Sapere Aude

As I type this, I have my children watching Cosmos on Netflix. It’s an hour of keeping the kids lulled by the sweet, dulcet tones of Neil DeGrasse Tyson and his love of logic and science. I want my kids to be dreamers. I want them to question everything. I want them to question me, you, their teachers, everyone and everything. Every time they don’t find an answer, I want them to dig deeper, search harder, and seek to find. Nullius in Verba.

The place I take the kids most-often in the winter months is the American Museum of Natural History, and the Hayden Planetarium. They love strolling the halls of Science and paleontology, marine life and folk art. They ask question after question about who and what came first, and where it is we’re headed. My son could spend hours in the planetarium, simply mesmerized by the grandeur of the cosmos which is so difficult to see in NYC, with all of its light pollution. “What’s beyond our galaxy, Mama? What happens if you throw a magnet in a black hole? Could Zeus make lightning on Jupiter?” He may or may not have seen me watch a silly documentary called Chariots of the Gods on Netflix. Aliens+gods+pyramids+beer and a sofa=awesome night at home.

I remember watching the original Cosmos with Carl Sagan in reruns on PBS as a kid. I was instantly enamored by his easy manner and fervent passion. He also had some boss blazer and turtleneck combinations. He remained important to me even through my turbulent teenaged battle between where and how my faith and science could fit together. I was taught that evolution was a joke, that we aren’t a changing universe. I was taught this in spite of the fact that I could SEE evolution. I could SEE changes in the universe. Somewhere, deep inside my mind, lived the quiet words of Carl Sagan, just waiting to be given an ear, and a fistful of curiosity. I am so grateful for that.

Now? My kids have ample opportunities to question, to seek, to know. The can go to the museum, or the library, or even just an iPad. They can watch Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking  and then scroll through the Science News and Discoveries App, and see what correlates.

We are lucky to live in an era that between My Little Pony and Transformers, there is NGD and Hawking, open and accessible at the press of button.

On a compleeeetely different note, you know I’ve been training for my first triathlon. You also know I’ve been terrified of riding bicycles. Lately, I’ve been doing REALLY well on the bike. Yes, I’ve fallen, but it WASN’T THAT BAD. I mean, I’m a klutz. I’ve fallen HARD just by walking! So it wasn’t really that bad. I didn’t break both arms, my cheekbone, and grind my teeth! So…WINNING! (I fell down the stairs at fifteen and did just that. You know, WALKING.)

Anyway, I typically like to listen to audiobooks when I cook, but because I’ve been baking and cooking up a storm for triathlon fuel, I’ve been watching documentaries on my tablet. Biking and running documentaries. By the dozen. Yesterday, while making the recipe featured on today’s blog, I watched Rising from Ashes on Netflix, and was immediately inspired and immediately felt like an asshole for eating batter while watching a documentary featuring bicyclists who overcame GENOCIDE to keep on riding.

Yup, asshole party of one.

I got over it by watching Run for Your Life: The Fred Lebow Story on Netflix after the biking movie. I felt SMUG. I like SMUG. Smug is a comfy duvet of self-aggrandizement. The whole thing reminded me of the fact that unlike Boston, my marathon allowed women runners THE VERY FIRST YEAR. (so she got sick and couldn’t run. WHO CARES?!?!?!) Proving once and for all, NYC kicks Boston’s ass in all things, not just city layout and baseball. BOOM!

Now? Food for your Face.

Almond Banana Power Balls

all-natural, nutrient dense, happy balls of yum.

Almond Banana Power Balls

by Cat Bowen

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Keywords: bake appetizer bread breakfast dessert snack vegetarian soy-free kosher gluten-free dairy-free

Ingredients (1 dozen balls)

• 1 cup almonds
• 1 1/3 cup whole-grain oats
• 1 egg
• 1 very ripe banana
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 3 tbsp honey

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350F

grind together nuts and oats in a food pro

when smooth-ish add in remaining ingredients

stick in freezer for 10 minutes

scoop onto greased baking sheet

bake for ten minutes or until golden brown

Amazon is Out of its Hive.

Hold onto your collective asses; it’s my summer “must read” list of 2014.

Must read books for summer.

I’m not going to do what Amazon is doing, and suggest “beach reads,” that should be titled “books if you like to sob so hard in public that your nose becomes a fire extinguisher of mucous, and your eyes are so red you look like you’ve been binge drinking moonshine laced with snake venom.”

