Food and Sanity: Caribou Coffee's 7-Grain Oatmeal

I've never been much one for oatmeal. In fact, when my mother-in-law makes it at home, I never eat it. I've tried countless occasions to like it, but it always comes across as slimy mush in my mouth. (I hope that made you go, "Ew!" That's how most oatmeal makes me feel.) Eventually I gave up, until...

Meng and I go to Caribou Coffee quite often. It's not too far from home, and there is free parking available if we are willing to walk a few blocks. The weather has been very nice, so here I sit at the moment in Caribou. The rustic, unfinished wood panels and cross beams make the room feel so cozy and less lofty than a Starbucks. It's a great escape from the sterile and often tense environment that is the in-laws' house. It was here in the solace of the smell of coffee beans that my (intuitive and persuasive) fiancée introduced me to Caribou Coffee's 7-Grain Oatmeal.

"It doesn't taste like normal oatmeal," he said. "And you can customize it!" I was skeptical, but I tend to trust Meng when it comes to suggestions. He has a pretty good sense of what I like and don't like, so I tried it. It is now, to me, the exemplification of comfort and contentment. They have several combinations on the menu, or you can put up to three items in your oatmeal. I like it with apple compote, dried cranberries and almonds, but Meng prefers the brown sugar crumble.

Maybe it's not a good thing that food is such a comfort to me, but at least I'm not compulsively eating chocolate. The cooking aspect is nice, too. Yesterday I made vegetarian chili. It was pretty good, but I missed that meat taste. The beans, corn, salsa, cumin, garlic, onion, tomato and fresh cilantro just didn't do it for me. If anyone has a suggestion, I welcome it. Tonight I'm going to try and make Spicy Turkey Meatloaf. I'll let you know how it turns out.

I know this is starting to look like a food blog, but it's really a life blog, and eating is a very important part of life. Besides, if I post a recipe, it's likely to be cheap and easy, and when you're in college, that's what your food needs to be!

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3/20/2011 - Update

Turns out the chili leftovers are amazing. Apparently it just needs to season overnight in order to be marvelous, so what the heck! This is a variation of a more traditional chili recipe a friend gave me. Here's what I did:

1 tsp vegetable oil

1 tomato, diced (you can also use canned)

1 white onion, diced

1 red bell pepper, diced

1 can chili beans

1 can yellow corn

1 can chili beans

1 can pinto beans (or whatever you have on hand)

1 can butter beans (or whatever else you have on hand)

1 6 oz can tomato paste

1 12 oz can of salsa

Tabasco

1 garlic clove (or you can just use garlic salt)

cumin

lime juice

cilantro

salt

pepper

dash of day-old coffee

Heat oil in a stockpot or large saucepan over medium heat. Add onions, tomatoes, bell peppers, garlic and 1-2 tbsp of cumin (adjust to taste). Cook until onions are translucent and the tomatoes are beginning to stew. Add all the canned goods, including the salsa. Add salt, pepper, a dash of lime, Tabasco and cilantro to taste. Let it simmer for at least a half hour. The more, the better. At the last minute add a dash of coffee.

So there it is. The great thing about chili is that there doesn't need to be a set recipe for it to turn out great so add or subtract different beans or other ingredients at will. I recommend letting it cool and putting it into the fridge overnight. The next day, reheat on the stove and serve with shredded cheese and sour cream. It's great with tortilla chips.

The Search for Snacks

The last few routine pre-natal check-ups have been exactly that: routine. The only thing that has really surfaced as a problem is my weight gain. I'm not going to tell you how much I weigh right now because, frankly, it's embarrassing. I'll tell you in six months, when I hopefully don't weigh as much as I do now.

The first time it came up, I shrugged it off. "I'll eat right, give up soda and go walking." Right.

The second time it came up, I had just gone to Culver's and was trying to hurry through the appointment so that I could get back to my chicken strips and deep-fried cheese curds. (I did get bottled water with my chicken basket... just sayin.)

Today I am making a change. Just to make myself feel better, it should be noted that I made (some rocking amazing) kielbasa and sauerkraut for dinner last night, and am probably retaining a lot of water as a result. But what I saw on the scale today definitely made my jaw drop, and something must be done.

I was pretty hungry when I left the doctor's office. So I started looking around for some healthy snack options. Fast food restaurants were completely out of the question. Even the salads aren't that good for you, and who ever heard of eating a salad while driving? That left pretty much... nothing. Amazing what happens to variety when you rule out fast food. (It's better that way, really. The last few times I've gone to a "grease station," as my friend likes to call it, the food hasn't sat well with me later.)

