A Confession, or, How An Acting Assignment Started An Addiction

I have a confession to make: I love coffee.

I know, I know. I'm weak. I'm misguided. I don't understand how terrible this DRUG really is and just what it's doing to my body. I am a lesser person than you. But I Just can't help it.

Drinking coffee has become one of those things we are supposed to be ashamed to do. Akin to watching a few hours of tv after work or eating raw cookie dough as you're baking, drinking coffee just isn't cool. You can drown yourself in seven cups of tea every day, but drinking coffee? You may as well inject yourself with heroin.

(Sidenote: I had to Google to make sure heroin was the one you injected. I am sooo out of the drug loop.)

However, even though it's taboo I'm proud to say that I love it. I don't drink coffee merely because I'm addicted (which, by the way, I totally am), but rather because I absolutely adore it. I love the smell, the taste, and the way it seems to wrap my body in a warm, wonderful blanket. Coffee is more than a drink for me. It's an experience.

Before university I had had only one or two cups of coffee in my life. Usually loaded with cream and sugar, I drank it to look cool and impress the older kids, and maybe to trick myself awake with the caffeine. When I was in first year at uni, my friend Jerome brewed coffee in his room every day and I would sit on his bed and relish the smell. I wouldn't touch the stuff, though. No thank you. Yuck.

Eventually, however, I started trying a cup here and there and found it wasn't too bad. I started to really enjoy the taste! I got a one-cup coffee maker and started making coffee part of my weekend (at this point I wasn't really into having it more than once or twice a week). It wasn't until my acting prof, Jo Jo, gave us an assignment that I truly developed a love of the drink.

Jo Jo hated bad miming. Often times it's sloppy, poorly done and forgotten about once the actor walks away. I can't blame her and, in situations that aren't improv*, I completely agree with her. She gave us an assignment that seemed simple: pretend you're drinking a hot drink. We were to go home, make a cup of something hot and really take note of how we drank it so we could mime it the next day. It was here that my love blossomed.

I made a cup of coffee (loaded it up with cream and sugar), sat on our worn old couch (that coincidentally our high school drama teacher gave us) and began my assignment. I noticed that when I held the cup, I usually put just two of my right-hand fingers through the handle. When I went to take a sip, I would rest my lip on the edge of the cup, inhale, then exhale into the cup, blowing the warm coffee-laced steam over my nose and forehead. Then, oddest of all, I would open my mouth and tap my teeth four times before taking the first sip (top right, top left, bottom right, bottom left) ... (I realize that's a little OCD and weird, and I have no idea when I started doing it, but it happens unconsciously every time i take my first sip of coffee). I would take the liquid in, let it roll over my tongue and seep slowly down my throat. Coffee wasn't just a drink. It was a full-body, multiple sensory organ experience. I loved how it tasted, how it made me warm, how it almost burned my hands and how my whole body seemed to take the small cup in. Jo Jo inadvertently opened up a new, appreciative world to me and I was hooked (I also like to think that I can mime a hot drink really well now).

Through university I stuck to coffee a few times a week and continued the tradition when I moved to Toronto. It wasn't until my first office job, though, that I really started the routine of having it every single day.

When I started working for a woman, I was in charge of making coffee for her every day. Naturally, I started drinking coffee every morning. And every afternoon. I was a two-cupper. It wasn't too bad and I never felt like I “HAD” to have my coffee in order to function, but I definitely drank it more than I ever had before. I quit that job, went to Australia and went many days in a row without my liquid gold with no ill effects. When I got back to Canada and started in on my new desk job, I got back to having a few cups a day. After a year of this, I started realizing that I wasn't able to fully wake up without my morning cup of coffee. I would be foggy and a little irritable until I had a few sips of my brew. I didn't think it was a good sign, and tried to cut coffee out, much to the dismay of my aching head. I decided to go back on the coffee, and here I am today. I can go a day or two without it, of course, but after more than that I get a terrible headache. I know it's not right and I know that I'm addicted, but I'm okay with it despite how ashamed I sometimes feel when people on soap boxes preach down on me.

