Things I like: Americas obsession with food

When I say America is obsessed with food I am not talking about burgers and fries and Coca Cola. I am talking about good, healthy, gourmet food.

I actually wrote a whole blog entry about it a few days ago but didn't publish it because I wasn't happy with the way I wrote it and then today I see this article from the New York Times. And they did a way better job at describing what is happening here in the US right now.

I have always believed there are two kinds of people in this world - people who love food and people who don't care much about food. Those people who love food are usually also into cooking or of they aren't into cooking they at least go to very good restaurants. People who love food are picky - not with the kind of food they eat but with the quality of food that they consume. 

People who don't care much about food think that a Big Mac makes a good dinner. They can eat the same food for two weeks in a row and not feel deprived. They don't see a need in trying new foods, new cuisines because they are quite happy with what they know.

I believe that wether you love food or not is 50% determined by your personality and 50% by your upbringing. I believe you can learn to love good food. There are also of course various stages of food love.

In my "research" (which consists of having lived with many different kinds of people) I found that people who like food and people who don't care about food come in all shapes and sizes. I did find that people who don't care about food are often very skinny or very big and that they are very often not healthy because they don't care about the nutrition they put in their body, they just want a quick fix and thus resort to ready meals and fast food.

People who love food most often are a normal weight, sometimes a few pounds overweight but usually still quite healthy. But of course - there is no "standard".

One sign of Americas obsession with food is the Food Network. This TV channel used to have a viewer-demographic of mostly 50-80 year olds. In the past two years this has changed drastically. Not only did they increase their ratings by 10% - just this past year - they now also appeal to younger people. Maybe it's just that they have insanely hot cooks like Giada de Laurentiis and David Lieberman but I have another theory. I think in an attempt to not get fat, a lot of food lovers deprive themselves of what they really would like to eat. Watching the food network is like window shopping for eating.

Chicago especially is a food mecca. You have Wisconsin close by - the Diary State - which produces wonderful cheeses (even though I still prefer French cheeses) and the German influence is definitely noticeable (I have never been to Wisconsin but I have had a lot of food made in Wisconsin).

One of the best restaurants in the US - Alinea - is in Chicago.

There are a few different food festivals in Chicago.

There is a Korea town, a China town, an Italian village, an Ukranian village, a German neighborhood, an Indian neighborhood ... 

And let's not forget about the farmers markets. 

Personally I really enjoy that. I am one of those people who love food and America's obsession with food has really pulled me in. I love that I have a fantastic German butcher close by. I am all over Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. I feel like the use of Kosher salt has seriously improved the quality of my food and making and freezing my home-made chicken stock has revolutionized my cooking.

When I first moved to America I wanted to try everything. I tried the processed foods like Hamburger Helpers and Rice-a-roni but I didn't like it. It also made me feel kind of ill. American ready-made food is stuffed with bad stuff like high-fructose corn syrup, trans-fat and MSG. 

It is really funny how split this nation is on the topic of food. On one side you have to check all the labels to see what you are eating and on the other hand you have a humongous selection of healthy, organic food, readily available and much cheaper than in Europe.

When New York announced a ban of trans-fat I saw people on the net complaining how this would eliminate all tasty food - this is how used to processed foods people have gotten. They can't imagine food being tasty without all those evil ingredients!

I for one hope for the food revolution described in the New York Times article. I want my future children to get healthy food in school. I want to be able to go to a non-organic supermarket and not having to carefully observe all the ingredients because I can't trust a label that says "all natural". I want more farmers markets and less genetically enhanced food.

And America seems to be with me on that one.

Springtime

Spring has arrived in Chicago. 

Long anticipated warmth. The sheets of ice on Lake Michigan have finally yielded to the glistening rays of sunshine and ceased into the cold waters. The lakeshore beaches look so deliciously inviting that only reminding yourself of the consequences a jump would cause keeps you from immersing into the icy waters.  People are playing with their offspring in  the long neglected back yards. Beautiful bourgeoning trees adorn Lakeviews streets. Children are playing catch and basketball in the alleys. The lakeshore cycle/jogging path is crowded with Chicagoans soaking up the light, the warm air and the smell of the fresh, sweet water. 

