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Harmonious Belly Housekeeping

Hello everyone! I thought I’d write a little about some changes to the site – a little housekeeping – that I’ve made over the past month or so.

First, though, I want to thank everyone who has visited to read posts, commented, and shared content with others. It really warms my heart and makes me happy to know that what I provide here is of interest and help to your own life. I originally started this site to keep me on track with my eating habits and practices, as well as documenting my foray into traditional/NT style eating; I’m glad it has blossomed beyond that and positively affected other people.

As for the changes to the site, I’ve updated both the look and functionality here. Here’s what’s been going on:

Visual

  • There’s a new header up there! I thought it was time for a change. The image comes from a photo I took a few weeks ago at the Socrates Green Market. The font is Zapfino.
  • I’ve eliminated the background color that wrapped around the content area of the page, in order to give more of a feel of spaciousness.
  • I’ve implemented new menu and navigation fonts. I’ve used a more decorative web-safe font via the Google Fonts plugin for WordPress. The font is IM Fell English.

Functionality

  • You can arrange to have posts sent to you via email. Check the sidebar for the signup form.
  • I’ll be launching a monthly newsletter very soon. There are a couple of links to the subscription form on the site (in the navigation menu at the top of the page, and in the sidebar), but you can also subscribe to the newsletter here. I’d love for you to sign up!
  • At the top of the sidebar, I’ve added a link to my personal Google+ profile, where I share content from time to time. Links to other relevant social media sites are there, too. Please consider following and becoming a fan of Harmonious Belly!
  • You can now share on Tumblr! Thanks to the reader that suggested it.
  • There’s a new Link Within widget at the the bottom of each post.
  • I’ve created a Privacy Policy, too.

Additionally, I’m an affiliate for The Thesis Theme for WordPress! I love this theme, and happily recommend it to others. Click on the previous link or the image in the sidebar for more information.

I’m always interested in hearing from readers of Harmonious Belly. Please feel free to contact me with questions, tips, and anything else that’s on your mind.

Thanks again for reading!

Meg, Founder and Editor
Harmonious Belly

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Happy Computer Upgrade

The subject line says it all – I have a new computer!  I bought it on Sunday (Boxing Day) morning.  Right before the crazy blizzard hit.

It’s quite an upgrade – my old computer is about 5 years old, very slow, and it was almost impossible to work with images anymore.  Not to mention I was running out of hard drive space.  The hard drive on my current computer is huge, and there is ample memory.  It’s nice and fast, too. I’m also loving the SD card reader built right into the machine, which makes transferring images super easy.

This new hardware will make it easier to blog.  I’m very happy about that!

Speaking of the blizzard… whoa.  This was my street on Monday afternoon.

This sure is pretty, though.

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Checking In

As I write this, the workday is over and the weekend is beginning. I’ve missed blogging for a couple weeks now due to myriad issues, mostly a questionable internet connection at home paired with an old and ailing computer. Not to mention being slammed with work at work. I’m writing this from my office, since I have a little bit of a breather before I go off to a Diwali party tonight, thrown by a good friend.  I can’t wait to try some of the traditional Indian dishes she’s prepared.

Despite that, I have continued to eat well – traditional, nutrient dense food that is oh so delicious.  I’ve even taken photographs of them, and will upload soon once I take care of the tech issues at home. Some of the highlights of the last couple of weeks:

  • Turkey meatballs made with pastured turkey sausage and pastured eggs. Fantastic.
  • An escarole and white bean soup with said turkey meatballs – the escarole was organic from my CSA and the white beans are also organic and are grown upstate. Light and wonderful and full of healthy stuff.
  • Pan de muerto – this is a traditional Mexican bread made during All Souls/All Saints days. It’s full of pastured eggs (15 of them!) and pastured butter. It does contain AP flour, but this was a holiday treat, and boy do the eggs make a difference!
  • Fried pastured eggs for breakfast.  One or two, along with a glass of kombucha, usually holds me til lunch.
  • Pastured chicken thighs and drumsticks from my buying club, seasoned with za’atar and olive oil.  Boy is this stuff good.  I plan to use it again on chicken, too.
  • Lots and lots of roasted organic sweet potatoes, some roasted on their own and one batch roasted in the pan with the above chicken. Yum!
  • I was at L’Artiste, a new French restaurant in town, and I ate so many delicious things there – an amuse with liver and bacon; spinach, fennel, and citrus salad in a creamy blue cheese dressing; a wonderfully seared duck breast with delicious crispy skin; and a panna cotta for dessert that blew me away.

Additional good news is that I ran the 5 mile NYC Marathon Warmup race last weekend in under a hour. This is a personal best! I felt really good throughout, too. I attribute my success to consistent training with both long runs and intervals, as well as eating a nutrient-dense, unrefined diet for the most part. Along with the delicious things I mentioned above, I’ve been eating plenty of apples, which have kept my sugar cravings in balance.

So, off I go to the Diwali celebration with friends, and hopefully I will be back up and running here very soon! Oh, I am somewhat active during the day on Twitter, where you can find me there at @harmoniousbelly.  Hope to connect with you in 140 characters or less!

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Change of Seasons

fall leaves

This is the first year in a long time that I’ve been eager for autumn to arrive.

Usually, I lament its arrival – the air cools down and the leaves fall, alerting me to the impending Dreaded Winter.  I am forced to change over my wardrobe to longer sleeved tops and pants, heavier clothing in general, and am always a little sad to put my shorts away.  However – and I wrote about this often – this summer was a scorcher, so cooler weather is truly welcome.  I actually feel a bit cheated out of my summer because on many days the only option was to stay inside with the air conditioner on.  As someone who likes to be outside, this was a disappointment.

