“Thank you, thank you, thank you, love you, love you, love you”

is what my Papa said at the end of a 2 minute-long voicemail he left for me – his first ever on my cell phone – the morning after making last week’s recipe (tempeh noodle casserole and mixed greens with carrots and apples). He sounded invigorated, happy, energized, excited, and – most important – loveful. I was beside myself to hear him sounding so good and so vibrant. I’d like to think it was the delicious dosage of vitamins, fiber and other nutrients that caused him to sleep well and wake up feeling like he was on top of the world.

Listening to his voicemail a few days later I realize that he sounds the way I feel right now after a morning yoga session. I am clear-headed, focused, energized and far more balanced than I've been in quite a while. The first few times I tried yoga, I didn’t understand all the hype. I was in my teens and yoga was too slow for me. I felt the need – and still do – to break a sweat, get out of breath, and make my heart race whenever I exercise. This doesn't always happen during downward-facing dogs, pigeons, and child poses. The class I recently found uses all of the aforementioned poses but the pace is quick and the movements dynamic enough to require my complete focus. As a result I am prevented from getting lost in my obsessive monkey-mind – it is really nice … and quiet.

My Saturday morning trip to the farmer’s market this week inspired a beautiful meal with marinated farmers market peppers, cucumbers, watermelon and other fresh ingredients. A search through the allrecipe website, a macrobiotic cookbook filled with recipes by Harriet McNear, and online juice recipes yielded this week’s menu. I feel a little self-conscious tooting my own horn here but, the dinner was off-the-wall delicious.

At the end of the meal Dave, our guest of the week, said he was full then stopped to clarify, “but I don’t feel bad, it feels good – there should be a word for that,” to which Matt responded, “it sits well in the stomach.” Matt and Dave, who share an interest in computer programming and are constantly brainstorming, talked about making a website that allows users to create new words based on different etymological orderings. The conversation then turned to the history of Perl6, a computer programming language, and Larry Wall’s IRC nick “TimToady” (apparently derived from “There Is More Than One Way To Do It” – TIMTOWTDI). As the computer jargon gradually turned into white noise, I started writing this week’s blog in my head ☺

Menu of the week:

Mixed Green Salad with Avocado and Kalamata Olives

http://allrecipes.com/PersonalRecipe/62418015/Mixed-Green-Salad-with-Avocado-and-Kalamata-Olives/Detail.aspx

Marinated Farmers Market Peppers on Toasted Sourdough topped with Feta

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Marinated-Peppers/Detail.aspx

Gingered Adzuki Beans with Carrots and Leeks

http://allrecipes.com/PersonalRecipe/62418014/Gingered-Adzuki-Beans-with-Carrots-and-Leeks/Detail.aspx

Watermelon and Cucumber juice with a Spritz of Lime

http://allrecipes.com/PersonalRecipe/62418016/Watermelon-and-Cucumber-juice-with-a-Spritz-of-Lime/Detail.aspx

Rabbit Food

is what my Papa will be eating at lunch on Tuesdays and Thursdays with “the boys” with whom he has played softball since I was two. I called my Papa to tell him about my new blog and its purpose: to get him in to good enough health to walk me down the aisle at my Belizean wedding and to improve my own health in the process. I shared with him all the brilliance of my plan (to write about our journeys towards better health and open this journal to public scrutiny so that we may buckle to peer pressure and bring our A1Cs down to 6.0%), yet his response was what it always is when I bring up his diabetes: humor. It was clear that I needed to bring out the big guns so, I told my Papa that I will send “the boys” the link to my blog so that they heckle him every Tuesday and every Thursday during their biweekly lunches. My hope is that they will ask him whether he has gotten any closer to the dock off Maya beach where I plan to say “I do” in December of this year. To this my Papa responded with disbelief: “Awww, I’m going to have to eat rabbit food when I get lunch with the boys??” For those of you who don’t know my grandfather (who I call “Papa”), “rabbit food” is anything predominantly green in color, free of meat, and healthy. As a type 1 diabetic with full dreams for the future, I eat a lot of rabbit food. My Papa, on the other hand, will flirt with the idea of eating only salads and dropping 60 lbs (returning him to his weight when he was a pole vaulting athlete in high school), then quickly resume his usual eating habits.

I’ve become accustomed to this struggle with my Papa who has always had a hidden stash of Big Hunks, Hershey bars with almonds, lemon drops, and peppermint candies in his den. He is one of the most amazing people I’ve ever had the great pleasure of knowing and he has taught me more than a million things in the 24 years I’ve known him. Ever since I fell in love 4 years ago and began (for the first time in my life) daydreaming about my wedding day, I envisioned my Papa walking me down the aisle and later making a show of dancing with me and singing along to the tunes of his favorite tenor, Frank Sinatra. And so, when I told him that Matt and I were officially engaged and that I wanted him to fly to Belize to be at my side during this momentous occasion, he said with a big, thick, proud smile in his voice, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world”. Since this conversation, he has become progressively concerned about his health and now fears that he will not be able to fly to Belize in December. My response: this blog. Each week I will come up with recipes for a plant-based meal that we will both cook (he in Saratoga, CA and me in Carrboro, NC). We will talk on the phone and share our successes, failures, challenges and thoughts about our health, our future and our diabetes (type 2 for him, type 1 for me).

I’ve decided to make the weekly recipes large enough to serve four and invite over different members of my community each week. This week my fiancé, Matt, and I shared dinner with a recently retired elementary school principal. After years of running out the door without packing a lunch and, thus, having no choice but to eat the food in the school cafeteria, she is fully aware of the need to reform school lunch. The past 6 months that she has been retired have been “the best 6 months of my life” – filled with yoga teacher training, a trip to Paris, and time with her three very fluffy dogs.

This week’s menu:

Tempeh Noodle Casserole with Spinach Mushrooms and Thyme

http://allrecipes.com/PersonalRecipe/62411708/Tempeh-Noodle-Casserole-with-Spinach-Mushrooms-and-Thyme/Detail.aspx

Mixed Green Salad with Apples and Goddess Dressing

http://allrecipes.com/PersonalRecipe/62411714/Mixed-Green-Salad-with-Apples-and-Goddess-Dressing/Detail.aspx