Fauna's Anniversary

View the Fauna Foundation's blog for some lovely anniversary photos.

Karmavore offers one-of-a-kind vegan-friendly goods | Vancouver, Canada | Straight.com

Hey, our store got a little write up in the Georgia Straight. Good to see. We had a full page article in the local New Westminster paper and now this. It's all good.

Karmavore offers one-of-a-kind vegan-friendly goods | Vancouver, Canada | Straight.com

Rubber Ducky half results

Wow that was tougher than I thought. The race went pretty well. It's a nice loop around Burnaby lake (2 loops actually) on soft trail. I don't run on trail too often so this was a nice change, but also a challenging change. There were very few flat straight-aways.  I was always turning left or right, and going up or down. There was no extreme hills. The biggest climb was up about 7 steps to go over the dam.

It was a fun run, and my finisher medal is in the shape of a duck, which is cute and unique.

I also stopped by the Wildlife Rescue booth to chat with the volunteers and get some info. I signed up to volunteer, but we'll see because there is apparently a wait list to volunteer. I really hope I don't have to wait. I've always wanted to volunteer, but have hummed and hawed over what type of volunteer work I should do, and for whom. When I read about Wildlife Rescue there wasn't any doubt that this is what I wanted to do.

So here are my official results.

Final place: 83/230
Place in gender: 28/130
Place in div. (F 40-49. This is a new age division for me! Very exciting.): 7/43
Chip time: 1:57:47
k/pace: 5:35

Woohoo! I'm pretty happy with those results even though it's not even near my p.b. for the season. This run was tough for me!

Gigi and Prima. They're such darlings when they're relaxing. Although I do think Prima has a glint of mischief in her eye.

The Rubber Ducky half marathon is on! I registered yesterday for the event this Sunday (that's not too last minute is it?).

I went for a run after work last night and I felt great. Even though my hunger was just starting to nag at me, I went for a short, fast run up the hill, across David Ave for a bit before winding back down through some of the side streets. It felt great, and I was feeling very confident with my abilities for this weekend.

The Rubber Ducky half also raises money for Wildlife Rescue that looks after injured wildlife in the lower mainland area. Maybe you could support them by making a donation from the link on the Rubber Ducky half website. You will receive an electronic tax receipt as well.

As for running, I am still a little choked about not being able to run a full marathon. Right now I feel ready to go the distance, but I'm only half way in my training and the season is winding down. Seattle is just over a month away so that's not nearly enough time. Oh well.

The good news is that I'm positive about my running again. Or more specifically, I'm feeling running-fit again. That's a good place to be because it makes me less hesitant to go out and do it.

Now I'm wondering if I started my season too early last year. The Fort Langley Historic half was in February, and then I kind of pushed myself through March and April for the Vancouver half. By the time I got to the Scotiabank in June I was starting to feel less motivated. There are so many great races in the fall to prepare for that I need to consider for next season. If I can keep the momentum I have now then maybe I can take breaks through the spring and summer while thinking about a marathon for next fall.

Portland? I'd love to go to Portland. I'm sure I've mentioned it before.

Anywho...I'll see how the Rubber Ducky goes and then go from there.

Mushrooms again?

October is turning into the month of the chanterelle for us. db and I have been dry sauteeing them and then incorporating them into whatever meal we happen to be preparing that night.

We did give some chanterelles to our neighbours upstairs. After all they served us a nice snack of freshly made samosas.  

Here's a ring of chanterelles around our Sunday night pasta. They were very complimentary to the tomato sauce.

Comfort food

Double Root Veggie Burger with Rice cheese and fried and mushroom gravy.

I know I just recently posted a veggie burger photo, but I thought this required another look.  

Recently, I made this burger recipe with grated beets, carrots, squash and sunchokes, mixed together with almonds, nutritional yeast, and some seasonings. However, my first attempt resulted in burgers that were too moist to properly pan fry. I froze the remaining mixture.

This week I added some quinoa quick oats, oat bran, and then baked them in the oven. They turned out beautifully. I mixed up a lime, basil mayo for these burgers to give it an extra something. Not bad.

