Goodbye 2011, Hello 2012

Well, hello friend and reader! It's been uh...six months...since I wrote here. I hope most of you have known to read my food writing blog, Peas On Moss. If not, you should check it out too.

Anyway, 2011 was quite a year.

In January, Josh and I traveled to Hong Kong and volunteered at Mother's Choice. We had a chance to discover my roots and to learn something about the Cantonese culture. It was great fun.

I resumed classes at the end of March and completed the second quarter of the culinary arts program. I also picked up a full time job cooking at Stopsky's Delicatessen, a Jewish restaurant on Mercer Island. Josh resumed working at REI, and he also started working for my dad's business, World Touch Media, in shipping and client management.

I also took an expenses-paid trip to visit the Green Giant Valley in Minnesota and got to connect with family while I was there. Here's a pro shot of my trip and then here's my family. 

When the fall started, I cut my hours back at the restaurant, and I entered 3rd quarter. This is where students are actually responsible for feeding the public (yah, yikes!). We ran a bistro and served traditional dishes, like trout meuniere and steak frites.  That quarter ended the second week of December.

Because I was dedicating myself to school, I had cut back my hours at Stopsky's, and I gave up my shifts there. My chef was very understanding about my availability but needed someone who could cover more hours. At the same time of becoming unemployed, an alumna of the culinary program helped me get into Tom Douglas Restaurants for their holiday catering. I was able to pick up a few shifts at the beginning of December.

I have recently been hired as a culinary research assistant at a lab doing recipe research in Bellevue, WA. I am actually going to be taking time off of school to work, because it's a temporary job working on a (top secret) specific project. It's pretty fun, but it has a steep learning curve. I haven't had to be so precise in my knife skills or scaling (using a scale to measure rather than volume measures) in a long time (since nutrition and chemistry labs). I plan to resume classes once the contract ends.

Josh transferred within REI from the clothing department to Ski and Kayak. Obviously, since it's December, the department is focusing on skiing and snow boarding. He's got his eyes set on a specific set of ski boots and hopes to get some ski trips in this year. We also celebrated Josh's thirtieth birthday this year. In anticipation of turning 30, Josh and close friends conquered Mt. Rainier. Not too shabby!

Josh has continued taking on more responsibilities with World Touch Media. The business has been busy this year, and I'm excited that he gets to work with my dad and brother. It's funny to hear their voices over skype talking about work though!  I hope Josh gets to travel with the company someday, but for now, it's a great organization and has a lot going on. 

We welcomed our first nephew into the Schaub family this year, and he's adorable. No, we won't be adding to the collection in 2012, but Everest has certainly been a wonderful blessing to all the family.

We spent Christmas in Seattle this year, and we were so happy to have cousins from California come up. We had a great time with family this year.  Here's a shot of our little cousin/niece. I am going to turn her into a chef yet! 

I hope you have also had a great year and joyful holiday season. Here's to a strong end to the year and a great start to next year! 

Hehe

Gluten-free Mountaineering up Mt. Rainier

Josh and several friends are climbing Mt. Rainier this summer. Mountaineering is about training your body for the physical demands you'll put on it and for providing it with the nutrients it needs to meet those demands. Because of my nutrition background and burgeoning culinary expertise, it was an interesting challenge for me to determine how many calories he needs, but it became more interesting because we had to design a mountaineering diet that was both light weight and gluten-free.

Most of the recommendations we've found for setting up a menu for backpacking include packing foods like oatmeal, bagels, or dehydrated meals like "beef stroganoff" or "chicken alfredo." Some sites also recommended consuming sports bars, energy bites, oatmeal, or crackers. These all make sense, because they're light weight and high in calories. On the other hand, they're off the menu for those with food allergies, particularly to those with gluten allergies. So, for us, we had to start from scratch. The other challenge is that since I've been working and taking classes full time, I haven't had time to dehydrate meals like I've done before. So, we had to plan his menu around the items that could all be purchased.

The first step in determining the menu for his gluten-free backpacking trip was to determine how many calories he would need. We estimated that he would need about 3000 calories per day, and over a four-day period, he would need about 12,000 calories total. This is based on the calorie needs calculator that can be found on the USDA website, ChooseMyPlate.gov.  We input his weight, height, and activity level, and it gives an estimate of the number of calories he would use up. Once we figured that out, then we started looking at dehydrated food options that were available at REI, because Josh works there.