Our ConEd bill will also decrease, which will be a relief.

Along with my welcoming of the cool, crisp fall air this year, I also welcome back a number of foods I set aside while it was hot and I didn’t want to turn on the oven: I’m cooking more whole grains, including steel cut oats for breakfast; granola and bread baking are in my plans for next weekend; and roasting winter squash!  This might be my favorite cooking technique in the cooler seasons.

We’ve been getting these hard squashes in our CSA shares for a few weeks, and they have been fantastic.  The other day I cut an acorn squash in half, scooped out the seeds, then cut each half into three pieces.  Then I roasted them with olive oil, salt, and cumin. They were amazing!

Sauerkraut season is around the corner, too, which is very exciting.  This should herald the arrival of a Harsch crock to our home.  I’d also like to make some kimchi this fall, too.  All lacto-fermented, of course.

I’m back to drinking raw milk, too – I was eating raw yogurt but not straight milk for a couple of months. I have a lot of milk in the freezer right now!  Not sure why I stopped for a little while, but my guess was that it had something to do with the warm weather, and my not eating cereal (homemade granola or porridge – I don’t eat commercial cold cereal) for breakfast.  Most of my milk intake happens at breakfast.

My running should also click back into gear – due to a couple a colds and simply overly hot and humid weather, my running suffered in August and September.  Running keeps me centered and healthy, both physically and mentally; the cooler temperatures can only facilitate getting back into a regular routine.  Truth be told, my favorite running weather is sunny with temperatures in the mid-50s.

And with a new season, comes a few changes to the blog.  I’ve cut things down to two columns, giving the content area more space.  Images can be bigger this way, too.  I’ve also added a polling feature, so I’ll showcase polls from time to time.  I’ll also be doing some more fiddling around, so you should see minor changes come and go for a little while longer.

I’m excited by this new season – it feels like a kind of restart, or at least a return to a more varied life.   Fall, I’m happy to see you!

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Friends, and the Importance of Backing Up Your Files

kitteh sez relaks

This brief post has nothing to do with nourishing, healthy food, but everything to do with the operation of this site. It was down for a little while (last night until this morning) because I tried to add something to a Thesis file when I barely knew what I was doing, and that hosed my site. When my site was down, I was so disappointed in my inability to fix the immediate problem.  But hey, I’m no php programmer… though now I know a little more than I did.

Thank goodness for backing up files! I was smart enough to think ahead and copy and paste into Notepad the original contents of the file before I did anything; I also viewed the file in a separate tab.  Thank goodness for that, else I would have been further up a creek in the troubleshooting process.

And I had good friends to help keep my mind off of the my world is going to end! attitude last night, with great company, conversation and food.  By the time dinner was over, I was much more relaxed about it all, and not so panicked.

I also called a good friend who is a real WordPress maven, Charlene Jaszewski. She helped me with her calm approach and willingness to listen, and held my hand over the phone while I – correctly, thank goodness! – manipulated this pesky file.  She even figured out how to do what I was trying to do!  Thank you Charlene!  If anyone reading this needs WordPress consulting or an excellent content strategist, please contact her.

So, I learned a lot this weekend, both about the value of backups and good friends.  I am fortunate to have them.  Both!

And if you’ve ever done anything like what I did, please feel free to share in the comments!  🙂

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Friday Bits

This week was an unusual one – I had a bunch of evening meetups, so there wasn’t much cooking going on at my house.  I won’t deny it – I love going out to restaurants – but I also love cooking at home.  Next week looks busy too, but I hope I can get more cooking in, despite.

Probably my favorite dish I made this past week was a gluten-free tabbouleh.  I tested this recipe for the upcoming cookbook by Shauna and Danny Ahern last July; I loved it then, and it’s just as good now.  I did make some adjustments – upped the amount of a few things, primarily, to match my personal tastes.  It was great with some greek yoghurt on the side.   I can’t give you any more details until the book comes out (maybe in October?  I can’t remember exactly), but when it does, I’ll post the recipe.

As for my garden, the little plants in the ground are slowly growing up.  The tomatoes, cucumbers, and tomatillos have loved the recent hot, humid days, and I hope for more hot (though not necessarily humid) days to encourage growth.  I see tomato plants from nurseries, and experience a little bit of “size envy”, but I have to remember that those plants were probably grown quickly in a hot house and not from seed in paper pots in someone’s backyard.

I’ve added a couple of things to the site itself – at the top of the right sidebar is a line of icons leading you to the Harmonious Belly twitter feed, Facebook page, RSS feed, and a new contact form.  The contact form is the best way to get in touch with me with questions, comments, or suggestions.  That and formspring.

Finally, I made the decision to eliminate sugar from my diet again.  Even the little bit I’ve been eating seems like too much right now, so I’m going to go back to just abstaining.  My plan is for doing this for two weeks, and at that point I’ll see where I am.  I think it will only be a positive adjustment, especially with respect to my running and general feeling of well-being. Perhaps this will usher in a new era of kombucha brewing!

Happy Memorial Day Weekend, everyone!

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Harmonious Belly

beets, glorious beets

Welcome to my new project, Harmonious Belly.  You can read more about the ideas behind it, as well as the blogger behind it, on the About page.

I don’t have much else to say right now that won’t be redundant, so I’ll just say that I hope you enjoy the blog as much as I look forward to writing it.

P.S. I love beets, so I’m more than pleased to start this blog off with a picture of some beautiful beets that came from my CSA a couple of years ago.  More on that later.