Turning a New Leaf

We have two new roommates, Kyle and Ryan. And here I have two (mostly) unflattering photos of the two.

This is Kyle, she took Brian's place about a month ago.



And Ryan, who replaced Jennilynn and obliging donned his cyclocross racing jersey for us.



Things have been going well and it seems like we're going to get along well. The other night we had a spontaneous dance party in the kitchen. This sort of energy hasn't happened in a long time, I feel good about it.

The other day it was lovely outside and Kelley, Kyle and I worked in the yard after I got home from work. Kelley bought some flowers for her salad/flower raised bed.



She also got a raspberry to replace the one that died due to my ignorance of raspberry care. I'm going to try again this year and hopefully things will go better.



Then yesterday Kelley and I went to the Portland Farmers Market (yum!) and I bought some salad greens and swiss chard to plant in the garden.



When we were working in the garden I was digging up our biggest plot and discovered that when I dug up our potatoes last year I had missed some (as you often do). This was discovered by the tiny sprouts from the rogue All Blues that stayed our of my trowel's reach when harvesting last fall.



This is what our cellar looks like, these are a third of what they use to be after giving some away and planting another third in the garden. We have one all All Blue patch and a patch of Yukon Golds and Reds.



This is one of the Red starts in the ground.



And our apple tree leaves are coming along, opening up and getting bolder.



It is also that time of spring when the daffodils are slowly dying, as is our camellia.



Soon my peas will be sprouting, my potatoes will start producing chlorophyl and we'll have more things planted in the dirt. The tulip magnolias have started to bloom and the trees all have miniature green buds on them. The once grey trees now are shaded by a light green. I cannot wait for the hot, beating sun to bear down on us, to make things grow and brown my ghostly skin.

What Spring Looks Like

I've been having a hard time believing that summer is ever going to come and been feeling very dismal regarding the weather. It's spastic to say the least, with five minutes being a black sky and hail, contrasted with the next five minutes being warm sunshine and blue skies. I kid you not. So I decided to go outside in that sunny five minutes this afternoon to photograph the signifiers of spring. They're all pretty small so most of the photos are close up. What I really see without the camera is grey trees with empty limbs, this exercise helped me believe in the forthcoming summer.












Also, Orson has been snuggly. The other day he decided to lay on my arms while I was on my laptop. Not helpful Orson, not helpful. I love him to pieces anyways though.

Iron Muffins

Joel recently bought a iron muffin tin and last night we finally tested it out. The verdict? Perfect muffins!





Because the muffin "tin" is thicker and sturdier it made for evenly baked muffins that rose gorgeously. Generally in the kitchen, as far as baking items are concerned, thicker is better and nothing is better than cast iron. I highly encourage any kitchen nerds/muffin enthusiasts to hunt down an iron muffin dish. The recipe is our good old gluten-free standby, pumpkin chocolate muffins. Yum!

Our meals have still be pretty much like this.



This particular meal we made was slow-cooked pork short-ribs, creamed corn and sweet potato fries à la Isa Chandra Moskowitz. Usually dinner is comprised of a meat and two vegetable dishes. Other delicious things that have graced our table: No-noodle lasagna, big-ass salads, stir fries and brothy soups.

Also, in case you don't check my art blog here is a little something that I just posted here

Drawing Lines & the Paleo Lifestyle

I'm going to finally take some time to post about my job and some of the most frequently asked questions from patrons and family members alike. First, however, I'm going to post some photos from life outside of work. First and foremost, we'll start with food. Yay!

Joel and I have been pretty equally scheduled between our jobs which means that neither of us has the upper hand at playing the "I'm tired" card at the end of the day. So because of that, we've been cooking together a lot recently. It use to be that it was one or the other of us would cook the whole meal and then the other would do dishes but recently it has evened out so that we cook together and then do the dishes jointly (you put dishes away while I wash, etc.).

Something we have been doing a lot of lately is this: Steak and green beans. It's the new fast food.