It was one of those nights when we were both tired and needed a quick meal. This meal did the trick. I used a shitake gravy mix from Road's End Organics. The ingredients are organic, and it basically has everything I would put in my gravy if making it from scratch. It's pretty good when you need something quick.

Well as it turns out I missed the VeganMofo deadline for submitting my blog address. Oh well. I won't be listed with the hundreds of other VeganMofoers, but I'll keep VeganMofoing through October anyway.

It's turning out to be MushMofo, the Mushroom Month of Food. We went out yesterday into the woods. pw came over from Nanaimo. We picked him up at the ferry and headed out to Golden Ears provincial park. We went there in the summer with my brother and his girlfriend, and the woods left an impression on me, especially when we came to the end of the trail out into the UBC research forest. I thought it'd be a good place to return to; an old growth forest full of possibilities and hardly viewed by others seemed right. Well, it didn't turn out as I'd hoped. Plus, the forest was so dry. We still haven't had a great amount of rain. The inedible mushrooms we did find were quite dried out.

db found some Angel Wings. They are like Oyster mushrooms. They were quite abundant in that area. After filling a paper bag half way with Angel Wings, we decided to head back to our house and the woods just behind our house. After all, db and I did find chanterelles there just last week. We had a little rain this week, but not much. However, we decided to head into the woods near our place.

We saw a lot of silver tufts throughout the park. This was the underside of an uprooted tree. 

pw liked the forest right away. He said it looked promising. We tried a few areas and then headed in the general direction that db and I had gone before. It didn't take long before the first chanterelles were found. 

It looks like a woodpecker has been working hard on this log. I get a little distracted when I'm supposed to be searching for mushrooms. 

We must have spent an hour in one area, searching it pretty thoroughly and filling our bags. pw saw another area he wanted to check out so we headed in that direction. Um...then he said he was starting to get a little disoriented. I knew I was for sure,  but was pretty certain we'd find our way out if we walked towards the sun. That's easier said than done when you're just beating around in the bush. I admit I got a little panicky, only because we were losing light.

We did find our way and as always we weren't that far from a trail that led out to the main road. Phew!

That night db and I cleaned up the mushrooms, that took longer than it did to collect them.

here's how we started

Cutting and brushing, cutting and brushing, we worked through our bags of mushrooms. It gave us a chance to make sure we really had all chanterelles as well. We did. There was one or two we were uncertain about so we tossed them.

 

This is what we ended up with! Chanterelle heaven. 

Guess what's for dinner. Baked squash stuffed with a mushroom rice filling, served with wild mushroom gravy. More photos to come.

more mofo

Something I've always wanted to do on my blog is include not just the special occasion meals, but my everyday food. Probably the reason I haven't done this yet is because it might be less "exciting" (if my blog can be exciting. The every day usually isn't).  So this is my morning breakfast.

I did make granola for the first time ever. There was a recipe in the Candle Cafe cookbook for granola that looked simple (could granola be any simpler?), and it was.

It tastes freshly toasted and has a nice crunch. I substituted my favorites for some of their ingredients. I opted for dried cranberries over raisins, and pecans over walnuts. I think I may have used agave as well instead of ??? I can't remember now. Or maybe I did half agave and half maple syrup.

As a kid in the 70s, my mom made her own granola. I remember her spreading it out on a cookie sheet and eating it warm from the oven, going for the bigger pieces of sweet rolled oats. I wasn't that crazy about eating it any other time, but I in retrospect I appreciate the work she put into making good food for us from scratch. I envied all my friends with their processed cheese sandwiches with miracle whip, and their Vachon Joe Louis or caramel cakes. I had whole grain bread with peanut butter, or real cheese & real mayo (I was a little non-vegan then), and some fruit of some kind, or maybe some homemade cookies. My lunches always felt so plain and unexciting.

Now I appreciate what my mom did. Because she made everything from scratch (including yogurt) while I was little, I learned about cooking even if I wasn't doing it myself. I learned that the best things are made in your own kitchen. 