After determining his caloric needs, we decided on a menu plan for Josh. He doesn't like to have a full stomach when he exercises or hikes, so we determined that he would eat just two full meals per day - at breakfast and at dinner. For lunch, he would eat a high energy bar and plan on snacking through the day. Because he needs about 3000 calories, I wanted to get him to eat as close to 1000 calories per meal and then to consume about 1000 calories in snacks. To do so, he has to eat two servings per meal, or the whole package of each dehydrated meal packet.

Breakfast - 600-900 calories
Lunch - 400 -600 calories
Dinner - 600-900 calories
Snacks - 900-1000 calories

Breakfast was challenging, because Josh can't eat oatmeal. You may think, well, there's always cream of rice. That's true. There are gluten-free hot cereals, but Josh doesn't particularly care for them. So, we opted for a gluten-free granola that we purchased from Whole Foods. We were remarkably impressed by the selection of gluten-free granola cereals at Whole Foods, which included Udis, Bakery on Main, Glutenfreeda, and Enjoy Life. There were also great flavors, such as peanut butter, cranberry orange, and chocolate. Josh selected Flax4Life's Hawaiian Pineapple, Coconut, and Mango. In addition to eating granola, Josh is also going to drink hot chocolate. This is to make up for the warming effects that enjoying a bowl of oatmeal would have.

1 cup granola - 420 calories
1/2 cup milk (rehydrated powdered milk) - 40 calories
hot chocolate - 130 calories

For lunch and snacks, Josh is going to eat several servings of
trail mix (700 calories per cup)
Clif Shot Bloks (200 calories per package)
Clif Shot Roks (270 calories)
Luna protein bars (190 alories)
Accel-gel (100 calories)
ready-to-eat salmon in pouches (234 calories)

I also regularly make protein cookies for Josh (containing vanilla whey protein, approximately 100 calories each), and he is taking a few of those, too.

We had to carefully read the labels, because there are hidden sources of gluten. Since there are varying levels of sensitivity to gluten and wheat, you should carefully investigate what foods are safe. One really good source for information about celiac disease is the University of Chicago website.

Dinner was also going to be interesting, because the hikers are relying on dehydrated meals. Well, fortunately, following a gluten-free diet isn't as foreign as it used to be, and there are now more foods available on the market. We were glad to see that there are even dehydrated meals made without wheat, though most of them are not certified gluten-free, unless you order them online. At REI, there were a few meals available, most of which were Natural High brand. Backpacker's Pantry had a few items too. The particular challenge was that even if the food itself wasn't a wheat food, such as a pasta, soy sauce and vegetable protein were often included in the ingredients. As a result, we couldn't choose them. We did find a few items: Himalyan lentils and rice, honey lime chicken, BBQ chicken and rice, and Louisiana beans and rice. These items are relatively low in calories - about 600 for the entire package - but they would be enough and probably be pretty filling, given the fiber. One challenge in using packaged dehydrated meals is that the sodium content is extremely high. It was pretty difficult to compensate for that, so we did our best to choose flavors that didn't have as much sodium but were still wheat and gluten-free.

Josh and his team should be pretty well set up for meals. It will be interesting to see how they do. The food weighed just over 5 lbs, and Josh divided them into resealable bags according to how he would use them. He plans on unpacking most of the food at the base camp, in favor of simply carrying the snacks when the team attempts the summit.

Food Adventures

Schaubs Do Christmas

Wow, I can't believe that Christmas came and went.

We kicked off the holiday season with Thanksgiving at Carol's sister's house. They live in a beautiful home  and opened it up for all of the family. I had the pleasure of cooking a few of the menu items with the other family cooks, and a great time was had by all.

Then we went to the Christmas tree lighting at the Westlake Center. It is sure a fun event, and this time, it didn't rain. We secured/commandeered a spot where we could see both the hosts and all the areas that were lit up. It was a great start to the Christmas season.

Over the next few weeks we got ready for Christmas by cooking and baking lots of different sweet treats. I really enjoy it, and this time I experimented a little bit more with gluten-free recipes. For the most they worked out, and Pamela's Products remains my favorite brand. There are a few other brands emerging, but so far, every time I use PP, I get a successful product.

We went to the Kleyns and enjoyed decorating Gingerbread people and graham cracker homes. Michele's was definitely the best, but we all had fun showing off our (lack of) cake decorating talent. It was also a night of enjoying Hot Chocolates with Peppermint Schnapps and Hot Buttered Rum. In honor of the commercialized Holiday Season, we also watched "Elf."