We've also been doing a lot of these lately too. Big salads with delicious, filling toppings. For a dinner salad we fried up some bacon, made Cajun-blackened chicken, added feta, avocado and chopped celery, and pecans, all on a bed of Romaine and red-leaf lettuce (I can't wait for farm lettuce again!).



And this is one I made for lunch: sun-dried tomato chicken sausage, avocado, feta and pecans on a bed of Romaine.



We've also been testing out gluten-free breakfast options. Gluten-free basically just means grain/wheat-free. So we've tried buckwheat pancakes, coconut pancakes (shown below), cardamom and apple biscuits, and chocolate-chip pumpkin muffins (also shown below).




Also part of the Paleo lifestyle is exercising in a Paleo fashion. What in the world does that even mean? It means a couple of things: slower is better -- not over-exerting yourself to the point where your body rejects what you're doing, walking/running/sprinting on unpaved surfaces, and generally exercising in a natural way (in nature, short sprints, walking, hiking, swimming). Though Joel and I are still kind of early in our Paleo lifestyle we do these things on a fairly regular basis -- though the short sprint has yet to work itself into our lives.

On Sunday we went hiking on an off-path trail along the Columbia Gorge. Joel and his parents and sister did this when they visited us two summers ago and ever since then Joel has wanted to do it again. So Sunday we were able to do it again. Its a hike that joins Multnomah Falls to Wakeena Falls, which all told is between 4 and 5 miles. You almost crest the mountain on the trail and if you so desired, 2/3 through you can join up with another trail that leads to Larch Mountain (which is another 5 miles). However, we just stuck to the fall-to-fall trail. It was really beautiful and I really enjoyed it.





The 1.8 miles is the toughest part and is the only paved part so it makes it double tough. It's a lot easier for me to do switch backs if there are things for my feet to grip on besides asphalt covered pathways. Luckily only those 1.8 miles are covered pathways and everything else is nice and grippy, rocky terrain.







Near the top we started to ascend into the clouds (or was it just really high fog?) and it made for some beautiful spooky photography. This particular photo has been doctored in no way and was simply the way my camera captured the high contrast atmosphere. Wow!




I took a limited amount of photos just cause it was pretty wet and I've photographed Multnomah Falls before. If any of you are in the area, I highly recommend this particular trail.

FAQs about Panera Cares

Like I said, I'm going to now answer some FAQs about my work and share a little about some of our daily happenings.

So, I don't get it -- how does a non-profit café work?
We are a completely community-sustained café which means that everyone is responsible in keeping our doors open. The way this works is instead of having set prices for a meal we have suggested donation "prices." This means that if you are unable to afford a good filling meal you can pay whatever you are able to. This also means that if you are able to, we love having people go over and above what their meal costs in order to take care of the costs for those who are not able to do so. But for most people it just means paying the suggested donation, which covers the food cost of the meal.

What does the profit go towards and how do I know that?
Because we've only been open for three weeks we are still learning what it takes to sustain the café. First and foremost: because not everyone is able to pay for their meal, the profit right now is simply covering food costs. We will eventually be teaming up with an at-risk-youth program and giving them job training skills. In a month or two we will have a newsletter available detailing where the profit has gone. How do you know we're not lying? Because we are a 501-C3 non-profit and we can't have profit and lying simply would do us no good in the end (specifically for legal reasons).

Do some people leave nothing at all?
Yes. Some people even abuse the system we have in place (one entrée, one drink and one pastry per person a day if you can't afford to pay for it). But we're here for the people who are not able to pay for their meals and for some people that means 30¢ for a meal or nothing at all. We also have a meal voucher program wherein people can volunteer an hour of their time to get a meal voucher if a.) they feel uncomfortable not paying anything at all or b.) if they regularly take advantage (though not abuse) the cheap meal option. When someone is abusing the system set in place a manager takes them aside and explains what we are and what other options there are to get a free meal one or more times a day every day.

