Valerie Times Day Blog Number 1

I once had a goal to write a blog about myself every Valentine's Day. I "started" this tradition in 2015 and then failed to keep it for the next two years, which means I've never actually kept it at all. But in the interest of infusing some life into my languishing personal blog, I hereby make the effort to write about Valerie for Valentine's Day 2018.

The question is, what? I could write about what I wore for Valentine's Day, but that's already been done. Instead, I'll write about my Mardi Gras.

I've never done much for Mardi Gras. Never celebrated or dressed in its traditional colors or eaten paczki, even back when I lived in Toledo and everyone knew what they were. But this year, the feast fell the day before Valentine's Day, so I was already in the partying spirit when my boyfriend discovered a Mardi Gras celebration was being held down at the Wharf in DC.

He found out about it on Monday, which didn't give me much time to prepare. And in my book, a party's only worth attending if I can make some extravagant outfit to wear to it, so as soon as I got home from work, I set about making Mardi Gras mask. I used the white masquerade mask last seen at my friend's black and white party, and decorated it with green, gold, and purple glitter, topping it off with some gold plastic gemstones I salvaged from an old purse. I dyed the ostrich feather purple, but unfortunately that seemed to permanently alter its composition, so it ended up a little scraggly. Sorry, ostrich feather!

Still, I'd managed to make a pretty kick-ass mask with only a few hours to spare (I delayed my bedtime until a whopping eleven o'clock in order to finish the project!), but timing was still an issue, since the event started at 6 and ended at 8. With my boyfriend not being able to get out of the office until 5, that left us precious little leeway to navigate the treacherous traffic of DC and make it to Mardi Gras on time.

Unsurprisingly, we got off to a late start. At the last minute, we decided to bring the dogs with us, which necessitated hunting around for leashes and harnesses. I had to make a (very brief, but still it counts) stop at the Post Office blue box to drop off a package (I will refrain from ranting about how the mail carrier never picks up my scheduled package pickups, but that's what happened). Then, naturally, we had to stop for gas. No point filling up the tank when you actually have some time to do it...oh, no, we always have to wait until we're in a hurry to get somewhere.

By the time we got on the road, it was already 10 minutes to 6, and we had a 30-minute drive ahead of us.

At this point, I removed the Mardi Gras parade from my plans for the evening, as it was supposed to end at 6:30, but we should still be able to make it for the dance party on the pier and fireworks. Local eating establishments were also supposed to have festive drink and food specials, so we could get some dinner.

The next wrench in our plans came when my boyfriend missed the exit to the Wharf. In other places, when you miss your exit, you just turn around at the next one. In DC when you miss your exit, you end up in another state and have to turn in a giant loop to get back in the right direction. Next, he missed another turn, adding a total of 20 minutes to our trip. And that was before we hit the traffic jam around the wharf!

We were lucky enough to get a decent parking spot only a 10-minute walk from the Wharf. Unfortunately, we'd burned most of those ten minutes by the time he realized his phone was in the car. We turned back around to get the phone, spent a few minutes digging around in the car for the phone, then finally set back towards our destination. It was now 7:30. I scratched the dance party off my mental list as well. Basically all that was left for us was to maybe hit the tail end of the concert and then grab some dinner. We left the dogs in the car, since most eating establishments don't take kindly to their sort.

Fortunately, things started looking up from there. We did indeed get to hear a few songs on the pier, and watched a surprisingly impressive display of fireworks. It was unbelievable how many fireworks kept coming out of one tiny little boat! I got to wear my mask, and we even got dinner (though not anywhere near the Wharf. I don't know why we always forget that these events on the waterfront inevitably draw more people than the restaurants nearby can conceivably support).

So my first Mardi Gras celebration came and went, just in time for Valerie Times Day!

Pista-chia pudding

Have you heard of chia pudding? I hadn't, until sometime early last year when I read a diary online, in which the vegetarian (or mostly) author ate chia pudding every day for breakfast. By the third day, I was like, "What the heck is chia pudding?"

Chia seeds, I knew. Chia seeds are the magic behind Chia Pets, which were something of a fad when I was very young. Later on in my life, when the populace got bored of making tacky home decor out of chia seeds, they started using them for eating. Chia seeds experienced a big boom in popularity while I was working at the organic market, so I became somewhat familiar with their properties.  They are oft touted as a superfood fit to provide every kind of health benefit under the sun, but I never really saw enough worthy qualities to make an effort to work them into my diet.

