I woke up this morning with a migraine. Truth be told, I went to bed with it last night. I was expecting to get a headache, but not this quickly! As I popped some Excedrin Migraine while reading my Whole30 Daily email, I found out that apparently a lot of people get headaches on days 2 and 3. This is especially so if you just so happened to have gone on an eating binge of all your favourite non compliant foods right before the start of the program… Oops! Go figure. Thankfully the migraine went away in time for me to go with my husband to the farmer’s market.
It wasn’t that big, but I was surprised by how much of my shopping list I was able to tick off here! I love going to farmers markets. I love putting my money directly in the very hands that worked to bring me my groceries, which invariably are better than what I can find in the grocery store. And the characters you meet! The lady selling eggs had a sign that said “eggs so fresh they slept in a chicken last night!” There was an incredibly diversified farm from a neighbouring town right next to where l go for private dance lessons – I might have even driven by them! Then there was an incredibly effusive Greek man selling extra virgin olive oil from Olympia, “where Zeus himself walked and enriched the ground when he descended to bless the first Olympics.” He ended up getting us to buy olive oil, kalamata olives, “the best oregano in the world”, and two jars of sauce that will apparently make me want to kiss the scrambled eggs I put it on. There were also people selling exceptionally good looking éclairs and croissants, but we won’t talk about those.
As expected though, we still needed to go by a grocery store for things the farmers don’t sell. Since we were in the neighbourhood, we went to my favourite supermarket, H-Mart. This Korean grocery experience always makes me happy. So many things you can get there that you can’t get in regular stores! I always make sure to leave with at least one thing I’ve never tried before. This time it was burdock root. I know it’s a very healthy ingredient in herbal medicine, but I haven’t cooked with it yet 🙂
What I didn’t find though? Coconut aminos. Heck, any soy sauce like substance that was Whole30 compliant. There was basically an entire aisle dedicated to soy and dipping sauce varieties. Every single one had wheat, sugar, or both. Except one, but then that one had alcohol! I very sadly put down the bottle. If Whole30 won’t allow vanilla extract because of the alcohol, I guess this magically gluten and sugar free soy sauce was out of the question too. Sigh. Guess I’ll just have to go to Whole Foods to fill that particular desire.
I went from 3 Lara Bars down to 2 today. Progress? I’m still not used to the idea of cooking so much all the time, but thankfully, it’s the summer, and I’ve got more time than usual. Going to try to cook all my meals for the week in the next couple of days!
My Vegetarian Whole 30 