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Paleo Hot Chocolate

2/13/2014

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    A 'monster' winter storm has hit the South at the beginning of this week and is headed up the Eastern Seaboard now! AHHH!

    For you Southerners, the snow may come as a bit shock. It's all cold and stuff. Crazy.

    So
I want to introduce you to an old secret for those of us* who have woken up on a lazy Saturday morning with massive piles of snow outside. An amazing, nourishing, warming cup of Hot Chocolate.

    But the problem with normal hot chocolate is ... well, it's a giant sugar-bomb in the morning. Not cool. Instead, it would be cool to jump start your metabolism in a more natural way. Here's how I make my Paleo** hot chocolate:

(By the way, I also use this trick during my cyclic caffeine-kicking routine. I'll put up a blog post with the science behind that soon and link to it).


Ingredients:
1. Whole (or dried) Stevia Leaves.
    It is possible to buy stevia plants, and really enjoyable to have a plant to water and take care of every morning. However, you can also buy dried leaves online.
Stevia Leaf Tea
Dried Stevia Leaves from bulkherbstore.com
2. Cacao Powder.
Cacao Powder
Cacao Powder from sunburstsuperfoods.com
3. Cacao Butter.
Cacao Butter
Cacao Butter from sunburstsuperfoods.com
4. KerryGold Unsalted Butter.
Kerrygold Tea
So beautiful... kerrygoldusa.com
5. Vanilla Beans (optional)

Directions:
First, remember what I have to remind my mom of all the time: directions to a recipe are like a formula in math. They can be helpful, but you don't actually need it because with a little bit of experimentation, you can come to the same conclusion via a different method. Experiment with this recipe until it suits your tastes. For example, I already eat 100% chocolate by itself, so I liked a heavy chocolate taste compared to other people.

Alright. Brew the Stevia Leaves as you would coffee or tea. Start with 1 TBSP of dried leaves, and adjust until you reach your desired level of sweetness (do the same with the amount of Cacao powder & butter). If you are unsure how to brew, simply get a tea infuser (from our friends at Adventure Tea!) and let it sit in your large mug for ~5-6 minutes with water that has cooled from boiling for ~30-60 seconds.

Add the tea into a blender with 1 TBSP of cacao powder, 1 TBSP of cacao butter, and 1TBSP of Kerrygold. If you wish, add some ground vanilla beans to further bring out the flavor or some MCT Oil to enhance the metabolic effects.

Blend for a little while. Make sure to put your hand over the top of the blender so the lid doesn't shoot off because of the vapor pressure.

Stay warm and enjoy.
Stevia Tea infuser
Tea infuser from our friends at adventure-tea.com
*I'm not going to lie... I have been in Joshua Tree this week. I did have to put my coat on once, though, so I can empathize with all of my Southeastern/Eastern readers (shout out to all you guys who joined the Newsletter in the last couple weeks!)

**I apologize for the use of the word 'paleo'. I don't like the word very much - you can be on a really unhealthy paleo diet just as easily as you can be on a good paleo diet. You can be on an unsustainable paleo diet just as easily as you can be on a unsustainable vegan diet. Without going on a big rant, let's please try to 1. reduce the use of food packaging, and 2. shun any factory-farmed foods. If you haven't yet, check out Paleo vs. Vegan.
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It's a good day to notice the small things

2/12/2014

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Small Things
It's a good day to notice the small things.
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Sorry I'm Not Sorry I Scrub My Armpits in Your Parking Lot

2/6/2014

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    I have been living out of my truck for a few weeks now, and sparing you all the details, every once in a while I am a little embarrassed while doing a dry scrub of my armpits with Dr. Bronner's in the parking lot of a WalMart.

    But this morning I had a revelation.


    I was making tea for myself and didn’t use my fancy Aeropress because I wanted to try out another method with a home-made filter I created.

   
It didn’t work at all; the small leaf bits slipped through and were still in my tea. I took a sip, scrunched my face in disgust, and thought about re-filtering with the Aeropress.

   
But a thought came creeping into my mind... why is it so disgusting to have small tea leaves still floating in my tea? If I didn’t live in the U.S. where nice filters are easily accessible, would I totally cherish the chance to have tea with small bits of leaves still floating in it? Probably.

