An old friend asked my best friend, “Have you read her blog?” his voice and words were measured…carefully considered, but betrayed an edge of bewilderment, “because it seems to me she’s having a nervous breakdown.”  It made me think, “Yeah, WTF is going on?”  He sure as hell has a point.

Let me back this up a couple years.  I spent the months of July and August 2014 recovering from a bout of viral meningitis.  I had mistaken a four month illness as the natural process of getting older.  Ultimately, I was never in danger of dying, but I was shocked at my ability to accept a horrible state of living as the new normal.  It took several more months to get back to full health.  Once I arrived, I focused on taking care of myself, getting enough sleep, making nutritious meals, masturbating, and ultimately trying to find an outlet for my passions.

I thought I was on top of it all until a humid August day in 2014 where I lost my shit listening to a Bob Seger song in the Dick Road Wegmans parking lot.  One does not lose one’s mind to “Against the Wind” without making some sort of drastic life changes.  It felt like something had to happen. Instead of getting a pixie haircut or having the face of a baby tattooed on my chest, I decided to start The Lunchadora.  And it was this week, while looking up mid-life crisis (on a gut-churning hunch), that I realised I am HAVING a mid-life crisis.  

So, no.  It is not a nervous breakdown.  That is absolutely somewhere down the line though.

Cinnamon Crisis Cakes

• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1 TBS coconut milk
• 3 TBS melted cacao butter or coconut oil
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup coconut flour sifted
• 1.5 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp sea salt

1. Preheat the oven to 350F/180C.  Arrange some silicone muffin liners in a 12 hole muffin pan.
2. Beat wet ingredients in a stand mixer until thoroughly combined and frothy.
3. Add dry ingredients and and mix until well combined.
4. Fill each muffin cup to 2/3 full.  Hurry up, slowpoke, that coconut flout thickens up like post-bong saliva.
5. Cook for 18-22 minutes.  Allow to cool before eating.

****Since I couldn’t pick just one mid-life crisis song, I chose my three favorites.

First things first.  Happy Halloween week!  Halloween is my favourite holiday…outside of SPRING BREAK.  Just kidding, there is no comparison.  Halloween is the only time of year it is okay to be slutty AND creepy.  A match made in heaven, if you ask me.  Which you haven’t, but you’re reading my blog, so my rules.

Now please accept my apologies.  The title “All about Bones” is misleading.  I’ll make no bones about it, there is no way I could know everything about bones.  I’m neither a chiropractor nor a lunch lady.  I do, however, know how to make bone broth, and I have also been alerted to the presence of a recycling mascot who would like to eat your bones. So, I suppose I’m a semi-expert, or sexpert?  As a special Halloween treat, I’ll teach you all I can about making a creepy and nutritious base for soups and stews AND a poorly actualised recycling mascot.  The only thing they have in common is making my Halloween extra-special.

First stop, Totes McGoats!

Okay, Totes McGoats.  I am so proud of my hometown, or rather, just outside my hometown.  Totes is Niagara Falls’s answer to what it takes to get children and millennials fired up about recycling.  I understand that what is news/entertaining/worthwhile to me will not appeal to everyone.  But, if you don’t appreciate Totes McGoats, you can eat a dick.  Look at him.  Such little thought and planning…every expense spared.  HIs tiny, horrifying head.  I can only imagine his laboured breathing  and moist human hands reaching out in the dusk.  Absolutely the stuff of nightmares, with the added bonus of promoting  environmental integrity.  Well done Niagara Falls!  Stay lazy, stay awesome.  So baaaa’, he’s good.  Right bang on time to give folks a costume idea, but still fresh enough to be disturbing.

Now, please bear with me as I awkwardly segue into today’s recipe…bone broth!

I started making bone broth a little over a year ago, and my house has never smelled meatier.  It’s nourishing, makes delicious soups, and gives me the opportunity to carry a three pound bag of animal remains home from the butchers a couple times a month.  At first I was a bit bashful asking for them.  Try practising “Hey, got any bones?” and see if  you can pull it off without sounding like a serial rapist.  But, just like a friend who murders rabbits who have the gall to eat his garden veggies, the first time is hard, but it gets sooo much easier.  I’m super confident when asking for leftover carcasses now…almost aggressive.

Totes’ Broth

• 2-3 pounds/1kg Bones (assorted and/or chicken, beef, lamb…or goat)
• 10 cups water
• 1 knob of ginger peeled and cut into thickish coins
• 2-3 carrots peeled and cut into threes
• 1 small onion peeled and cut in half
• 1 TBS apple cider vinegar
• 2 TBS fish sauce
• 3 cloves of garlic peeled and bashed
• a few dried shiitake mushrooms (optional)

Combine everything into a monster slow cooker.  Make sure the bones are submerged.  Set the heat to low and cook at least 12 hours.  I cook mine 36 hours to be obnoxious.

Strain your broth through a muslin cloth and store in the refrigerator.  I always remove the solid layer of fat that forms, but there are some die-hard mofos that just straight up eat that shit.  Do what you want.  I use half straight away and freeze the remainder in 2 cup portions.

Now, listen to Monster Mash!  It’s the best.