I am addicted to coffee, sure, but that doesn't mean I slurp it back without enjoying it. It's not like a glass of water or a bad house wine; I really do enjoy drinking coffee and still relish the experience every morning. When I close my eyes and take my first few sips, I'm brought back to that acting assignment and back to that feeling of warm coffee-love. I appreciate going to good coffee houses where they love a good cup (Sam James Coffee Bar on Harbord being the best in the city with the owner and barista(o?) truly paying attention to every cup be makes. Divine!) and I love it all from espressos to lattes to french pressed with a hint of cinnamon. Hell, I even don't mind greasy, shitty diner coffee sometimes; it reminds me of hungover mornings at Pizzaville, the local breakfast place in university that is not to be confused with the Toronto pizza chain.

So while some may tell me I'm wrong to drink it, I try to stand tall and be proud of my liquid love. After all, there are few things better than curling up with a giant mug of coffee and an entire season of X-Files. Not that I watch more than 20 minutes of TV or anything...

*This is not to say that all miming in improv is horrible, nor is this to say that people can get away with shitty miming while onstage during improv. Scenework (miming) should be practiced and worked on as much as anything else and really shouldn't be forgotten, however, in improv its easier to let things slide as the scene jumps around a lot. This being said, we've all heard the story that Mike Myers got in to Con because he mimed a table and walked around it later in the scene. What am I trying to say here again? I dunno. Just don't sit down and pretend to be at a computer, then walk through the desk repeatedly in the scene. The audience will hate you for it and it looks unprofessional.

Celery

Stop putting celery in stuff.

If I want a chicken salad sandwich, I want a chicken salad sandwich. Chicken + mayo = chicken salad. You throw celery in there and it ruins the integrity of the sandwich. It’s no longer “chicken salad”. It’s “Chicken Salad XTREME” or some shit. Stop putting stuff in there.

Would you put walnuts in a chicken salad sandwich you were serving to a friend or bedfellow you woke up beside and were like “shit I should feed this person” and all you had was leftover chicken, mayonnaise an old tortilla in the back of the fridge and an old can of beets you tried once but hated? No, you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t put walnuts or pickles or beets or anything else in that sandwich because it would taste nasty. No one wants that stuff. If someone asks for a chicken salad sandwich, they’re thinking “Hm, I could really go for a plain ol’ chicken salad sandwich” not “I want the most flavourful thing in the world in my mouth right now”.

People think that celery doesn’t have a taste, but it does. It soooo does. It tastes like crap. I hate celery more than I hate green peppers, and green peppers are nasty. The only good thing about celery is that its taste doesn’t really invade a whole dish like green peppers do. Celery is useless and has no place in a chicken salad sandwich.

Here are some acceptable items to put in a chicken salad sandwich you make for yourself or a fancy friend:
- apples
- mustard
- herbs or spices like cayenne, basil, pepper, paprika
- almonds
- Do not put salt in your chicken salad sandwich. You already have mayo in it and I’m sure there’s salt in mayo. Watch your sodium intake, fools.

I’m not sure when celery became a staple of CSS’s, but it totally blows. Tim Horton’s, Holts…you are going to be hard-pressed to find an ‘on-the-go’ chicken salad sandwich without celery in it. Don’t even try. Just go for egg salad instead.

Brown vs White

These days, most people are trying to eat healthily and make good choices. We opt for brown bread, have turned our backs on margarine, and grains like couscous and quinoa are starting to replace rice and potatoes at family meals. Blame it on the internet, the media or our fat asses, but either way making healthy choices is smart and is fast becoming a good trend

Note: even though it’s a good trend, there is a lot of bad surrounding it; low-fat, fat-free, ultra-processed “foods” are becoming the norm, and we’re at a day in age where people would sooner put a chemical into their body than a piece of real food, simply because it claimed it was the ‘healthy choice’.