A phenomenon I have always liked about Holland and that I now like about Chicago is how incredibly thankful people are for the warm, sunny days they receive. Of course there are many more sunny, warm days here than there are in Holland (thank god, otherwise I would be seriously disappointed) but we do have the grueling, hostile winters and of course Chicago is not called the "Windy City" for nothing. So when it got warmer and sunnier about a week ago everybody wanted to enjoy the weather. 

Remember the job I blogged about last time? Well, I didn't get that job - not surprisingly. But I did buy myself a bike and I did enjoy the weather, biking around Chicago. And this is why I have been absent from blogging for a while.

Whoever would have thought that getting a bike could change my outlook on life so much? I feel like I can go anywhere now. I know I could have just used public transport or drive if I finally bite the bullet and get my American drivers license but none of these ways of transportation give me the feeling that I get from biking. It makes me feel like nothing can stop me. It is kind of scary to cycle in the city I have to say and I am using a bike helmet for the first time in my life. And that - even though I learned how to cycle when I was three years old (and I should have really used a bike helmet then but it was the early 80s and people didn't use those then). I learned how to cycle this early for two reasons: My mother couldn't afford a car and even if she could, her eyes were too bad and they didn't allow her to get her drivers license (she was however allowed to ride a motorcycle. So did my grandma. I am the first woman in the family since the 1950s to not know how to ride a motorcycle but I am the first one to know how to drive a car). So when I was a kid in Vienna and my friends and their parents would drive down to Italy for the summer holidays or fly to the US to go to Disneyland my mom and I would stay in Vienna and instead take bike tours to Schloss Laxenburg or the Old Danube.

Maybe this is why cycling makes me feel so good today. Maybe I associate it with holidays and family time.

The weather hasn't been as good today. But I know it will get better again eventually. I know that I can expect a hot summer, maybe too hot for my liking. But that's ok. Because how can one not be excited about what is about to come - picnics in the park, outdoor concerts, outdoor food festivals, swimming in the lake, ... 

I often hear people say that Chicago has those harsh winters to keep too many people from moving here because if it would always be as lovely as it is here in late spring, summer and fall, the city would be as expensive to live in as San Francisco. 

And I can believe that.

I am pretty exited about a few things apart from the weather right now - first - one of my best friends ever is coming to visit me this Thursday - unfortunately only for a few days but I am looking forward to showing her all the Austrian and German places (she is Austrian too) and maybe even get her to fall in love with Chicago (and maybe get her to move here!).

And Saturday in a week we are going on holidays! We are driving down to Memphis and staying there for two days and then move on to New Orleans - which is where all of E's family is from. We get to stay in a fancy apartment of E's uncle in the slave quarters (doesn't that sound incredibly inviting?) which I think is in the French Quarter if I got that right. There will be a lot of family bonding time (my in-laws, my sister and brother in law and their baby are also coming down from Ohio - so I get to see my nephew again), Beignet eating (in which I will gladly participate) and seafood munching (from which I will refrain since I don't eat seafood).

Since I am kind of into the paranormal a little bit, I also want to take a ghost tour or at least see the Delphine LaLauries house. I am also interested in checking out a voodoo shop. So I am pretty excited about that! And it should be very warm there too since it is very far south.

So wherever you are - enjoy spring and if I have time - I will post live from New Orleans!

The Sound of Silence - Warning! May contain whineyness

My life has been on a bit of an emotional roller coaster these past two weeks.

It all started with my cold. I don't know if that's just me but I always get more emotional when I am ill. I spontaneously start crying at that diaper commercial (and at the life insurance commercial. I love old people). Seeing my cats being affectionate with each other gives me goose bumps and watching a re-run of "The Bachelor" on TV makes me want to throw my water bottle at the TV set (but a lot of women in America feel this way about the bachelor right now).

Being in this fragile mental state, still no luck with the job search, missing my gals and boys back in NL (and Florida and LA and Barcelona and Austria) more than ever - it's been a tough time.

On top of that there has been this whole internal struggle going on inside my head since moving to Chicago. I have been wanting to be a photographer for a long time. I am not saying it's the only job I would enjoy but it is one of those few things I feel like I never get bored of doing. But Chicago is a financial center. What I always really, really wanted to be was a magazine photographer. I also feel that's what I am best at - portrait photography. I was thinking about becoming a wedding photographer but the working hours are horrible. You work weekends and evenings and pretty much all summer but get almost no work in the winter. Taking a holiday in the summer would mean a considerable lack of income but that would mean I would be confined to visit Europe in the winter - something I don't really want to do. On top of that - having a husband who has a day job - when would we see each other? Right now I am NOT working and I feel like I don't see him enough.

