Exit coma.

Why hello! Excuses for lengthy absence = end of uni semester, not feeling so chipper, and huge internet bills possibly caused by my net surfing addiction. But am now on holidays and will make a concerted effort once again to start offering unqualified health advice daily!

This was my life in the last crazy-whirlwind weeks of uni – packed breakfasts, lunches & dinners. Committment, or tupperware obsession?

Not to put a damper on my reunion with the blogosphere, I am in a TERRIBLE mood because I was just about to leave the house bright and early this morning to do some therapeutic health food shopping, only to discover my solitary car key has disappeared into fat air. Trying to stay calm and attribute the loss to a blatant attempt by life to break my spending addiction. No car, no overpriced organic goodies. So instead, struggling to be at one with the ways of the automated universe, and turn that grimace into, well, less-of-a-grimace!

Spending addiction since completing uni semester exhibit A:

Very cool canvas hi-tops for winter. First year not buying leather boots and i’m definitely stoked with the alternatives.

Spending has also extended, naturally, to amazing new foodie finds.

Yes, that is pure coconut water in a carton. No additives (apart from organic pineapple juice & acerola), no sugar…they don’t even let air get to the coconut juice before it is siphoned into this little eco bottle for my lip-smacking consumption. Yes I hate juice and packaged drinks of any kind, but I was wetting myself when I saw this. Love, love, love.

To celebrate the re-emergence of my head in the world of the living (as opposed to hidden in front of a luminescent editing screen in a dimly-lit uni-lab 24/7) I also went and got the mop tamed. An amazing thing happened when I went to a new hairdresser – they offered me ammonia-free hair dye! I just get a few blondie bits here and there, but if I can do so without the crazy chemicals, I say yay! She was an excellent hairdresser, and I also bought this new Aussie organic shampoo that she stocked called O & M, that happens to be the most delicious product i’ve ever had the luxury of lathering up into a frothy mess atop my noggin. No parabens, sulfates or cruelty. No consideration for a student budget either…

Tad on the short side, but I generally like to resemble a boy as much as possible.

There was a couple of excruciating weeks in which young coconuts were mysteriously absent from supermarket shelves, and I cried myself to sleep on many a night, however they are back in force, and i’m enjoying them paired with raw cacao & lots of salad options, and pretending in vain that it’s summer..

I also had the pleasure of trying Angela’s Peanut Butter Parsnip Fries. As her title asserts, yes indeed, they did enrich my (once empty) life. I now have a more meaningful existence in the knowledge I can coat roasting veggies in a healthy layer of PB!

I’ve also never tried parsnips before, and dug the deviation from the standard potato or carrot. I do however think these babies would be mind blowing with sweet potato, seeing as the day after I had these I appropriated the notion of putting PB on veggies to include slathering it all over my steamed sweet potato. Results were as expected. Phenomenal.

Culinary fare continued to impress with another of Angela’s favourites – savoury oats. Yet again friends, we must open our minds to curious combinations that challenge convention (see: avocado as a base for chocolate pudding; spinach in smoothies) but more often than not, these ideas are FREAKIN’ RADICAL and must be tasted first-hand.

Didn’t really follow the recipe exactly, but just threw in some veggie stock, savoury yeast flakes, S & P, mustard, turmeric and added chia seeds, avocado, cherry tomatoes, salsa, hummus, sunflower seeds, coriander… I would swim in a vat of these oats, let’s put it that way.

Yet more recipe trials with Caitlin’s flax-encrusted sweet potato balls. Scrummy. Subbed mixed beans for black beans, which seemed to work fine. The only thing I would try next time was maybe a different coating, like ground chia or even a flour, and I need to find some sort of delectable sauce to slather them in.

Post-exams, I’ve also made the time to fit reading back into my life, and have just today finished Jonathan Safran Foer’s (superb author responsible for Everything is Illuminated & Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close) Eating Animals. It was a tough read, and i’m going to talk about it more in my next post.

Last weekend I also went and walked some wee little homeless pooches for a local animal shelter. I feel like it’s not a very big contribution, but I would like to get more involved somehow because stray pets are just such a huge problem, catalysed in the large part by over-breeding, failure to de-sex and thoughtless, impulsive purchases.

This is Inca. She’s only 1 year old and is a Maltese x Jack Russell. She was a total sweetie, and I wish I could’ve taken her home. If you’re interested, here is the shelter website.

Well, it’s off to the gym for me, but stay tuned for a bit of a meaningful post sometime later today or tomorrow. There’s some things on my mind now that it’s free of film, french & feeble study attempts. XXXX