Rule #1 of shopping is never go into a grocery aisle on an empty stomach, but I had no choice. I needed to pick up a few items anyway, so off I went to Meijer to find a healthy snack. After doing my more important shopping (a pirate-ship inflatable pool, will blog about it later), I walked past the soda to the refrigerated area where I picked up a single-serve bottle of Tropicana. It was a start. Then I walked the snack areas. I had to constantly keep myself in check, reminding myself that the goal is to cut down on the sugary and the salty, but really, what does that leave?

My answer came in the produce section. Buying a whole bag of baby carrots or an apple or banana didn't appeal to me, but I came across a teeny-tiny spot in the very back where the "miscellaneous vegetables" hide. (Miscellaneous, by the way, is code for "vegetables we have to stock but hardly anyone buys.") There, next to the bok choy and giant mushroom stalks were the "Take-a-longs." There were a variety of these indevidual snack trays, including but not limited too, apple slices and yogurt, bruschetta and toasted baguette toast, and cherry tomatoes with ranch dip and cheese cubes. After much consideration, I landed on a tray with grapes, snap peas with ranch dip, and a mini Babybel cheese round.

I admit, it was still difficult walking past the soda in the check-out lane, but having my Tropicana staring at me as we walked past helped a lot. And honestly, I was so excited about the tiny cheese round, I didn't even realize I walked past the candy bars! So I feel successful. Not because I ate a healthy snack, but because I found a healthy snack.

Want a snap pea?

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Addendum: Today, 7/25/2010, I went to the Country Buffet and ate a very large and amazing salad, immediately followed by a bowl of ice cream, half a cupcake, half a cinnamon roll, a large piece of fudge and a bite of cheesecake... Needless to say, I don't have the hang of this yet.

I, Pregnant Lady, do so solemnly swear...

I realize that, not actually having a child yet, I am not really in a position to judge the mothers I see in passing, at a restaurant or at the mall. I do it anyway. From things that I have seen in the last few weeks, I have made myself these five promises:

1. I will never spank my children in public.
I realize I might recieve some flak from my readers when I say that I firmly believe in spanking. It's something that Meng and I have discussed at length and we have rather strict rules that we plan to follow. "Never spank a child out of anger," "Once spanking stops working, find a new consequence,*" and, "Do not spank a child in a public place."

There are some very specific reasons for this third rule. First of all, spanking a child in public can humiliate the child, causing psychological pain in addition to the sting of a spanking. Humiliation should never be a punishment. Also, and this is what I'd love to tell the woman I saw at Meijer last week, it makes you look like a tactless and ignorant person, and everyone around you sees you as the woman who got angry and spanked her child in the canned goods section.

2. I will actually count to three when I start counting.
Another thing that is important is that a child knows that you mean what you say you mean. When I was a kid, I never let my parents get to three because I knew that it would go over poorly for me if I did. This must mean that at some point (though I do not remember it) my parents counted all the way to three before I changed my attitude/obeyed, and I was punished for not following instructions.

On Tuesday I watched as a woman yelled at her son in a restaurant to sit back down at the table. She watched him as he threw down a napkin on the floor and ordered him to pick it up. When the little boy didn't, she started to count. My back was to them, so I heard "1..." There was silence. I thought the kid had picked up the napkin. I was wrong. "2..." Another silence. I stole a glance almost 30 seconds later, only to see that the mother had picked up the napkin and (of course) spanked her son... without ever reaching three.

It was a double mistake, actually. Not only did she fulfill her own order before counting three, but the spanking was ineffective.

3. I will not bargain with my children.
I'm not referring to a reward system, "If you will do this chore that is not usually assigned to you, I will give you extra allowance." That's great. I condone that. Reward away. But don't reward poor behavior. A child is misbehaving in the check-out lane. "If you settle down and be quiet, you can go on the pony ride." No. Don't do that.

I guess to me the whole approach is wrong. What should be said, before the trip to the store begins is, "If you behave while we're at the store, you can go on the pony ride." If you say this and follow through, you're rewarding good behavior. But trying to coerce your child into behaving by offering a reward they do not deserve is an automatic fail. Especially if the child does not behave when you offer the bargain and you still let them ride the pony."

4. I will follow through with warnings.
This one kind of goes a long with the last two. How often do you hear a mother in the store telling her child what will happen if they don't stop misbehaving? "If you don't stop I'm going to take you out to the car and spank you." An hour later, you see the pair, child still wailing or whatever, mother still threatening. And please, don't give them a cookie at this point. They don't deserve it.

