Sunday, October 14, 2012

Read.Eat.Listen: Sugar

Fall is my favorite season, my favorite time of year. Invariably, I experience a big turn of events around Halloween/Day of the Dead: an international trip, relationship shift, or project completion...It's often been a magical loaded time. This year appears to be no different,  as I'm both mid project and mid planning a move from an apartment to a house. Meanwhile, everywhere I turned this week, I was besieged by the fact that Halloween will soon to be upon us and thus, one must be in need of ...trappings! Pumpkins and masks and great big bagfuls of candy spilling off store shelves and into households and shops. I'll take the pumpkin, probably figure out a costume last minute, but leaving the sugar.  "Eat protein when you crave sweet," a health professional once told me, which is helpful advise if you're just cutting back. I still have a sweet tooth, but now I say yes to agave, honey, stevia, fruit. It usually does the trick.
Read: "The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar" by Roald Dahl. Who better to read during a magical, liminal time than the author of "James and the Giant Peach"? This collection of short stories and autobiographical essay is aimed at adults as much as kids and will shake the imagination a bit.
Eat: Pumpkin pie. Another benefit of Fall. My variation on any recipe to be found on a can of pumpkin. Agave instead of white sugar; soy or almond milk instead of cream; pie crust made with gluten free flour and coconut oil.
Listen: New from songwriter Beth Orton whose work manages to be at once real and ethereal. Here's "Magpie" form the new CD "Sugaring Season"

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