Mane TLC!

I went in to Fantastic Sams for my regular haircut a couple of weeks back. No fancy cuts or fashion but just the regular shampoo and trim. My hairdresser and I were chatting when she asked me if I wanted to get some salon brand products for my dry hair and scalp. I told her about the fact that I was still in the process of weaning my baby and that my dry scalp, asserted by my gynecologist, is due to the extended nursing. So I mentioned to her that I wasn’t interested in trying out any products when the problem was hormonal. She agreed and shared with me how she too had the problem of dry scalp and thinning hair because she too had breastfed her children. So we went on chatting until she finished her job.

At the checkout counter, she bent over and with a low voice shared with me a natural recipe for healthy, well-conditioned hair and scalp: a potion containing three ingredients – egg yolks, ripened avocados and a splash of lemon juice.

She told me to apply the potion on scalp and hair for two hours each time for at least two times a week to give the strands a boost of the much-needed protein. It made sense. I mean egg yolks are rich in protein and avocado…ahh what should I say about this super fruit!

Avocados were even recommended by my baby’s pediatrician as his first foods and suggested by my hubby’s doctor for managing the body’s good cholesterol level. With all that and more, I know it can do some good for my hair :)

We always have some avocado at home that we use in our sandwiches and salads. This time I did set aside some for my natural hair potion.

While writing this entry, I have already tried the potion once and really liked the effect! So today as I am writing this, I have the potion all spread over my hair :)

Now, if only vanity can always be as simple and natural as this!

Traveling the world with just your taste buds…no passports required!

Hubby and I are self-confessed foodies. No, we definitely do not favor bizarre cuisine like Andrew Zimmern (grasshoppers and bugs satay, no thanks!) or pig out like the overly ambitious Adam Richman who basically tries to gobble down enormous sized portions of food on his shows. Now, Jeff Corwin, the Animal Planet guy, is starting this show on Food Network where he travels the world and explores exotic and yes, extreme cuisine. I just don’t understand what’s all the craze about bizarre and extreme cuisine these days!

Along that line, to us Anthony Bourdain is the most original globetrotter who manages to awe his audiences with his love for travel and food without trying too hard. Hubby and I are major fans of No Reservations and feel that he is a natural with what he does. Well yeah, he did eat a raw seal in Quebec but he is so witty and it’s fun watching his shows.

Okay, coming back to us being foodies. Perhaps we are not as adventurous as any one of those highly-paid travel journalists (I’ll eat weird stuff too if it comes with a huge paycheck and fame…at least I’ll try to) but when it comes to trying out new foods with bold flavors, novel tastes and unique preparations, we are all game.

I must say that living in California has made the better out of us foodies because it is the hub for world cuisine. We can find practically all kinds of the world cuisine around us here. Every weekend we eat out to give our palates a break from tasting their regular Malaysian/Indian/American cuisine. Let me see, thus far, hubby and I have “traveled with just our taste buds” to Greece, Italy, Vietnam, China, Thailand, Mexico, Korea, Argentina, France, Persia, Peru, Japan and Mongolia!


Last week we visited the newly-opened Elephant Bar Restaurant (http://www.elephantbar.com/) located at Laguna Hills here in California for lunch. It’s a place serving Western and Pan-Pacific foods. The ambience of the restaurant was rather interesting (although the interior was a little too dark for taking pictures with iPhone) with a full bar and open kitchen and a very (I mean really very…) extensive menu! The food was good but it was difficult when we had to choose from such an extensive menu. I guess we'd have to go there again then!

Here are the cocktails we ordered (cocktails for lunch – sure, why not!):

Mai Tai (left) and Raspberry Mojito…

Appetizer:
Crab + Lobster cakes on Fresh Mango-Ginger Sauce…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Entrées:

Oak Grilled Chicken Medallion and Prawn Skewer with Marsala sauce served alongside steamed rice and warm salad...

