This was a moment captured last week. Just us two gals getting ourselves sorted out for the usual morning shenanigans.  It should come as no surprise that Khailee comprises a huge part of my day-to-day life. The endless stories, photos and love for her I share in person and online has probably tipped you off. Even still -  make no mistake – I know she is a dog.

I like dogs. Obviously. And although I am perfectly aware that not everyone feels as I do, I respect that others do not wish to be bothered with my puppy love. (However, if you are reading this blog then you agree to subject yourself to it.)  I genuinely enjoy the perks of living in a civilized society. (Even though it isn’t always civilized.) As much as I am happy to disregard all sorts of unwritten norms that often only serve to prevent me as an individual from achieving greatness, I do adhere to the policies and rules that we have all (in some way or another) signed onto in an effort to live happily, freely and in harmony with one another.

So I pick up after my dog outside. I walk her on leash and guide her to stick to her side of the sidewalk or pathway. I teach her boundaries when interacting with humans of all ages and backgrounds. I  create a positive, disciplined home environment so that she can learn the “dog rules” of living in a human world.  And I act as her steward – toward a life filled with dignity and joy.

It was a late Friday evening when Khailee and I set out on our journey up in the air. Our second trip together was certain to be smooth-sailing. Khailee and I showed up. We did our part. What we didn’t realize is that by virtue of our very existence (i.e. dog and dog owner) we would come face-to-face with an antagonistic company culture.

Everything went swimmingly up until the gate. Since this wasn’t our first time, we knew the drill. We waited in line. Checked in. Headed outside for a quick pee. Got in line for security. Passed with flying colours. Picked up some water for our plane ride and headed to the gate. For most of this Khailee was being carried by me. On the way to the gate, my hands were a little full so I walked her on leash so that I could get her and I organized for boarding.  All eyes were on her. She strutted with her sweet red polka dot bow. Happy as can be and perfectly behaved. Everyone smiled or cooed at the sight of her. All except one.  Before I could get to the gate to put her in her carrier, I was chastised by Air Canada personnel. Relentlessly. (Lady, I got it the first time and acknowledged your request so do yourself a favour and shut-up.) I wanted to tell the woman that passengers were far more likely to be allergic to her (and her attitude) than my hypoallergenic dog. I didn’t say that because I’m “civilized” but getting harassed left me exasperated.

Like many other creatures – humans included – dogs feed off of energy. Good or bad. So I shifted gears mentally, exhaled a few times and moved on. After Khailee was in her carrier, I assumed we would waltz on the plane and be on our way. Fifteen minutes to take off and we were still not called for boarding. Once we got on the plane, I was told by two separate flight attendants the “rules”. “The dog must go under the seat.” “You can’t take her out of her carrier.”  This was all completely unnecessary. Was the dog outside of her carrier? Was she not under the seat? Sheesh. They kept us waiting for 30 minutes on the plane with no air circulating and my pup overheating under the stupid seat and their greatest concern was that I not take her out?

When you walk into a restaurant is the first thing you hear out of the hostess’ mouth: “Our policy is that you will not be served unless you are wearing a shirt and shoes”? What if that was the first statement you were greeted with? Furthermore, what if you were fully dressed and wearing shoes? Would it seem weird? Would you wonder what kind of assumptions are being made about you? Does it seem reasonable to assume that at some point during your meal there would be a risk that you might kick off your shoes and take off your shirt? I don’t think so.

I was really struck by how obsessed the crew was with “rule breaking” and the so-called comfort of other passengers. On top of being a paying customer like all other passengers, I paid an additional fee to have Khailee travel with me in cabin. They were doing me no favours. I paid for this service. And that service was delivered but I got harassed in the process.  So I couldn’t help but wonder what has contributed to this. These attitudes and behaviours  that have led to treating a dog like a piece of carry-on luggage – with no concern for the welfare of the animal and only where she would be stowed – stem from assumptions about dog owners and/or dogs. Those assumptions then influence behaviour.  And behaviours exhibited by individuals in a collective (i.e. a company or community) over and over again without correction or comment then become accepted norms. But what does it take to go from a culture of enforcing rules to one in which you harass rule-abiding folks?

Beyond my curiosity, I have a new approach which I will attempt on my flight back. It will be an experiment – the results of which I will share next week.  In the meantime, I am in Winnipeg to wrap up work on a community consultation and enjoy a much-deserved change of scenery.

Strawberry & Champagne Granita

For Valentine’s Day, I decided to take on one of the masters – Gordon Ramsay. I selected three Ramsay recipes for Mike and I to enjoy. Note: No F-words were involved in the making of this!