We also went to the Swedish Cultural Center for the St. Lucia's Day celebration. St. Lucy was martyred for her faith, and she is honored in December. Afterwards, Josh and I drove around Seattle looking at Christmas lights (Candy Cane Lane in Ravenna is nice, but small) and at the lighting of the city (I can never tire of the Space Needle).

For the first time ever, we went to a national forest (with a permit) and picked out a Christmas tree. It was fun, and it was cold. There was a pleasant layer of snow on the roads and on the trees, and it put me in a very Christmasy mood. The trees were a bit sparse - of course, they were natural trees, not bred for their bushiness. So our tree turned out to be a little Charlie Brown-ish as well. I liked it, but our attempts to bulk it up mostly looked humorous rather than effective. I think we'll go snowshoeing next year and get a tree from a tree farm, but it definitely made a great memory.

We went to Colorado to celebrate with the Kings thanks to the generosity of our sister in law who gave us some standby passes on Alaska. We were only there for three nights, which were spent mostly catching up with my parents and preparing Christmas dinner. We had a great time. My mom and I even figured out how to make some gluten-free knedliky. 

I also took advantage of the time and baked some gluten-free cookies for Josh. King Arthur Flour makes a basic cookie mix into which up to 3 cups of mix-ins can be added, so Josh ended up with a wide variety of cookies and treats. 

We joined my parents for the Christmas Eve service at New Life Church and were greatly amused by the lights, music, and message. The talented performers played a rocking version of Carol of the Bells, a funny, radio drama-style version of "Twas the Night Before Christmas," and even had ice skaters performing on the center stage.

We didn't really get any snow, but it was fun spending some quality time with my parents.

It was very nice and very fun to be in Colorado for Christmas.

We flew home on Christmas day, which turned out well. The flights weren't as full as we'd feared, and we were able to get the first flight from Denver to Seattle. We made it home for Christmas in Seattle, too!

We hope your year has been wonderful and that next year brings even more love and laughter.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Climbing Up the Rock

Joshua and I have been together for almost 8 years now, and it sounds so weird to say. I have spent more time with him than I have in post-high school education. Anyway, enough reminiscing.

One of the things we vowed to each other when we wed 5 years ago was to keep our brains and our bodies in shape for each other. That might sound really shallow, but essentially, it was a vow to keep learning and doing things that we love doing together.

As a foodie, it's easy to become enthralled in activities that draw me into different circles, leaving Josh behind. At the same time, as an outdoor enthusiast, Josh could meet friends who enjoy hiking a little more than I do. It's easy for us to say, "Okay, see you back home." We work hard not to let that happen, so I try to accompany him on as many outdoor things as he does for me at restaurants and markets. I am working off quite a deficit, you see.

Well, a few weekends ago Joshua had the opportunity to do the Marmot Rock Out hosted to woo REI employees. He kindly took me with him to 8 Mile Campground, Leavenworth, WA. I was a little bit skeptical, because I'm not a "gear junkie" who has a different sleeping bag for different weather conditions (who wants to camp in snow anyway?) or bicycles for asphalt conditions. But, I went along, because he loves being outdoors, and I love seeing him happy. Lucky for me, karma was on my side, and I had a great time.

We joined the bouldering group from the camp out and headed out to some "problems" less than a mile from our campsite. I haven't bouldered before, so I was pretty nervous. Bouldering is skillfully clambering up rocks without ropes to catch you if you fall, so you're not climbing very high. Several experienced climbers schlepped "crash pads" to cushion a climber's crash, and I eyed the puffy pads with some skepticism. What if I bounced off?

I decided to climb up a side of one of the rock problems everyone else was trying. This rock was wedged into the side of a hill, so it had a flat-ish face and a lumpy side. I crawled around on the lumpy side. Josh decided he could go up the flat face. What he hung onto, I'll never know. I stared at the face for a few minutes and then resumed my scramble up the side. After successfully climbing the extremely rocky staircase, I decided to try an actual problem.

Josh directed me to a side problem, and he helped me get my first step. I got about halfway up the problem -- it was probably 15 feet tall - I got seriously stuck. I was all spread-eagled on the wall with no idea of how to shift my weight. Then I heard it: people had stopped climbing their problems and had begun staring at me. "Move your right hand to that hold there." "Shift your left foot up here." And so forth. It's both incredibly intimidating and inspiring to finish a climb when a dozen REI staff members are staring and your -ahem - feet and legs and suggesting different ways to accomplish the climb. I tried to listen for Josh's voice, and gradually, he and a few others guided me up the rest of the rock. Several tense minutes that were each an hour long, I summitted my first bouldering rock and experienced a rush of adrenaline that I think you would feel if you won a race or accomplished something you were pretty sure you were going to fail.