Having health sit at the front of our minds means that when we’re out doing groceries or grabbing coffee, we are more often than not going to search for the healthiest option and pick it over a lesser one. If we’re craving salt we may WANT Doritos, but we BUY popcorn (funfact: 1C of air popped popcorn is about 30 calories…before butter and salt). And as we have become accustomed to manufacturers telling us what is healthy and what is not, we often grab without putting much thought into it -- Colours play a big role in our brains and our society, which is why we often grab for the light blue or brown things. Light blue = low-fat, brown = healthy and whole.

Not always the case.

Brown Eggs vs White Eggs
For some reason, brown eggs have become synonymous with health. We see brown, our brains register “healthy and whole” and we decide that brown eggs are better for us than white eggs. Not true. There is absolutely no nutritional difference between brown and white eggs. The only difference is in the colour of their shells, which is determined by the hen laying the egg: if a hen has white ear lobes (hens have ear lobes, apparently) then it produces white eggs, whereas if it has red ear lobes, it produces brown eggs. Why do brown eggs cost more? According to the internet, hens that lay brown eggs are generally bigger and eat more, hence you paying $0.49 more per carton.

So hey, save yourself a few bucks a month and just eat white eggs.

If you really want to get the most health benefits out of your eggs, opt for those free-run, certified organic, grain-fed, no-pesticide, local, etc eggs. They’ll cost you more, but they’re better for the environment, better for your body, better for the farmers and better for the chickens.

Brown Sugar vs White Sugar
In my office we get breakfast catering a few times a month, and they always bring us packets of sugar. Inevitably the brown sugar is gone much sooner than the white, and I’m left trying to find space in the pantry for 200 packs of white sugar. The thing is, brown sugar and white sugar are essentially the same thing. Brown sugar is NOT better for you than white sugar, because brown sugar is just white sugar that has been coated in molasses. For true.

Sugar goes through a refining process where it’s squished out of the cane, shipped all over the world in a raw form, then is cleaned, pressed, boiled and refined (all in about 5 hours) and turned into white sugar. Then, sugar factories take half that white sugar they just refined, spray it with molasses and voila! Brown sugar! The molasses is why brown sugar is often used for baking – it’s softer and has a bit of a richer, sweeter flavour. Brown sugar is not better for you than white sugar.

Raw sugar, on the other hand, is different. Raw sugar is closer to what you’d find by gnawing on a sugar cane or getting in a time machine and going back to India 200 years ago, as it hasn’t been super-processed yet (though it has undergone some processing, of course). If you want to cut out refined white sugars, go for raw sugar (though make sure it’s truly raw, and not just ‘raw-style’ or something).

Note: when I went on the sugar factory tour last weekend, Richard the surly sugar guy said that no one should ever eat raw sugar because it’s full of impurities and dirt and crap. I dunno. I’m sure that raw sugar you buy in a store has been cleaned of this, whereas Redpath Sugar Refinery doesn’t care if it’s clean or not since they will clean the heck out of it to make white sugar.

So the next time you’re out buying eggs or your office pantry runs out of brown sugar and you politely and passive-aggressively tell the receptionist, try to remember that while brown things may look better and more ‘whole’, in the case of sugar and eggs they’re just the same as the white.

The same doesn’t hold true for bread, obviously. Brown bread is loads better for you than white bread. White bread should only be consumed in “delicious fresh baguette with brie cheese and fresh basil” form.

Lentil Patties

I'm going to try adding more photos to this blog. I like blogs with photos. Let's do it!

Here is one of my favourite dinners as of late: roasted small potatoes with steamed kale and asparagus, with a delicious lentil patty I found here. These lentil patties are so SO good, easy to make, fairly quick and keep well. Yum.

Ern, and a beer. Because I like beer. A lot.

I also got an iPhone yesterday, so I expect I'll be taking many more photos. Hopefully good ones.

I also expect I'll be updating more, oh faithful reader. Sigh.

Thoughts about Weight-Loss 3: Counting Calories is Totally Whack

I've been on the "lose weight" wagon for a few months now and have been writing about it every now and then. I've decided to share some of it here, which scares the shit outta me. Admitting these things is hard and extremely personal, as I don't hold anything back...but I think that writing them down and letting people read them is going to be good for me. Freeing. Motivating, even. Who knows.

