An EPIC Ethiopian food (mis)adventure

There are times when you find yourself starving for a new experience in life. Something you've never done before...something crazy, spontaneous, and badass....something that makes you feel alive. Those leap-of-faith adventures often end up being the most memorable experiences you ever have...for better or for worse.

Well, last night my friend Michelle and I decided to take one of those bold steps, into the unexplored world of Ethiopian food. And this experience was definitely memorable.

(I should probably insert a caveat into this blog before I continue. I am not making ANY sweeping statements about Ethiopian food in general, because I'm sure given the right restaurant with the right dish, it can be incredibly yummy. It just so happened that this particular experience was, um, not the greatest introduction to it...)

So I'd had my eye on this Ethiopian restaurant downtown for awhile now. It's got one of the highest reviews on urbanspoon.com (96% favourable. That's HUGE.) But I just hadn't had an opportunity to go there yet. Then, last night, Michelle and I made plans to meet...for dinner...right in that area. It was perfect! I felt her out with a few options and then casually brought up the Ethiopian restaurant to see how she'd react. "Ooooh, let's try that!" she exclaimed enthusiastically. A fellow risk-taker - YES! I smiled, being reminded that I have fabulous kindred spirit friends. We set off to find the place.

After some searching, we finally arrive at a not-so-cool 5:15pm...seemingly well before the clientelle tends to arrive at this restaurant, because we're quite literally the only people there. The waitress rushes out, finally noticing there are clients. We tell her we'd never had Ethiopian food before. This might have been a mistake, in hindsight. But we were kind of riding the "we're doing something random" high at the time. Anyway, we picked out a nice table in the corner of the restaurant, right by the window.

I can't pinpoint the exact moment...but I think that high must have peaked sometime just before we looked at the menu, and begun to follow a steady declining trajectory from there. Oh boy. I don't recognize any of these menu items! Neither did she. Hmmm. Okay. I'd read online that it was a good idea to try one of the sampling platters if you'd never tried Ethiopian food before, to get a good idea of what the cuisine is like in general. I suggest this to Michelle. "Surrrrrrrre, why not?" she replies willingly. So we go with the veggie and meat platter. Then the waitress asks us which veggies and meat we want. "Uhhhhhh". "Ummmmm". What are our choices? She lists a few. We deliberate with subtle raised eyebrows aimed at one another, mildly uncertain of these unusual choices. We choose the safest options, which are chickpeas, lentils and spinach for veggies (at least we'd heard of all of those), and beef and lamb for meat.

Some time passes. The suspense builds.

Then the food arrives.

We both stare at it with great intrigue. This is certainly interesting. First of all, there are no knives, forks, spoons, chopsticks, or cutlery of ANY kind involved. Instead, there are four rolls of what look like crepes sitting on a plate. Apparently the technique is just to scoop all of the meat and veggies up with these. We each pick one up. We try a small bite. I look up at Michelle, who has professed herself to be quite sensitive to odd food textures. I wonder if she's feeling the same way about them that I am - to me they're kind of like wet crepes with a weird flavour. "Well these are... different!" I say optimistically, trying to put a positive spin on things. She agrees, although I can tell she's also not the biggest fan. Okay, well, maybe with the rest of the food on them the taste won't be as strong, right?

Then we turn our attention to the main dish: the veggies and meat. This has arrived in the form of a giant platter, with piles of each thing on top of...a giant version of those rolled up crepes. 

Some other interesting observations: The vegetables are all creamed. There is what looks like a greek salad in the middle of the platter. The beef (to my uninformed Canadian eyes) kind of looks like taco beef. I look up at Michelle again. We give each other a knowing look. Ohhhhhhboy. Here goes nothing.

We start to try to sample each of the foods. I quickly learn that the beef is hot enough to set my tongue on fire. Luckily this is NOT a problem for Michelle (who's got a spice tolerance so high she could easily eat a whole scotch bonnet pepper and not even notice the heat.) Okay. We try the lamb. It's not bad. We try the veggies. We both come to the realization that creamed chickpea, spinach OR lentil is not our favourite version of any of these foods. But mainly, we start to struggle because we're forced to eat EVERYTHING with these crepes. It's like eating salad with pancake.... it just doesn't fit! (At least, not for our unaccustomed Western tastebuds...). We try to combine the stuff and make a wrap out of it. That doesn't help. We try it individually again...nope. Our eyes are getting wider. The waitress comes over. She enthusiastically asks us how we like the food. We politely answer "it's good!", not wanting to insult their dish. She leaves. We look at each other. And... we start to crack up. Uncontrollably.