What to do with a free day in my week? Bake cookies of course.

I thought I'd officially kick off my veganmofo with something sweet. Peanut Butter cookies were begging to be baked. We had a chocolate/peanut butter combo that db bought and didn't like once he tried it on his toast. It's been sitting in our cupboard for a while now, waiting to become a cookie. Finally, I faced a new cookie recipe, straying from my usual chocolate chip, and some sort of oatmeal & coconut combo. This cookie has it all. It has oatmeal, coconut (in oil form), peanut butter and chocolate chips.

They turned out pretty tasty. Not a bad start to veganmofo at all.

veganmofo!

I almost forgot! VeganMofo (vegan month of food) is here. I can't believe how long the list of participants is this year. Was it that long last year?

Anywho...at least I had my foody pictures up for last week. Now I've got veganmofo in mind so this month will be mostly about food.

That said, I'll divert away from food for a moment to talk about the great run I had yesterday. I went 16k and felt great.  It was a beautiful sunny fall day as well. My goal was to just go out and run with the ideal being a 16 k distance, but I put no pressure on myself. The time flew. This came after a horrible run the day before when I started to question my running and the reasons for it. That's never a good place to be. Fortunately, db was with me and talked me through it. We were out on the Pitt River dike. It was absolutely packed out there. There was some sort of biking event going on, but I'm not sure what so there was a steady stream of bike traffic.

Cat Shower 2 (Woody Style, very funny and cute) 修行猫ウッディーのシャワー2

I'm so glad my cats don't drink water like this. I've never seen anything like it.

A vegan in the woods

I praised the rainfall as it ruined my running days because I knew it was providing the forest with some much needed moisture that would get those mushrooms a-poppin'.

some more coral mushrooms, which seemed to be everywhere this time

I had been thinking all week about that spot we had found where the chanterelles were just starting to show. I knew we'd easily find that spot again, and we did. The signs were good. I actually found a chanterelle not far from the main path just as we headed further into the forest. That seemed too easy, but I took it as a good sign. However, when we returned to our spot there was not one chanterelle to be found. We rooted around a bit until I got a little discouraged. We weren't finding much of the edible variety. We found what I think was a nice Boletus mirabilis, but it had a powdery white spot on it. It was still nice to identify.

Sulfur tuft. It looked almost like it glowed in the forest with its yellowy-greenish and translucent cap. No chanterelles?

db and I saw some other people with a bag in hand and knew that this place was probably well picked over.

We headed up a hill and into the forest, looking for the right trees. It didn't take long. db spotted the first chanterelle, and then we were both finding them as we made our way through the forest. We found one particular spot that had a long row of them poking through the moss. It was very exciting. 

 

 

freshy dug up and ready for the journey home. 

There are enough mushrooms in the forest for everyone!

The sun was getting low, and I felt we had reaped enough for one outing, but again I know that that particular forest is full of chanterelles. We headed back down the hill through the brush, and were pleased with our bag being fairly heavy with nothing but chanterelles.

We are just now about to sit down and eat them. I'll let you know how they turn out, but I think you already know what my take on them will be. 

 Prima poses with the mushrooms. 

 

 ready to be dry sauteed and served with pasta

A yummy week

Taco time. I came home from work one night and had a craving for homemade tortillas.

 

They're so simple to make and so delicious. db made a refried black bean filling and we added sliced avocado, spicy enchilada sauce, and lettuce to complete the tacos. We also tried it with teese nacho sauce. The teese sauce was okay. I never ate nacho cheese when I was vegetarian, or ever, so this nacho sauce idea was a little foreign to me. I prefer the firmer style teese cheeses. 

 

Next new vegan cheese to try was the delicious daiya. We made pizza. db make separate crusts since I prefer a gluten free crust. Then we top our pizzas with our favorite veggies that are barely visible under that cheesey covering. The daiya melts really well and it's taste is superiour to all others. I actually prefer it uncooked, sprinkled over some pasta.

