Sweet Nothing Cake

For the last couple of weeks, my family has been trying a new feel-good “diet” (I don’t like that word because it has such a social misunderstanding). We’re trying veganism, refined high-glycymic suger-freeism and (mostly) gluten-freeism. I feel like a million bucks!

But, a couple of days ago, I had one of those “I NEED SOME CAKE” moments. With haste, I googled “sugar-free, gluten-free, vegan chocolate cake”.  When I saw the result load, I jumped up and down  with excitement (WEW! EXERCISE!).

I was a little worried that the cake would turn out funny because I have some prejudice against mimicking food made from other ingredients, but the cake was actually super delicious.

Here is the recipe…

(adapted from http://www.nourishingmeals.com)

• 2 cups brown rice flour or sorghum flour
• ½ cup tapioca flour 
• ¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
• 1 ½ teaspoons xanthan gum or guar gum (I used 1 tablespoon of arrowroot powder. You could also use 1/4 cup ground chia seeds–just put them in the blender with the water and prunes)
• ½ teaspoon sea salt
• 1 ½ cups boiling water
• 1 cup prunes
• ½ cup virgin coconut oil
• 1 cup agave nectar
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease two 9-inch cake pans.

In a medium sized bowl place the brown rice flour, tapioca flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, arrowroot powder, and sea salt; mix together well with a fork or wire whisk.

Place the prunes in a small bowl and pour the boiling water over them. Let stand for about 10 minutes.

Place the prunes and water into a blender and add the coconut oil, agave nectar, water, apple cider vinegar, and vanilla. Blend until very smooth. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix well, though be careful not to over mix.

Immediately pour batter into prepared pans. Bake for about 25 minutes. Let stand for a few minutes in the pan and then gently invert onto a wire rack to cool. Let cool completely before frosting.

For the frosting…

• 1 cup cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup vegan buttery spread (I used Earth Balance)
• 1/2 cup coconut oil
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup agave nectar

Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until super-smooth. If you would like the consistency to be more firm before spreading on the cake, place the frosting in the fridge for a couple of hours.

After frosting the cake, I added toasted walnuts which tasted GREAT.

There, now you have a beautiful, guilt-free cake. EAT IT!

They never said it would be easy

They never said it would be easy, they just said it would be worth it.

By Hannah Craig

 

This morning, a group of my friends had a discussion about what we think is the psychology behind motivation, group dynamic and succeeding in a project collectively. The answers from people weren’t what I was expecting at all. The thing that I thought was so beautiful about the discussion was that people were able to open up, and really be truthful with themselves. Not to say that some of us may have diluted what we really thought because of confidence, but for the most part it seemed like everyone was really clear with themselves about their internal workings.

 

I learned some things about the human race:

1. We’re all self-centered.

As much as we like to think that we’re working for the common good, it seems to me that we’re all born with this “survival” tactic which makes us live for OUR personal good. Not as a group, but as individuals. It’s nothing that we’re doing wrong, or anything that makes us turn selfish, but instead something that we’re born with that creeps into our lives in sometimes passive ways.

2. We have to be personally invested in our goals to succeed.

Goals are made to succeed in a project. Lots of times these are group goals, but in order to succeed, a lot of us have to have personal goals within those group ones. It comes back to being self-centered.

3. We have to believe in ourselves.

For me, if I don’t think something is going to turn out wonderfully, I am more likely to quit before I finish. Other people said that thinking something isn’t going to work out makes them more motivated to continue with it to prove themselves wrong. Either way, we must believe in ourselves in order to complete something successfully

4. We’re afraid.

I think that a lot of things come down to fear. We’re afraid of being wrong, we’re afraid of being unloved, we’re afraid of losing and we’re afraid of who we are. This could also be something we’re born with as a survival skill, but I think it could also be more. When we allow fear creep in to our daily lives without realizing it, it actually changes us more than the FEAR of change.

5. We’re guilty.

This could be because of our society’s notion of having to blame, or also religion. We never want to blame ourselves, but pointing fingers at other people is what we love to do. Being on a “team” competing  against another “team” boosts our egos. We’re guilty about who we are, and who others perceive us to be, but we don’t know how to apologize.

