My new, not-so-routine, routine

I wanted to finally update all of you on my new routine, which I am discovering is not very routine or predictable. And this suits me just fine.
Look at one of the beautiful places I get to work!!

GOODBYE traditional work hours, being inside most of the day, and not working most weekends! And for that matter: goodbye (with mixed feelings) to clinical dietetics, white lab coats, ICU rounds and tube feedings.
HELLO to being physically active for my job, being outside a good portion of the day, being creative and imaginative as I plan out my classes/music playlists, and best of all: helping people achieve their health and wellness goals. I love it! What a welcome change for this phase of my life.
So, what exactly is my new routine?

• Teaching yoga 3 times a week or more for Buena Onda Yoga: It is a wonderful community of expats, travelers, students, and locals. The classes are in English and the style of my classes are primarily vinyasa flow. 
• Leading an outdoor boot camp fitness class for Boot Camp Buenos Aires (a sister company to Buena Onda) once a week... and it looks like I will be picking up more sessions starting this week.
• Writing articles about nutrition, yoga, fitness, etc. for Medios Lentos once a month (unfortunately, their site has been down this last week and they are working on getting it up and going again).
• Spanish tutoring twice a week with my lively and wonderful tutor, Mary Jane. And then trying to practice Spanish, read newspaper articles and easy books in Spanish, and basically getting over my fear of speaking Spanish!
• Being a "part-time mom" with Sofi and Martin when they stay with us on the weekends and a night or two during the week. 
• Working on developing a personal website to offer nutrition counseling and tie together my work with yoga, boot camp and nutrition. 
• Trying to maintain my own wellness and fitness. My goal is to have a daily yoga practice and also begin training for a race, maybe even the Buenos Aires Marathon in October!
• AND... living in a developing country with all that entails!! :) There's usually a daily surprise challenge to keep me on my toes.

Here are some other pics of the yoga studios where I teach:

The Las Cañitas studio

Inside the Recoleta studio:

View from your mat if you take a class with me! :)

One night, Fer and I did a little photo shoot so I'd have some photos for the Buena Onda Yoga website and a personal/work website that I am trying to get started.
Getting my camel on...

Having fun in side crow. Arm balances are some of my faves.

Preparing Nicoise salad for our dinner...

Yumm! One of our favorite dinners.

Thanks so much to all my friends and family that have supported me during these last few months of big transitions. I really couldn't be where I am today without all of you, especially my sweet Fer! Lots of love, Carolyn

End of January... OR: "Hello, my name is Carolyn and I am addicted to grocery shopping and cooking"

Well, another month has flown by since I last posted. I will try to catch up on the last bit of January... it seems so far away already!
I'm not sure exactly why but after we came home from Punta de Este, I was OBSESSED with cooking and grocery shopping. I think the yummy vegetarian food at my Yandara Yoga Teacher Training inspired me, as well as traveling for a month+ and missing my own kitchen got me motivated. Most days I would make one (or up to three) trips to get this or that food item. I made several trips to China Town for ingredients that are hard to get at the shops in our neighborhood. Basically, if you need anything besides the Argentine basics (white flour, sugar, eggs, milk, meat and basic veggies and fruits) you have to trek to China Town. I still get giddy when I find ingredients that I first thought were unobtainable here! When you love to cook healthy food it's the little things that excite: such as finding rye flour, pecans, new types of veggies and fruits, peanut butter, whole wheat pastry flour, good curry powder and pastes, spices, bulk quinoa, lentils, nuts and seeds.
And for Fer: delicious fish and seafood!

While Fer's parents were here for a few days we made the fish above for dinner one night. I can't recall the name of the fish but it was yummy!
Below: Raquel and Enrique about to enjoy my chocolate pie with secret ingredients (no sugar, only avocados, cocoa powder, bananas, dried fruit, honey and nuts)

Cute!

Below... my morning routine lately, inspired by breakfast at Yandara (+ decaf coffee w/milk). I love sitting on our balcony to enjoy breakfast while reading or catching up on emails.

Another kitchen adventure that Fer and I had at the end of January was making this delicious Coconut  red lentil soup from Heidi Swanson's 101 cookbook blog. 
The colorful ingredients:

I couldn't find yellow split peas here so I substituted regular brown lentils and it worked great!

We enjoyed our dinner on the balcony with the Easy Little Bread recipe from Heidi as well.

¡Buen provecho!

November update

I wanted to post a quick update before I head back to the States for a month. November was a wonderful month! The weather was near-perfect almost every single day, there were tons of beautiful flowers and trees, and more outdoor festivals and fun in the city as the weather got warmer. On a personal note, we were feeling more settled, making connections with new and old friends and my Spanish was finally making some progress (slowly but surely!).
November started with a birthday dinner for our friend Claudio along with his wife Luciana and adorable daughter, Paloma. Luciana is the founder of a wonderful news blog called Medios Lentos. Claudio is a neurosurgeon and was just appointed as chief of neurosurgery at Hospital Italiano where Fer works, which is great news!