It's hilarious. It's like something out of Seinfeld. Here we are, the only two people in the restaurant, conspicuous as hell, doomed to try to figure out what to do with this giant platter of food we barely even want to look at now, let alone consume. We continue to laugh hysterically as we start trying to strategize about how we're going to at least make it look like we've made a dent in the food. "I'll take the beef, you tackle the lamb" Michelle suggests. I agree. I start to eat it with the crepe, as does she. But we both give up on that strategy rather quickly....because we just can't take anymore of the crepe. So we start to eat with our fingers instead. "Never did I think I would find myself in a situation where I would be eating lamb like popcorn", I admit to Michelle. We nibble away, but it's not really helping to make the plate less full. So we start to look around at the table for alternative strategies. I wonder if we could hide some of it under the candle. Michelle casually starts to spread the creamed veggies around the plate to thin everything out. We attempt to cover some of it up with leftover pieces of crepe. We've resorted to the same strategies used by two-year-olds around the world. Eventually, we decide we've done well enough to make it look like we just both have incredibly small appetites, but not that we didn't want to touch the food. The waitress returns. "You guys are so happy!" she observes. It's true. We might have set a world record for amount of laughter during a dinner. She asks how it's going. She looks down at the plate. "Are you done?" she asks, unsure. "Yes", we reply. "How was it?" she asks. "Good!" "It was very different from anything we've had before!" I add, attempting to infuse a hint of honesty into our response. She takes the plate away.

And Michelle and I breathe an incredibly loud sigh of relief, which probably could have been heard on the other side of town. We head back to the Eaton Centre and buy ourselves some Starbucks drinks, craving the taste of familiar flavours.

Yup... those leap-of-faith, spontaneous adventures are always memorable, all right.

xo Janine

Weight training and a pint o' beer

Well, I'm not going to lie, friends... keeping up with a healthy lifestyle has become significantly more difficult since I found out about my job. Now it seems there are a million and one things to get done before I start (where were all of those things while I was free, unemployed, and bored to death on a daily basis?) Odds and ends to tie up are popping up in every corner of my life. I find myself grabbing granola bars as I run out of the house to run errands, which is a far cry from the delicacies (aka butternut squash soups, baked pita chips, and fancy salads) I was whipping up when I started this whole thing. This has made one thing quite clear to me: I'm going to need to plan ahead and come up with simple, easy strategies to keep healthy once I start work...because if it's too much work, it's not going to happen. I can idealize my meal and workout plan until I'm blue in the face, but it's a fail waiting to happen unless it's realistic and time-efficient. So I'll be desperately looking for a few hours over the next few days for some strategy time, when I can sit down and figure out how I'm going to be healthy on a restricted schedule.

In other news, as you all know, I googled away searching for some viable workout tips for weeks, and often came away more confused than I was when I started. Like is so often the case, I was blatantly missing the most obvious solution to my befuddlement (yes, I just said befuddlement)....which was to pick my friend Michele's brain, who also happens to be a personal trainer, about the secrets to workout success over a pint of Rickard's Red. This brilliant idea came about largely by accident (the beer came first, then the workout discussion just kinda happened), and guess what I came away with? Straight answers! Easy solutions! Usable tips! A simple conversation with a knowledgeable person proved far more effective than google ever could (take THAT google, the supposed "gold standard" answerer of all queries). Let this be a lesson to us all: humans are still way better than computers.

Anyway, I learned that I should ideally be lifting weights every other day for maximal success. I learned that I should be doing a mixture of isolated and compound exercises, particularly at first, as my body gets used to working out (since compound exercises are more effective, but more difficult). I learned that eating half an hour after a workout is important, and protein bars are a good snack idea for that. These are just some of the gems of info I gained from the expert. Now, the trick will be to make it happen. I'm considering how I can start doing more workouts at home. This might prove to be extremely important as far as time saving goes, since going to the gym four times a week while working full time seems incredibly ambitious (and quite likely impossible.)

Before I sign off, there's just one more thing I'd like to say, folks: thanks so much from the bottom of my heart for all of the well wishes and congratulations about my job. The only thing better than getting a job is being surrounded by people who are genuinely happy for you. And to those of you who are still looking, I have this to say: I know each and every one of you, and you're all brimming with your own unique talents, skills and abilities. So keep looking, keep the faith, and the rest will take care of itself! :-)

xo Janine

Workin' Girl.