I made several modifications to this recipe. First, “caster sugar” is a finer version of granulated sugar readily available in the UK. I substituted in granulated sugar and used only about half. Second, I used the bottle of sparkling wine we had on-hand – not from France – but superb, nonetheless.

from Gordon Ramsay’s Cooking for Friends

Ingredients

• 900g ripe strawberries, plus handful to garnish
• 125g caster sugar
• 3 tbsp water
• 150ml champagne, plus optional extra to serve
• 2 tbsp lemon juice

Hull and roughly chop the strawberries, then put them into a large heatproof bowl. Stir in the sugar and water, then stand the bowl over a pan of gently simmering water. Stir the strawberries frequently to help dissolve the sugar. Carefully cover the bowl with a plate (or the lid of a saucepan) and gently steam for about 30-40 minutes until the strawberries are very soft and have released their juices.

Remove the bowl from the heat and strain the strawberry juice through a fine sieve into a clean bowl. Cool, then mix in the champagne and lemon juice. Pour the mixture into a wide, shallow container and freeze for 1-2 hours until partially frozen. Stir the ice crystals round the sides of the container into the liquid centre. Return to the freezer for another couple of hours and give the mixture another stir.

When ready to serve, hull and cut a few strawberries into quarters. Drop them into individual serving glasses. Scrape the granita with a strong spoon and place into the glasses over the strawberries. If you wish, pour in a splash of champagne and serve immediately.

THE VERDICT So delicious and light. It has the consistency of a slurpee. (Who doesn’t love a champagne slurpee?) The granita was a perfect complement to a very heavy and full meal.  This will go on our must-have list for dinner parties. Yum.

This morning I set out to make myself a little smoothie. Since I am trying to not to eat ANY processed sugar for the entire month of February, I have been going through a bit of withdrawal. I have a killer sweet tooth combined with a very health conscious mentality….so you can imagine the dilemma.

As I opened my fridge this morning, I recalled the grapefruits I had purchased with the best of intentions of doing something with them. I have never been a fan of grapefruit. I find it has an extremely tart taste. That said, the health benefits of grapefruit are enough to persuade me to give it another try.

Here is my attempt: the Power Berry Smoothie.

Ingredients

• 1 banana, peeled and chopped
• 1 cup grapefruit juice with pulp, freshly squeezed
• 3/4 cup frozen organic power berry mix (includes dark cherries, blueberries and blackberries)

Combine all ingredients in a blender. Blend until creamy and smooth.

THE VERDICT Amazing! The smoothie is sweet with the familiar tastes of banana and berries. But the grapefruit really gives it a kick. I am a grapefruit convert!

Print by Papergangsterprints2

Heart symbolism. I adore it. But what could be more powerful than anatomical heart imagery?

I worship the heart. The literal and figurative.

Since February is all about HEART – both in terms of love and life – my goals this month are focused on WholeHearted living and loving.

At the end of last month, I signed up to run the Toronto Yonge Street 10k on April 22. (As you may recall, I ran the Toronto Waterfront 5k last fall.) Since I’m adding 5k to this experience, I feel that I MUST train this time. This week I kick off  a 5 week customized program including running, hot yoga and breath-enhancing pilates. That will surely get my heart thumping in time to practice my stride at the March Tune Up Run.

In my opinion, it’s never too early to take control of your health. The Heart & Stroke Foundation has an easy-peasy online Health Assessment for anyone interested in better understanding their own risk for heart disease. Although I am young and have few risk factors, hypertension, diabetes and heart disease run in my family. The assessment offered a few recommendations that I actually found helpful. In particular, getting my blood sugar and cholesterol tested so that I have a baseline.

The most obvious event of this month takes place on the 14th – otherwise known as Valentine’s Day. It is nice to have a day that is dedicated to sharing love with one’s favourite people. But the intent behind a WholeHearted month was actually inspired by Brené Brown. A year ago, I happened upon her amazing TEDx talk  on The Power of Vulnerability. It really resonated with me. I see the potential in vulnerability and that is what I intend to embrace this month.

This month I fell in love with….

A new brand (pictured above). It’s bold and brazen and very ME.

Organized chaos – beautifully contained with some help from Ikea.

This song from Working Girl – which could have been the soundtrack to my January 2012.  (Carly Simon is forever awesome.)

The colour red packaged in a lovely gown which I wore to the 2012 Garrison Officers Ball. (This year’s ball celebrated the bicentennial of the War of 1812.)

This photo of my Khailee-kins. I made several prints of it to put up in my living and work places.

The not-too-soon-but-not-so-faraway eventuality of hearing the pitter-patter of little biped feet. (So I did the responsible thing and registered for EI Benefits for Self-Employed People.)

The unique and sultry voices of Zooey Deschanel and Madeleine Peyroux.

Nature-inspired home decor such as this tree-ring pillow which invites me to cuddle up on the couch.

