Love. Life. Food

Hey!! WE gotta keep those bees buzzing. NPR did a piece on these awful chemicals that are being used to coat seeds called NEONICOTINOIDS. They are killing the bees according to some Perdue studies being done right now. Another thing, you like the flowers that we are all seeing right!? I know, they make you sneeze, but they are beautiful and I would love to keep spring here! Soooo. Go get some local honey, eat it by the spoonful! If you have allergies this is a great treatment for them and if not it just tastes great. It can be used as a sweetener for lots of different yummy things like this and this and this. Enjoy and Happy Happy Spring!

I don’t feel like this needs an introduction other than this is the beginning of my personal food memoir. It hasn’t ended yet. Sorry no pics, I hope you enjoy.

1987-89.

From the age four to seven I was a strong willed tot with raging red hair and an adventurous spirit. My formative years were spent in the garden with my mother, picking up rocks, playing in the dirt, weeding, swinging on tire swings, taking down crisp clean laundry in the sun and burning my feet on BBQ pit tops left in the dry August lawn.  My first creative memory is with food, roasting sunflower seeds in tamari sauce in cast iron pans at my fathers house. As a child I spent a lot of time in the kitchen cooking. At 7 I adored my baby sitter because she taught me how to throw spaghetti on the wall to see if it would stick (this means it is done) and taught us the song; beans beans the magical fruit, the more you eat em’ the more you toot, the more you toot the better you feel, so eat your beans with every meal. I am child hooked on cooking and I joyfully slingshot back and forth between the kitchen and the garden. My favorite snack is a pinky-full scoop of fresh cold butter from the fridge. I sneak it in, often, when no one is looking.

1989-1991. 

In the summer our favorite thing to make is juice pops. Juice poured into plastic molds and stuck in the freezer. The wait for the pops to freeze seemed agonizing, but well worth the wait. In the winter we scoop snow from our front yard and pour maple syrup to flavor,instant gratification. Our kitchen is small and has white walls and cabinetry, with speckled 1970’s yellow countertops. There is one small window with white lace drapes that overlooks our yard, tire swing and garden. Standing on a small step stool while helping dry dishes, I gaze out of the window happy and content to be a helping my mum. The kitchen and garden are where we spend the most time together, mixing, cooking, weeding, baking, hoeing, measuring and singing.

1991-1994.  

Riding in my dad’s beat up van with vinyl seats on a trip to the food allergist, the sun sprays through the cracked window and the breeze tickles my face. A pin prick later and I have allergies. A lot. Wheat, dairy, soy and eggs. Carrie, my sister is allergic to cats and dust mites. On the way home we pick up groceries from the local food co-op, no one shops there except our family, smelly hippies and nutritional nuts who smell like vitamins. We pack our cart with “alternatives” to the real thing; fake cheese, ice cream, milk, bread and crackers. My first year in public school the other children gawk at my versions of the real thing. I bring Rice Dream Ice Cream, Carob Marble Swirl to Banana Splits a program for divorced kids. It couldn’t get much worse. My parents, divorced AND I couldn’t eat real ice cream. Needless to say I end up denying my allergies for the rest of public school. It gives me fits and makes me itch, and I am uncomfortable when I eat those things, but it is far more important for me to fit in then to be comfortable.

The gardening continues and I continue to play in the dirt, pick rocks and swat at flies while I weed. Our family friend Rick comes over often to hang out and I walk alongside him through the garden. He is a very large lumberjack type with khaki cargo pants and he swoops down to grab a bunch of kale to eat straight from the earth while laughing and gesturing to me; as he speaks the kale oozes out of his mouth, bright green in color. I like him. He throws me in the air and makes me laugh. The garden continues to grow and so do I. We continue to weed and pick rocks out; only now the bugs annoy me more and Rick has passed away.

1994-1998.

Our garden grows bigger and bigger and my mom draws out a plan for its the next season, adding more and more vegetables and a wild strawberry field. Marigolds keep the deer away and hay under paper bags keeps the soil fertilized.