   
Is it possible that the only reason we (as a society) think tea should be small-leaf-free is because it shows that we have somehow 'evolved' to the point where we are complete masters over the tea leaves such that we can completely separate them from the tea?

    The point here is that I drank the tea with the leaves still in it... and it was delicious. That is, it was delicious after I got over society's convention about the way tea 'should' be.

   
So society’s convention that tea should be leaf-free interfered with my enjoyment of it. The same is true of living passionately, living stoked. Society wants us to believe that we must follow a certain path, we must live in a house and work 5 or more days a week doing a job that we don't necessarily like so that we can afford the house that we have to live in and the stuff that we don't really need but society tells us we should have.

    Don't
allow society’s conventions to interfere with your enjoyment of living passionately.

    As Fitz Cahall - founder of The Dirtbag Diaries - noted, "You have to do the thing that makes you tick. Do it on a daily basis. Do it unapologetically. Do it with love."

    So WalMart, I'm sorry I'm not sorry I scrub my armpits in your parking lot. I do it with love, because it lets me do the things that make me tick - to write, produce a podcast, and see places and have experiences most people have on their wish lists for their entire lives. It makes my life into more than life... it makes it into art.
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Ditch the Shoes - Wednesday Wallpaper

2/5/2014

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Rebirth on a Birthday

1/30/2014

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    I don’t remember where my 5th birthday party was held, or what Power Ranger I received as a gift at my 9th. I don’t remember my sweet 16th at all, but I’m sure I had a blast with my buddies in much the same way that we always did - playing video games and eating pizzas in the basement of my parent’s house. My 18th birthday - the first day as a legal adult, but still not legal to drink, well, I don’t remember that one either. On my 20th, I am pretty sure I was in full-blown college mode and got hammered with my buddies drinking Natty Light and cheap bourbon, as usual. I can’t say for sure, because I don’t remember it.

    My 21st birthday though, I remember, surprising as that may be. I bought two beers to celebrate my age - both Red Stripe. I remember settling upon Red Stripe because I figured it would be light enough to abstain from offending my college-adapted, Natty-chugging taste buds, but classy enough (think glass bottle) to be fit for someone of age. A girl and I drank the beers on the edge of the Great Harbor in Woods Hole as the snow began to pile up on the docks and settle over the sail boats moored on the water. I got an idea.
    I unlocked my kayaks from their jury-rigged locks against the side of my apartment and dragged them up the hill in the snow. We were going kayak sledding.
    On my final run, I steered the boat onto the snowy launch ramp at the end of the hill with only a few slight hiccups (aka dents in bottom of the craft), and slid down the ramp into the bay. The night was dark, but the snow was white, reflecting the light put out by my headlamp. The sailboats were abandoned, waiting for their owners to come back for them. The air was crisp. I felt alive.

    I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was onto something. 22 and 23 reverted to the same old celebratory shenanigans I can’t remember, but 24 was memorable. I got up at 6am on a cold morning and went with my climbing partner to a new spot - Paradise Forks. I had only been face climbing poorly for about a month at the time, but I toproped a 5.9 hand crack and he told me that it was the best he had seen me climb. I was in love with crack climbing, and to this day, I doubt I will ever find a climbing area I love more.

    At 25, I visited Sequoia National Park for the first time. I jumped up and down like a little kid.

    At the beginning of the New Year, Danielle was going to turn 25. Danielle loves her birthday, January 1st. I mean, she freaking loves her birthday. For years she has gone out on December 31st, celebrated with lots of partying folks and corrected them every single time they said ‘Happy New Year!’ to ‘You mean Happy Birthday!’ She has a blast with that.
    So when I asked her what we should do for her 25th birthday, offering up that we had been invited to get on a permit for an 8-day backpacking trip through the Grand Canyon, I was pretty sure she would turn it down. The permit was held by my friend Peter, who was taking a birthday trip himself into the Grand Canyon to turn 60 years old on January 3rd.
    “I want to see the Grand Canyon for the first time with you for my birthday,” she told me. What!? So I hadn’t seen that coming. But Danielle was sure of it - it was different than her normal, outside of the comfort zone, and unclear as to whether she would actually enjoy backpacking since she had been on only a single overnight trip in the past. At the very least, she explained to me, it would be something she would remember forever. Right on.