Well, that accomplishment achieved something Josh had really been hoping for: I loved climbing. It was extremely challenging, and I'm going along slowly to avoid injuring my shoulder, but I really look forward to each climbing trip. Okay, we've only been on one other with Ingrid and JoJo.

The other is that I have found the climbing community to be extremely giving and close-knit. When we were at the Marmot Rock Out, a celebrity climber, Beth Rodden, joined the camp to help promote the product and unify the campers. She shared her incredible story with us, and I was struck by how the community of climbers gathered around her when she had to become re-motivated to climb. I also found her to be a humble woman who loved climbing but also enjoyed hearing from us. We had the rare opportunity to take her to Seattle after the camp trip and explore some of the dairy free and gluten free bakeries around the city, because that was an interest she and I shared. We were also blessed by the generosity of one pair of climbers/REI employees working in Santa Fe, Amanda and Derek, who gave me a gift certificate for climbing shoes. They encouraged me to continue going up and enjoying myself. What a community.

Last weekend, we went on our second climbing adventure. This time, we drove south to Tacoma and met up with Ingrid, a dear friend of Josh from high school. She and her boyfriend JoJo are climbers who have adventured all over the place. JoJo is also a climbing instructor at the local climbing gym. Ingrid is an occupational therapist whose knowledge of body mechanics makes her a talented climber. JoJo and Ingrid took the afternoon to help me learn the basics of climbing - like tying your harness and belaying - while Josh encouraged me to stretch myself in a weird craggy climb. He kindly took some candid pictures of me as well.

It's so fun to have an activity that we both enjoy fully. Although I'm not a marriage expert, I think that has been the key to our marriage so far. Keep doing things we both enjoy, and do those activities that the other loves just as much as you enjoy your hobbies. Seek out new activities that you can share. Support each others dreams. Date.

Seattle's Early Summer Teaser and The Schaub's Plans

Summer seemed to arrive in May, and the farmers markets started to fill up. Tiny's Organic is a regular attendee of the Pike Place Market farmers market, and Josh kindly modeled the great customer service one can receive from them. They sell fruit from all over Washington as well as fruit smoothies and fruit preserves. 

May is a significant month for the Schaub family, and we are developing some new traditions. First, we kicked off the month by celebrating Matt's birthday with 20 of his closest friends. We went to our first Sounders game, and I think the fan bug has bitten. We might try become committed fans! 

We enjoyed dinner at the Elysian Brewery on Capitol Hill and then went to some dive bar for drinks. It was a fun day! 

In May, we also remembered Nathan, Josh and Matt's eldest brother. Bill and Carol brought a beautifully framed collage of pictures and some significant items of his. It was a nice family day to remember loved ones and to reflect on the fragility and value of life.  

May also brought about the Cheese Festival, which is any cheese-lovers dream. Cheese companies including Organic Valley and Cypress Grove were represented, and the best part was the sheer volume of cheese samples! We had to stand in some pretty long lines to taste the cheese, and we only lasted for two-and-a-half cheese booths. I also had a chance to see Chef Daisley Gordon prepare Pommes Aligot, a cheese and potato dish that defies the simplicity of the title. Exquisite. 

School is almost over; the final exam is June 15th. I am teaching a summer session at PCC, but Seattle Community College is almost done. It hasn't really felt like summer, since the weather has gone back and forth between party sunny days and rain. 

In addition to working at REI, Joshua has started volunteering with Outdoors for All. This seems to be a great way to pair his problem-solving skills and therapy knowledge with his love for the outdoors and recreation. The organization works to help disabled individuals get out and enjoy outdoor recreation within their means.  

I am writing like a maniac for Demand Studios. I am also working on my blog, Peas on Moss, and have been recently approved for writing as an Examiner.  More details are available on Peas.  I still hope to attend culinary school this fall and get the official knowledge needed for some career and business ideas I have.  

Day by Day Gourmet has shuttered its doors for the time being, though Graham has shared that he believes an idea of replacing quick dinners with wholesome, easily prepared meals is still one that will sell. He has encouraged me to look towards some other projects for the time being, and the experience and learning I've gained from the project has helped develop my interest in R&D in nutritional products. 

We have also begun looking towards a mission trip in Hong Kong, so details might be coming for that, soon. Before we "settle" down and start our own family, we thought it would be wonderful to give back to the organization and vision that helped make it possible for children to be adopted or for pregnant mothers to develop the abilities to raise healthy, loved children.