One parent abides by the allergies while the other does not; my mother feeds me what she wants. At her house we are on a budget, we eat spaghetti and meatballs, frozen burritos (a favorite after school snack), sliced American cheese and salami sandwiches with yellow mustard on white Freihofer’s bread, hot dogs on buns, fresh veggies from the garden, crock-pot chili and cornbread and pineapple upside down cake on special occasions, including the maraschino cherries, and as always fresh veggies from the garden. Always stocked in the fridge is butter,Juicy Juice with water mixed in, white bread, and the real Hellmann’s mayonnaise. My favorite summer meal with mom is salad with the dirt still intact, tomatoes from the garden and turkey burgers from the grill.

At dad’s things are little different. Sugarless ketchup, beans from the can and turkey dogs eaten at our summer picnics is the norm and my favorite meal; split pea and carrot soup, my father’s specialty. We cook a lot at home together and at the age of 10 while cooking corn on the cob, I receive third degree burns from reaching over the steaming pot of corn. Lesson learned. Lots of weird things appeared in the freezer too, aside from your regular frozen treats. Occasional dead bird wings and strange unidentified objects; apparently my step-mothers hobbies, and on every road trip, we MUST stop to say a blessing for the roadkill on the side of the road. Trips to my grandmother’s (my father’s side) are remembered by the reliable frozen bottle of vodka that stood in the freezer like a landmark, frozen girl scout cookies that were like spoonfuls of sugar, Sarah Lee’s strawberry rhubarb pie and smiley faces made from tater-tots and ketchup on Saturday mornings that reminded me, regardless we lived in separate homes, we were still a family.

1998-2007.

I still obsess over food. My first job is a clerk at the local health food store, a familiar setting. The people who shop there are smelly hippies, and nutritional nuts. This time the whole place smells like vitamins. I love all the different types of food there, both the real and the fake. We have sold our garden home and we don’t get as much fresh veggies. My second job is retail, I hate it and I eat Taco Bell a lot, it’s in the same mall and I don’t know any better. I still enjoy cooking but eat whatever’s at my moms house or any friends I’m visiting. I forget I have allergies and don’t generally abide by them. My first experience living away from home, I move to NYC; all I remember is street deli sandwiches, bowls upon bowls of sugary cereal, and the planes crashing into buildings. I leave NYC; without once experiencing a cultural meal. I move to Montreal. Canada is much safer. I live with an Asian, Latin-American, Canadian roommate, who teaches me how to cook rice and beans with an egg for protein, I let her do most of the cooking otherwise I would just eat peanut butter and jelly on rice cakes. We shop together on a cheap budget so we buy lots of canned beans, canned tuna fish, but we splurge on the occasional fancy meal with sushi wraps, peanuts and canned tuna dehydrated, seasoned real salty. In Montreal I am mostly distracted by French men and fashion but I manage to sneak in a cultural meal with our Indian neighbors. There is so much food to eat and in such a small kitchen. Stewed curried lamb, iceberg lettuce salad and lentil dahl. The kitchen is small, me, my roommate, the mother, the father and small boy all stuff in sitting where we can, the food takes up every remaining counter and non-counter surface. It all tastes so good however the amount is too much and my roommate and I end up spending the next day sick and at the toilet. Apparently it’s rude to refuse food from Indian woman. Lesson learned.

2007-2008.

I move out West where everyone eats ranch; on their pizza crust, french fries and most everything else. I eat a lot of french fries, eggs benedicts, calzones, and boxed macaroni but it is here I discover the midwest. I love Buffalo meat and it is then I decide to cook for anyone that I can. I love  grocery shopping. Aisles upon aisles of products from everywhere.  I love the smell; sometimes of vitamins, or ammonium, or freshly mopped floors or just fresh produce. I love the water that sprays the produce aisle and the exotic products in the Asian, Mexican aisles. I especially enjoy shopping at specialty organic stores and it is here I start to live life through food.

2008-2010.

