I took Lena to the vet this morning to get up-to-date on her vaccines and as she and I sat in the quiet waiting room amongst the other dogs and dogparents, a guy came in with his own black lab mix. The poor thing was going nuts, crying and barking and pulling so hard on the leash she was beginning to strangle herself. She was freaking out and so scared, and I felt both for her and the owner who looked helpless and embarrassed. It reminded me so much of Lena and me, a million years ago. She was always the nervous girl who hated any change in her routine. She puked on every car ride for her first two years, and cried and whined and shouted at me when I'd take her to the groomer or the vet. I was the helpless one, trying in vain to soothe her and wishing so badly she'd understand me when I'd say this will just be uncomfortable for a few minutes! or we're going straight home after this! Even now, when she has a stressful outing, she curls up and sleeps the rest of the afternoon at my feet (she's down there as I write this). It really takes it out of her, my tender little pal.

Now, instead of yelling at me at the vet she just leans on me and gently shakes. Our girl is slowing down so much. Her aging has thrown a wrench into all of our routines. Our big hikes have turned into strolls around the block. We have a lot of stairs in our house and they've begun to give her trouble too. Just a couple weeks ago, her back legs started to give her some grief. I catch her now staring up at the stairs, getting the nerve to take the journey. She's usually okay, taking them slowly: front-foot-front-foot, back-foot-back-foot, but a couple times I've heard small, heartbreaking crashes where she started the climb and then fell a couple steps in. And then she'll stand at the bottom looking up, deciding if she's gonna try again. The other day I said, "Go on, you can do it!" and she went. It was amazing. Sometimes a little encouragement is all we need.

When I left the vet's office, the freaked out guy with the freaked out dog was in the parking lot. He had taken her outside to give her a talking to and she was like, "I don't know what you want from me! I can't take it in there!" I passed them and opened my car door for Lena to jump up. She only got halfway in before she looked back and waited for me to hoist her tail end into the back seat. He must've seen us.

"Getting older?" The man asked.

"Yup," I said. "So is my dog." 

He laughed.

"It'll get easier." I said, nodding to his baby.

"I hope you're right." 

As a woman with no children, it sounds a little small to say "It goes so fast" about your dog, but it does. Life goes so fast. We have to extend a little encouragement to ourselves and others so we can enjoy it to the last drop.

xoxo
jolie

P.S. For Christmas I gave DP a bunch of printed Instagram photos from Social Print Studio. Aren't they lovely?

avgolemono (aka my big fat greek soup)

Dear People of Greek Heritage,

I mean you no harm! I come in peace! I simply seek a comforting chicken soup with lemon, and maybe also some egg that's whisked in to make it creamy and delicious. Historically, your avgolemono is a soup just like that (what are the odds?) and though I am not one of your people, I want some of it to call my own. Listen up, though: this will be a mere nod to the recipe of your ancestors, I pretend to know nothing of Greece except:

*I like your yogurt
*I saw a movie about a big, fat wedding
*I had a crush on a Pappas boy in junior high school

In order to remedy this, I set about educating myself. But upon googling 'avgolemono', I found that the word must have a dual meaning that arouses the angry spirits of Greek critics past. Scathing reviews were scattered below every recipe I referenced. There were Greek shouts aplenty, on topics including (but not limited to): authentic Greek cuisine, the importance of including orzo, and horrified Yia-Yias rolling over in their graves.

Dare I say? It's just soup. Do you own chicken soup with lemon and egg? Do you OWN it? Ok, I can feel you getting upset. Maybe you do own it. I'm sorry. Here, have some feta.

One recipe I found extolled the virtues of the staunchly AUTHENTIC version and insisted on homemade stock and orzo, but then peppered throughout the instructions were lines like use your own judgement and whatever tastes best to you and even swap orzo for rice if you want. Is this some kind of Greek trick? Like: fiddle with the recipe if you dare??

I'm gonna go out on a Greek limb here and make my own version. I'm swapping the orzo for (watch out!) quinoa and using (gasp!) store-bought stock. Then I'm gonna serve it on a bed of wilted spinach. How do you like that? Oh God, I'm sorry. Please don't hate me/write mean comments.

I extend an olive branch. The kind with Greek olives.

Love,
Jolie

Avgolemono (Joeycake-Style)
(not to be confused with the authentic version from the Old Country)
serves 6

2T evoo (please make sure this is Greek olive oil*)
1 medium-large yellow onion, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1T dried dill
1 cup quinoa (rinsed)
2 quarts chicken stock
3 eggs at room temperature (this is very important to avoid curdling)
1/3 cup plus 1T freshly squeezed lemon juice
Salt and pepper
2-1/2 cups cooked chicken (pull it from a grocery store rotisserie one to make it easy)
1/3 cup minced italian parsley (unless you can find Greek parsley*)
Baby spinach for serving

*just kidding

In a large soup pot or dutch oven, heat the oil over medium heat until it shimmers and then sauté the onion and garlic for 5-6 minutes, until translucent. Stir in the dill and the quinoa, coating it in the oil and onions for 2 minutes. Add the chicken stock, bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, whisk the eggs and the lemon juice together, add a big pinch of salt and lots of black pepper. While you whisk whisk whisk, add about a 1/2 cup of the hot soup to the egg mixture to temper it, then slowly add the egg mixture into the big pot of hot soup a little bit at a time, whisking furiously the whole time. (We don't want scrambled eggs here!) Keep whisking for another minute after it's all added. When the soup has reached a simmer again, add the cooked chicken and parsley, heating everything through. Taste for salt. Add a handful of baby spinach to each bowl and ladle the hot soup over the top. Enjoy immediately and pray no Greek food historians will smite us. Opa!

xoxo
jolie

P.S. Hi to new email subscribers! I'm so glad/grateful you're here:)

P.P.S. Fun fact: the word "Greek" appears 11 times in this post.

P.P.S. Have you met my chicken supervisor?:

xoxo
jolie

here we go!

Happy 2014! I don't know about you guys, but even despite a wonderful Holiday, I'm happy to get back to normal. Today's Regular Monday includes answering emails, a trip to the post office and not eating and drinking everything in sight.

I wrote another piece for the Huffington Post and I hope you like it:)

How To Juice-Cleanse Like A Motherf*cking Champ

In its honor, Lena and I are juicing this morning. She is super psyched about it.

Here's to an awesome year full of fun and blessings,
xoxo
jolie