Category: Food

Here’s what to do on your next lazy weekend, preferably a warm one.

You will need:
A bottle of vodka
A watermelon
A knife
A towel
Time to kill

First, trace around the mouth of the bottle with the knife.

Following the circle, cut a hole in the watermelon about 3 inches deep.

Pull the plug!

Place the watermelon onto the bottle, lining up the hole you just cut with the mouth of the bottle.

Flip the whole shebang over, and make sure the bottle isn’t going anywhere.

With a towel wrapped around the base of the watermelon for stability, let the bottle slowly drain into the melon. This should take a few hours.

Et, voila! Beautiful (stock photo of) vodka soaked watermelon. Perfect for munching on whilst lounging around the pool.

We made it! This morning I drank my final salt water flush. (My final? As if I have really drunk so many…) I’m not really sure why, but it was much more effective than the first one I tried. It was nice to end the cleanse feeling very clean inside.

Misty and I drank one lemonade drink this morning, then throughout the day had a lot of water, some orange juice (including orange juice popsicles!), and vegetable broth. It all settled very well, and I felt absolutely amazing today. I had so much energy, I ended up rearranging most of the garden. But I didn’t feel a rush and a crash, as I would have if I had eaten refined sugar or carbs.

Towards the end of the day we were feeling confident that our bodies could handle, and probably needed, a bit of more solid food. I spent some time making some mouth-watering confit byaldi (a fancy version of ratatouille, more on that later) and some mashed cauliflower. Both were free of animal products, until I topped the confit byaldi with raw cow’s milk cheddar. We had small portions of each, and it was as if we died and went to heaven.

So what have I learned from this cleanse? Well, I learned that I love food. I love cooking food, I love smelling food, I love eating food. And, I am ready to be more adventurous with my cooking methods. Conquering the confit byaldi really boosted my confidence in the kitchen. I’m ready to cook more often, and use whole ingredients rather than semi-prepared foods. Another approach I’ll be taking when cooking is to reduce the amount of animal products I consume. Sometimes using an animal product really will result in the best flavor, or consistancy. But more often than not a vegan substitute is available, and is almost always healthier than animal products. I also plan to incorporate raw foods into my diet more frequently. Nathaniel said my skin glowed during this cleanse, and when I ate raw for a week earlier this year. Coincidence? I think not!

I don’t want to be a labeled as a raw foodist, a vegan, a vegetarian, or gluten-intolerant. A label seems so limiting, and my personality absolutely resists being pigeonholed. I just want to eat healthy, delicious food, and for me personally, my diet will most likely reflect those types of foods. As I do more research and try new recipes, I will share what I find on this blog!

Thanks for sticking this out with us, I hope you’ve had an enlightening journey!

Thank goodness this fast is almost over. It has gotten easier with time – I have no problem drinking the lemonade, and have gotten into my little routine. But, still, I am craving the variety and textures of solid food.

Misty has had a headache for the last two days. We think this fast is probably best done for a week. She and I both eat fairly healthily, so there is probably not as much to detox as there would be if we consumed a diet heavy with meat and processed foods.

Tomorrow is the last day. We will finish up the bottle of maple syrup that we have, and the few lemons we have, and call it good. For the rest of the day we’ll start drinking some orange juice, teas, maybe some broth. I know technically we should wait after day 10 is completely finished to do that, but technically, we are bloody sick of not eating.

In other news, my mother-in-law and sister-in-law have also decided (been inspired?) to do the master cleanse, and today was their first day. We’ll see how it goes!

I’m bored. Today I really wanted to quit the cleanse and just be done with it. I am so sick of the same flavor, all day long, every day. The only thing keeping me going is knowing that I am so close to reaching the ten day mark.

I did feel pretty good though. Had a decent amount of energy, even was able to do a bit of gardening after work! I transplanted a few things, which involved digging some pretty big holes. Go me!

In Misty’s world, things are going well, too. She had to drink an emergency orange juice because she was out and about, ran out of the lemonade mix, and really needed something in her system. I’m glad we’re not being total extremists about this whole thing – I feel that would end up in some unhealthy decisions.

Tonight I sauteed up some broccoli from our CSA with olive oil, garlic, and lemon juice, for Nathaniel of course. He ate it all so it must have been pretty good! I had the tiniest taste about the size of a lemon seed (can you tell what’s on my mind?) and, I have to say, I approved.

What else? Well, I can’t stop fantasizing about food. That’s pretty much it.

We’re nearing the final stretch, and boy does it feel good. I’m fantasizing about food almost nonstop now. But I am very proud of us for sticking it out this long.

There’s not a whole lot to report today. I did the salt water flush this morning, got it down with no problem (actually I thought it ‘ratha tasty’), and about half an hour later I emptied the tiny bit of whatever was left in my body. Pretty uneventful.

Other than that: Drank some lemonade. Felt hungry. Wanted popcorn at the movie theater REAL BAD. (By the way, if you haven’t yet seen Midnight in Paris, go see it this instant!) Misty said she felt as hungry today as she did on day one, which is to say, very hungry. I was okay, a bit peckish, but mostly just can’t wait for some flavors other than maple lemonade.

An interesting exercise during this cleanse has been heightening my awareness of my mood. Not eating usually leads me to be, well, rather crabby. Nathaniel notes that I am not mean spirited, but a bit more direct and snappy. I’ve been trying to reel it in this past week, and I think this will really help me once the cleanse is over. I think I’ll be able to identify if my crabbiness is due to hunger, and be able to curb it.