Mongolian Noodle Soup and Crispy Salmon Sushi...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Skipped the dessert menu to allocate more indulgence for dinner :)

A Mom Eater’s Curse of the Cs!

Today I took a quiz from my September issue of the Oprah Magazine and wasn’t sure if I should be happy or sad with the results: I am no longer an emotional but a lifestyle eater! At least I am in one of the categories featured…I am not alone!

Being an emotional eater is not at all pleasant because every time the guilty feeling sets in (after the gobbling up of decadent cakes, ooey-gooey ice cream sundaes, hot apple pies, or the guzzling down of flavored sodas and creamy milkshakes), you usually feel terrible. Based on my experience, I’d say that being an emotional eater isn’t necessarily about eating too much but it is more about eating too much of the wrong thing: foods too high in sucrose or sodium namely. Well, we all know how indulging in rich foods can help elevate our moods almost instantly and so, it’s not totally surprising when people who are on an emotional roller-coaster ride take eating as a coping device.

My emotional eating bout lasted till the time I decided to take control of my life by being healthy. I didn’t really go on any kind of diet but I started working out so regularly that I didn’t need food to help elevate my good mood when I was down. By the time I got married, I lost the unpleasant weight (still pleasantly plump though!) and as a bonus, achieved clearer looking and glowing skin.

When I got pregnant, I gave in to all the cravings happily and did put on some major weight. But luckily for me, the weight dwindled down around eight months after my baby was born. Well, it wasn’t very easy to do that, mind it. It was mainly because I let go all of the munching and bingeing that I used to blame on motherly craving during pregnancy and kept myself always active. Another thing that helped was the breastfeeding. From the time he was born till to his sixth month, my baby was breastfeed exclusively…yes, no formulas. Since then and till now, he is still nursing as a supplement to his varied and rich solid foods.

So with emotional eating well behind me, I have now become a lifestyle eater! It is like you eat according to the lifestyle you have. So is there such thing like “Yes, I eat like a mom”?! (Note: basically, my lifestyle revolves around me being a mother 24/7). I took some time thinking about it and kind of got a sense of what that means.

Now that my baby is a toddler and is in the snacking phase, the pantry is simple filled with several types of cookies, crackers, cereals and chips. He also has his fruits and cheese but it is the above Cs that entice me the most. I serve a handful of those innocent looking mini chocolate chip cookies to my son and have some for myself. Or, I pass him a handful of his goldfish cheese crackers and keep some on the plate for me to have with coffee a little later. Jeez, it is true that I have become a Mom Eater! I eat these crackers and cookies mainly because they are there in the pantry for my son and didn’t even bother having them at home before he started eating these things.

I cannot for sure stop buying these things which are my son's snack time treats and deprive him of nice things and so today, I wrote up a list of Cs on the cute little white board on my fridge: cookies, crackers, chips and to notorious C gang goes, coffee. I feel like coffee is directly related to the Cs. The Cs goes so well with coffee and vice versa. You have a cup of coffee and you almost instinctly start searching for cookies or crackers!

So I wrote the list with a black marker and took a red marker and crossed them out with a big “X” to remind me that I am going to stay off them simply because I feel like I am indulging in them a little too often lately. The thing about me is that to handle these kind of tempting situations, I need to go cold turkey and completely switch off the bad angel button on my left shoulder. I need to do it soon or go around singing this. For now, I am just hoping that my willpower will work for me and that the above song will only be something I sing for my son, a Sesame Street junkie :)


What about the most indulgent of the Cs - chocolate - how come they don't get into the list? No way, José! I definitely need a dose of this C from time to time to keep me sane!

I tell myself to be a healthy eater and remind myself to always look at all those apples, oranges and pears in the fruit basket in the fridge and pretend to ignore the Cheese Cake, Chocolate muffins, Cinnamon buns and Cream Cheese Cupcakes hiding behind the back of the fruit basket!