 Paloma was the perfect Spanish conversation partner for my beginner level Spanish :)

One of my Spanish teachers organized for a group of us to go see "Breaking Dawn" on its opening day. I'm not a huge Twilight movie fan because the acting is just awful (in my opinion) but it was fun to go with friends and practice Spanish. Manuela and I couldn't pass up an opportunity for a silly photo op ;)

With Jelle (classmate from Holland), Manu (classmate from Switzerland) and one of my teachers, Leila:

 For one of my classes, we had to do a short presentation in Spanish on something we know or do really well. So naturally, I did my presentation on how to make Challah! ;)

 Some of my friends/classmates from ECELA. I definitely feel like the old lady at school with most of the students ~20-25 years old.

 My teacher, Leila was a huge fan of cupcakes and her favorite was chocolate with dulce de leche so for my last day in her class I brought these tasty treats:

The chocolate cupcake recipe I used is so good, so easy and so strange! Check it out: Simply Recipes. The ingredient list almost threw me off but I'm glad it didn't because they are fantastic! I love Simply Recipes, I use it as my default online recipe search. Once the cupcakes cooled I cut out a chunk in the middle which I filled with dulce de leche then filled with the amazing frosting from this recipe: Dulce de leche swiss meringue buttercream

Aren't my classmates lucky that I bake for them?! ;)

Finally, I tried another delicious recipe from Heidi Swanson's "Super natural every day" cookbook. This time I made the "White beans and cabbage recipe" which was quite tasty although a bit bland looking. I have to say it tasted better on subsequent days when I reheated it for my lunch.

This next month is going to be a busy one for me: I start in Chicago for a few days to catch up with dear friends then head to my parents' house for another few days to celebrate Christmas with my side of the family. I can't wait to see everybody and hold those babies! After that I am flying to Baja, Mexico for an intensive yoga teach training at Yandara Yoga Institute. This is a dream come true for me. I have been trying to carve out time and money to attend a program for the last year and a half and I am so happy to finally be able to make it happen! And I am so glad that I will also be able to finish it in time to make it to my nephew's Bar Mitzvah in DC before I fly back to Buenos Aires mid-January. It will be great to spend time with Fer's side of the family before flying back to BsAs. It's going to be a whirlwind month full of great things. Just not my Fer :( I will miss him so much! We have a trip to Punta del Este in Uruguay planned with the kids right when I return so that will be a fun reunion. 
I have lots of packing and prep work to do for my yoga course so I better end here. If I don't see you during my busy time home in the States, I wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

El dia de acción de gracias (Thanksgiving!)

On the actual day of Thanksgiving, Fer and I went to a Thanksgiving Luncheon held at the American Club downtown. We were invited by Mark and Mary Beth who are fellow Chicagoans that spend about 4-5 months every year in Buenos Aires during the Chicago winter. It was a very fun lunch but the food just left me craving more authentic North American holiday foods. The apple pie was particularly sad: it more closely resembled apple jello than a delicious, juicy, cinnamon-y apple pie from home. Fer and I had been wanting to do our own Thanksgiving so we planned it for the weekend immediately after to share it with Sofi and Martin. We asked them to each invite a friend and they made a sleepover out of it since the next Monday was a school holiday.
Fer and I had lots of fun cooking the whole day although it was HOT! Now I think I know why the majority of large holiday meals take place during fall and winter- you aren't meant to have the oven and stove going full blast on a 90 degree day. Especially in a kitchen with no AC ;)

 Challah is becoming a staple here. Martin is particularly in love with it, as he told his friend "es demasiado rico!"

Thank goodness Fer loves to carve the turkey! I wouldn't know where to begin.

 Getting ready to eat: Marti, Sofi, Frederico, Martin and Fer

My family tradition is to go around the table and say what you are thankful for from the last year so we did that with the kids this year. Hopefully it is one of many traditions we can make as a family in our new home.

Getting back in the kitchen

One of the things I love most about living in Buenos Aires and having more time on my hands is that I can get back into the kitchen to cook! I have been having fun trying new recipes and am currently in love with this cookbook:

My friend Allie gave it to us as part of our wedding gift and it has been a fabulous addition to our kitchen! Everything I have made from it has been tasty, healthy and not very hard to make. I'm only bummed because there are ingredients for some of the recipes that I haven't been able to find here in Argentina (yet).  I have a long list of items I am planning to buy in the US and bring back with me :)

My current favorite recipe that I want to shout from the rooftops because I am so excited about it is Broccoli Gribiche. Here are the ingredients:

After roasting the potatoes and broccoli, you mix it with a delicious dressing containing hard boiled eggs, dijon mustard, capers, shallots, and red wine vinegar...

 Yummm!! Here it is on one of the cute little plates that was the other part of Allie's gift:

This was a delicious and easy lunch for me for the last few days. I definitely plan to make it again soon! Next time I plan to switch out some of the broccoli for asparagus (in season here now) and add in some roasted leeks.
I highly recommend this book! Thanks Allie! :)