Pecan Pie

The A/V job was well worth doing. The memorial was very heartfelt and John did the work while I helped him with cameras and the sound. There was a huge gathering, too, of family, friends, and the community around the family. The support was palpable. It was good to do. 

And, for the first time in two years, John and I went to a neighborhood party in the afternoon/evening. They were a vegetarian/vegan household, but we knew they ate eggs. So I made a pecan pie.

Of course, it started with the pecans.

When we were going through Texas, John and I stopped at two different pecan "stores". One was far more interested in selling any tourist anything they might happen to want from Texas.

The second, just off the side of the highway in Chillicothe, TX, was actually trying to sell pecans. There were signs all through town saying, "We buy pecans." So I guess there are a lot of pecan trees in the area, but these were from the Valley Pecan orchard, or so they say and all the nuts were very uniform, had nice, thin shells, and were really really tasty. The bags and signs said that they were this season's nuts, so it was good to get ten pounds of them.

I love pecans. And the Harris family were saying that Ukranian Povitica, at in their town and community of Ukranian Americans was actually made, by their grandmother, with pecans, not black walnuts, because in the more southern part of the state, pecans were cheap and readily available.

I'm going to try a Strawberry Hill bakery povitica before trying to bake one, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to have the ingredients, and they were talking about their grandmother actually grinding the nutmeats in a meat grinder to make it an even chop to spread between the layers.

I want to try doing that.

But, for today, I just made pecan pie. John and I shelled the nuts last night, and I put the dough together last night. It's about one third whole wheat in the crust, and instead of using shortening, I use coconut oil. It's got a different melting point, but there's no water in it; so the result is pretty close. It's a good, short crust, with good layering, so it's crisp but not hard. 

People liked it at the party, so I was pretty happy. They had ping pong and corn hole as a competition between party goers; but the hosts also have a lovely little labyrinth in their backyard! I've loved it, and seen it for the last few years, and wondered about it. So I walked it this afternoon and the hostess was so happy to see me do that. I love the meditativeness of slowly going through a labyrinth, and she invited me to come over and walk it whenever I want to. So I may well do that.

The practice of being present and mindful is always good to do. It's like anything else, the more practice one has, the easier it becomes. 

I realized, another part of the "diet" that John and I have is that I really try to eat mindfully. It may seem odd to say, but a single bite that I fully experience, satisfies my needs. I had pretty much four good bites of pecan pie and it was plenty for me. Food is comfort in a very fundamental way. It literally sustains us. So it's no surprise that people turn to food for comfort and succor when they're anxious or feel stressed. But eating a lot of something simply to possess it, to have it, rather than to experience it often leads to eating a lot more than is needed. On the trip, John and I shared most of our restaurant entrees, and only bought sides when we really wanted them, often avoiding the "meals" that had all the sides, simply because we didn't want to eat them all. And with my tooth bothering me, I had to take the time to chew every bite and when it was something I wanted, to really savor it. It gave me the time to assess how full I was, too.  And I ended up losing another two pounds over the two weeks.

It was really funny, because during the Council meeting, when I couldn't get my camera to work for a bit, someone was saying they'd been following our pictures on Facebook and wondered how many pounds we'd gained on that trip. And I couldn't just say, "Uhm. Well, I actually lost weight..."

But it was so good to get exactly the things we really wanted to eat and then enjoy them thoroughly, without overeating them. I was so happy to share six oysters with John, we each ate three and stopped, or sharing a bowl of etouffee and grits, when the lady taking the order didn't think that was nearly enough for us. It was plenty. *laughs* There are a lot of social pressures and profit pressures at restaurants to get us to overeat, but it's nice to be with someone else who doesn't care to succumb to those pressures and just get what we really want. 

Sometimes, for me, it's important to remember that I *get* to eat healthy. I have the privilege of choosing to eat less all the time, because I'm wealthy enough to get just what I need. So I get to choose to eat less sugar, less fat, more fresh vegetables, and what meats I deem appropriate.