I decide to abide by my childhood allergies after 20 years and I meet a vegan boy. I fall in love. I become vegan. I also stop eating gluten. People ask me a lot, “so what do you eat?” As a cause of this I start writing a food blog to explain to them,  but really it’s because I don’t understand life and food helps me I talk about it. The blog is called Food With Wit and I am engrossed. It consumes every ounce of me both outside and inside my day job. I talk about food all the time and I decide to travel to Europe. There I find many things to eat, forget I have allergies, again, and I eat my way through Europe. The fresh markets of France, Spain and Belgium stand out in my mind the most. In Paris I am the only American that forces her hosts to take her to the only vegetarian restaurant. My friend Alexandre, says he likes the real thing, but humors me by ordering a veggie burger.

The best thing about Amsterdam isn’t the food but the museums and the further I travel in Europe I sheepishly begin to disobey my “American” ways. I meet an Indian in Barcelona and my Americanness is immediately revealed when he asks, “are you hungry?’, and I reply, “I could eat.” I am found out. Being a naive eater and American I am not aware of the slight cultural difference in my reply which he is quick to point out. He say’s “Yes, I see, American’s can always eat.” After travelling I decide to go to the French countryside and live on a farm. Upon arrival I am adopted into role of chef. “Sure, I can cook.” I say. I am fully immersed in the French “bread and butter for breakfast, bread and cheese for lunch and dinner” lifestyle. In the kitchen I sneak mini croissants and snacks when I can because I am nervous and in a strange place. I have no idea how to cook for large amounts of people and unaffectedly try to force my “vegan ways” upon a French family; I fail. The family likes me anyways, but my time in the kitchen is stopped short when I decide to serve cooked escarole to the female farm head. Her mother liked it and cooked it often and so she doesn’t approve. On the farm there are food firsts, and firsts in general. Every wednesday Sophie the farm hand and I go to town for “groceries”. It is not your typical grocery trip, it instead means going around back to pick up food they will throw out that day (for the animals on the farm). There is enough baguettes to put into 7 large canvass bags and enough produce to fill up half a 6 person van. We even take the old pastries home to eat too, cakes, eclairs and all, but these are for us. Evenings after a hard day of farm work pastries, even after being in the trash are happily welcomed. After our “pick ups” Sophie and I sit to enjoy a cafe. I practice my French.

I get less time in the kitchen and more time cleaning and hosting the French visitors to the farm. I am good at this job and still get a chance to sneak in pastries between ironing. I learn a lot from Carina and she makes the best pomme tart I have ever had. She also teaches me how to make fresh crepes. I have never seen anyone eat cheese the way she does. Fresh goat cheese smothered on farm baked bread at every meal. I watch her as she layers the cheese and can’t help but be awed by her uninhibited devouring of bread and cheese. I cling hopelessly to my American vegan diet, and fail miserably. My French adventures are short and I return home to the states. Upon arrival I try to replicate every food that I ate on the farm; it doesn’t work. The American version is high quality, but still nothing tastes quite the same.

Hello everyone, the time has arrived that you’ve been waiting for; I have launched my offerings.

6 sweet and delicious packages that will only leave you wanting more. Sorry about that : ). Take a look and I hope to see you for one of these “treat yourselves” occasions.

OFFERING #1

YOGA FOR CREATIVE RETREATS Have an event or retreat coming up? Caitlyn specializes in teaching for creative retreats. Whether it is private/group yoga classes, her offerings are a great addition to any creative process. Personalized classes make a perfect addition to your retreat and aid in creative endeavors by creating space and grounding. She is also available for empowerment training retreats that are aided by the physical strength of yoga and the self-inquiry it brings. Email Caitlyn for bookings and watch as your retreat is transformed.

Retreat classes are $199/per day.

TMI retreat Executive Director Eva Tenuto shares her experience: “Caitlyn is my go-to yoga instructor whenever I am planning a retreat. She is not only kind and compassionate to all students, she is very attentive to our goals at the retreat and takes the time to incorporate our intentions into her class. Starting the day with her morning class ensures that my participants are going to be supported in their creative journey from the start. I will have her back every time!”