5. I will not give my child a sippy cup of soda.
This is actually just the front statement for an entire list of things I have seen other parents do, but the one that always comes to mind first is soda in the sippy cup.**


I see it with unfortunate frequency. In fact, last week I saw a woman giving pop to her infant by holding it in the straw and doling it out in drops. Where is the logic here? This was topped only by the young (quite skinny) mother I saw only moments later, who unwrapped an entire Three Musketeers bar and handed it to her (chunky-monkey) daughter. The kid barely had teeth to chew it!

I think that this is something most seen in America. I read an article in American Baby over the weekend that said over a third of children eat no vegetables besides french fries. This is horrifying! Give the toddler green beans! Carrots! Cucumber! One of my favorite foods when I was small was lima beans!

My comforting thought is that my daughter will never have the chance to be a poor eater. I am proud to say that it has been months since I've touched a french fry. Besides, the way Meng in all his Chinese-ness loves his veggies (some of which I don't even like), this baby (like me) will have to either learn to like mushrooms and asparagus, or starve.


*Meaning, when the child is old enough to rationalize whether or not the crime is worth the punishment, a new punishment should be found. Many resort to spanking harder, longer, etc. This is not acceptable to me. When a child is old enough that spanking is ineffective, discipline should come in the form of the loss of privileges or something similar.

**Incidentally, when I was little I had these hard plastic sippy cups with snap-on lids. The cups came in various sizes and the lids fit them all. It was easy for me to transition between a sippy cup and a normal cup using these because 1) they were my own special grown-up cups and 2) if drinking without a lid was going poorly for me, all Mom had to do was reach in the drawer and snap on a lid for me. These days, all I can find are the cups with lids that screw on. Does anyone know where you can get the snap-on ones? Or are they a thing of the past? I can only find the disposable kind.

Food, Theatre, and Nesting Instincts

Yesterday, my world tossed me something new to juggle. I've been the House Manager at my college for several years now. My plan for this semester was to take my leave of absence from the spring production and rest up a bit. This was a difficult decision, mostly because I'm a control freak and really love doing what I do. At the very last minute, the girl who was going to replace me became a cast member (kudos for her!). So here I am, the HM again. Luckily most everything is already in place for me. I'm going to be so tired at the end of this run, but I'm excited to be involved again!

This would be a good place to tell you all that if you are in the Chicago area, you need to check out Legitimate Geniuses, written by Stephanie Weber and directed by Chad Eric Bergman. Show dates are April 9, 10, 15, 16 and 17 at 7:30, and April 11th at 2pm. The performance is at the Neo Futurarium on the Southeast corner of Foster and Ashland. Make a reservation at theatre@northpark.edu! Ask me at the Box Office if I'm pregnant and get a dollar off your ticket (limit one per person).

As a side note to that, there's an awesome crepe place a block away called the Icosium Cafe. It's on the Northwest corner of Foster and Clark, and if I took the time to describe it to you... okay fine I will. Imagine a savory crepe stuffed with fresh spinach, caramelized onions, goat cheese, pine nuts, need I go on? And it's only a dollar to add chicken, beef or lamb to that. Or you can get sweet crepes... strawberries, kiwis and Nutella with a scoop of ice cream on the side! Why are you even still reading? Go now!

Okay, that's out of my system. But speaking of foods, what can there not be enough of?

1. Mac N Cheese. Seriously, if it's in the apartment, it is gone before the day is over. For some reason it just sings to my soul.
2. Watermelon. If you're very familiar with the movie "Lady and the Tramp," you'll remember the scene where Jim Dear puts on his overcoat at an ungodly time of night. He calls up the stairs, "Darling, are you sure you want watermelon?" Poor Mengyao.
3. Chocolate. The only reason it's this far down on the list is that it's not as filling as the first two. Remember how last weekend was Easter? Yesterday I ate an entire chocolate bunny in two sittings. Earlier today I tried to write the "10 reasons to keep chocolate in the house," but somewhere around #4 I realized that each reason could be simplified down to "it makes me happy."
4. Milk. I don't know why but I've really been guzzling it down lately. I'm trying not to drink too much every day, but when I went home for spring break, I downed a whole gallon by myself (over the course of a week, but still).
5. Pickles. It must be the salt content, or the satisfying crunch. My roommates and I are currently taking turns buying jars of Vlasic dills. No, I've not eaten any with ice cream.
6. Eggs. This mild and unoffensive protein source can be cooked so many different ways. All you need is a little incentive. I made egg salad yesterday using some of the eggs I colored for Easter... the blue egg turned my salad green.
7. Crackers. Again, mild and unoffensive. I've been eating a few before I go to bed every night so that I don't wake up at 3 a.m. ravenous and cranky. I usually wake up anyway, and crackers are a good snack then, too.
8. Peanut butter. Enough said.
9. Pasta. When I just need some carbs I'll cook some pasta (angel hair is my favorite, and it's the fastest) and eat it with a little butter and salt.
10. Vernors. If you don't know what it is, go to Michigan and buy it. It's the perfect ginger ale for settling an upset stomach, or just making yourself happy.

