in my mother's kitchen as she prepares wedding cakes for a family friend's wedding this Saturday. I have already blogged about my love of raw cookie dough, but my love of frosting is almost tied with it. Tonight I was able to compare the sour cream maple frosting to the buttercream with mini chocolate chips to the orange peel vanilla. So many to choose from, what is a girl to do? Each one had the creamiest and richest flavors you could ask for in a frosting. I enjoyed it even without the cake, which by the way, is just as decadent.

Frosting is so much fun to eat. My favorite way is a quick lick with the finger, but in order to be more sanitary, I have been using a spoon . .well maybe a few spoons. I think eating frosting this way brings me back to my days as a child, when people thought it was cute to let the kids lick the spoon. I don't know how cute I look anymore, as a 25 year old asking my mother to lick the spoon, but something tells me she enjoys my help testing the batches. It keeps us both young and helps me to remember that its okay to endulge in some sweet delights, and has helped me realize to do this more often. Besides, cooks love to spoil their family and friends, and I have felt truly spoiled this week.

The importance of Blogging

What a long time it has been, since I last posted on here. I have had an extremely busy summer, and unfortunately blogging has not been a top priority. Honestly, I was a bit unsure of the future of my blog after my writing class ended. However, I was looking through some of my old postings last night, and realized how much insight I gained from keeping my blogs during spring quarter. Reading through the blogs was like opening up an old journal from my teen years. I was able to see my how my insight and opinions were changing about food with each week. I believe this blog can be a place to continue to log that change and discuss all the exciting things I am learning on my path to becoming a nutritionist. The field of nutrition is growing daily and a blog can hold all of my new thoughts and insights for others to see. Which I am unsure of how many readers I will have, now that the classmates aren't required to read my blog. But having the chance to practice communicating what I am reading and studying about, seems to be the most vital thing for my career at the moment. I love the field of nutrition because of how much education I am required to give to my clients, and a blog can be a great way to practice educating clients.

So basically, what I am trying to say, is that I am setting the intention to revive this blog and keep it running throughout the next two years of my graduate program! I am eager to see what will become of it when I a teacher is not forcing me to write for a grade. I am doing this as a gift to myself and my education.

It would be appropriate to give an update on my summer and all the things that I have learned in the field, especially since I started seeing patients at the clinic and giving real nutrition advice. I also experimented with an elimination diet and have been reading a hugely insane amount of material on emotional eating and eating disorders. I have been reading and studying vibrational food and the Chakra systems, thanks to an excellent book by Deanna Minich, Ph.D., C.N., which I will write an entire blog on due to the passion and I acquired from reading it.

Lastly, I have been very aware of my own opinons, habits, philosophies of my own diet. This has probably been the most important, because I have truely learned that we teach what we need to learn. So as I am teaching and studying nutrition, I find that I am the one who needs to adopt the principles the most. So look in the future for more personal insights about food and mood especially!

Well it is great to be back! Looking forward to the Fall and my continued passion to evolve through this blog!