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    The short film 35 brought it all home for me. In it, Derek Craig climbs 35 of his dream climbs on his 35th birthday. Brendan Leonard narrates:
We all have dreams. But they don’t mean much don’t act on them. If we put them in a drawer we label ‘Someday...’ for when we think we’ll have more time. I try to get out there, to go to amazing places, to have incredible conversations with incredible people. I think it all adds up somewhere. And when it does, you’re not doing something, you’re being something. And what I want to be is happy, excited, and inspired. Today, I’m 35. That last rope length, that’s for me, for the next 35. Because I don’t want to say I wish. I want to say damn... that was awesome.
    Birthdays have a new meaning for me. They are a chance to celebrate by having a rebirth, doing something totally new that challenges you and makes you feel alive. I pitched the idea to my adventure buddies, and we hopped on it immediately, celebrating Craig’s birthday by canyoneering Eaton Canyon, a long-sought after adventure for him.
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    This year for my 26th, I’m running 26 miles for the first time in a new place - Oregon - on the McKenzie River Trail.

What are you doing for your birthday?
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A place you've seen on postcards - Wednesday Wallpaper

1/29/2014

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We had Brendan Leonard on the show again this week! So why not have some more Semi-Rad wisdom coming our way? If you haven't yet, check out his book The New American Road Trip Mixtape - it was awesome.
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Hackschooling

1/23/2014

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    This young man just resonates so deeply with my own views of the world and the way I have tried to teach that I need no further words. He speaks the Brave Monkey Language. Take 11 minutes of your day to watch this.

    The sort of 'undercover' mission of this website is to create a platform from which we can promote environmental sustainability through the medium of human health and adventure. I think all of these things fit nicely together - when we are happy, we can love the environment, too. When we eat foods that don't come in packages, we are both healthier, and supporting the environment. Shouldn't everybody learn these things through Hackschooling?

What do you think? Comment or let me know via the Brave Monkey Newsletter.
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If you could live anywhere...

1/22/2014

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"Because if you could live anywhere, wouldn't you want to live everywhere?" -Brendan Leonard.

Find out more about him in Episode 019 of the Brave Monkeys Speak!

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Mountaineering's Most Underutilized Rule

1/16/2014

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    As I finally crested the high-line of the sure-to-be summit that I had been sweating, stumbling, and swearing to get to for the last six hours, I was overcome with joy and... disappointment and hatred.
    It wasn't the summit. This had happened four times already on the ascent. I cursed mightily and my feet felt a new level of pain.
    The funny thing is: nothing changed throughout that whole sequence of events except my attitude. Yet, that simple change manipulated my drive to continue the summit bid, the pain in my feet, and the amount of cursing I did.
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     This scenario has repeated itself many times over the years - in the Shenandoah Mountains, the Brooks Range, the Alaska Range, the Tetons, the Wind River Range, even on Panama's Volcan Baru. Often, it is my friends who feel the pain, as through the years I have begun to swallow my pride and rely on Mountaineering's most underutilized rule:

    It's the journey - not the summit - that matters.


    In peak bagging, as in life, you must learn to take every step with joy in your heart - or don't bother to take it at all.
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    Once you give up all hopes for the summit and enjoy the ride, the will to continue becomes natural and the pain in your feet goes away. You don't live for the hopes that the false summit a mile ahead is the real summit - you just live.

    Here's the easiest way to understand what I mean: take your favorite podcast or audiobook with you on your next mountain hike, and listen while hiking. Get totally into it and your footfalls on the trail - nothing else. Head for the summit, but don't plan on actually getting there or think about it obsessively. Eventually, you may find that you're not focusing singularly on the task of getting to the top - instead you are quite enjoying the program you are listening to and the feeling of moving around in a beautiful place. You may even want the summit to be further away... to continue the hike because you are enjoying yourself so much.

    Eventually, with a bit of training, you will be able to transform this into Meditation in Motion - literally a form of meditating while you are hiking, enjoying every step along the way.
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    If you are a photographer, one way to do this same thing is to hike a trail you have done before, but handicap yourself by carrying only a 100mm macro lens - the view at the top won't matter as much. Instead, relish the small things that the journey brings you. If you want to develop your skills even further, shoot only in B+W! Dang!

    I hope you find how pleasurable it is to get lost in your mind with joy in your heart.
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The only people for me - Wednesday Wallpaper

1/15/2014

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Jack Kerouac Quote
Jack Kerouac “the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”
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