6. We’re dreamers.

Everyone is a dreamer. We all have visions and fantasies of our futures and how our lives will be better after “ ____”. Who knows if we’ll actually go through with our dreams, but it’s what fuels our lives.

7. We’re prejudice.

We all have preconceived notions about life. This could be related to our families’ beliefs, or to those of people whom we respect, but we have to get these ideas somewhere. This comes back to the whole “team” mentality. We love to be on one side of the divide, forming alliances with people who share our beliefs.

In my opinion, these are the natural traits of the human experience. We can’t help having these emotions.

But, the people who live the happiest, most fulfilled lives are the people who are aware of the feelings and actions involved in this experience we call life.

When I see people who are aware of their mistakes and able to admit and accept themselves for it (without blaming others), I admire their true, immortal courage.

When people stop letting fear rule their lives, they are calm, and they love themselves more than ever. When people choose to love themselves in ways that include empathy for others, they are inevitably happy.

When people for once stop thinking about themselves, and instead move energy to making the lives of people around them better, they will rise to be the most god-like humans on the planet. The beautiful thing is, they will never know just how godly they are.

Knowing that they were godly would ruin their godliness.

They never said it would be easy, they just said it would be worth it.

The Barrier.

A Creative Writing excercise I did with my writing group the other day… Enjoy!

 

The barrier.

01.24.12

By Hannah Priscilla Craig

The sun rose like an ice-cube in pure water. The pure darkness interrupted by the sinking (or rising) of the extreme temperature. The ice cubes and the sun inversely proportional.

She walked out the front door like a snail emerging from its shell—seeing the world for the first time. She wasn’t young, but she wasn’t old either. She had much to do and would create the time to have the time.

Her feet slid across the morning grass; the dew creating reflection points for the bright, uncontrolled sun. As she reached the street, she was stopped—almost like there was a glass barrier separating her from the rest of the world.

She felt freely trapped. Like the world was caving in on her. The cave was a barrier for her to create time.  Space was limited and space was a necessity.

She banged on the barrier, but her words couldn’t be heard. Her screams from inside the wall weren’t enough to catch the attention of the guards who stole the space. The space which like the oceans, the birds and the breath—belonged to the people.

She longed for her hair to be touched by the breath of the sea or the flesh of a tree, but no. She cried and cried but she was trapped. Trapped by the guards who stole the space.

Would walk by the wall. Their lips curving to suggest  whistling a tune of happy days. They never would even glance toward the girl who longed to be seen. Almost like she was invisible behind the wall which made the world cave, the space collapse and the time forget. She longed to hear the sound of the wall crashing in to the ocean’s strong current. Which belonged to the people.

The Farnsworth Invention

It isn’t often that I leave after watching an opening-night performance, and have that lingering opening-night-high that fills me after opening a show that I have worked on. But, now I know that the opening night high can be accomplished just by watching a really good performance.

Last night I watched The Farnsworth Invention at the Overture Center Playhouse by the Forward Theater Company. The topic of the show, the invention of the television, isn’t something that I would be very intrigued by in normal, everyday life. But the show pulled me in, and kept me at the edge of my seat. With over  70 characters and a cast of only 13, the show is very fast-pace, which adds a flustered and captivating dimension to the show.

One of the things that really amazed me about the show was the wide spectrum of interests it played to. There is the very scientific jargon about television tubes and chemicals, there is the emotional element of Farnsworth’s attachment to his family, there is the constant tension between corporations about patents and individual ideas—what does it mean to “own” an idea?, and finally the thought-provoking element of alcohol abuse. The play, which may on the surface seem to cover one theme, is actually crowded with hidden and interwoven themes and sub-themes which make watching the show an exercise for your brain. Forward did an amazing job of using everything to convey the show in a very interesting manner. From the beginning of the show to the end, the play is eye candy. There are many technical elements to the show that made my mouth drop in excitement, but I will let you have those moments when you see the show! I don’t want to give anything away!