And on top of all of that - so many people want to be photographers and there are so many great photographers out there who didn't make it. How could I be successful when I am just now studying it and at the end of my studies I won't even get a fancy title like Bachelor of Arts or anything like that.

Anyway, realizing that my chances of becoming a photographer are very slim here I started thinking about alternatives. Maybe studying web design? Or Fashion merchandise? I am sure there ARE jobs out there I would enjoy.

Two weeks ago I was basically at a point were I had given up my dream of becoming a photographer completely. 

And then I saw these Annie Leibowitz for Vanity Fair photos online. To be honest it first caught my attention because Paul Rudd and Seth Rogen are in it and I love those two. But seeing these pictures reminded me of why I wanted to become a photographer. I thought to myself "Why am I not pursuing this? How could I ever just give up without even having given it ONE SHOT? THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO DO!".

It was almost a magical moment. I was still on Dayquil on that day so that might have had something to do with my euphoria but it did change something in me.

The same day I went on Craigslist - my preferred place for job searches. But when going through the job section instead of clicking on "admin/office" I clicked on "art / media / design". And there was a job ad for a photography job. It was for a beginner photographer and a chance to grow and be trained to be a certified photographer. And they didn't even ask for money (like so many of those ads do)! The ad was 4 days old and I was sure that the job was gone. The Chicago job market right now is like the Amsterdam housing market when I first moved to Holland. Anything that looks remotely ok will be gone within hours of being posted. Sometimes even before it gets posted.

I sent my application anyway. I got an email back the next morning - the job is still available and could I send some online samples of my work. In a frenzy I went and put a bunch of my pictures on Flickr and scanned in another whole bunch which I didn't have on the computer. This is how I created an online portfolio. I sent the link to the lady who I would find out was the manager of a baby photography studio and a professional photographer herself. This company is a business that specializes in taking pictures of new born babies in the hospital. You know, the ones that are being sent out to all the friends and family. 

Five minutes after I sent her the link she sent an email back telling me she wants to meet.

I had an interview with her the next day and she told me that I was one of hundredths of applicants - only 10 had made it to the interview. 

Now, I don't want to give you wrong hope here. The fact is that I had my interview on Thursday - she said she would get back to me on the weekend and I have not heard back from her. At this point I am actually pretty sure that I didn't get the job. The adrenaline from having my first job interview in the US and having it be for a job I actually really want has worn off and I can now see how she rushed me through the interview and didn't really ask all that many questions about me. This indicates to me that she wasn't convinced. 

A year ago at this time I was the one to interview people who wanted to work for ME. I know how it is. I know that if you want somebody to work for you, you'll ask them a lot of questions but if you decide that this person doesn't stand a chance than you will try and get over and done with as soon as possible.

Another indicator for me not getting this job is that the training is supposed to start tomorrow. If she really would want me she would have contacted me already. 

The weather is bad and I am feeling down in general but I am at peace with probably not getting this job. It was pretty amazing to be invited for an interview and being told that I do have some talent by a professional photographer. It also forced me to get some kind of online portfolio up. And looking at similar jobs made me see that I would profit enormously from taking classes in Photoshop. There are a whole lot of jobs out there for people who know how to use Photoshop well. 

So my plan is now - try and stay in a field you like to work in. That doesn't mean I will completely pass up the admin jobs but I will also not cut out the artsy jobs (or the artsy admin jobs), focus more on my photography studies and go take Photoshop classes and become a Photoshop bad ass.

If anybody is interested in seeing my online "portfolio", let me know and I will send it to you by email.

How to become famous as an Austrian in America

If you ask an American to come up with three Austrians, there is a good chance that this is what they will come up with:

1. 

Arnold Schwarzenegger 

Governor of California, actor, fitness advocate, Terminator

2. 

Wolfgang Puck 

Famous cook, entrepreneur, caterer to the stars

3.

Josef Fritzl

Kidnapper, rapist, pedophile

It's funny. We had Mozart, we had Freud, we even had The Sound of Music but it doesn't matter. Because there was some horrible guy in Austria who did a horrible thing and that's all that matters now.