Really, The Fault in Our Stars is a beach read? Do you know what sand does to swollen mucous membranes? IT DOESN’T TICKLE. I know this because I once made the mistake of reading A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry at the beach. Over a period of two days I went from a sort of deep ache, to full-blown ugly-cry, sobbing so hard that the straps of my swim suit fell from my shoulders. Being NY, people came over just to see which book could evoke such a public fantod! They, like all masochistic New Yorkers were desperate to read it.

yep. we’re assholes like that.

THE LIST!

From the blurb:

Meadow Woodson, a fifteen-year-old girl who has been trained by her father to fight, to kill, and to survive in any situation, lives with her family on a houseboat in Florida. The state is controlled by The Murder Complex, an organization that tracks the population with precision.

The plot starts to thicken when Meadow meets Zephyr James, who is—although he doesn’t know it—one of the MC’s programmed assassins. Is their meeting a coincidence? Destiny? Or part of a terrifying strategy? And will Zephyr keep Meadow from discovering the haunting truth about her family?

From the blurb:

An immigrant boy whose family is struggling to assimilate. A middle-aged housewife coping with an imploding marriage and a troubled son. A social worker at home in the darker corners of Las Vegas. A wounded soldier recovering from an injury he can’t remember getting. By the time we realize how these voices will connect, the impossible and perhaps the unbearable has already happened. We Are Called to Rise is a boomtown tale, in which the lives of people from different backgrounds and experiences collide in a stunning coincidence. When presented the opportunity to sink into despair, these characters rise. Through acts of remarkable charity and bravery, they rescue themselves.

Impulsive high school senior Monroe Baker is on probation for a recent crime, but strives to stay out of trouble by working as a flapper at her father’s Roaring 20’s dinner show theater. When she cuts herself on one of the spent bullets from her father’s gangster memorabilia collection, she unwittingly awakens Bonnie Parker’s spirit, who begins speaking to Monroe from inside her head.

Later that evening, Monroe shows the slugs to Jack, a boy she meets at a party. He unknowingly becomes infected by Clyde, who soon commits a crime using Jack’s body. The teens learn that they have less than twenty-four hours to ditch the criminals or they’ll share their bodies with the deadly outlaws indefinitely.

 

For years, English anthropologist Andrew Bankson has been alone in the field studying the Kiona tribe of Papua, New Guinea. Haunted by the memory of his brother’s public suicide, and increasingly infuriated with and isolated by his research, Bankson is on the verge of killing himself when a chance meeting with colleagues, the controversial and consummate Nell Stone and her wry Australian husband Fen, pulls him back from the brink. Nell and Fen have just finished their studies of the bloodthirsty Mumbanyo and, in spite of Nell’s ill health, the couple is ravenous for another new discovery. Together with Bankson they set out to uncover the Tam, a local tribe with an almost mythic existence. As the trio settle with the tribe in their paradisiacal surroundings, inspiration flows and mutual affections swell. In the midst of this new, unchartered territory, Nell, Bankson, and Fen must learn not only to adapt to their invigorating present, but to also confront their complicated and haunted pasts.

It’s Stephen King. It’s worth a read. No blurb needed.

Georgie McCool knows her marriage is in trouble. That it’s been in trouble for a long time. She still loves her husband, Neal, and Neal still loves her, deeply — but that almost seems besides the point now.

Maybe that was always besides the point.

Two days before they’re supposed to visit Neal’s family in Omaha for Christmas, Georgie tells Neal that she can’t go. She’s a TV writer, and something’s come up on her show; she has to stay in Los Angeles. She knows that Neal will be upset with her — Neal is always a little upset with Georgie — but she doesn’t expect to him to pack up the kids and go home without her.

When her husband and the kids leave for the airport, Georgie wonders if she’s finally done it. If she’s ruined everything.

That night, Georgie discovers a way to communicate with Neal in the past. It’s not time travel, not exactly, but she feels like she’s been given an opportunity to fix her marriage before it starts . . .

Is that what she’s supposed to do?

Or would Georgie and Neal be better off if their marriage never happened?

Augusta and Owen have moved to the country, and live a quiet, and rather solitary life, Gus as a painter, Owen as a writer. They have left behind the city, and its associations to a troubled past, devoting their days to each other and their art. But beneath the surface of this tranquil existence lies the heavy truth of Gus’s past betrayal, an affair that ended, but that quietly haunts Owen, Gus and their marriage.