Counting calories is totally whack.

I’ve been counting my calories closely for about four weeks now and, slowly but surely, I’m starting to learn how many calories are in certain foods. I’m getting pretty good at guesstimating amounts in meals, too, which makes eating out easier. With a few more weeks of really paying attention, I think I’ll become pretty good at knowing things off the top of my head. It’s nerdily exciting!

I have a friend who told me she lost a ton of weight just counting calories, but soon became obsessed with it. I didn’t understand her at first; how could you become obsessed with counting calories? You just kind’ve know the numbers in certain foods and write it down…not that nuts. This last week, though, I’ve come to fully understand what she means. Calorie counting can take over your life. Once you really understand how everything works with calories going in and calories coming out, you realize just how much your body is like a machine…and it blows your mind!

Example: a large double-double at Tim Hortons is 300 calories. 300! For 300 calories you could eat an English Muffin and Two eggs. Or some salmon and veggies. Or 8 pieces of vegetarian maki. Or three and a half apples. So your morning coffee essentially adds up to an entire meal. Tack a muffin on that and you’re consuming around 700 calories in just one snack. (Needless to say I’ve switched from double-double to regular)

What do I have to do to burn off 700 calories? About 45 minutes of vigorous spinning or 55 minutes of moderate elliptical. About an hour of work to burn off one little snack! Can you imagine how long it would take to burn off a few slices of pizza or a delicious, greasy, oh-so-good Craft Burger?! And if you’re smaller than I am, it’s going to take a hell of a lot more work to burn all that crap off.

Your body really is like a machine – you give it fuel and it burns fuel. If you give it too much fuel, it’ll spill over and make a mess (in this case, a fatty, delicious Craft Burger mess that goes straight to my thighs). Calories in/Calories out. For whatever reason, I never used to think this way. I always knew I needed food to survive, but now I’m starting to look at food as fuel for my body instead of just fun things to eat. To me, it’s a pretty interesting mind-shift.

I once heard some Buddhists talking about how being reincarnated as a human is an amazing blessing, because you’re given the huge gift of having thoughts and love and emotion and kindness. Why would you want to treat this gift like a piece of crap? Who knows if you’ll ever come back as a human again? Treat your body well – it’s the motto of Buddhists, Jews, Hal Johnson and Joanne McLeod.

Now that I’ve started to understand calories, it is definitely easier to make healthy choices…and it’s definitely easier to feel guilty about pigging out. I like it, though. I like knowing how much I’m putting in and knowing how much I’m putting out, and hopefully it all adds up to a happier, healthier, burger-less me.

I’m finally staring to put out in a respectable way. Imagine that.

Thoughts about Weight-Loss 2: My Daily Indulgence

I've been on the "lose weight" wagon for a few months now and have been writing about it every now and then. I've decided to share some of it here, which scares the shit outta me. Admitting these things is hard and extremely personal, as I don't hold anything back...but I think that writing them down and letting people read them is going to be good for me. Freeing. Motivating, even. Who knows.

Is there anything better than a big mug of hot chocolate on a cold Sunday night?

As someone privileged enough to live in an apartment in an almost 100-year old, drafty house (read: someone too broke to afford a nice apartment in a warm, new-windowed high rise) I've come to know my cold pretty well. Toronto doesn't get as cold as, say, Ottawa or Shebrooke, but when it gets pretty cold, it feels very cold. We're Torontonians. We're pussies.

So as I'm sitting on my couch, curled up in my secret Snuggie and trying to figure out how to warm my back with this almost-robe, I think to myself "damn, a hot chocolate would be awesome right now." My insides are already up and half off the couch, but my mind is saying "No, Jenny. Stop. Don't think that. You don't need hot chocolate and can't have it." Then my tongue disagrees and talks back, and my mind gets offended...it's a messy situation.