Even though I always felt more European than I felt Austrian I was still proud to be from a country with a history of Art and Music and exceptional Architecture, a country with a landscape so beautiful that people from all over the world visit to experience it. 

Before we moved here E and I were trying to guess what I would be asked upon meeting new people. He guessed that people would ask me really stupid questions like "So, Austria, which country is that in?" or "So you speak French there?". I have been asked those questions before but not just from Americans but also from Europeans and Australians. In general I give people more credit than that though. I think especially people living in big cities like Chicago are usually more worldly and educated than that and I am glad to say that I was mostly right. 

I often try to avoid the topic, not even mentioning that I am Austrian. But I have an accent that I will most definitely never get rid of completely (and I am fine with that) but that people can't place immediately. When I talk to somebody for a while and it eventually comes out that I lived in the Netherlands for a while I can almost hear a sigh of relief "Ah, so you are Dutch!" (the funny thing is that they react the same way to E, after 5 years with me they can't place his accent either). There are times when I just leave it at that. If it's somebody that I know I will never see again, I might as well leave them in the believe that they guessed where I was from all along. But if I am going to keep on talking to them I will tell them that I am originally from Austria. And recently the reaction to this confession was often "So what do you think about the Fritzl case?".

Well, what DO I think about the Fritzl case? What do you think? E suggested I should say "Yep, that happens all the time in Austria. Happened to me ...".

And funny that people should ask me that here, in the mid-west of the United States, a place where some of the most vicious serial killers of our time are from - Gacey, Dahmer, Gein, ...

Five years ago I bet the first questions I would have been asked would have been "So what do you think about Haider?" and ten years before that it would have been "So Hitler was Austrian, huh?".

I wonder if my country will ever recover from it's crimes. Even Germany gets more credit than the Second World War. When talking about Germany Americans mention beer, food, how nice the Germans they met were and that the Germans make good cars and good products in general. 

When talking about Schwarzenegger, the accent and his heritage are long forgotten. He married a Kennedy and is now as American as one could be. Wolfang Puck is so americanized that I had to google him to find out if he really WAS Austrian - I could hear it from his accent and Wolfgang is one of the most Austrian names ever but it was never mentioned that he is in fact Austrian. He also does not serve Austrian cuisine in his restaurants.

Maybe the secret to being a successful Austrian in America is to try and forget where you come from.

Sorry for being M.I.A recently. I have been pretty sick with a bad cold. I am starting to get better now but am still on DayQuil and NyQuil.

Prove Yourself

Along with not having a job to go to comes a lot of time on my hands. 

I was hoping that my freedom would slowly make my creativity come back. After 5 years in business school and 6 years of non-creative work my creative bubble has shrunk to the size of a pea.

And come back it did. My creative bubble grew and grew and finally burst with a loud bang. 

My brain is like an over-soaked sponge dripping with ideas I'd like to pursue. 

Since coming to the land of plenty I have been:

*Taking a sewing class

*Taking a class in which I made an ottoman

*Painted every wall in every room in the house (except the storage rooms) in a different color

*Renovated at least three pieces of furniture

*Made one scarf and started a new project

*Sewn a bag

*Made my own chicken stock and two roast chicken

*Tried out at least 10 different cookie recipes

*and many more normal dinner recipes that I have never made before

One of my newest projects is to make my own face cream. I have all the ingredients and just have to get started. I actually I don't know if this all counts as being creative but it feels like it. Luckily I don't start a project and then get bored of it. I want to do all of those things and keep on doing them.

Most of the stuff I am learning to do has to do with the house. I was confident that I could turn this apartment into "me". Into a place I would love to be in, a place that is unique and different and reflects my own and Es personality. 

I think I managed pretty well so far. But there is one thing missing.

Wall art.

I could buy it. Sure. But I feel a tad too old to hang my Klimt posters on the wall or a Van Gogh print of Starry, starry night. I was looking at original art. I could be an art collector!

Unfortunately I quickly found out that original art that looks good starts at around $500. Maybe some other time.

Or - I could just make my own. I am studying Photography after all, so it might be a good idea to hang up some of the stuff I made. Only that most of my best work is semi-nudes of people I know. Hanging those up in my living room would be awkward. To say the least. And it's not like my photos look particularly artsy either. They are just plain nakedness in high contrast black and white.

