Coming back from Thanksgiving weekend has been rough. My cousin had his engagement party on a cruise to the Bahamas, and after a weekend of warm weather, I am just not liking this cold winter feeling going on in Boston. 

I wanted something quick and hot to combat the cold. Since my oven still isn't working (and my management company is non-responsive), my options were somewhat limited. I remembered I had recently Evernoted* this recipe for a Paleo Chicken Stir Fry on The Healthy Foodie. I didn't have all of the ingredients, so I kind of improvised and ended up with something amazing. Literally. so. good. It tasted like really good Chinese food without the MSG. Who would have thought that to be possible?

*If you are not Evernoting or using a similar kind of app/add-on, you are stuck in Web 2.0 buddy. Get with it and start streamlining your digital life.

 
Two weeks ago, I received my first delivery from Boston Organics. When I came home and saw my box in the living room, my roommate actually said "I have never seen anyone this excited about produce before." Yes, I am a self-proclaimed dork. 
What is Boston Organics? It's a organic produce delivery service that sources from local New England farms when possible. You basically go online, sign up, fill out a "no-list" of items that you never want to receive, and then they send you a box weekly or biweekly of seasonal produce with some non-seasonal stuff mixed in. Their produce was so fresh. I had a bunch of lettuce that stayed fresh in my fridge for 2.5 weeks! Usually, lettuce that I buy from Whole Foods starts to wilt after about a week - and that's if I am lucky. Also having your groceries delivered to you is super convenient. For those of you in the Boston area, I would definitely recommend trying them out.

The first thing that I made with my produce was a Garlic Basil Mashed Sweet Potato Dish. It was beyond good. Since my oven didn't work, I had to boil the potatoes before mashing them, but you could just as easily roast them first.

 
Don't eat anything you aren't willing to kill yourself. - Lorene Lavora

Remember that time I started a blog and then neglected it for weeks on end? Yeah, well that happened. Whoops. Anyway, 2 weekends ago, Ishita came to visit me in Boston (some might call it our second aniversario after Buenos), and we went oyster shucking. Have you ever shucked an oyster? It doesn't just pop open, you gotta put your back into it.

Eating bivalves were actually the thing that convinced me that I should start eating meat again. I had just finished reading Eating Animals* by Jonathan Safran Foer and realized that the dairy and egg industry are one of the worst offenders of animal cruelty and unsustainable farming. Going vegan was simply not an option for me. I weigh 10 pounds. If I went vegan, I would literally disappear - not to mention half (or more) of my diet would consist of grains.

It was around that time that I read this post about eating seafood sustainably on Whole 9. I realized that eating meat didn't have to be a binary decision. Now that I was educated about the agricultural industry, I couldn't just close my eyes and turn around. So I started asking questions and learning the source of where my food was coming from. Is it annoying sometimes? It's not ideal, but it's what works for me.

*If you haven't read Eating Animals, I highly recommend it. It's written more as a story about Foer's investigation into the agricultural industry than a fact based expose, but very informative none the less.