When Alison Hemmings, a beautiful British divorcée, moves in next door, Gus, feeling lonely and isolated, finds herself drawn to Alison, and as their relationship deepens, the lives of the three neighbors become more and more tightly intertwined. With the arrival of Alison’s daughter Nora, the emotions among them grow so intense that even the slightest misstep has the potential to do irrevocable harm to them all.

Therese Walsh’s poignant and mesmerizing novel is a moving tale of family, love, and the power of stories. After their mother’s probable suicide, sisters Olivia and Jazz are figuring out how to move on with their lives. Jazz, logical and forward-thinking, decides to get a new job, but spirited, strong-willed Olivia, who can see sounds, taste words, and smell sights, is determined to travel to the remote setting of their mother’s unfinished novel to say her final goodbyes and lay their mother’s spirit to rest.

Though they see things very differently, Jazz is forced by her sense of duty to help Olivia reach her goal. Bitter and frustrated by the attention heaped on her sunny sister whose world is so unique, Jazz is even more upset when they run into trouble along the way and Olivia latches on to a worldly train-hopper. Though Hobbs warns Olivia that he’s a thief who shouldn’t be trusted, he agrees to help with their journey. As they near their destination, the tension builds between the two sisters, each hiding something from the other, and they will finally be forced to face everything between them and decide what is really important.

Pilgrim is the codename for a man who doesn’t exist. The adopted son of a wealthy American family, he once headed up a secret espionage unit for US intelligence. Before he disappeared into anonymous retirement, he wrote the definitive book on forensic criminal investigation.

But that book will come back to haunt him. It will help NYPD detective Ben Bradley track him down. And it will take him to a rundown New York hotel room where the body of a woman is found facedown in a bath of acid, her features erased, her teeth missing, her fingerprints gone. It is a textbook murder – and Pilgrim wrote the book.

What begins as an unusual and challenging investigation will become a terrifying race-against-time to save America from oblivion. Pilgrim will have to make a journey from a public beheading in Mecca to a deserted ruins on the Turkish coast via a Nazi death camp in Alsace and the barren wilderness of the Hindu Kush in search of the faceless man who would commit an appalling act of mass murder in the name of his God.

When the gutted body of a businessman is discovered in the Icelandic embassy in Berlin, Iceland’s best detectives are sent to Germany to investigate the crime. The stab wounds and the murder weapon—an elegant hunting knife—suggest a ritualistic killing. But the only suspects present in the sleek modern office building were some of the island nation’s cultural elite, including Jón the Sun Poet and ceramics artist Lúdvík Bjarnason. The victim is someone few would miss, and investigators Birkir and Gunnar, joined by forensics expert Anna Thórdardóttir, wager they have an open-and-shut case on their hands. What they find is anything but: The crime reeks of premeditation and vengeance, and leads the team into a sordid tale of international child abuse, arson, and retribution.

 On her nineteenth birthday, Princess Kelsea Raleigh Glynn, raised in exile, sets out on a perilous journey back to the castle of her birth to ascend her rightful throne. Plain and serious, a girl who loves books and learning, Kelsea bears little resemblance to her mother, the vain and frivolous Queen Elyssa. But though she may be inexperienced and sheltered, Kelsea is not defenseless: Around her neck hangs the Tearling sapphire, a jewel of immense magical power; and accompanying her is the Queen’s Guard, a cadre of brave knights led by the enigmatic and dedicated Lazarus. Kelsea will need them all to survive a cabal of enemies who will use every weapon—from crimson-caped assassins to the darkest blood magic—to prevent her from wearing the crown.

It’s going to be a good summer, I can tell.

Apart from reading, which I am sure to do every day, I’m really looking forward to getting the man into the water to teach him how to row. It’s a wonderful warm-weather sport, and sculling down a river at daybreak is one of my all-time favorite things to do. For more information, or to find a row club in your area, check here.

Rowing not only burns an INSANE 700 calories per hour, it also engages nearly every muscle in your body, leaving it feeling pleasantly spent. Fair warning: watch what you wear. I once spent a several mile row with a split-seat and had no idea. Stretch is best. Unless you like everyone seeing your ass.

I’ll also be making EVERY DESSERT EVER with delicious and seasonal ingredients.

like this one.