I decided that I will do one room of my tame pictures (landscapes and such) but for the other rooms I will have to come up with something else.

After some thinking I decided I will now dabble into painting. In my excitement I spent some money at an art supply store. I bought a book on watercolor painting, some paint, paper, water color, oil color. So now the only problem is that I haven't painted a thing in about 12 years and I am not very good at painting either.

It wasn't always like that. Until I was 10 years old whenever somebody asked what I wanted to be when I am all grown up I would say "painter". I was mostly drawing, not painting so much but I did it all the time. At three years old I couldn't write but I wanted to write down the fairy tales that I had made up in my head, so I drew them.  My mom kept on telling me I was incredibly talented which made me think I would  eventually become the next Picasso. I did not yet know about the "My mom says I'm cool!"-factor. Since I really like to draw but didn't like painting so much I eventually decided I better become a graphic designer. This was my plan until I was 12 years old (except that I also wanted to be a professional wrestler and a movie star. But who doesn't). I had always been the best at drawing in my class but then we had that assignment. The assignment was to draw a poster, either about a movie or a pop album. The young, smug, show-off I was I painted a movie poster for "Dead Man Walking". Nobody (not even my teacher) knew what the movie was about and nobody was impressed. Another girl, let's call her B. had painted a picture of Genesis doing their dance from "I can't dance". It was awesome. It looked great and realistic and people KNEW Genesis and were impressed!

There was somebody who could clearly draw and paint much better than me and that didn't even want to be a painter. How could I possibly want to do this as a career if there are people who do a way better job than me and don't even appreciate it? I gave up and ended up going to business school instead. Today young B. has a career as an insurance sales lady. Oh the wasted talent! 

I did however take up Photography as a hobby. I am not sure why I didn't give that up because the first few years I was an absolutely awful photographer! I tried to do artsy and took pictures of eggs, covered in shaving foam on our washing machine. You'd think that this would at least look interesting but it didn't. 

I just found one of the old pictures and scanned it in - so this is an "The Austrian" original from about 1994:

Yes, this is indeed and egg on top of a curler surrounded by other curlers on top of a washing machine

Don't ask me what it means

But I kept on trying and taking many, many classes in Austria and Holland and I got much better at taking pictures. 

If I would have not given up drawing and would have taken classes, maybe I could have become good at that too, who knows.

But I didn't. And now, more than 10 years later I am excited to take up painting and drawing again. I am not expecting to be good at it. I just want to have something that looks good enough to put on our walls.

And if it doesn't work out, I'll always have the Klimt posters. 

Work It

Lake Michigan, Belmont Harbor

A few weeks ago I decided it's time to do something. It's time to seriously look for a job. I really miss the structure of a day job and just the general feeling of contributing to society.

So I updated my CV and started applying. I applied for a lot of jobs and got exactly one answer (I had sent a blind application to the Goethe Institute but they had no jobs to offer at this time) - a negative one. I mean, come on, can't you even find the time to tell me that I am not good enough for your damn job?

Now, I know that I had been lucky in Holland. The job market was very good. It was easy to find a job. A lot of people were looking for native German speakers so I had that in my advantage. In some way the jobs always ended up coming to me. The two jobs I've had the longest I both got through friends. And that's what I keep on reading about the American job market too - you need to network. Maybe I just haven't met enough people yet but that hasn't worked for me at all.

There are some things I won't do. I won't ever go back to working in Customer Service. I'd rather do a mind-numbing data-entry job for a year even though I know I could do better than that. Having pretty much 5 -6 years of Customer Service on my CV - even if I did lot's of things in my job - admin work, training, even translating - makes it that much harder to get anything outside this field. I wonder if I should modify and fake my CV around a bit to get a job. First of all, maybe I have to dumb it down? I wonder if my last employed year that stated "Supervisor" makes people think I am going to be bossy or not happy in a secretarial position.

I also won't do Sales (I am way too honest, I could never do sales) or a financial job (I am not good with numbers and Accounting was my worst subject in school).

I applied for one job that just seemed perfect. It was a job to be a photographer for an Ebay-shop. People would drop of whatever they wanted to sell and they needed a photographer to take nice pictures of whatever people wanted to sell on that Ebay-shop. This job however was only for 15-20 hours per week and the pay was $9 per hour. That's not much money. This is a lot less than I earned in my first real job and that pay had sucked already. Still, I wanted that job so bad. I was going to actually be a photographer! And they wanted somebody who was a bit fashion savvy - hellooo! I worked for a fashion company for three years! Score!

