Sarah Wilson

sunday life: in which I shine the light on my judgmental, bourgeois, affected, quinoa-loving “white” self

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This week I face up to my whiteness

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I’m so white it hurts. I’m achingly white, not in the alabaster sense. But in the beige sense.

Being white means I’m not the “other”. If you’re black or Asian, I’m what you are not. Whean they cast for home loan or Milk Arrowroot commercials, my type is assumed in the lineup, then they choose a smattering of “other” ethnic groups to make up the balance. (I speak from cringe-worthy experience here – in my teens I played the whitebread-girl-next-door-with-a-Labrador-and-husband in a number of lowbrow ads. I got the gigs because I was “typical”.)

My differences and my behaviours are not analysed or typecast. Because I’m the norm. That’s what it means to be white.

What also makes me white is that I’m blown away by the internet phenomenon Stuff White People Like. White people always are. I first came across the Canadian-based website in early 2008, shortly after it launched as a list of cultural quirks white folk are partial to, like going out for breakfast (#, 36), yoga, Moleskin notebooks, Banksy artwork, following religions their parents don’t belong to (#2), sea salt, listening to black music black people don’t listen to anymore (#116) and issuing apologies. I wrote about it back then (another thing White People like: claiming they were ahead of the curve). Since, the site has morphed into a New York Times bestseller and the site has clocked more than 72 million hits.

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what’s your true religion? a quiz

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I’m 100 per cent Neo-Pagan and 96 per cent New Age. So says the results from the Belief-0-Matic test on Beliefnet.com that I just did.

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I’m only 16 per cent Catholic…which might horrify my mother. I was raised Catholic, but didn’t go to a Catholic school…thank goodness. Mum and Dad, mercifully, didn’t like the draconican style of schooling (and couldn’t afford the fees). I’m least of all a Jehovah’s Witness.

Try the test out – 20 online questions. Breezy 10 minutes.

It got me thinking a little more consciously about what I really believe in. Actually, I didn’t think. My answers came out immediately.

I don’t believe in goddesses and gods, nor karma, except in a very organic sense of the word. But my beliefs allow for goddesses and gods and karma.

I believe everything makes sense as an infinite organism that emerges from the same conscious soup. My eyebrow hair, that ant, the grit of sand under my nail, are all merely different cellular expressions of the same energy and flow. Even a gloomy thought or a breeze – all energetic expressions, as valid and necessary as my fifth toe. And my left ovary.

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How to buy a pretty single-speed bike

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A stack of you have asked me how to go about buying a single-speed bike.  Here’s a little guide, based on my experience.

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1. Be very sure you want a SS bike! They’re not for everyone. They have NO gears. Correct, none. So it means riding it like you did a BMX as a kid to get up hills – bum in air and waggling. I would say you have to be very bike-fit to enjoy one, unless you live in a flat area (Melbourne is SS heaven). The benefit of no gears, of course, is that it’s a more agile, lighter, flippier ride.

2. Be sure you don’t ask for a fixie. Many people mistake the two. A fixie is a fixed-gear bike. It’s a SS, but with no brakes. When you stop peddling, it breaks. Which makes them something of a kamikaze ride. My hub is a flip-flop – which means I can switch to a fix gear if I want.

3. You can build your own or buy off-the shelf. I did the former with a friend and there are some wonderful people about who can team with you and make it a fun, care-full experience. Because that’s what this caper called life should be about.

My frame and saddle are 50 years old and from Paris. The wheels were carefully selected. The chain perfectly calibrated.

The beauty of an SS is it’s agility and to really enjoy them it is best that they are a refined, light, perfectly calibrated thing.  And to treat them like an art project and build them with light materials and have them built by kids who know their stuff.

The Customised experience

This is all about finding someone fun to do the project with. Best idea: when you see a bike you like, nab the rider and ask who built theirs.

If you life in Sydney, there’s a very cute chick in Bondi called Lucy who builds custom bikes. She started building them when other cats around town couldn’t build the one she wanted. She runs her business Vamp Garage from a garage, refurbishing vintage pushbikes with contemporary design and parts and Brookes leather saddles. She even custom-designs the stickers to give your bike a theme (if you like!). Or can take your pre-loved wheelie and transform her.

Here’s Lucy:

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Tuesday eats: more quinoa recipes (cos I know u love them)

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Oh. Yeah. I’m quinoa obsessed. For now. So are many of you, it would seem, because EVERYWHERE I go people tell me they discovered the stuff on my blog and …blah, blah, blah.
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So, here we go again. I came across this recipe for quinoa crumble on the New York Times website. Fills the gap in my baking repertoire.
 It can be made into a berry-rose crumble. Or a plum and fig crumble. Or the one below.

* The crumble part – you can store it in the fridge for months.

* Or you can sprinkle it over porridge.

* And just a reminder: always rinse the grain SUPER well before cooking.

Quinoa-Oat Crumble Topping

This topping can be used to make any number of delicious, gluten-free crumbles.

1 1/4 cups gluten-free rolled oats

1/2 cup quinoa flour (grind quinoa in a spice mill to make the flour)

1/3 cup unrefined turbinado sugar

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon salt (to taste)

3 ounces (6 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cover a baking sheet with parchment. Place the oats, quinoa flour, sugar, salt and nutmeg in a food processor fitted with the steel blade, and pulse several times to combine. Add the butter, and pulse until the butter is evenly distributed throughout the grain mix. The mixture should have a crumbly consistency.