Well, the day has finally arrived for me to take a leap of faith into the unknown. If before I was staring out into an open field with a sense of wonder, possibility and a dash of fear... today I'm picking a direction, shrugging my shoulders with a "here goes nothing" attitude, and taking that first step.

As of December 1, I officially become a working girl.

Like with most things in life, this opportunity presented itself in a rather unexpected way. Feeling frustrated and unmotivated about 3 weeks ago, I was just leaving the house to be screened for a diabetic research study at UHN by a doctor I've known for years. Before I left, my foresightful mother suggested, "why not ask him if he knows of any job opportunities?" I shook my head and muttered "I doubt it", explaining to her that I was pretty sure any job opportunities would be posted on the UHN website, which I'd already checked millions of times. "Well, it's worth a try, isn't it?" she persisted. I shrugged. I left. I reflected on it on the way there. By the time I arrived, I realized she was right (mothers often are). This defeatist attitude was not going to get my where I wanted to go. I would be the facilitator of my own unfortunate fate if I didn't use every connection I had at my disposal to try to make something happen for myself. "Okay. Let's give this a shot." I thought, as I walked in to see him.

Three weeks later, I found myself sitting in the office of a prominent UHN nephrologist, agreeing to a one-year full-time contract as a research associate/occupational therapist consultant for a new project studying the functional outcomes of geriatric clients on dialysis.

Life always teaches you the lessons you need to learn the most, when you need to learn them the most. I'm reminded of this repeatedly as circumstances like the one above turn out as they do. If life had a voice, here's what it said to me: First of all, never say never. I almost did. It would have been a colossal mistake. You find what you're looking for in the most unexpected of places, so never stop looking, and never give up hope. Second of all, listen to the advice of people around you. Open yourself up. Let it change you, influence you, and help you grow. I almost got stuck in the rut of my own mind... but at any given moment, someone may be more enlightened than you are and ready to shine a light onto your situation, helping you to wake up yourself. And finally...be grateful, and take credit for nothing. It's so tempting to assume responsibility for both the good and bad things that happen in your life...but where would I be without my mother's suggestion, my doctor's incredibly helpful act of spreading my CV around to his colleagues, my incredible OT preceptor references (who first of all enabled me to develop the skills I currently have thanks to their support, encouragement, openness and guidance, and then went to bat for me by providing humbling reports about me to my prospective employer)? I would be nowhere. It would not have happened as it did. Life is a cascading series of interactions between people and things, and you never single-handedly do ANYthing. So be grateful when it goes well, and forgiving of yourself when it doesn't.

(Thank you, life, for whispering that into my ear when I needed it the most.)

Now here I stand, about to take that first step. I feel a million different ways about it, and they seem to come in waves: Grateful. Nervous. Excited. Confident. Inexperienced. Uncertain. I'm going to be spearheading this project... expected to provide OT insights, suggestions and perspective, tweaking and influencing the overall direction it takes based on my "expertise" in function, while also coordinating and carrying out the whole thing according to sound research design and principles. It's a huge task. Not your typical well-defined OT role that would provide some measure of comfort to a new graduate. It's terrifying. But, well... it's also an incredible opportunity, that I need to honour, appreciate and embrace. So I'll wholeheartedly attempt to welcome the unknown with open arms, all the while reminding myself  that no matter what happens, life will be teaching me what I need to know, when I need to know it. All I have to do is listen and learn...

xo Janine

The Green Monster

Well, I'm pleased to report that I've already downed two spinach shakes since my last blog, thanks to a much-appreciated recipe and a boyfriend willing to drive to the ends of the earth to find almond milk for me at 11:30pm (to my shock and dismay, the Loblaw's closest to my house doesn't carry it. Nor does the Loblaw's second-closest to my house. I know right? They have room for an entire organic food section, but not a single carton of almond milk...L-A-M-E.)

Anyway, I was excited to try my very first one yesterday morning. A little too excited, actually. In fact, it was my main motivation for getting out of bed before 9am. I bounced out of bed, made my way into the kitchen, and gathered the ingredients:

2 handfuls of spinach
1 banana
3 ice cubes
1 cup almond milk
1 spoonful some kind of nut butter (in my case I went with Nutella over peanut butter...subconsciously, I feel it was because I was trying to compensate for what I thought the taste of the rest of the ingredients would turn out to be.)