Are all Panera Breads going to be switching to non-profit cafés now?
No. Currently there are only three in the whole country: Portland, OR (here), Deerborn, MI (aka Detroit), and Clayton, MO (aka St. Louis). The idea is to watch these three particular cafés for a while and see how they do and then consider one for every major metropolitan area. So, if you only have one Panera in the area: you can be rest assured that it will not be converted.

Why did this store get chosen to be a non-profit café?
The main reason is because we are in an economically diverse area where there is a large majority that can sustain the café and there are plenty of people in the area that genuinely need something like this. Our mission statement says that we are a "hand up not a hand out" to those that need it. This specifically is to allow a comfortable environment for the under-/un-employed to get a meal. Portland has a 10% unemployment rate so we're a really good candidate for this kind of café to reach the kind of people is intended to reach. The café is also located in Hollywood, a neighborhood with a pretty wealthy community but also close to bus lines and a lightrail and other neighborhoods where the average income is much lower (like my neighborhood). And the other reason that should not go without being said is simply because Portlanders love to support non-profits and other humanitarian endeavors.

Those are just five of many questions I get. If you have any more questions you would like me to answer, simply write in the comment box below or email me your question and I will add it to the other above FAQs. You can also find answers at: http://www.paneracares.org

There are lots of stories I intend to share but will save that for a later post.

Up And At 'Em

I am now going to be keeping all my art separate and will be posting it to my blog that is just under my own name.

http://hstitzleinart.blogspot.com/

I will post a link every once in a while if I think what I've done is interesting enough to share.

Preludes & Nocturnes

Yesterday was Joel's birthday and we celebrated in style. He invited a bunch of our friends to go roller skating at Oaks Park Roller Rink which has been around for over one hundred years, wow! Certainly we were some of the oldest kids there but it was a lot of fun. I don't remember the last time I'd skated on roller skates. On sundays (which yesterday was) they have a live organist who plays for four hours. It was an experience I've never had before. My childhood skating experience was dominated by roller blades and top 40 pop hits at the roller rink, which if I remember correctly was called Roller Town. I forgot to bring my camera which was a shame, so no photos of our skating finery. Then we went to the County Cork which is an Irish pub close to our house. After dinner we came back to our house and played cards, it was a great day!

Our food endeavors are not always recorded but here are some of the things I've managed to capture.

Egg "muffins" with sausage, bell peppers and cheese with a side of bananas in yogurt.


Duck legs with All Blue potatoes, sweet potatoes and onions.


Buckwheat pancakes with blueberry puree with yogurt and a half sausage.


Mexican salad which I use to make often in college, this time omitting the rice and adding our co-op ground beef. Back then I was a vegetarian so it's something familiar yet different.


And this is the most fun I've had in a long time: a young Thai coconut. The outside is a hard husk that covers what you're used to seeing in the grocery, the brown hard coconut. The inside was encased in soft coconut meat which held the coconut water. We had to look up how to open the coconut and it was surprisingly easy. After opening it I got a straw and drank the coconut water, then scraped out all the meat. A lot of fun to eat!


I have also been drinking coffee for breakfast on occasion with a couple dollops of whipped cream (did it myself so there is no sugar in it, just the cream) and it ends up just like a capucchino, such a treat! Yum!

In other news, I've been really busy with work. All through the last two years, even though I had been busy it had predominantly been me sitting and reading, studying or creating, not a lot of walking and standing -- which is what my job mostly entails. The switch over to Panera Cares has been interesting and yesterday marked the beginning of our second week. I'll include a video here that was shot last monday at our store, and yes, I'm in the background! It also gives you a good idea of how our store works.



With that being said, I've been very tired and not terribly motivated to do much in the way of artwork. I've been knitting but even that has slowed down remarkably. However, I did a little test of my graphic illustration skills and I'm rather pleased with the result!




I'm still learning how to use the black-out pen and setting up the page but I am really happy with the first trial run. Hopefully we'll be seeing more of this in the future. And next time I'll actually scan it in instead of photographing it so the lines are clearer.