My next food adventure this week was to make my own burgers. We had fresh beets in the fridge from pw's garden and I was searching for something new to do with beets (something other than borscht, or roasted beets. or grated or sliced thinly into a salad). I came across a burger recipe in our rebar cookbook. Grated beets, carrots, sunchokes, and squash (these last two I subbed for some other veggies) are blended with almonds (recipe calls for hazelnuts, but I had to use what I had on hand), nutritional yeast, tarragon, garlic, and onions. There were some other seasonings in there as well.

These burgers were fantastic! I also seasoned a little vegenaise (the vegan answer to mayo, which is oh so good!) with lime and tarragon. The picture only tells a piece of the story. We were so impressed with these burgers that we had seconds, which is something we never do, but since we had a little salad on the side we had room for more. They were delicious.

I don't have photos of the stir fry or the apple pie db made, but sometimes I just get carried away eating that I forget to take photos.

More Mushrooms

It's the first time we went into a nearby park to look for mushrooms. We've walked and run in that park many times, but have never looked for mushrooms. Since going out with pw, we have a better idea of where to look (i.e. what trees to look for -- just as mister anchovy said about how you need to learn about the trees of the forest). After rooting around for a little while we started to find chanterelles. They were mostly pretty small, but were expecting a week of rain so we'll head back in there next weekend.

I found some coral mushrooms for the first time. That was exciting (the picture is not mine). We let them be along with a lot of the chanterelles since they were small and just starting to get going.

We collected some others to identify (mostly inedible) and called it a day.

There were lots of people in the park walking their dogs. The dogs were very curious about these two people rustling around off the path and several came to check us out (even though it is a dog on leash area). I had my bear bell on not only to alert any bears of our presence, but also so we did not startle people or dogs with the sound of rustling in the forest not far from the trail. I also carried my bear spray just in case (for an aggressive bear not the people of course).

I hope next week proves to be fruitful.

Run Vegan Run

I'm finally feeling fit again, running fit that is. It was really only a week that I didn't run, but it was long enough for me to feel out of the routine of it. Then it took some time to build up again. I felt like I had to build up my endurance again, which is frustrating because I was getting tired at the 10k mark. It's kind of like hitting a wall for a long run, except I would go home at 10k and not try to run through the wall. That may have been my problem, and why it took so long to feel running fit again.

I got into a good groove this week of running in the mornings, and I feel ready for a nice and easy long run now. I'm excited about a long run in the morning, maybe incorporate some trail -- the Coquitlam River Trail if I feel like going the distance. That trail is just that much further now from where we use to live. There were a couple of bears in the area yesterday so I want to avoid the trails around our house, but I guess it doesn't really matter since bears can appear anywhere around where we live.

I'm a little disappointed that I can't do the Whistler Spirit run this weekend and I'm also missing the Trail River Run, which I've done twice. I'm not ready for a half and even the 10k option didn't seem possible. Well, I guess the streets and trails will be a little quieter tomorrow morning as people participate in these events.

On the map now is the Burnaby half in October. I'm aiming for that so we'll see how it goes tomorrow and then I'll go from there. I can't do the Seattle Marathon, as I may have already mentioned, but I will aim for the half, and then try to get in a full marathon next season. Gotta log those miles, or those kilometers.

Chanterelles! We had some success on the weekend. db and I went to Nanaimo to visit with pw. He took us to a few of his spots where he's found chanterelles and lobster mushrooms before. The woods are still very dry so the season is quite late this year, but we were able to find some. Here are the chanterelles we brought home. They really shrink down quite a bit once cooked. We dry cooked them as my field guide (All that the Rain Promises and More) suggests. They were very tasty and it makes me want to get out there and find some more.
I forgot to take pictures of the lobster mushrooms. Fortunately I had just read mister anchovy's blog on how to prepare lobster mushrooms and that helped us. Thanks mister anchovy!

Nanaimo was nice. We took a little hike on Mt. Benson. pw has some knee trouble so we had to be careful about climbing too much. It was a beautiful day and it's a nice hike.

This really was the best way (I think).