This company like all the other ones didn't even get back to me. I am still thinking to myself what I did wrong in my application. I mean for those hours and that salary I cannot imagine that they got an experienced photographer to do the job. I know times are hard but still. If they would have at least invited me for an interview, you know? But to not even answer me ...

I applied for an admin agency too. A JOB AGENCY! I remember when I was living in Holland, looking for a job, putting my CV on Monster I got at least 8 phone calls a day from agencies that were desperate to hire me. This agency, like all those other companies didn't even call me. Not even an email saying "Sorry but we don't deem you employable".

I am utterly flabbergasted by this hostility.

So I am continuing to apply for jobs and hoping to score an interview. I have always been pretty good at interviews so I think if I could just get to talk to them I would have a much better chance to get the job.

Also I will try to be better prepared. Maybe that photo-job would have been more interested in me if I had made an online portfolio and included a link with my email. Or maybe it would have been like that writing job I applied for who asked for a link to a personal blog as a writing sample. I sent them the link to this blog and they never even looked at it.

Slow and steady wins the the race, right?

Detox - The Analysis

Today is the last day of my detox. I have to admit that my dinner today wasn't quite detox anymore. That's not because I couldn't do it anymore but because we had some food in the fridge that needed to be eaten before the weekend. 

Anyway here is an overview on how it went:

Health: In general I have to say I didn't feel much better. One reason I did this was to find out if I might be lactose intolerant or allergic to preservatives or anything like that. I have had some nervous stomach problems for the past few years and this was my way of finding out if they are food related or of a different nature. Well, seems like they are not food related. I don't feel "cleaner" like the people on the websites I read feel like when they detox, I didn't particularly feel better either.

Mentally: The first few days I felt awful. I am not entirely sure this had to do with the detox or something else but fact is that I felt really, really bad. I felt exhausted, so exhausted in fact that I only went to the gym once and that was on the first day of the detox. I was so tired after the gym that I didn't move much for the rest of the day. This is not how I usually feel like after the gym. After that experience I was a bit afraid of the gym and since I did a lot of physically challenging work in the apartment, like paint walls and I went for lot's of walks in this nice weather we were having, I didn't think it was so bad that I didn't make it to the gym. I'll definitely be back next week.

Strangely I felt so bad last weekend but then come Tuesday I was almost ecstatic. I felt so great. At that point I had started taking supplements like iron and multivitamins and maybe that influenced my mood. I don't know. I am just glad I am feeling normal now. I was afraid I was becoming bi-polar.

Appearance: That didn't change at all as far as I can tell. I expected to get this really wonderful, glowing, healthy looking complexion but nah. Nothing happened. The rings under my eyes still compete with Uncle Festers. I am still pale as a ghost. My pants are a smidgen less tight but that's really it.

What did I get out of it? I think the best thing I did was to reduce my salt intake and cut out my sugar intake. I didn't miss either, strangely. And now I can get away with salting much less and still like the food. It's funny how quickly your taste buds get used to something like using less salt. And the sugar I didn't miss at all. I am not a "I really would always prefer chips over chocolate" person. I like sweets and cookies and ice cream but it's not something I need to have everyday. So not having it for a week wasn't such a big deal. I read somewhere that it takes your body three days to get rid of a sugar addiction. Well, I had no withdrawal symptoms at all.

And I found a really tasty way to make smoothies - throw some frozen fruit (my favorites are pineapple, strawberries and mango) in the blender, together with a banana (not frozen) and some soy or almond milk. Turn on blender. You'll get something very similar in taste and look to fruit ice cream. It's delicious. 

The last few days I found better ways to make tasty meals and I actually didn't mind the whole vegan thing so much anymore. The only thing I really don't like about it is how damn complicated it is. You need to read all the labels to see if there might be something animal related or processed in it and since there are less things to put into your meal to make it tasty, you really need to watch what and how much of what you put into it. It takes a long time to cook a vegan meal and it's not very practical. So that's one reason why I won't become a vegan. Well and because I love cheese and milk and yoghurt. 

But I might throw in a vegan detox day every once in a while.