I carefully loaded them into the blender, in the order the recipe instructed (liquids first...then ice...then spinach...then banana). I took a long, hard look at it all sitting in there for a minute, reflecting on the fact that this whackball mixture of ingredients would soon be sitting in my stomach. "Oh well...here goes nothing!" I optimistically thought to myself. Then I pressed the "blend" button.

I watch my blender skillfully turn this weird salad into a green milkshake. And I mean BRIGHT green. The kind of green that made my entire family gasp as I entered my dining room with it. "What IS that?!?!" asks my mother in disgust. "It's a spinach shake", I say casually, as if I'm already an expert on the subject. "Get that away from me! Even the thought of it is making me feel ill" responds my mother. My sister is gazing at it with intrigue, while my dad is quietly laughing. I'm not sure if my mother is joking or not, so I try to clarify: "Really? I can drink it in the other room, if you'd like...." "No, it's fine..." she says "....but that is just gross." She makes one more face, and then goes back to reading the newspaper. This commotion makes me feel like even more of a champ, for taking the leap into the unknown and bravely going where no Farragher has gone before. Then I realize I haven't actually tried it yet. "Well, here it goes" I announce... my family looks back up and watches, in horror, as I take the first sip. "Hmmm." I say. I lick my lips. I process it for a second. "Not bad. Not bad at all!" I report to them that just as the recipe said, you really can't taste the spinach. Personally, I find the almond milk taste too strong. But otherwise, it tastes just like a creamy banana smoothie. No problem!

Today I had another one. This time I adjust the ingredients slightly:

2 handfuls of spinach
1 banana
1/2 cup almond milk
1/2 cup regular milk
4 ice cubes
1 half-spoonful nutella

Much better. This morning, without being overpowered by almond milk, I actually enjoy it. I drink the entire blender-ful again, smiling to myself as I think about the vast array of nutrients I'm downing in the process. Tomorrow, I'll try peanut butter instead of nutella to see if I can up the health-value of it even more (by downing the sugar content). But hey...this is a good start.

Until next time,
Janine

Back to Business.

As I glance over the last two weeks of posts here, I can't help but notice that I've veered a wee bit off topic. Slightly carried away with the 'quarter life crisis' theme, I somehow started to tragically neglect the healthy living thing. Not that I haven't been sticking with the cause. Yes, there have been a few lapses amidst the exam cramming and grad celebrations (how could I refuse a piece of my own grad cake?), but for the most part I've still been steering well clear of sugary, fatty foods, and trying to get in a few servings of fruits, veggies, and whole grains everyday. The gym received less love than usual over the past couple weeks, but I still went at least 2 times a week. Not bad. But now there are less than 4 weeks left in the healthy living phase, and I'm determined to finish this off as strong as I started. Which means it's time to get back to business.

I've decided to reincorporate cardio into my workout regime. Sure, lifting weights is important, but I think I got a little carried away there trying to turn myself into Rambo. As long as I'm eating well and doing some balanced exercise, things will take care of themselves, right? My first order of business is going grocery shopping, since there isn't a whole lot to work with around here at the moment. I plan on trying out these supposedly miracle spinach shakes, which I heard about through this website:

Go to the fit2fat2fit website

This guy, insane as he is, was a personal trainer with an incredible body...who decided to let himself go completely for 6 months (no exercise and eat-what-you-want diet), and then get himself back in shape, to show people how it's done and inspire his clients. He's currently just reached the end of the 'getting fat' phase and is just starting to get himself back in shape now. Guy packed on 70 pounds in 6 months. Check out the pictures.

WOW. Looks like a different person! Anyway, he advocates for having one of these spinach shakes every day, swearing it tastes good and is healthy as healthy gets. I'll give it a try. (With suspicion. Spinach in a drink just doesn't sound right.)

Until next time,
Janine

As the dust settles.

What can only be described as an insanely intense two weeks finally reached its culmination yesterday, with our OT graduation and convocation ceremonies. I feel like I just lived through a month's worth of experiences in 5 days. First, I drove a good 2 hours total to Richmond Hill and back on Friday night to pick up Canan (who moved into my nearly-downtown house for 2 nights knowing how impossible commuting back and forth would be). Then with a tragic lack of foresight, we grabbed Tim's on our way home and thereby completely murdered our chances of getting a good night's sleep before our registration exam. Then we awoke at 6:00am and headed down to write it. It went, well, about as well as a registration exam with 2 years worth of material on it COULD go. There were a few easy ones... a few wtf ones... and a lot of in-between ones that forced me to rely heavily on successive approximations and guesstimating. I'm not ashamed to admit I heard several voices in my head during the exam, as I summoned the opinions of various classmates, profs and preceptors alike to give me the right answers (unfortunately they knew exactly the same things I did. Darn.)