Spicy-Sweet Peach and Cornbread Cobbler.

This recipe uses something I almost never use….A MIX. Yes, a MIX. I know, shudder, right? In this case, the mix is simply better. There must be some devil-juju-mystic shit going down in the self-rising cornmeal mix, because it’s awesome. Use it.

This recipe makes a metric fuckton of cobbler. If, say, your family is from West Virginia, and eats cobbler like it’s their damned job, make the whole recipe…and add ice cream. If you’re normal. Halve it, and use a 9″-9″ square or 10″ round pan.

I also do not peel the peaches. I love the rich, pink color the skin adds.

Spicy-Sweet Peach and Cornbread Cobbler

by Cat Bowen

Prep Time: 1 hour

Cook Time: 1 hour

Keywords: bake dessert side snack

Ingredients (serves 12-16)

for the topping

• 2 cups self-rising cornmeal mix
• 4 tbsp bacon fat or butter
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup sugar
• corn from 2 ears
• 1 cup milk

for the peaches

• 4 pounds sliced, fresh peaches
• 1/2 tsp chipotle powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup sifted flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 stick ice cold butter, chopped into small cubes

Instructions

preheat oven to 375F

grease 13″-9″ pan

toss peaches with spices, flour, sugar, vanilla, and butter

evenly spread in pan

mix together cornmeal mix ingredients and pour evenly over peaches

bake until brown and bubbly–about an hour

Running on Empty.

There is always a moment of pure clarity between pain and relief. You know this as sure as you are reading this. It’s the moment wherein you’re sure that nothing else in the world exists beyond your own mind, your own body. It’s precious and fleeting, and brings with it revelation. All of humanity has felt it as you have, or none of humanity has felt it as you have, and it doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is the spark ignited from this place. You could come here by thoughts, by action, by nightmares awake or asleep.

But what do you do with that moment? How does one breed that spark into a series of fireworks? Can you multiply it as though they’re Chinese lanterns being set off into the night sky? Can you harness it as Tesla once did; as Edison made profit? I want to tuck it away somewhere inside the annals of my mind so that as I go about the banal quotidian tasks I’m forced to accomplish, I remember there is more.

Recently, I’ve had a lot on my plate. My scholarship is reaching a peak. I have multiple deadlines for journal articles needing to be finished. I have auditions and stresses with my kids. At the same time I learned that my great-aunt, the woman for whom my daughter is named, is afflicted with an inoperable cancer. For some reason, referring to it that way sounds less-threatening than simply calling it “dying.”

When I’m overwhelmed, I turn to the quiet solitude of reading and running, often at the same time. (audiobooks) Any runner will tell you about “the wall.” It’s a place most runners hate or avoid. When I’m too much in my own head, or feeling a bit more “fucking crazy” than usual, I seek the wall. I run hard and fast until I hit it. I go at it full bore. I throw myself into its imaginary brick-and-mortar barrier. I need the pain in my lungs and muscles. I need to heave with exertion. For me, this moment is ipecac to the miasma of negativity that surrounds my psyche. It brings me to that spark. It gives me a sort of perspicacity that I’m unable to obtain in any other manner.

Alas, it is so transient. The Japanese have a word for it we lack in English: “Aware:” “the bittersweetness of a brief and fading moment of transcendent beauty.”

I just love that. It so perfectly captures what that moment feels like, and why it’s so bothersome that it is so intangible.

Lately, while running, I’ve taken to thinking about creative things. I’ve been ruminating on problems less, (my typical mental destination while running) and focusing more on newness and insight. While some things are no less bearable, others are becoming more fruitful. My scholarship is DONE for the semester. My latest WIP (a YA novel) is sitting pretty, ready to be edited at over 170K words. My daughter has a polka-dot pedicure. (BTW, trying fancy pedis on a 3 year old is not something I’d suggest. It’s like trying to catch a tiger by the tail and forcing them into a sweater.) I finally think I found my flame for my lantern.

Now for the food. It’s getting hotter, and I’m obviously running a crap ton. (or tonne, for my people across the pond.)

Paleo Mochanut Pops (Vegan) AKA paleo popsicles

Print

Running on Empty.