The play, which premiered on Broadway in 2007, was written by Aaron Sorkin, the same guy who was the lead writer for The West Wing as well as several other television shows and also wrote The Social Network. He’s not one for holding much back, so one feels as if they’re getting the real, grimy story. I felt the same way when I watched The Social Network.

Overall, the play was very well performed and staged. The costumes were delightful and the set was the perfect mix of science and life. I highly recommend seeing the show. To learn more, you can visit http://www.forwardtheater.com/.

Photo from forwardtheater.com by Nick Berard

Choosedays

Today is Tuesday, now formally known (for me) as Choosdays. Why? It all started out last Tuesday when I went to a lecture at UW-Milwaukee to listen to a free lecture from Steven Heller and Lita Talarico about graphic design sponsored by the Wisconsin chapter of AIGA. The talk was really interesting and motivational. I went with my friend,  who has started a trend of doing interesting things on Tuesday afternoons. A group of us all have a meeting on Tuesday mornings, but our afternoons are free. We decided to call the random Tuesday afternoon adventure “Chooseday” ecause we get to choose what we do, and just to make fun of the way my friend pronounces “Tuesday”.

Today, we all adventured to the Wisconsin State Capitol in hopes of seeing the Senate in session. We arrived, wound ourselves around the maze of the Capitol and found the Senate chamber–just as they were going to recess. The assembly was in session today too, so we decided to check that out. Just as we arrived at the assembly chamber, the assembly went to caucus. We meandered the Capitol for a while until we found one of the information desks. I asked the lady if she knew when they would be back in session. She didn’t, but told us a good idea would be to visit the Senators or Representatives and ask when they thought they would be back in session. We poked our heads in to Julie Lassa‘s office and asked when they would be back in session. One of the aides said they wouldn’t be back in session until Thursday. So, we decided to find out when the assembly would be back in session. We went to Peter Barca‘s office, and asked one of his aids. He said he thought they would be done caucusing by the middle of the afternoon.

So, we headed down State Street, ate some pizza, looked some stuff up on our Apple gadgets and headed back to the Capitol. The doors to the viewing gallery of the assembally were still closed and locked. We were bummed, but it was time to leave anyway. Even though we didn’t get to see them in session, it still was a great Chooseday, and we plan to head back on Thursday to see the Senate back in session!

The thing I love about Choosedays are that they allow us to take time to have opportunities to explore interesting things that we may never have tried before. They inspire creativity and problem solving, and make life so exciting! I can’t wait for more Choosday adventures!

I plan to keep a record of all of my Choosedays from now on. If you want to read other Chooseday ramblings, see this blog: http://choosedays.wordpress.com/.
Thanks for reading!

What inspires?

I have recently become attached to the book “Caffeine for the Creative Mind“. It encompasses all of my loves for art, self-expression and learning through trying. Throughout the book, there is “caffeine” (exercises for creativity) as well as interviews of creatives in many different fields.

Whenever I read the book, I also become so excited about all of the cool people in the world, and the prospects of what I could do next that I start to worry that I will hyperventilate or something.

Through this book, other books (How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci and  The Da Vinci Code are on the top of the list right now), quotes, photographs, blogs, people, projects and ideas, I have become extremely inspired. I’m inspired by so much in such a large scope that my brain feels scattered. Last week, I would have thought that my brain being scattered was a bad thing and would have tried to record everything on my handy-dandy to do app on my iPod, but now I’m happy to “dance through chaos”.

I took a challenge last week. It was a two-part challenge. One, to stay off of Facebook and two, to let go and “believe in my brain” to remember and learn without having to control everything. It’s going really well. I feel so energized and have actually been more productive than I was when I would obsessively add things to my to do list. Don’t get me wrong, I still love my list, I just am letting go of some of the stress involved in picking it up every single time I think of something I want or need to do. Instead, I am recording things more visually in my sketch/doodle book and using more friendly reminders for myself.

I was inspired by Amy Walker, one of my long-time idols (see 21 Accents). She recently did a TED talk (Amy Walker TT pt1, Amy Walker TT pt 2) where she discussed our mental “wanting” to subconsciously label, sort and pre-package data–so much to the point where we create stereotypes.