Eudora and Althea – my mini orchids.

A compact bone-coloured Matt and Nat wallet to help me with my streamlining efforts.

Kraft paper perfection.

A new set of dog rules. (Now at #7 but only because Mike is too easily persuaded by puppy dog eyes to stick to the rules.)

Tina Fey while reading her book Bossypants. (She is very weird and hilarious. If you are a fan, you might like this.)

Taking the first exciting step in our house hunting adventures. (My sister-in-law Carol is helping us find our dream home and set us up to receive listings in our preferred neighbourhoods.)

I am looking forward to another busy and bustling month. I have a new set of goals for February. And Khailee and I have planned an important work-trip/much-deserved visit with  family in Winnipeg.

I’ve always been more of a lemon girl than a lime one. But I came across this recipe while doing a search for polenta dishes and was tempted to try something different.  I made my own Mexican seasoning combining 1/4 tsp each of cumin, sea salt, dried chilies and hot paprika. I also opted for a couple of substitutes: black beans instead of red kidney beans and vine-ripened tomatoes versus canned tomatoes. (After many years of making sauces and soups using canned tomatoes, I have become deeply concerned about the quantities of Bisphenol A found in canned tomatoes. Since there is little difference in convenience, I opted for fresh tomatoes.)

THE VERDICT Spicy and tasty. And a far more interesting polenta dish than many others I have eaten. Since I added hot paprika to my spice mix, a little something to temper the heat would have been good. The original recipe calls for feta and/or sour cream. I would recommend adding a quarter of a ripened avocado or a cool mini-cucumber chopped up.

But I also had work to do. I turned into a little recruiting machine and engaged some remarkable young people to sign on to share their wisdom, insights and experience with our Change Inc. E-mentoring Program participants in the coming months. And then I became an accountability coach helping others to understand the importance of the commitments they make to participate in programs I lead.

Last but not least, the first meeting of the new Board of Health was convened last week. True to form, I spent a lot of time preparing myself on the content and assumed I knew enough on the procedural stuff. Wrong. Oh well, we learn from our mistakes as much as we do from our successes. I am happy to say that the combination of new knowledge and connections will make this experience incredibly enriching. And as always, I shall seize any opportunity to contribute.

I am still plugging away at my House In Order (HOI) initiative. Right now, it has a distinct focus on technology.

I would love to show you some of what I have been working on as part of my little HOI project. In fact, this piece goes seamlessly with another post from my Thirty by 30 project – Building a Brand. This past week, I worked tirelessly on getting things MOVING with Inspired Practice’s virtual home. It has been utterly ridiculous to have the site down for so long but I’ll admit, I hit a wall with some of the technical requirements of my vision.

I am self-taught. Hear that? Self-taught. Oh don’t be too impressed. All that really means is that I have taken the long and stupid path to learn, in twice the time, what most people grasp in a couple of comp sci and graphic design classes. Is it frustrating? (You might ask. Although I have no idea what would ever make you think to ask that.) Yes, at times. But not because of my lack of technical know-how. No. Rather, it is because of my vision. If my vision mirrored my abilities, we’d have no problem. So adapt your vision, you might say. Ah but sadly I suffer from an affliction called perfectionism. My definition of perfection is constantly changing. Thus, it takes me that much longer to achieve the desired standard. And when I do, there is no guarantee that I will be satisfied for very long. (This actually happened in the Fall when I thought I was “done” and then realized it still wasn’t quite right!)

Part of what had to happen in order to move things forward was to let go of an old identity and instead create a personality brand. My beloved frog will no longer feature in my brand, on my materials or website. It is one of the few symbols that I cherish but unlike myself, I came to recognize that my company had outgrown it and needed to better reflect the minimalist, creative and brazen qualities that I possess. The symbol itself was too abstract and mysterious to be front and centre. So it’s gone! I’m moving forward and will relaunch in February.

This post is two-for-one offering. I created this sandwich as a way to pack in some protein and offer a good excuse to eat baguette. The photos are few and terribly out of focus because I was so hungry and couldn’t be bothered to invest the time and energy into making this look good. Just so you know.

INGREDIENTS

Baguette w/Chickpea Spread & Sweet Tomatoes

• 1/6th of a small baguette, halved
• 3/4 cup chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• 1/2 of a small avocado*
• 4-6 yellow, cherry or grape tomatoes, halved**
• 1 1/2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• EVOO
• Black pepper
• Sea salt
• Parsley, optional

1. Add chickpeas, avocado flesh, lemon juice, EVOO, seasonings and 2 tbsp of water into a food processor. Process until you get the consistency of a spread without whole chickpea lumps.
2. Smear a generous amount of your yummy chickpea spread onto your baguette halves, add your chopped sweet tomatoes, a sprinkle of parsley and voila!