Until I learned about chia pudding, that is. Once I realized that chia seeds can form the basis for a satisfying vegetarian breakfast, I was intrigued. A quick search yielded hundreds of recipes. It was overwhelming, but I quickly learned that the basis of a chia pudding is nothing more than chia seeds and non-dairy milk. You mean, chia pudding will help me get rid of the multitude of expired soy milk cartons in the back of my pantry? Sign me up!

And so, I hopped on the chia train. Over the past year, I have played around with various chia pudding recipes, and it's time to share my findings with the world! Although there are many ways to make chia pudding, the best way is always an  Adventure in Cooking! with a clever portmanteau for a title! Come join me!

You will need:

• 2 Tbsp chia seeds
  Of course, there must be a story behind your chia seeds. The story behind yours is that your original supply of chia was a small bag from the bulk department at the organic market. Then, after trying chia pudding one time, your boyfriend became obsessed with it and used up the remaining chia seeds in no time flat. When it came time to replenish the supply, you cautioned him that a little chia goes a long way, but because your boyfriend is your boyfriend, he insisted on buying the 2-pound bag from Costco, and then promptly lost interest in ever making chia pudding again. You now have a whole ton of chia seeds to use up, so I really hope you like this recipe!
• 1 c. non-dairy milk
  You can use any kind of non-dairy milk for this purpose, but I recommend acquiring a a 24-pack of single serve soymilk cartons as a gift and then only drinking two of them over the course of a year. By this point, you will have a 22-pack of soymilks that are already expired, which should give you ample motivation to perfect the art of chia-pudding-making. Bonus if you can manage to string out the learning process over the course of another year, ensuring you will still have some dubiously safe soymilks remaining to use for demonstration when you finally share your recipes.
• 1 packet instant pistachio pudding
  The story behind your pudding is thus: One day, you go to the grocery store to get a few items that you need...but there's a twist: You're hungry. That pistachio pudding is definitely not on your list, but it looks so yummy...and it's only 80 cents! You buy it. Once home and well fed, you remember that instant pudding is actually kind of gross, and you fail to do anything with the pudding mix for several months. Then you get the idea to use it as flavoring for your world-famous chia pudding, and suddenly all is right with the world again!

How to make it

1. Pour half of the soymilk into a sealable container. A good choice of container is the little 1-pint clear plastic tubs that Chinese restaurants use for carry-out soup.
2. Scoop the chia seeds into the container.
3. Pour the remaining soymilk over the chia seeds. Normally this finicky half-of-this-then-half-of-that-then-the-other-half-of-this nonsense is something that a good Adventurous Cook would just skip, opting instead to dump everything in all at the same time. But for chia pudding, this division of steps is actually important, because the chia seeds are so sticky. If you put them in first, they will clump together at the bottom of the carton and fail to gel. If you put them in last, they will clump at the top, to much the same effect. For best results, you must get most of them wet before they make contact with the edge of the container.
4. Carefully measure out something that looks like it might be one third of the pudding packet, and dump it into the container. This is a total shot in the dark, because you have no idea how much pistachio pudding mix will flavor a one-cup plus-two-tablespoons chia pudding, but since one packet of pudding is supposed to mix with 2 cups of milk, a little under one-half the packet sounds good enough.
5. Now for the fun part. Put the lid on your Chinese takeout container and shake vigorously. This becomes especially fun when the Chinese restaurant kindly decided to vent the container by poking a pinhole into the lid. Hello, soymilk fountain!
6. When the chia pudding is thoroughly mixed, put it in the fridge to soak and set. You should leave it for at least six hours.When that time is up, your pudding will be ready to eat!

Mmmmm....appetizing!

How did it turn out? Well, my pista-chia pudding might look like alien excrement, but it's actually pretty tasty! I worried that chia plus regular pudding might make the mixture too thick, but it came out an excellent consistency. I am never sure how much to sweeten my chia puddings. My soymilk is pre-sweetened, but the addition of the chia seeds can make it a little too bland, so I often add a sweetener. In this case, the pistachio pudding was the sweetener! It might border on a little too sweet, in fact, for a healthy breakfast. So whenever I finally run out of soymilk cartons (I'm down to 3!) I will try it with an unsweetened milk.