I've Moved!

Hello to my faithful readers! I've moved my blog… for more of my writing and musings, please visit www.juliannekanzaki.com

World Poetry Day.

Today is World Poetry Day.

Enjoy this piece from one of my favorite poets, IN-Q…

Isn't Life Colorful?

"The preparation of good food is yet another expression of art, one of the joys of civilized living…" 

-Dione Lucas

Some of the craziest work days result in my most artistic meals. It's like all of that energy needs to be channeled somewhere, and what better place than in the kitchen?

Roasted sweet potatoes, avocado, forbidden black rice, roasted chickpeas, carrots, roasted broccoli, red cabbage and hummus on a bed of organic arugula. #plantpowered #eattherainbow

On a different note, today I filled the last page in my journal. I started this one on January 1st. What a sacred morning practice writing has become for me. Tomorrow morning, I'm excited to crack open a new journal, with fresh pages awaiting me. It's like sliding into bed with freshly washed and clean sheets...

Banana Bread Delights.

Sometimes the mood to bake comes on so strongly that all I can do is surrender, throw on an apron, and get busy mixing and measuring and chopping and rolling. Today's creation answered the question of how to handle the desire for solid food on long bike rides when GU gels just don't cut it. I know these will also be perfect for hikes, and will also satisfy you when those mid-day sweet snack cravings hit.

The best part? They are made with real food. No added sugar- not even maple syrup or coconut sugar. Just dates and bananas (and the non-dairy chocolate chips are optional).

INGREDIENTS:
2 large ripe bananas, peeled
1/2 cup packed pitted Medjool dates
1/4 cup extra virgin coconut oil
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp fine grain sea salt
2 cups gluten-free rolled oats, divided
3-4 Tbsp non-dairy chocolate chips (optional)
1/4 c. chopped walnuts (optional)

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Add the banana, dates, coconut oil, and vanilla into a food processor. Process until smooth.
3. Add cinnamon, baking powder, and salt and process again until combined.
4. Add in 1.5 cups of the rolled oats and process for only 4-5 seconds, just long enough to roughly chop the oats.
5. Remove the mixture from the food processor and stir in the remaining oats, along with the walnuts and chocolate chips.
6. Spoon 1 large heaping Tbsp onto the parchment paper. Do not press down the dough to flatten.
7. Bake cookies for 10 minutes, rotate the pan, and bake for another 7-9 minutes until golden brown on the bottom.
8. Immediately transfer onto a cooling rack for 10 minutes.
9. Enjoy!

P.S. Share these vegan, gluten-free, no-refined-sugar treats with your gluten and sugar-loving friends! I promise you that they'll love them, and it won't cost you your friendship.

Happy RD Day!

So today is officially "National Registered Dietitian Day." I'm always curious who comes up with these days. It's like "National Siblings Day" or "National Cat Day" where I learn about it only when I see everyone's FB feed or Instagram hashtags. Regardless, it's nice to have a day acknowledging the work that we do, so I'll take it.

So in honor of this special day, I pre-ordered a copy of "The Plantpower Way" by Rich Roll and Julie Piatt. Everyone who knows me is well-aware that I'm one of their biggest fans. I've read Finding Ultra, use their JaiRelease meditation program and am the first to download their newest podcasts. I'm the first to admit that when things get super stressful at work, I put in my earbuds and calm down using her humming meditation. It works every time. It's because of Rich Roll that I purchased my Vitamix, started a regular meditation practice, began using maca powder and hemp seeds, and read The Power of Now and Autobiography of a Yogi. He's helped me raise the bar on my own life, and has inspired me to shift towards a more plant-based diet.

"Transformation begins and ends with what we put in our mouths." Julie Piatt couldn't have said it any better. As a registered dietitian, it's my goal to teach people about the correct ways to fuel their bodies so they can reach their ultimate potential. It starts with food, and I fully support the plantpower revolution that Rich Roll and Julie Piatt are leading. Pre-order your copy today, and we can share meals together that fuel, nourish, and transform us with every bite.

Sunny and 75.

You know you're in good company when the original ride was only supposed to be 50 miles.

I'm still basking in the afterglow of today.
Spring is definitely in the air.
Buds opening, days lengthening, cheeks glowing with heat.
Stripping off the arm warmers at mile 30.
Solid stretches of road surrounded by yellow blossoms spread across miles of green hills.
A male peacock prancing along the side of the road.
Good company to make you forget about the headwind.
Almond milk lattes at mile 96.
Sunny in every sense of the word.
My heart is so full.

Make Good Art.

Nature makes good art too...

I laugh at how the perfect words land in my lap seemingly out of nowhere, snuggle their way into my world and nestle themselves inside of my heart, right where I need them most. Today those words were from Neil Gaiman-

"Life is sometimes hard. Things go wrong, in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all the other ways that life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do-
Make good art.
I'm serious. Husband runs off with a politician?
Make good art.
Leg crushed and then eaten by a mutated boa constrictor?
Make good art.
IRS on your trail?
Make good art.
Cat exploded?
Make good art.
Somebody on the Internet thinks what you do is stupid or evil or it's all been done before?
Make good art.
Probably things will work out somehow, and eventually time will take the sting away, but that doesn't matter. Do what only you do best.
Make good art.
Make it on the good days, too.

The moment that you feel that, just possibly, you're walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself. That's the moment you may be starting to get it right." 

So this has become my manifesto. Whatever comes my way, I'm going to do one thing with it- I'm going to make good art.

Deconstruction.

"Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy."
-Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

This concept of things falling apart feels so true in my life, especially recently. It's easy to float along, but when the big waves come crashing down and cause you to flounder and get water up your nose, it's harder to keep your perspective. I get hopeless and scared, too. I get fearful and obsessive and my mind runs off the rails like a runaway trail and I have to rein it in over and over from dwelling on the things that scare me down to my core.

Avocado, cucumber, carrots, kamaboko, shiitake mushrooms and nori over a bed of black rice.

Tonight's dinner was metaphor for myself, really. A deconstructed sushi bowl to tangibly prove how life's discordant events can in fact, be beautiful. After I took this picture, I mixed everything up together. It was messy and delicious and colorful and reminded me of how grief and joy and loneliness and hope are all ingredients in life, and are not separate from each other. Life doesn't always present itself neatly, rolled up and sliced into perfect sushi rolls. Sometimes it falls apart, and you just have to be ok with experiencing it in a different form than what you initially expected.

I scribbled these words in my journal early this morning-

"I'm discovering now that writing is much more than transcribing words into a journal, in black and white, on a page. It's a lifesaving buoy, keeping us afloat, providing us with something tangible to grab onto- to rest our weary arms around as we make sense of our world and re-establish our voice and direction in the vast sea of life."

Even if things seem to be falling apart, I've found that making sense of things on the page can make life's obstacles more palatable, and I dare say, more delicious. Just like a deconstructed sushi bowl.

Time to Blossom.

Saturday's mini blessings...

How

did the rose

ever open its heart

and give to this world all of its beauty?

It felt the encouragement of light against its being,

otherwise we all remain too

frightened.

-Hafiz

Seeing Beauty.

"I want to see beauty. In the ugly, in the sink, in the suffering, in the daily, in all the days before I die, the moments before I sleep."

-Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

As I closed this book, my heart begged, "Lord, give me the eyes to see."