Unmasked! A Picture of Ms. Fish & The 5th Year Anniversary Dinner That Wasn’t… It’s Vegan MoFo Day 11 Kids!

You may have noticed that I took a day off of the MoFoness yesterday. You see, yesterday was a rather special day. October 10th marks our, that is to say M. Fish & moi, 5-year anniversary ensemble. I know what you’re thinking, 5 years doesn’t seem long… but as the majority of my past relationships had a shelf-life rivaling a carton of soy milk (ahem! fear of commitment! ahem!) it’s a big ‘ole fiesta!

This isn’t our wedding anniversary, which will be 5 years next June, but the anniversary of just knowing from that first night that we would be together forever : M. Fish coming back (stumbling back?) to my place after an evening of drunken debauchery with friends at a noisy, smoke-filled bar (this to differentiate it from all other bars), staying up until 7 a.m. talking about everything there was to talk about… and M. Fish never left. Ok, not in a “creepy-freaky-guy-squatting-in-my-apartment way, but the “here’s a key, hot stuff” way. I’m not one to hand out keys (or my heart), so I knew, as did Monsieur F, that this was it. And it is, or was…you know what I mean!

I’m about to commit photographic heresy and show you a picture of a picture – our scanner is mort, muerto, as in R.I.P., but I wanted to share with you, for the very first time, a photo of moi.…to mark this grand occasion…

Why this picture? It’s my favorite of our weddings pics, that’s why. I know it’s not a close-up, so you can’t make out the piercings or all the tattoos, but you get the idea. Note the combat boots. No, they weren’t vegan. They were all I could afford at the second hand shoppe during grad school. I did wear some very snazzy, sexy and over-priced shoes during our civil ceremony. But as I cringed in pain listening to M. le Maire pronouncing our legal affiliation, I decided there was no way I was going to spend the next 12 hours in agony so we stopped back at our place before the grueling photo session so I could get my boots! A wise decision indeed.

“So what the hell, Shellyfish? Where is the MoFo? Where is the food? Why are you posting about his?”

Good questions…

So I was saying, yesterday was our anniversary. We were to go out to dinner, just M. Fish and I. We aren’t one of those couples who never leave their child with a sitter because they are psycho and afraid that something will happen to them or that no one can be trusted. We just don’t have anyone to watch her. No teen-aged or retired neighbors who like kids. My family is across the world, and my in-laws who would watch Guppy live on the other side of the country. We live in a town where none of our friends have children, or who know people with children, and finding a baby-sitter is nearly impossible. Trust me. But managed to secure a babysitter – I asked her over a month ago if she was free – and she was going to watch Guppy. She’s watched Guppy before, and she’s sweet, and Guppy likes her. It’s all good…

Then the babysitter got sick. At the last minute.

Our plan was to have dinner at our favorite Sushi restaurant. It just so happens that Guppy freaking loves sushi. We did what any other normal couple would do. We got take out :

Me: “Hey Guppy, do you want to come with Mumma to get some Sushi for a special party tonight?”.

Guppy, twirling, clapping, and panting in a blitz of dancing around the salon watching Gorillaz Live in Harlem

“Sushi!?! A party?! What kind of party?” as she twirls into the couch, throwing herself onto the over-stuffed cushions with delight.

Me : “A kissing and love party, because Mumma & Papa are in love.”

Guppy : “Sushi and love!” She begins dancing again, “I loooovee sushi and love! But after this song, ok?”

And so, Guppy & I went off on foot in the beautiful cool of the Autumn evening in one direction to pick up 4 avocado rolls, 4 cucumber rolls, 4 pickled daikon rolls, three “house salads”, and some sweet mochi cakes, M. Fish went off in the other direction for champagne and some vino, and we all met back here for a huge sushi love party! I didn’t even try to take pictures of anything because we lit candles and had our twinkle lights on, and really, it just wasn’t a take pictures of food kind of moment.

But, because you’re a bunch of food-p*rn junkies, here…

Have a big bite of my Banana Chocolate Chip Muffin from The Joy of Vegan Baking. Fantastic. Will be blogging on this gem of a cookbook soon, so stay tuned!

Raw Tuesdays – Mardi Tout Cru! (yeah, I know, it’s Thursday…)

Yes, yes, I know…but I’ve been one very busy Fish! I wasn’t too busy to carry on with Raw Tuesdays, though…just too busy to post about it. As I was discussing with “Bob” the other day, the Guppy started school on Tuesday. I know, she’s only 3! We could have started her last Fall, but Mr. Fish & I decided to give her one more year of toddlerhood (because 2 is just so freaking early!). I actually think it’s great that kids – and parents – have access to free, public education as early as 2 here in France as it makes childcare easier for those who need it, but that is young.

Anyhow, on to the Rawness of Tuesday :

Pre-run I had two “Carob Confections” left over from last Tuesday. They are so yum! I also had a few for a mid-afternoon snack. Now they are gone, however, and that has made me sad 😦 Post run was my new favorite smoothie evah : just tons of spinach, banana, almond milk, about 4 dates and half of a vanilla bean. My spinach from the marché was very “rustic” (big old honkin’ bitter dinosaur-sized leaves) and needed a little sweetness, so I added the dates & vanilla bean. Tasted like a dessert. Cool.