And this is the reason I didn't scan it in.





MMMMOOOOOOOLLLLLLLDDDDDDD!!!! Curses! In my studio! I had to throw out some of my work because it was so covered in mold. I had an area that I was keeping all my finished pieces which happened to be right next to the wall that has been water damaged and is now breeding mold colonies. I emailed the landlord to see what ought to be done. It would be one thing if it was just mold but now there is the addition of water damage and I'm not sure where it came from. Outside crack in the wall? Maybe I spilled a jar of water a year ago? The downspout is attached so I'm stumped.

I was cleaning, organizing and rearranging my studio and 75% complete when I discovered this awful scene. Scanning my illustration was right on the list after organizing and vacuuming the floor of my studio. I suppose it would be easy enough to bring my scanner upstairs. It is just all very frustrating.

Not That Different

Joel and I have been working on this new diet and it really isn't a big difference from what we were eating before. The major difference is that we've been cooking more because we can't fall back on grocery store conveniences like frozen pizza, fries, or the ever so easy tuna melt on sourdough bread (yum!). We got really use to this kind of eating while I was working on my thesis when neither of us wanted to cook after a hard days work. But now that I've been working primarily in the day, with no homework in the evenings, I've been cooking more and Joel has been cooking more too.

Breakfast is usually not that involved except on our days off when they look a little more like this.




Lunch is generally a salad or left overs and generally not remarkable enough to photograph.

Dinner has been delicious and full of creativity. Sometimes it's pretty simple. Like this tandoori rubbed salmon with dilly baked green beans and carrots.



For family dinner tonight I made spice-boiled shrimp with brown rice and tat-soi (like broccoli), the brown stuff on top is oyster sauce which is kind of like Chinese ketchup.




I find myself often relying on Chinese cooking -- traditional, not American restaurant stuff that is heavy on corn syrup and corn starch -- that is full of natural fats, and are vitamin rich like colourful vegetables. It's also a little challenging trying to keep to eating local and eating this way. I imagine I'll have a lot of this figured out in the next five years that includes both eating local and eating well (veggies and meat), maybe having my own farm is the easiest solution? Maybe. For now I'm just trying to find out what it means to "eat well." This includes quality, quantity and what is healthy.

We've both been losing weight; Joel has been weighing himself and I haven't been but I know I have been. When you are this little, it seems like losing an ounce is remarkable enough to be noticed. At any rate, both of us are feeling good so far. It is a little hard to restrain ourselves from eating dessert but we've been figuring out good substitutes (like a satsuma orange, oh how I love satsumas!) and also keeping portion control in mind. This is a really hard one cause I can easily put away a whole Chipotle burrito or any number of other big meals, I just love to the tastes!

Joel cooked a delicious chili the other night which wasn't altered at all for this diet -- no need! And for breakfast yesterday on our day off I made buckwheat pancakes and bacon. The pancakes were kind of a splurge but still gluten-free. Breakfast is usually not so extravagant, regularly consisting of an egg or two and some bacon or sausage. I try to spice up my eggs a little with cheese, mushrooms and/or green onions. So really it isn't a big leap from what we were eating before. Our fallbacks have turned into cheeseburgers with lettuce instead of buns, or sausages with carrots, instead of tuna melts. I have been enjoying figuring out the puzzle of what to have for dinner.

In other news, my store opens as Panera Cares officially on Sunday. We'll be the third Panera Cares associated with Panera. I only say associated because we're not actually connected with Panera Bread anymore. We're completely sustained by the community which means to say that if we can't make it Panera Bread isn't going to save our asses. Not that this will actually happen. It has been received well in the previous two stores that were converted into Panera Cares. I think after they convert our store they will kind of take a step back to see how things go. They don't have any more conversions planned but would like to eventually expand to more of the big cities. I'm glad I get to participate in this at the beginning. I know it will be really difficult and not everyone is excited about non-profits but it will be good regardless. I am looking forward to this.