*You could make this spread without the avocado. With a little garlic, it would essentially be hummus. But that is so boring! I like the avocado because it adds an amazing buttery flavour and softens the taste of the chickpea.

**Feel free to chop instead of halve the tomatoes if you feel that it will be too much of a mouthful. I like to leave as much of the tomato in tact for the juice factor.

BONUS: Garlicky Oven Fries

The same night that I had the baguette, I also attempted to make Garlicky Oven Fries as a side. I have no photo evidence because it was a bit of disaster and by the time they were done, Mike and I chowed down and that was the end of them.

ADJUSTMENTS I substituted red potatoes for russet potatoes. Although I appreciate that russet are the more common choice for fries, I find red potatoes 10x more flavourful. If I am going to spend serious cash on a bag of organic potatoes, I should like to use them in a variety of recipes. Make sense?

THE VERDICT I can roast. I can bake. But I do not excel at frying or broiling food. Despite following the recipe, ensuring sufficient greasing and oil, my poor wedges stuck to the baking sheet. Perhaps they were too thin or things got too hot in there. I don’t know.  Too many steps involved for something that turned out just “okay”.

I love to cook. I admit it.

But I have fallen off the horse in recent months. That isn’t to say I haven’t been cookin’ at all. Just most of what I have been cooking is same old. In an effort to challenge myself this year, I will be diving into the many cookbooks I own and or into my mind (as the case may be) to test out recipes and share them. These recipes will in most cases be ones I have never before attempted. In other cases, such as with this post I will share recipes that over the course of time I have adapted and created. I will post one per week with all the goods.

So let’s begin the Great Recipe Experiment of 2012.

I call this one: the Chew Salad w/Marinated Tofu.

INGREDIENTS

Marinated Tofu

• 1/3 of a package of Sunrise Extra Firm Tofu, rinsed & cubed
• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup San-J Tamari Sauce*
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• Red pepper flakes, to taste

Salad

• 5-8 leaves of collard greens or kale, stems removed & shredded
• 1 cup red cabbage, roughly chopped
• 1/2 cup red pepper, chopped (or julienned if you are fancy)
• 1/2 cup carrot, shredded
• 1/4 cup leek, finely chopped
• 2 tsp fresh curly parsley, finely chopped
• 1/2 a small avocado, chopped (optional)
• 1 tsp toasted hemp seeds
• 1 tbsp sunflower seeds

Dressing

• 1 -2 tbsp of olive oil
• 1/4 of a lemon, squeezed
• Dash of sea salt
• Dash of black pepper

First things first. The TOFU. (Not a tofu-lover, skip it and replace with another vegetarian protein source such as lentils, chickpeas, tempeh, etc…) Mix tofu marinade ingredients in a pyrex or other covered dish. Plunk in your cubed tofu. Add a little bit of water in order to just cover all of the cubes. Stick it in the fridge and forget about it for an hour or 2.

*Why tamari sauce? Tamari is a lower sodium, gluten free alternative to soy sauce. Although soy sauce is cheap and conveniently purchased anywhere, tamari is well worth paying a little more.  You can find it in your health food store or health food section of supermarkets. It’s delish!

Get your salad ingredients in order. Chop, shred, etc… and toss it into a salad or mixing bowl. (I like to layer as you can see.)

Add your toasted hemp seeds, sunflower seeds or any other type of seed you like to eat. Then mix it all up!

Grab your marinated tofu cubes, scoop them out into a frying pan (with a little liquid marinade) and sizzle at medium to high heat. Turn them to brown evenly. You don’t want to make the mistake (like I have for many years) of letting them get too cooked. They shouldn’t be tough when you eat them.

Now chew. And chew again. This is a great meal to eat for lunch when you have just sat down after a flurry of activity and need to focus on something basic. Chew and enjoy!

In time-honoured tradition, I set goals for each new calendar year. For 2012, I decided to create a hybrid of both monthly and yearly goals.  This month is all about getting my house in order. I know that I drive my hubby nuts with all of the furniture moving and reorganizing but doesn’t it make you feel productive just looking at it?

More good things have been added to make life beautiful around here. Althea, my new mini orchid, has a spot front and centre on my desk. Her sister, Eudora, will find her new home on my desk downtown. (I find it helps to name my plants so that I actually remember to take care of them. Who would have thought it would be harder to keep a plant alive than a puppy? )

I also finally got my act together and created my own 2012 desk blotter calendar inspired by one Kyla Roma created last year.

As part of my own House In Order initiative this January, you will begin noticing structural and design changes to my blog here at www.kristlect.com and very soon the re-launch of www.inspiredpractice.com.  Woot!