I have no picture of the smoothie, because it was ugly, but look at these:

Des tomates anciennes bios or in the language of Shakespeare, organic heirloom tomatoes. These puppies were huge. Freaking science experiment huge. When I saw the stand at the market, I asked for two tiny ones, because these are like the babies of the huge mamma sized tomatoes they had. How big were they you ask?

Well, how’s about 620g or almost 1 and 1/2 pounds (1.3 to be precise)! I know, tomatasaurs. I enjoyed them in a large salad with some “Sunshine Paté” from The Raw Gourmet for lunch. The “Sunshine Paté” is a sunflower seed-based raw paté which I really liked…and it’s a good thing, because it makes an enormous amount (the better to go with the tomatasaurs, I know). The other good little tidbit about the Paté is it keeps for 12ish days, so we’ve been still enjoying it – because even Mr. “I disdain raw cuisine” Fish has been loving this stuff. Go Ms. Shannon, Go!

These are some Sunshine Rolls before they met with certain doom in our tummies at dinner time. Rolled up with sliced carrot, red pepper, large lettuce leaves, and fresh cut pineapple. You may notice some of the rolls are a little sloppy…I was assisted in my rolling by Ms. Guppy who was very excited about them, because she loves eating nori rolls as much as she loves making nori rolls. The kid’s going to roll me under the table before she hits 5.

And we dipped our rolls in one of the lovely raw dipping sauces from The Complete Book of Raw Food which is the kind of book you want to have around when you’re going to be killing any large, aggressive insects invading your kitchen or defending yourself from home invaders because it weighs a ton. It’s huge, has like a zillion recipes from many different Raw Food Peeps in an anthology-type format. I have only skimmed through the recipes in there, though many of them seem to require a dehydrator which is a big, fat bummer. This dipping sauce was also great with fruit :

It also made a huge amount, so we’ve been snacking on that for the past few days as well.

I am really behind on your blogs…lo siento…but I will be catching up tomorrow (hopefully!).

Jen’s Veggie Nori Rolls For Caterpillars & People, Too!

We love bugs. Spiders. Flies. Caterpillars. Ants. (We love them more when they’re outside, of course!)

Kittee, aka Cake Maker to the Stars, has some lovely caterpillar stories & photos and I was sharing them with the Guppy recently since we are apartment dwellers and even at the park it’s hard to find any really cool caterpillars this Spring (global warming…). She already loves butterflies, and when I told her that caterpillars are “baby” butterflies (everything she finds cute is a baby. Elephants are babies. Cows. Bumble bees, etc.) she really got excited.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m having a few issues getting my dear little Guppy to eat anything other than cookies or bread or raw fruit (before she was 2 she ate EVERYTHING). I involve her as much as I can involve a just-turned-three-year-old, and bring her with me to the market square to help chose the veggies, etc.

We were at the marché and I bought some baby spinach leaves and she said, “Hey, Mumma, I want some leaves, just like a caterpillar!”. Remaining guardedly optimistic I rinsed off a leaf with some water and she ate it, all of it, and said “more, please”!

When we got home it was time to prepare dinner, and I wanted to ride this “leaf” thing as long as possible. Most of you crazy kids know Jen of Veg*Triathlete (who will return to kicking athletic ass after recovering from bobos…:( damn IR list anyway). She has such an excellent “Fuel” section on her blog, and I love letting her plan my meals :). She had some lovely Peanut Veggie Nori Rolls posted and I just had to try them, especially giving that we are all about “leaves” and caterpillars right now. They have the added bonus of being a “hands-on” project-type meal, and we’re all about that!

The Guppy is showing us how caterpillars eat.

First we made the marinade, then we washed & dried the lettuce & veggies we’d be using. For veggies we used thin carrot sticks, green onions, thin-sliced red pepper, pineapple, and zucchini. We put them in a large bowl with the marinade & made sure that everything was well covered.

Next came the rolling part. This was the first time that the Guppy was to participate in the rolling of the Nori. She was pretty excited about it, and she kept calling them sushis. Silly kiddo.

Not sure how many of you have done any Nori rolling with a Guppy-aged kiddo. If you’re ok with everything being sort of all over the place (the floor, your shirt, your pants, the table…) then it’s ok. Heck, I’m messy, so I guess it’s normal for a child to get sloppy- and that’s the fun of the project. Nori rolls are like the finger painting of the culinary world. I just thought to myself, be like the lettuce, just receptive and waiting for all the goodness to be bestowed upon you… (so yoga of meself!)

We saved what as left of the marinated and used it as a dipping sauce. Everything went into the fridge until Mr. Fish came home, then we went to town! It was so good! I wish I could say the Guppy ate three rolls and loved them. She had a few bites then asked for apricots. Oh well. I’ll definitely make these again! Go check out the link to get the low-down on these babies!