Moving on to developments in my life... Nesting Instincts!

Last night I became possessed by a cleaning demon. It started out with the simple desire to take a bath. I try to clean out the tub weekly, so I grabbed the comet and a rag and headed to the bathroom. When I got there... it was as if I had never seen dirt before. Now really, our bathroom isn't that bad, it just gets dusty and covered with hairspray, but...but... I attacked it! Before I knew it, I was scrubbing the sink with a vengeance not even the super-nanny could equal. Things were getting cleaned so fast, I wasn't even letting the clouds of comet settle. It wasn't until I had actually crawled inside the empty tub to get a better view of the offending soap scum that I realized exactly what was happening. And THEN, oh yes, I cleared off the floor, poured water all over the place, covered it with cleaner and scrubbed on my hands and knees. IN-credible. Fifteen minutes later I was doing laundry, emptying the dishwasher and sending out emails I'd neglected for weeks. I was just about to take out the garbage when I began to run out of steam...

I'm just so confused. I'm going to go do the dishes.

The 1st post: Communication and Morning Sickness

Some conversations are just not meant to happen over the phone. Conversations such as these may include, but are not limited to, "I ran over your cat on my way to work this morning," "I don't think this relationship is going to work out," and "So... I'm pregnant." I guess I knew that when I started to call my mom last month. This wasn't planned, wasn't wished for, and (as far as my parents knew) not a possibility. You might say it came as a shock. You might also say she expected it. You know about mother's intuition...

As of now I am about two months pregnant. Other aspects of my life include college. I am a junior and a theatre student in Chicago. This pregnancy changes everything. I'm due in September, so I'm going to lose at least a semester's worth of time what with labor and all the other baby-having technicalities. I should also say that I'm terrified.

I have come to terms with all of this surprisingly fast. I suppose, between classes, homework, and directing a one-act in the upcoming theatre festival, I don't really have time to think about how screwed up my life is at the moment, but I really do think everything is going to be okay. My family is well acquainted with crises, which has included heart attacks, strokes, personality-changing traumatic brain injuries, and cancer. "A pregnancy, a baby, is not a crisis." That's what my mom said the day after I told her.

Despite my mental disposition, my body is not doing so well. For several weeks, any commitment before 10 a.m. was not a possibility. I haven't felt so sick for so many consecutive days since I got my wisdom teeth out, and even then they gave me drugs! The "morning" sickness has calmed down significantly. Unfortunately, I have begun feeling violently ill somewhere around 8:30 p.m., "night" sickness, if you will. I think being fully awake for the misery makes it decidedly worse.

My methods for dealing with morning sickness have been slowly and steadily evolving to an art. First of all, I constantly have a bottle of ice water with me. Something about the cool, unoffensive liquid seems to calm things down in the digestive area. (There was about a two week period where I almost lived off apple juice and saltine crackers.) I'm also working on keeping small amounts of food with me at all times. These come mostly in the form of crackers, chips and apple slices. I hate the fact that I can't eat like I used to. Being in college and in an apartment, it was so much easier to deal with when I was too tired, too busy, or too broke to eat. I'd just make some pasta or rice and will myself to operate on no protein. That doesn't work anymore. My body is completely dictating my consumption patterns. (At this moment I am at work eyeing up a package of Easy Mac...)

If I do not eat when I am hungry, I get sick. If I overeat, however, I get sick. Also, sometimes when I eat (like earlier today when I had an amazing slice of Chicago deep dish) I get sick just because. Greasy foods are completely out. Sugary foods are... well, old habits die hard. Slowly but surely, however, my semi-sweet chocolate morsels, spoonfuls of Nutella (if you don't know what it is, go buy it, sold next to the peanut butter), and pixie sticks are being replaced by fresh fruit, toast with cinnamon and sugar, and club house crackers. My only real problem has been soda... like I said, old habits. Whenever I drink soda, particularly dark sodas, I feel sick at the end of the day. I need to just not drink it... yeah.

Somewhere in this, the first post of this blog, I should tell you all what I hope to accomplish here. I think it's pretty clear that I'm not taking the short way out. I'm going to stick this out to the end. Whether that means keeping this child as my own, or giving it to someone else to raise, I don't know. But I have seven months ahead of me, and I know that somewhere out there, there are other girls going through the same thing. So I hope that maybe they stumble across College Baby Bump in their web-surfing and know that they're not alone. I don't know where life is taking me right now, and it's frightening, but I'm going to be okay. We're all going to be okay. Trust me.