Endless Apples! – Wellesley Apple Butter & Cheese Festival 2010

It was a rainy and cold day, I wasn’t well dressed and was wimping about in the weather. However, that did not deter the large numbers of people that showed up in Wellesley for its great Apple Butter and Cheese Festival. In my last post, I was raving about the local treasures that the Waterloo region has; this festival is one of them.

 

The tractor ride to the Cider Mill

 

Only 15 minutes away from Waterloo, this festival comes once a year to share apple goodness with people. Fritters, dumplings, pies, fresh, with toffee, candied, jellied and of course as a butter and cider… the possibilities made with one of K-W’s greatest bounties are endless. And we cannot forget the morning pancakes and German specialties such as schnitzel roasting happily to warm the tummies of the chilled patrons.

In the afternoon, I managed to battle my way to some of the top attractions. No trip to Wellesley is completely without seeing its cider mill. We journeyed there in the back of a tractor, a novelty in itself. Nearly 100 years old, this sucker works the old fashioned way and people prefer it that way. Thousands of pounds of apples go through its press to create delicious cider. It’s an amazing process, really. Free cider samples weren’t shabby either.

 

Each box contains 800 lbs of apples!

 

Becka and I had the perfect vantage point on the tractor trailer as the antique car and tractors paraded by at noon. Shown as part of the festival, it is the best time to relive the good ol’ days and classic action films through these vehicles. One can see the dreams of the antique car designers when they created the machine, their visions of the future car apparent in their creations.

One must never forget the marketplace, which took place outside and inside the Wellesley Arena. People gathered from all over to check out local and distant artisans of both crafts and food. Here are some of the people I visited.

Nudge Nudge Fudge – Nudge nudge…here’s the fudge! A cute logo and very tasty looking fudge in an array of sizes. They ensure their products are nut free (although not vegan yet), and they introduce clever flavours depending on the season. I bought their pumpkin fudge for Thanksgiving. 🙂

Truly Canadian Eh? – (trulycanadianeh@gmail.com) Not only do their company name boasts Canadian heritage, but they make the most awesome cars, trucks and airplanes from beer and pop cans. It’s absolutely fabulous and the details are unbelievable. It’s a must have for any toy collector or child (the edges are all rounded).

Accents – (accents@idirect.ca) They don’t really create their works, but they bring in some very snazzy pieces at great prices!

idea garden creative – (jf_beckner@yahoo.ca) One of two ceramic artists, these guys specialize in lovely Celtic creations. For any fantasy lover.

Carol’s Pottery & Crafts – A set of very solid pottery from this artist. They had a very interesting French butter dish that I bought for my mother (yet to try). You put the butter in the “lid” and flip it upside down into the container, which has an inch of water. People have sworn this is the best way to store butter for hundreds of years. How fascinating. But outside of that, they have great traditional pottery.

All Pine Woodcraft – Nothing like some beautiful, rustic wooden furniture. This man has great prices for great pieces. Not just typical furniture though. You can get the best set of desk drawers or mini cabinets that you can help to organize corners of your room from that scattered jewelry. I can’t wait to order something.

 

Antique car show

 

We did not get our curly fries, having been sold out by the time we decided to indulge, but the home-style fries were pretty awesome. There was also an award winning cheese team from Thornlea of which I cannot remember the name. If I find out, I will update this post, since the cheese I gave to my friend as a present had her swooning.

We battled rain and chills all day. I will do it again, and again. What a great day. What atmosphere and what attractions. Even the drive out there opened the doors into land that I have not seen in my own backyard.

That awesome little nameless band playing outside their house.

All Day On-the-Go Snacking – Waterloo Community Detox Days 5-6

Because of my blurb on headshots yesterday, I bypassed writing about my detox experience. Not to worry though, because today was very similar to yesterday.

Being on the run all day is extremely difficult while staying on track for detoxing. This past week I’ve had the fortune of making it home in time for my 3 major meals, but today and yesterday I was out of the house post breakfast. Now, unless you carry a backpack, giant canvas bag or feel like holding an extra lunch bag, I doubt that packing a lunch is very easy. So I opted to pack many small snacks in an attempt to stave off hunger until I had the chance for a late lunch.

Normally, snacks are a perfectly healthy way to manage hunger in-between meals. Popular options include: Larabars, Vega bars, raw nuts, veggie sticks, and fruit. However, outside of the veg and fruit, the others are healthy only in moderation (aka ONE serving per snack). If I’m trying to snack through lunch, one portion of nuts or a Larabar isn’t enough, and vegetables and fruit are not size friendly enough in large amounts (can you imagine 3 apples? a stalk of broccoli?). And so I’m caught between eating more fatty items to stave off hunger, or packing larger items in an attempt to stay healthy. I suppose buying from a local grocery is also an option, but how many of us always have that kind of money?