I wonder why I have these urges, these intense cravings, for chocolate and other such junk. Maybe I'm related to the Myans? Maybe I've treated it like a food group/snack/breakfast for so long that my body starts to freak out if I don't get my daily indulgence? Maybe I have absolutely no willpower?

When it comes right down to it, I figure I NEED a bit of chocolate every day. I'm sure a trainer or nutritionist would disagree, but hear me out: I know myself. If I deny myself something I will obsess over it -OBSESS- until I can have it. I'm talking "walk 20 minutes at 11pm in the snow to get to a store and grab yourself a bag of Oreos" kind of obsess. Followed closely by an "eat an entire row of Oreos in one sitting, then put the bag in the cupboard, then go back to the bag in half an hour and eat another row" kind of binge. If I *know* this will happen, isn't it better to treat myself to a little bit of chocolate every day? Two squares of dark chocolate after a meal is better than two rows of Oreos, right?

I think it makes sense.

So I crave and I get emotional and I have the hardest time telling myself "no", so I eat. I don't need this hot chocolate - tea or a hot shower would make me warm too. But chocolate...that sweet, sweet cocoa that tempts me and makes my mouth water...I just can't say no.
Though maybe if my 100-year old, drafty apartment had a decent hot water system, a nice shower really could cure me of this chocolate obsession. People with good hot water systems are skinny, right?

Thoughts About Weight-Loss 1: Emotional Cheating

I've been on the "lose weight" wagon for a few months now and have been writing about it every now and then. I've decided to share some of it here, which scares the shit outta me. Admitting these things is hard and extremely personal, as I don't hold anything back...but I think that writing them down and letting people read them is going to be good for me. Freeing. Motivating, even. Who knows.

My inner monologue on any given work day goes like this:

What the hell? What the hell?! You have SALARIES! You have FAMILIES! How have you made it this far in life and you still have NO IDEA how to put your dirty plate in the dishwasher/turn off a light when you leave a room/replace toner in the machine/call your voicemail? How does this happen?! Use your brain!

When people pile stupid stuff on me, it frustrates me to a point where I just want to run out of the office screaming. Instead, I push it down and smile. That's what a good receptionist does.
So here I sit, ten minutes before lunch, angry and frustrated because, yet again, someone didn't plan their time properly and they need something done TODAY and gave it to me to do. Ten minutes before lunch and I'm pissed off and frustrated and...I want a burger. I want a burger and fries and a coke and a chocolate bar and three glasses of wine and chicken wings.

Emotional eater? Heckyes.

When I first realized -really realized- I was an emotional eater, I had a bit of a breakdown before my breakthrough. I remember it clearly: I had a bad day at work so I stopped at the store on the way home. I bought myself a frozen pizza, some chocolate cookies, a bag of chips and a small bottle of gingerale. When I got home I put the pizza in the oven and sat on the couch stuffing my face with Doritos and cookies. When the pizza was ready, I ate half of it, then went back to more Doritos and cookies. I guzzled gingerale the whole time.

When my binge was done, I sat on the couch and cried. I was so full and felt so sick. Was my anger gone? Sure! But it was replaced by an absolute hatred of myself and my way of life. I didn't let myself go to the bathroom for six hours that night, because I knew if I went I would have put my finger down my throat and made myself throw up. It was the first time I had ever had a bullemic thought like that, and the first time I realized "Holy crap! I really AM an emotional eater!"

So I'm sitting here, four minutes before lunch, and I'm seething and trying to let the anger out creatively (not helping, btw) and my first thought is "screw the veggies I brought for lunch, I'm getting a burger!" Then I stop and think to myself "Wait, Jenny. A burger will make you feel gross and really won't help with your weight loss. Go to the gym instead."

...then I argue with myself. A burger WON'T make me sick and I'm going to the gym after work anyways, so whats the big deal? I can't go to the gym twice in one day, right? Maybe I could go buy new boots instead. Replace one bad, money-spending habit with another.

I hate that I'm an emotional eater and I hate that I crave junk food. I love, though, that I can now realize it and can stop and think about making a positive action instead of stuffing my face. It's a big step in the right direction, I think.