I made this and posted it on my wall...

I think that is what inspires me. Confident, bright brains digging deeper in to the human experience, trying to make a difference, energizing myself and others through creativity and learning anything and everything about things that are interesting (but really, what isn’t interesting?) Transferring these thoughts in to view able, beautiful things is what I love to do (typeface for the win!). Of course, my feelings of inspiration come at all different times and are changing rapidly, but right now these are the things the energize and excite me.

What I want to know is, what inspires you?

Terrific Smells, Good Company and Modern Atmosphere.

Nothing makes one’s mouth water more than terrific smells, good
company and modern atmosphere. Graze, the local-serving restaurant on the
Square in Madison, WI has all of these qualities, plus their food is amazing.

I sit in a silver (and surprisingly comfortable chair), looking
through the 30-foot windows onto our State Capitol as I enjoy some of the most
delightful food around. The architecture and atmosphere of the whole restaurant
is very alluring. The dining area is open, with a red wall on one side creating
a background for the large bar lit with vintage-looking light bulbs hanging
randomly from the ceiling. On the other side of the room, a floor-to-ceiling black
board offers introductions to featured famers as well as special artisan
cheeses and delicacies available. To light this side, there are bright red chimney
caps illuminating a modern-agriculture glow. Overall the interior is modern,
but with vintage and up cycled accents making the scene entirely thrilling. One
could go to Graze for eye candy alone, but the eating gets better.

The cool building and view

The coolest wall ever.

The menu is filled with local delicacies from fried sassy-cow cheese
curds to wedge salad with smoked wild mushrooms and ranch
& sesame “French” dressings to Farmer John’s Provolone
sandwich with pesto.  Although the menu is
classy, it’s still based on creating comfort with food from home. The sake of
the restaurant’s name not only signifies their commitment to serving
locally-raised (and grazed) foods, but to also encourage patrons to Graze their
own different pastures. Therefore, there are lots of munchies included on the
menu,  perfect for grazing.

After we’re waited on by a very friendly, but not
creepy wait staff, I order the Pretzels with house mustards, potato fries with
aioli, and the roasted beet and walnut burger. As a vegetarian, I give extreme
credit to restaurants that get creative with vegetarian entrees—especially when
they’re superb as my lunch was. The beet and walnut burger has become an
obsession of mine. The crunch of the micro greens, the chew of the brioche bun,
the taste and texture of the patty and the hint of dill make this burger irresistible.
The pretzel was very good and the mustards where superb. The fries were perfectly
crunchy and the aioli made the whole flavor fit together perfectly.

Beet and Walnut Burger

Sassy Cow Cheese Curds

Pretzels and mustard

Warm beet salad (I didn’t eat it, but it was beautiful!)

Graze started with the” food-to-plate” movement
before it was moving strong in this area. Before it was “cool”, Graze was
already preparing delicious food without relying on shipments from around the
world. Their goal is still to produce their entire menu with food not more than
60 miles from your table at Graze. Their downtown location is perfect not only
because of the delightful ambiance, but also because Chef Tory Miller is able
to get first pick of produce at Farmer’s Market on Saturday morning. In fact,
parked in the entry-way of the restaurant lies the famous “Graze cart” in which
they tote the locally-grown food during farmer’s market.

When all is said and done, what makes the human experience
great? Food, friends and ambiance. All which can be experienced at Graze (from
Local Pastures).

Aren’t we adorable?

By Hannah Priscilla Craig

http://visualafflatus.wordpress.com

http://gallimaufrybliss.wordpress.com

Saying “goodbye” (New York Trip day 6)

Today was sad, but also exciting. We woke up later than usual and packed up. We walked downstairs to the lobby of the hotel only to find the breakfast was already cleaned up. So, Elly and I snacked on containers of peanut butter. ;)