Then we rushed home, caught a few quintessential z's, put ourselves through an ultra-high-speed beauty regimen, and ran right back out to our grad formal. I don't remember a whole lot of it (sure sign of a good night), but the highlights included trying to catch tea bags on my head, busting a move with several professors, belting out the backstreet boys at the top of my lungs, and telling nearly ever person in the room how much I love them. Or so I'm told by friends and photographs alike. Unfortunately good nights like these turn into NOT such good mornings. I woke up feeling like I'd been hit by a truck, so Canan and I went for a looooooooong walk to try to walk it all off. Sorta worked. CRAZY WEEKEND.

Monday barely felt like it's own day since I was just preparing myself for Tuesday, which was our graduation and convocation day. It was a whirlwind of ceremonies, speeches, handshaking, thank-you's, and...well, see you laters. Barely had time to process it all as it was happening, but as I lay down that night to sleep, it kind of it hit me...wow. That's it. It's really over. Two years has passed, and now's the time that people head back to lead their respective lives. To become OTs. It's a crazy thought. The past two years have been so jam-packed with experiences that have pushed me well beyond my comfort zones, into territories I didn't even know I could navigate. And man, have I ever learned a lot. About people, about life, about myself. And surrounded by 75 of the most incredible people, who put together have so much talent...so much ambition...passion....drive...intelligence... caring.  It's always almost felt surreal to place myself in their company. And yet, our diversity of skills and experiences is what made us so awesome as a collective. Sure, we had our moments. But we went through a LOT together, and it's incredible how well we did, considering. So many life lessons I'll take away from these two years, but I think my favourite is just that...it's okay to struggle sometimes. It's okay to have a bad day. It's okay to not know. It's okay to feel uncertain, inadequate, or underprepared. And it's okay to ask for help. We're stronger together than we ever could be as individuals.

And so, as the journey draws to a close, I set out to do what I did throughout the program... which is write a mildly ridiculous poem that sums everything up. OT class of 2011, this one's for you.

THE JOURNEY'S END

Well my friends, the journey ends...it's hard to say, I know

I feel like I just met you... where does time tend to go?

Two years ago we stumbled on into 500 U

And we didn't know back then what we were getting ourselves into

So we lived through months of theories, yes, we could write a book

And we know about the lenses that we're going to use to look

Anatomy will never leave us, there's nowhere to hide

Our notes will smell forevermore just like formaldehyde

We survived the journey learning all those neuro tracts

The hours spent in study rooms that we'll never get back

And we know never to call things splints' cause they're really orthoses

Or we'll have to answer to the queen herself, Ms. Pat McKee

We know that all that people need are a house, a job, a friend

And that turning to your partner is quite the common trend

We can all build things like engineers (well almost, anyway)

And we can manual muscle test your @ss right on through the day

We're soldiers of enablement, they've trained us pretty well

And we've got enough acronyms that we'll never have to spell

CPPF, CAOT, COTO and CMOP-E

We got to know these bad boys way too intimately

Yes my friends, the time has come for us to close the book

On papers, tests and presentations, YAY, we're off the hook!

Now we've got the savviness to take on anything

And when someone asks what OT is, you'll know which song to sing...

So as the tables turn now, we're on the other side

And I guess it's our turn now, to lead and teach and guide

We still don't have a clue which way our river's gonna flow...

But I hope it takes you all the places that you wanna go.

xo Janine

Not dead, just cramming.

A quick update: I'm still alive. (Am I fully awake? That's another matter.) M.I.A. status due to national OT registration exam being this saturday, which is causing a mild bout of free-floating, undirected anxiety since there's too much to study, too little time, and way too many reports that studying isn't all that helpful anyway. Still, I'm trying to pack some kind of information in my head, which at the very least might give me some extra confidence come Saturday morning. Miraculously, maintaining healthy eating habits fairly well during this cram-fest (I even survived halloween relatively unscathed), and keeping up with work out schedule. Promise to get back into the full swing of blogging once this exam is over and done with! (And to my fellow exam writers, good luck!! We will not become the 1%....of U of T grads who fail this exam.)

xo Janine