In other food notes. Saturday evening we finally got around to celebrating db's birthday, which was actually on the 15th. We needed time for his dinner since we wanted to make ravioli. db made a squash, mushroom, chard, and taragon filling. Then we went to work. I made the dough and db rolled out the dough while I filled the ravioli. We make a good team.                                                               

We made enough to freeze for another time, and enough to take some to pw as well. I hope he enjoyed it.

What! September 16th! Where did those two weeks go? Work, work, work is where the time went.

Okay it wasn't all work. I did have two days in a row on the labour day weekend. We did go for a walk in a local park with some intention on looking for mushrooms, but we didn't see much. There was a nice trail around this small pond though that made for a nice easy walk. 

We found some puff mushrooms that were beyond their eating stage, but when pressed little puffs of brown spores came out of the top. We also found a cauliflower mushroom that was sizeable. We took a sample home to do a better ID on it. I actually found a couple of black chanterelles, which I never thought I'd spot in the woods and didn't really know existed until I started to identify it. One I found looked a bit past its prime and the other one was tiny so I left it alone. They are supposed to be quite good though.

I love the west coast trees. Of course this whole area was heavily logged. Many of the stumps left behind still have the springboard markings in them. This is where slots were cut out of the lower trunk and a springboard was set up so the loggers could stand on them and cut away with their axes.

This side of the park is quite nice because it's a little less travelled than the beach side of the park. It would make a nice running trail actually. 

Last weekend we were planning on going to P's for a little mushroom walk (he's more of a pro and I want to learn what I can from him), but he called to say that the forests were still pretty dry. The summer was so dry, and our fall hasn't produced much rain either. So we decided to delay our trip for another week. Then hopefully he'll come to the mainland to poke around here. We've probably had a little more rain than Nanaimo.

***

What else have I been doing?
Of course I'm running again. It's very frustrating having to take a week off. I feel like I've lost some of my momentum, but I'm slowly gaining that back.

I had a great run along the inlet one evening after work. I ran the trail the whole way. It was sunny and not too warm; the weather was perfect running weather. That run really motivated me. Tonight I ran near the inlet, but had one of those sluggish runs. My legs felt heavy and I could never get into a groove. Sometimes it's just tougher. I'll see how it goes Friday on my long run.

I need to keep running because with the feeling of fall in the air, I've been baking. I've been baking cookies, muffins,  and even a cake (for db's birthday).

These are the lemon poppyseed muffins I made. They turned out beautifully. What is it about lemon and poppyseed that goes together so well?

Light at the End of the Tunnel

Sorry about yesterday. Did I sound defeated? I felt defeated. Today I had a better day.

I was a bit freaked about going to work shuffling around in pain, which would make for an even more miserable day. Before I woke up this morning I had a dream that I woke up and my toe was 80% better and I had no pain. Then I actually woke up and was still in pain. However, once I got moving around and bandaged myself up I felt okay about going to work. Half way through the day my foot felt considerably better. By the end of the day I was tired, but my foot was starting to move with much more ease. I'm certainly not ready to run, but at least I'm not afraid to go for a walk.

Vegan Runner Sidelined

The fall running season looked good. Being a month into my marathon training I was feeling pretty good, and was being careful about my mileage increases, sticking to the 10% to try and avoid injuries. I had started to make decisions about shorter events before the big race that could be used as training; this is a way to keep motivated and make the whole process more fun. Everything was starting to take shape.

You know what's happened. The cat shenanigans have sidelined me. My foot is going to take a long time to heal. More specifically my toe is struggling to heal. After being on my feet most of the day at work, I felt like I'd just run a marathon by the time I reached home last night. db has been taking good care of me, making sure I stay put with my foot up and resting. I don't have full flex in my toes because too much flex makes it feel like my toenail is separating from my toe, which is probably what is happening. My poor little toe (actually it's the big toe).

Today I called work to say I wouldn't be in because the thought of putting on a shoe and shuffling to work made me shudder. I felt like I needed a day to really rest my foot and do very little walking, someplace where no shoes and no socks are required.

A co-worker said to me "A runner injuring their toe must be like a piano player injuring a finger." I was in denial when he said, but he was right.