Bagna Cauda (Anchovy-Garlic) Popcorn | Serious Eats : Recipes – When this recipe came up in my RSS reader today, I just stared at it dumbfounded for ten seconds. And then I started to drool.

My friend Heather from college recently posted on FB about her spiralizer, and it was like my brain exploded. Why don’t I have one of those? I’ve done a few paleo “mock” pastas by cutting zucchini ribbons with a peeler, but it’s time-consuming and awkward. I WANT TO CRANK. So I started looking around. I found several of the “pencil sharpener” variety, but they seemed very limited. (Let’s be honest: a spiralizer is already pushing into unitasker territory. At the very least I wanted one that’s as versatile as possible.) The 3-blade crank model definitely seemed like the preferred model by experts*. Amazon had it, but to my surprise I actually found it cheaper locally at Victoria’s Basement. (They have a sale on now, so be quick if you want one.) I picked one up on Wednesday and then put it to use last night on some Zucchini Ribbon “Pasta” with Fried Egg. Obviously I went with spirals instead of the ribbons though! The machine worked great and wasn’t too awkward to rinse down afterwards. WHAT SHALL I SPIRALIZE NEXT?!

* I discovered to my utter amazement and delight that there is an entire food blog dedicated to spiralized vegetables. I’m not even kidding. I’m going to have to read all of it.

As you may have surmised, I didn’t quite make it the full 30 days for the Whole30. I made it 25 and then got a bit derailed by Australia Day. I had bircher muesli with yogurt that morning at breakfast, and then over the course of a long dinner party had a lot of alcohol and some chocolates too. I definitely paid the price the next day. (“SNOOKUMS HALP I HAVE POISONED MYSELF WAAAAAAAAHHHH!”) I finished out the week eating clean with the exceptions of a gummy worm Thursday (during an 8-hour work meeting, so really just eating one qualifies as superhuman restraint) and some drinks last night to celebrate our mortgage refinance. I’m feeling pretty good about transitioning to more of an 80/20 approach, which should allow for a bit more spontaneity and the occasional meal out as well.

Overall weight loss in January 2015: 5.3kg. Woot!

What Silicon Valley Thinks of Women – Breakfast for me is served with a side of rage today. Quotes that resonated:

• “Researchers interviewed 350 female entrepreneurs, and most cited “lack of available advisers” at the top of their list.”
• “…venture capitalists talk about the need to get 10-year-old girls into science in order to bring up the numbers of women they will fund, but don’t fund the ones already in the industry”
• “But the problem for women in the workforce is that there are many more mentees than mentors. Also, the tech industry is changing so fast that women even five or 10 years older may have very little of practical use to share with younger workers.”
• “Wadhwa often talks about the importance of “pattern recognition” among VCs. The male bankers simply have an idea of what a successful startup founder looks like, and young women like Carey and Mosenthal simply don’t fit.”

That said, there was a silver lining from this article: I signed up for Glassbreakers. I’m not sure they’ll approve someone from Australia yet, but I figured it’s worth a shot. It’s a great initiative. I’ve met less than a handful of women here that I thought would be suitable mentors for me, but I didn’t want to ask them for fear they’re already swamped with requests. It would be nice to think the next generation won’t have that problem to the same degree.