OFFERING #2

FUEL FOR CREATIVES Want to deepen your personal practice? Caitlyn provides personal one-on-one private yoga instruction for all levels. Are you a creative who needs help breaking through blocks and finding grounding and centering in your work? Caitlyn is a lifetime creative who understands the struggles and obstacles that creatives face in finding their path to expression and their voice. Creating a safe-space to dig deep into your process, yoga aids in opening pathways for the process to freely flow and creates strength in taking new projects on. In her sessions, Caitlyn acts as a coach and mentor to those struggling to find their voice, or for those who just need a break from the process. Sliding Scales are available. Classes can be taught at your studio, home, or if you need a nice retreat, at Caitlyn’s serene at-home yoga studio.

Sessions are customized and personal to each individual and start at $100/1-1/2 hour sessions

OFFERING #3 :

HEALTH TRANSFORMATION Need a good kick in the pants for a health transformation? Caitlyn provides one-on-one coaching for individuals looking to begin a path to healing from within. Health coaching, recipes, food shopping trips and private yoga instruction all can contribute to the renewal of your food outlook.

Coaching starts at $75/hour please email me to set up your FREE consultation

Just see what people are saying: “She brought me lunch and dinner 5 days a week. We also made shopping trips together so I knew what to eat for breakfast and snacks. She also suggested to keep a food diary and really think more about my food choices and how they made me feel. The food was to my surprise absolutely delicious. I couldn’t believe healthy food could taste so great. After the first week i was hooked!!  So much variety, I never got bored, and simple recipes so they were easy for me to make. She also gave me any recipe I ever would ask for. I have never felt better in my whole life!! More energy, no stomach issues, clearer skin, and losing weight.”  - Former Food With Wit client, Betsy Westhoven

OFFERING #4:

BEAUTY FOR THE INSIDE AND OUT What you put into your body is as important as what you put out. Let Caitlyn be your beauty consultant for your next big day. Whether you have a lecture, speech, video, wedding, or just want to feel and look your best, Caitlyn can provide one-on-one beauty counseling for your big moment. We all want to look and feel good, with 10-years in the beauty and wellness industry Caitlyn knows what it takes to look and feel your best. We will discuss wardrobe, your best colors, and discover what you want to put out into the world, all over a green juice at in the comfort of your own home. Email for a FREE consultation and let Caitlyn guide you to discovering your truest beauty.

Beauty Consultations start at $60

OFFERING # 5:

FLUSH IT ALL AWAY We all have times when we feel betrodden and weighed down. Spring is perfect time to cleanse out with the old, and in with the new. Caitlyn has perfected the process of cleansing. Realizing that harsh cleansing and dieting can be EXHAUSTING, Caitlyn designed a cleanse that works as a gradual detox from the harsher things in life. This cleanse is personalized to each individual. Some take 4-days, others 30. We all are different and Caitlyn honors that individuality with this very personal cleanse. Recipes, shopping lists, and day-to-day guidelines as well as support forum and one cooking class all make the process of letting go, just a little bit easier. Cleanse is $75/per person and includes all mentioned above NOT including price of groceries. Sign up with a group and get 10% off.

OFFERING #6:

GROUP AND INDIVIDUAL COOKING CLASSES Ever wanted to know how to make fresh almond milk? Make raw almond flour from scratch? Make a raw cheesecake? OR Cook a delicious and nutritious vegetarian/vegan, like vegan lasagna, in 20 minutes? With Food With Wit cooking classes you will WOW your friends and loved ones, showing off your culinary expertise as well as your love for caring for your body. These 2-hour cooking classes are a great idea for your next girls night out, bachelorette/bachelor party or a romantic date night out. Cooking classes can be individualized and personalized to everyone’s eating and desires and you will enjoy helpful tips and lessons in the kitchen as well as a 3 course meal of your choosing by the end. Cooking classes are $60/per person. Fill the contact form out below for your next big event and let the cooking begin!