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Total Time: 3 hours

Yield: 6 pops

Ingredients

• 1 cup strong brewed coffee
• the cream from one can of coconut milk (refrigerate can, remove separated cream from water)
• 2 tbsp melted 100% chocolate
• 2 tbsp coconut sugar

Instructions

1. whisk together hot coffee and other ingredients
2. pour into six pop molds
3. freeze

Magic STD Hands

I once had this really terrible therapist. He looked like a cross between Lavar Burton and Dora’s cousin, Diego. He also had a cat who was always perched on his desk, in the file box, unmoving. I honestly thought that thing was stuffed until I once saw it look up at me, find me lacking, and put its head back down. ANYWAY…He once told me to make a list of things that make me happy every morning to allay my dark periods. He actually used these words “you may find that it keeps them from returning at all!”

I know what works and what doesn’t for my inner turmoil. Time works. Solitude helps. Running and baking are good. Reading is awesome. I could Little Engine the hell out of my mood, and it would come to nothing.  I could be days dwelling in the craggy darkness of my mind’s interior, only to wake up de profundis, on the adret side, ready to conquer the day and go for a run. My reason for therapy is to work through the deeper issues that created the dark periods to begin with. *other than the chemicals in my brain that run amok. Therapy is like mederma, only in my brain.

I’m not one for mincing words. When the shrink told me he thought it could act as some sort of prophylactic barrier over my brain. I blurted “what the fuck?” He’d obviously been playing sudoku on the pad in front of him during our previous sessions. Maybe he was drawing funny faces. Grocery lists? His happy list? (I imagine his happy list includes playing sudoku and counting money.) 

At the same time, my brain is given toward inappropriately-timed vivid imaginings. As I was explaining to him that I’ve tried all manner of positive thought previously, including gratitude lists, my subconscious mind took over. He kept saying that my mind is like clay, and the thoughts are like hands, and I just need to give more strength to the positive hands.

Of course, in my brain, positive hands are electrically charged and also carriers of STDs. I don’t want electric gonorrhea hands molding my clay.

When I got home, the man asked me how my therapy went. I said “THAT QUACK WANTS TO MOLD ME WITH ELECTRIC STD FINGERS!!” The man just shook his head while saying “so, not a fit, then?” OBVIOUSLY.

While he was obviously not the therapist for me, and should (given his ailurophilia) perhaps think about a career in pet psychic/psychiatry. I think lists like these do have a place. Especially in goal-setting, and dream realization.

When I’m up, when my mind is filled with flowers and unicorns,(my unicorn’s name is Ollie, and he poops skittles.) and the worst of the beasts are caged, I find lists incredibly helpful. The *happy list* had an unexpected consequence. I realized that so much of the shit I do on a daily basis was absent. My list looked (somewhat–no order) like this:

• hang with my bits
• acting class
• singing
• reading
• music-y stuff
• running/swimming
• increasing weights on barbells
• cooking
• writing
• hanging with friends
• learning
• having a clean house
• spending time with the man

After this, I realized that most of these require me to do so much other stuff to keep them afloat, but some crap? Some crap can GO! When I think of it that way, it’s a relief. Stuff I don’t need to do, or am obligated to, which doesn’t improve my or my family’s life? AU REVOIR!

Though, I’m pretty sure a judgmental cat-in-a-box would definitely be on my happy list. Think of all of the meme possibilities.

Until then, I cook.

Dill-icious Chickpea Salad

This salad is mostly about the chickpeas, and the dressing. The veggies are totally up to you. I’ve written down which I love, but let your mind go crazy. You could even add cubed feta, or shrimp, or diced tofu or grilled chicken! If you go with my recipe, I suggest letting it marinate for a few hours before you eat it. It REALLY punches up the flavor

.

Dill-icious Chickpea Salad

by Cat Bowen

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: (depends on ingredients)

Keywords: no bake appetizer salad entree side snack July 4th summer spring

Ingredients (giant bowl o’salad.)

• 1 cup chickpeas (I prefer home-soaked and cooked, but canned, rinsed, and drained are also fine)
• 1 cup each of chopped
• pepper
• red cabbage
• green cabbage
• cucumber
• hearts of palm
• 1/2 cup chopped red onion

for the dressing

• 1/2 cup chopped dill
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• juice of one half of one lemon
• 3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 tbsp dijon mustard
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp white pepper

Instructions

stir together all veggies, lightly salt and set aside

whisk together dressing ingredients

pour over vegetables

stir

let marinate a few hours or overnight.