In other mood news, I’ve noted I have a LOT more patience when dealing with customers at work. AND when I get out of bed in the morning I’m in a good mood. Strange!

Today was also fairly eventful in regards to the cleanse. I woke up feeling pretty normal. Had the tea not kicked in yet? I started getting up and ready for us to go to Timothy Lake for the day. Finally about 9am the tea started doing it’s thing. This morning it felt terrible. I’d be doing my thing, then all of the sudden I would get a crippling cramping in my gut. It made me keel over and I even got slightly dizzy. This happened several times before anything came out. When something did eventually come out, it was hardly anything. My guess is that the pain was due to my intestines trying to squeeze absolutely nothing out of me. Once I was pretty sure it was over we hit the road. Did I mention that we took a little lunchbox with lemon juice, cayenne, and maple syrup? Well, I should have. We did.

Two hours and what seemed like a million stops later we arrived at Timothy Lake. Some of our family members had been camping there for a few days before our arrival. We met up with them and almost immediately we were on a pontoon boat floating in the middle of the lake, gazing up at Mount Hood. It was glorious.

There was only one problem: we had forgotten to bring water to dilute our concentrates! How silly of us. Maybe we are getting spacier? We weaseled some from those who were camping, and were prepared to not get dehydrated. They had seltzer there too and we wondered if we could mix our drink with that. Maybe we’ll try it next week when we get bored. Oh, and we drank another kombucha today. Actually Misty had two. Bad us.

Someone (presumably a stranger) at the campsites was so desperate to get into the bathroom that he broke the lock off the door while Nathaniel was in there. Mind you, this was after he had tried to get in a few times and Nathaniel had to shout “OCCUPIED!” He must have been a desperate fellow, and poor Nathaniel! This proves to me that interesting/embarassing/whatever bathroom stories can occur to anyone regardless of their partaking of the master cleanse.

Here’s a quote from a little girl to whom I presume I am somehow related, “You know what’s better than potato salad? Macaroni salad. You know what’s better than macaroni salad? Ice cream. You know what is my favorite? Chocolate ice cream.” Needless to say, tonight was another of those hunger moments. I watched people consume potato salad, macaroni salad, club wraps, chips, pickles, steak, asparagus, spaghetti, popcorn, adult beverages, bacon, marshmallows, veggie burgers, candy bars. Not necessarily in that order. And this time it was not just about the social aspect of sharing a meal. I was genuinely starving. Had I not a master cleanse partner, I surely would have caved and eaten this: dill pickle potato chips, dill pickle proper, asparagus. Maybe a bit of the club wrap. Oh and the popcorn, and adult beverages. Okay I would have probably eaten everything and given myself a royal stomach ache.

Speaking of royal stomach aches, I’m going to skip the smooth move for the rest of the cleanse (ouch!) and instead inflict a hopefully somewhat more temporary pain on myself: Salt water flushes. Just two – one Sunday morning and one Wednesday morning to end the cleanse with a last hoorah.

Goodnight!

Lots to report! After my daily update, Misty, Nathaniel and I decided to take Daphne to the park. Nathaniel was going to bring a beer but Misty and I wanted a treat, so……… we got some Townshend’s kombucha (brewed right here on Alberta in PDX). Okay, okay, I know kombucha is not technically part of the cleanse, but it’s still liquid, it’s fermented, it’s raw, it’s tasty, and most importantly perhaps, it’s filling. Entering the market to buy the kombucha was probably the most difficult part of the cleanse so far. I have not been this hungry since, well, since a few months ago, or maybe sometime last month. I don’t know, I get hungry a lot. The point is, every delicious morsel was tempting me! Tomatoes, potatoes, cabbage, rainbow carrots, chocolate, candles, anything within eyeshot of the kombucha cooler was fair game. I think this was the first time I felt truly hungry on this cleanse.

Then we went to the park where I consumed my first kombucha ever! In the past I’ve turned it down, something about the word scoby combined with knowing it’s a fermented bacteria yeast beverage just gives me the willies! But I tried it today and I can now say, I am hooked! The 0.5 percent of alcohol in it is perfect if you haven’t had any food for an entire work week.

When we arrived at home, I brewed up two mugs of Smooth Move tea for our evening good-night drink. When it was done brewing, Misty asked if I’d like my tea. When I came into the kitchen, she was busy straining the tea bags – of two different mugs of tea! We had both brewed two mugs, for a grand total of four mugs! Laughter ensued. Was it the hunger, the drunkedness from the kombucha, the tiredness? I’m not sure but here’s a picture.

Now off to bed to let the tea do it’s thing!

Day 5 has been largely uneventful. Drank lemonade, water, and nothing else. I did get rather rumbly in my tummy (from hunger) around mid-morning and around 4pm, but it passed both times.

So far the only episode today regarding the cleanse was after work. I brought home some leftover cake for Nathaniel, and wanted to try a tiny tiny speck of the frosting. Nathaniel wouldn’t let me, saying he wouldn’t be a part of my cheating. So I chased him around the kitchen begging to please please please let me have just one tiny speck! He wouldn’t give in! Finally I grabbed the container and picked off a tiny piece of frosting about the size of the period at the end of this sentence. It was, eh, not worth it. Now I know for next time!

Tonight I’ll drink some Smooth Move, see how it goes tomorrow!