We had everything packed us, and were heading out the door of the hotel toward the bus stop, when we saw that our bus was across the street at the stop already. We ran like mad women to the bus stop and caught the bus. YAY! We drove through the Lincoln Tunnel one last time. We arrived that the port authority station and walked out of its cool air-conditioning and in to the blazing heat of morning. Whew! It was HOT in NYC this morning. We walked around the “Hell’s Kitchen” area trying to find a cute café to have breakfast, but had no such luck. I think that New Yorkers must not eat breakfast–only coffee. After walking around for a while—with our suitcases in tow, it was already time to meet dad and get on the train to the airport. Just as we met him, we found a little café and decided to sit down and have a snack. I had a whole wheat bagel and a “tropical smoothie”.  We all walked back to Port Authority and waited for the 8^th Avenue Express train toward the airport. It took a long time, so we just took the local 8^th avenue bus and rode to the next stop. We got off the train and waited for the 8^th avenue express. It finally came, and we hopped on. There were tons of kids on the train going to the beach, so we had to spend the whole 45-minute train ride standing up. The beach-goers were silly high schoolers who enjoyed calling each other expletives for fun. That is a very interesting hobby.

We finally arrived at our station where we could get on the shuttle to the airport terminals. We rode to our terminal and checked our bags. We went through security and everything went smoothly. We flew to Detroit, walked through their cool LED tunnel, and then waited for our flight to Madison. ON the way to Madison, I got to sit in the exit row! I didn’t get to show off my exit-door removal skills, though.

We landed in Madison and now we’re going home to eat our take-out Chinese (we don’t have any food at home), and go to swim team practice. How come Wisconsin was so warm before we came home, and now it’s freezing!?! This is not fair.

 

Gracias!

~Hannah

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

Broadway, Billy, Business and Burgers (New York Trip day 5)

Now that I have properly rested, I can explain–in detail–our day yesterday.

We started off the usual way—waking up, eating peanut butter at the complimentary breakfast in the hotel lobby, and catching our bus to Port Authority in downtown New York. We left the bus station, and started on our way to get in line for the rush tickets for “How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying”. We waited for about 30 minutes and then found out that tickets WERE available. We proceeded through the line, and bought our $30 tickets. That’s really the way to go. We bought 4 tickets for the price of one ticket.

We had been planning to go to the Sony Museum, but decided that we wanted to try to get the rush tickets for the matinée of Billy Elliot since we had been having so much luck with rush tickets. Rush tickets for Billy Elliot are sold two hours prior to show time, so we decided we really didn’t have enough time to get to, go through and experience the Sony Museum. Next time! Instead, we walked toward the Rockefeller center, trying to find somewhere to get a snack and a drink. On the way, we found a cute little gift shop called “Pants and…” It was owned by an elderly couple who had been running the shop for more than 30 years. They had the coolest stuff in their shop, and they were the nicest people! They informed us that the most-sold shirts were the “Angry Birds Addict” shirts. No surprise there. We asked them where a good place would be to get a snack, and they led us to a bakery one block down. The bakery was crowded, but had good food. I ordered a Pain Au Chocolate and a super-dry ginger ale. The bakery was somewhat overpriced, but it was cool to be dining in the midst of the real New Yorkers. There were a couple people having business meetings, and they were fun to listen in on. ;) After we ate, we walked back to the gift shop to give the store owners a menu (they’d never been to this bakery, as it was very new, but they had been to one in a different part of town). They were pleased that we came back.

It was almost time to get the Billy Elliot rush tickets, so we walked quickly back to the theatre. Whew! No wonder so many New Yorkers are so fit. I think I probably walked 15 miles in the last 5 days! We arrived at the theatre and got in line. We still had 20 minutes until “2 hours before the show”, but we decided to hop in line anyway. At the box office, we asked if we could get the student rush tickets. The guy said yes, but he would need to see 2 student IDs. I had mine, but Elly lefts hers at home. She gave him her library card, which he accepted, and we bought 3 tickets for the matinée of Billy Elliot.

We had about two hours until the show would start, so we walked through the fashion district to 27^th street and found the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) Museum. It’s a free museum, and really nice. The exhibit they were displaying was “Sportswear through the ages”. There were samples of sports clothing from all of the back in the 1800 through 2011. It was really interesting to see how fashion has come around. It seems like every 30-or-so years, we go back through of cycle of what is fashionable. The swimming suits from the 1940’s were really interesting. Some of them were made from wool! The museum also had a visual arts portion with art displays from some of the graduates of the school. At each exhibit, there were business cards with info on the artists. I grabbed a bunch, because they’re fun to get ideas from. I am trying to design some business cards for myself.