So now I'm here, one minute before lunch, and am salivating and hungry for grease and sugar. Instead I'll pop a few almonds, hit the weight room and try to get my anger out with a few 10-pounders.

A bitchy girl with 10-pounders is scarier than any big muscle man benching 150. Watch out.

Never cheap-out on peanut butter and toothbrushes

"Never cheap-out on peanut butter and toothbrushes."

My mom has said this to me many times and I don't think I really 'got' it until the last year or so; you should never cheap-out on peanut butter and toothbrushes.

Let's face it: I can be a cheap person. I buy cheap vitamins, cheap cheese, cheap shoes, and I don't think I've ever bought a movie full-price, instead I opt for the previously viewed/discount bins. This isn't to say that I don't spend my money on a nice meal once in a while, it just means that when I buy every-day things, I generally go for lower prices.

But no matter how cheap I may be, I will never cheap-out on peanut butter or toothbrushes. There's something to be said for buying name-brand items that you really love! Kraft trumps No Name any day, and spending that extra buck on a fancier Colgate brush really *does* leave my mouth feeling tinglyclean. Everyone has their own splurges; some can't fathom spending less than $60 on a shirt, while others invest in fancy paper napkins to match the decor. Personally, I think it's great when you can achieve a good balance between being thrifty and splurging on items you will really enjoy. You don't order eggs benny every time you go out for brunch, but once in a blue moon that buttery sauce is totally worth it.

It's only within the last couple years, really, that I can understand spending a bit more on something. I used to think it was ridiculous to spend $40 on a sweater, but I now see that if I'm going to get good use out of it for a few seasons, $40 isn't so bad. Will I ever shop at Holt's and spend $200 on a shirt? No. Every splurge has to have its limits. But come over to my house for toast and peanut butter and I promise I'll spare no expense on delighting your taste buds.

Which came first?

My friend called me the other day and asked me how long eggs were "good" for after their expiration date (about a week or so, generally), and how long she could keep boiled eggs in the fridge (1-2 weeks). This got me thinking about foods and food storage, and about something that totally baffled me when I was in Australia:

In Australia, they sell eggs unrefrigerated. Yep, between the cookies and the crackers, cartons of eggs were sold. Apparently the rest of the world does it too, and they're more or less healthy.

It seems weird to me. I was always told to keep eggs refrigerated! I would rush home from the grocery store and put my eggs in the fridge straight away, lest they sit around for half an hour and burst open a la Ghostbusters. I guess when eggs come out they're not refrigerated...and, I mean, they're in a shell so they should be okay. Right?

With a little bit of research I found out that eggs can be kept unrefrigerated for about 5 days, and can be kept in the fridge for about 4-5 weeks (a good rule of thumb: one day out of the fridge equals one week in the fridge). If you buy them off a shelf, it's suggested you throw them in the fridge fairly quickly if you don't know how fresh they are. As well, one generally shouldn't switch it up; if you buy them from a cooler, don't store them on the counter.

So next time I travel (or when I finally make the move back to Aus) I won't freak out about room-temperature eggs. While refrigeration keeps them good for longer, a few days on the counter won't hurt.

More reading:

http://www.sacbee.com/161/story/1817096.html

"The Neuroscience of McGriddles"

An interesting article from a great science blog, The Frontal Cortex, about how our brains love and crave calories.

From the article:
" Let's imagine, for instance, that some genius invented a reduced calorie bacon product that tasted exactly like bacon, except it had 50 percent fewer calories. It would obviously be a great day for civilization. But this research suggests that such a pseudo-bacon product, even though it tasted identical to real bacon, would actually give us much less pleasure. Why? Because it made us less fat. Because energy is inherently delicious. Because we are programmed to enjoy calories. "

I enjoy calories way too much.

Real food vs. Fake food

A great article comparing real foods to fake foods:

http://bit.ly/2njBA

(I know I've been away for a while, but I'll be back by the end of the week!)