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the perfection of why your fingers + toes wrinkle in the bath

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This is a random Monday factoid: there’s a perfect reason why your fingers and feet turn to prunes in the shower. So says Mark Changizi author of The Vision Revolution and Director of Human Cognition at 2AI Labs in Psychology Today. Basically we prune-up because we’re former apes. And it saves brain power: Pruney fingers … Read more

Sunday life: in which I test how old i am…

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This week I test my cellular age

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I’ve reached that curious age where you no longer look your age. Which is to say you look as old as whatever you got up to the night before.

When I sleep badly, I look like there’s a huge suck-hole at my feet dragging my fascia deep below the earth’s crust. If I have more than one glass of red at dinner, the next day I resemble a before shot in one of those psoriasis medication ads. A rut of eating too much sugar and I’m puffy and slow and I look….wan. I’ve never in my life had occasion to use the word “wan”. But right now it lends onomatopoeic appropriateness.

Conversely, when I live 100 per cent virtuously, I look – comparative to everyone else my age battling a one-glass hangover – positively pubescent.

Being such an age (and since we’re friends, I’m cruising towards 37), I’ve started noticing a lot of people obsessed with anti-aging. I’m sure it’s not just the creaky circles I mix in. It started with an antioxidant fixation a few years ago. Now everyone’s popping a cocktail of new supplements, such as Coq10, DHEA, EFAs and melatonin (a sleep aid with alleged age-reversing properties), and sharing their hormone specialist’s contact details. I know I use this literary device a lot in this column, but it must be said: longevity is the new skinny.

For folk in these circles, biological age (the number of years endured on the planet) is becoming redundant. Our cellular age is where it’s all that. This is essentially the health age of our cells, which can then determine our longevity. Extensive research has shown that genes dictate less than 25 per cent of how long the average person lives. The rest is up to us. Which you can take as liberating. Or daunting.

Of course, there are tests you can do to calculate your cellular age. And, of course, this week I tried one.

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Why. please. thankyou… a very special guest post from Julie Goodwin

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During my time filming the first series of MasterChef Australia, Julie Goodwin became something of spiritual beacon for me. Filming the show was tough…for a lot of existential reasons, which I won’t go into here. But every few days or so Julie and I would connect in some way. A wink, a hug, a quick chat. Which said, “I see you”. I remain supremely grateful to her for this. It saved me.

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I knew Julie was religous. Although few would have. It wasn’t until our last few weeks together on the show that we chatted about her beliefs, and about prayer, and how it all played out for her in her life. It (her faith and prayer) played a big part in the way she held things together on the show… and then won.

I watched it unfurl, naturally.

And it looked like grace. Julie had grace. And she had trust in grace. She always knew she’d win.

I’m not religious. But I seek. And I pray. I asked Julie to tell me about how she prays…here’s her supremely graceful thoughts, which I know she put a lot of care into sharing:

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Tuesday eats: a gluten free recipe from Cannelle et Vanille

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Know this, Cannelle et Vanille is one of the most beautiful food blogs out there. Not just visually, but….spiritually, too (Gwyneth Paltrow is a fan, too). You can feel the love and care and whimsy from the pages of her blog. And Aran Goyoaga, a Basque food stylist now based in the US…well, she’s become a bit of an e-soul sister. We connected via our blogs and because we both have hashimotos (thyroid disease). We ask each other if we’re ok from time to time.

Anyway I thought she’d have a thought or two to share on healthy eating… and could give us a gluten-free recipe.

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Aran's gluten-free purple corn and banana muffins

Everyone meet Aran, Aran meet everyone:

How the auto-immune thing started for me:

But things changed for me when I became a mother. During the course of both pregnancies, I developed autoimmune conditions (Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and autoimmune inner ear disorder) that left me exhausted, depressed, tired and even experienced debilitating vertigo attacks. I could barely function and I was adamant to find a doctor that was willing to look beyond mere symptoms. And so I did.

This is what throws me off balance the most:

I’m still trying to figure it out, really. I know that diet is number one right now. Any little bit of gluten and it’s vertigo a couple of days later (just happened recently when I had something with hidden gluten in it). But also when I’m not creative or I feel tied down, then I go into downward spiral for a few days. I just don’t know how to control those things as easily.

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monday awakening: the best reason I’ve ever found for backing the f*ck off. Yeah!

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Sometimes you hear something that makes a penny drop.

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You see, yesterday I was listening to an podcast about longevity and the point was made that a lot of us will live to well over 100. 120, 130…seriously. This factoid changed my day. I’m still carrying with me the tingle off the bouncing coin.

Three things:

1.     Given I have, potentially, 90 years left to go, then WHAT’S THE BLOODY RUSH? Why not back off a little? Take my time. My God! Yes! I don’t have to achieve it all by 40. I’ll need to save some fun for when I’m 80. You can’t begin to understand what a load off my being this is. Or perhaps you can? Most of my pain and discord comes from rushing…and feeling time is slipping past me. There is another way to look at this. Quelle relief, hey!?

2.     If the secret to living longer is to be well and to eliminate stress as much as possible (and it is – Dan Buettner’s work on centenarians proves this), then Point 1 applies doubly so…back the fork off!!! Let’s pace ourselves. It’s kind of perfectly ironic, isn’t it. To live longer so we can justify stressing less, we need to stress less.

The clear message: just choose to start stressing less. Be gentle. Choose wellness.

Because, of course, not everyone will live to 130. In fact, the world is likely to be quite starkly divided into those who die young (obesity, heart disease etc) and those who don’t.

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