After the Museum, we needed a snack, so we walked back a couple of blocks to a vegetarian restaurant we had seen when we were walking to the museum. We walked in to the tiny place, and looked at the menu. Everything looked delicious. There were veggie burgers, quesadillas, salads, and much more—all vegan! We decided to order the curry burger, the mushroom quesadilla, and some edamame with sea salt. Everything was so delicious! The burger was topped with guacamole, tomato and lettuce with a whole wheat bun. It was absolutely divine! The quesadilla was also very good. It was filled with a vegan cheese that was really, really good. I have never really liked vegan cheese, but I really liked this kind. It was made from taro root and tapioca. I was pleased to see so many people in that joint. It was the some of the best food I’d had during the trip, and also some of the cheapest.

By this time, it was about 30 minutes before the show would start. We quickly walked back to the theatre and got our seats. We were seated on the side of the first balcony. It just so happened that there were 2 seats closer to the middle, right next to us that nobody showed up for. We slid over and ended up having a really good view—especially for the cheap “partial view” seats. Wow! We’re really lucky.

The show started and Mom, Elly and I were amazed. The boy playing Billy was an amazingly good dancer. It was a very inspiring story. It was also very interesting since it was partially about Union rights. I recognized some of the chants we used during the Wisconsin union rights protests.

After the show, we had a little time, so we decided to check out a sale we were given a flyer about. It was a “sample sale”, meaning a huge sale of all of the samples of clothing that were sent to the clothing supplier from Paris. The samples were shown at the supplier so that stores could buy them to put them in their shops. The sale was on the 9^th floor of a building near the theatre. The guy who was in charge of selling the clothing was really nice! Elly and I tried on a bunch of fancy dresses, pants, and shirts imagined by designers in Paris. I ended up buying a beautiful brown and white French dress which was worth a lot more than what I spent. While we were there, Elly was sketching while she waited for me to change, and someone at the sale asked her if she was going to design school! She was so pleased.

Next, we met Dad on Times Square where we started to look for a restaurant to try before How to Succeed… Thanks to the Yelp App on Dad’s iPad, we found a really awesome Italian restaurant in a nice part of town—outside of the touristy Times Square. The restaurant was called “Lattanzi”. We decided to order 3 different pastas and a salad and share them all. Well, we confused our Italian waiter quite a bit. He had to come back several times to try to figure out why Elly ordered 4 dishes (she was ordering for all of us). Ahhh, The Funny Farm Gang visits New York City. You never do know how much you can confuse a poor waiter.  All of the dishes were amazing. We got spaghetti with butter-garlic and veggies, mushroom ravioli, and cheese-stuffed tomato pasta. The spring salad with balsamic was also divine.

Happy with food in our bellies, we walked to How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. When we got there, the line was all of the way around the block!

The show was spectacular. Daniel Radcliffe is a terrific actor (especially for only being 21!), and if I didn’t know, I would think he was from the U.S. His accent is perfect. All of the performers were complete triple-threats. The talent is unbelievable. I really love the super-jerky, with-the-beat style of choreography that is so popular in all of the shows we saw. It looks so good on stage.

When we were finished with the show, we walked back to the bus station and waited for our bus to arrive. It’s so weird in the city because it was 10:30 at night, but it still looked like daylight because there were so many lights! We then went back to the hotel where I wrote a hard-to-understand post about my lousy excuse for not writing a detailed post.

Today our trip has come to an end. The next post will be about our last few minutes in New York.

Thanks for reading!

 

~Hannah

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Too. Tired. To. Write…

Ahhhh! A busy, but wonderful day! We were able to squeeze in two broadway shows (Billy Elliot, and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying). It was amazing! I get so inspired when I see those shows, I don’t even know where to start. Theater is great.

I am exhausted, but I am promising myself to write about today either tomorrow or the day after.

Thanks for reading!

~Hannah