So what can we do to make this work? My first tip is to eat slowly. It takes a bit of effort. We are so used to being on the go that stuffing our faces has become automatic. Also, somewhere in our bodies we are wired to snatch up food and consume it quickly; it’s a survival instinct. By eating one almond every 5 minutes we are actively fighting that. Drink lots of water. It helps to expand the fibrous nuts and fills you up quicker. Furthermore, hunger/cravings are often stimulated by dehydration. Drinking water will help curb that.

While we are working on eating slowly, space out snacks over every 1-2 hours (longer hours for the more hearty snacks like a Larabar). Let’s look at what I packed today and how I consumed it:

Snack Schedule

Vega bar – eaten three hours after breakfast at 12pm

10 Almonds – ate one every time I felt hungry over the next 2 hours (I only ate 5, the other 5 I gave to my friend)

Raw coconut lemon macaroon – gnawed slowly at around 1pm

Apple – Ate at 2:30pm

With these snacks I was able to last until 5pm without additional food and without lunch. Now, I would suggest getting some greens in the next meal because usually lunch is the time for a large salad.

Now, to list some small sins and potential problems of mine in this last while…

I had my one alcoholic indulgence yesterday. I said I was allowed a maximum of two drinks once a week, but I was hoping to avoid it. I ate out yesterday and it’s really hard to resist good wine at a nice restaurant. But I’ve only had one glass and won’t have another despite my 2 max. My small justification is that a glass of red is good for you.

Today, I had avocado in my salad and also experimented with drinking coconut milk. Now, I know they say coconut’s high saturated medium-chain fats are actually really good for you and your metabolism, but I’m still feeling nervous about that many fats from those two fruits (or nuts) in my body. I guess tomorrow will determine whether I overdid it or not. I have been taught that in detoxing and/or eating vegan/raw, there is an unlearning that I have to undergo regarding the correlation between food and weight loss. A fattier or heavier food may not make you fat; in fact, it may speed weight loss (especially if that detail about coconut milk being a natural laxative is true). Again, we will see.

Dun dun dun…

Warning: You CAN outsmart a detox! – Waterloo Community Cleanse Day 2

I have made it through day two. No worries! Like I once said, I have done cleanses before. However, with my mother often asking me if I want to eat (which means her homemade Mac n’ Cheese) has made it somewhat more difficult, but nevertheless I am holding out.

Or so I thought.

One thing I realized about this detox, is that unless we know enough to make the right choices on our food list, we can stay loaded with toxins by not eating enough of certain detox foods. These detox foods include fresh fruit, fresh vegetables,and legumes. These are the scrubbers that will clean our bodies. They pass through the body quickly, have loads of vitamins and minerals and fiber that will help our bodies rid itself of junk.

Now, of course our bodies need other things too. Fats, for example, help provide the fuel for your metabolism and weight loss, help your heart, aid in the absorption of nutrients and so on. Non-gluten grains is also needed for fiber, protein and other benefits. These are also the arguably more hearty, tasty options in a detox. How can we deny sandwiches, rich nutty tastes and other items that mimic our comfort food?

That is what I realized today. Before I knew it, I found myself munching on loads of puffed millet cereal with almond milk, walnuts, almonds, banana with almond butter, sweet potato with pumpkin seed butter and a Larabar, which also has almonds. My fruit intake? Outside the banana, an apple, mango and raspberries. Not too shabby. But my vegetables? Ummm…my noon salad. One large salad – the “large” is not a justification for “ONE”. Gee, no wonder I’m doing do well; I’m still indulging tons in my own special way.

Don’t get me wrong. I just said that nuts and seeds are very good for you, especially when raw. But like any fatty food, no matter how good the fats, an excess of it will only lead to a fatty body, especially when it’s replacing our nice scrubber vegetables. Even if adequate vegetables are consumed, they still should not be consumed in excess.

What is excess? Shockingly, more than we assume. Portion and packaging sizes are so huge today (and buying nuts in bulk is so appealing) that we sometimes lose sense of just what is a healthy dose. I certainly wasn’t certain myself. After a bit of research, and memories of an old health plan I followed that listed portion sizes, one serving of nuts is approximately a small handful, or 8-14 nuts. For the butters, no more than a tablespoon tops. So guiltily, I’ve had nearly 5 servings of nuts.

Does this mean I’m off the bandwagon? Of course not! “Cheating” or not, I have followed the proper restrictions, I have not put anymore junk into my body, and after tonight’s excessively difficult Hot Yoga Power Flow class (believe me, I do this class regularly…but tonight’s instructor was intense and the room was very hot), I would like to say I’m justified at least part of those servings.

Tomorrow is a new day. And I promise that it will be a green and crunchy day.