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“Green” Party Planning and Going

ByElizabeth

Live Green has put together a short and simple list of suggestions for a greener holiday party.  Not throwing the party yourself and know your hosts will be using disposable cutlery, napkins, and cups?  I’ve been bringing my own napkin and carry cup to parties for years, just as I bring them on trips and around town.  Some people think it’s weird, but a surprising number comment that they think it is a great idea.  And people are always grateful when I bring a healthy, vegan or vegetarian food item as my offering for a potluck.

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    Ways to Eat Day Old Bread (Is that “fresh” food?)

    ByElizabeth

    Ayurveda says one should only eat “fresh” food.  What does that mean?  How does that translate into having delicious food making the best use of every bit of it without waste and without having all of our time being devoted to creating it (from start to finish).  Is making a fresh dish from a food item from yesterday’s meal “stale” food?  I don’t think so, but then, I am not an ayurvedic practitioner.  I am fairly certain it is less “stale” than “fast” or packaged food.  And I am too much the New York grandchild of peasant immigrants to forego making the most optimal and complete use of all the food that enters my kitchen.  Also, the simple efficiency of leftovers are too important a component of having the most personally and lovingly prepared food I can with my life style.

    Here are some of my favorite ways to eat bread the day after it was a fresh accompaniment to a salad, sandwich, or larger, festive meal.  (Obviously, this is not for all of those who cannot or do not like to eat bread, which I think of as indeed the staff of life.)   Here are some of my favorites, not in any particular order:

    Crostini/Bruschetta (topped with tapenade, salsa, chopped tomatoes and cucumbers, etc.)

    Bread salad (with the best of the summer tomatoes and fresh basil)

    Croutons (for salad or soup, my favorite is rubbed with a little garlic)

    Red pepper spread with pomegranate molasses and walnuts (bread is the thickener)

    Skordalia (also can be made with potatoes or a mix of bread and potatoes)

    Stuffing for squash

    Bread crumbs for a whole variety of things

    Savory bread pudding

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    “It’s All Good” (and Voltaire’s Candide at the Shakespeare Theater)

    ByElizabeth

    Last night I went to see the revival of the Bernstein musical version of Voltaire’s Candide, now playing at the Shakespeare Theater’s Harmon Hall (discount tickets available), which was absolutely a delight — fantastic staging and direction, luxurious costuming, enthusiastic performances.  Throughout his journey, which is beset with cruelty, hardship, natural disaster, and other mishaps wherever he goes, Candide sings of his tutor’s optimistic advice that “all’s for the best in this best of all possible worlds.”  The application of this philosophy leads to some silly results, including the Monty Python-worthy lyric “it’s a great day for an auto da fe.”

    I have a friend who, after telling me of various life challenges and griefs, inevitably signs off with the phrase “it’s all good,” though I am not sure she believes it.  I thought of her repetition of the phrase “it’s all good,” while I was watching the musical.  Later in Candide’s travels, he encounters a second philosopher scholar who (I’m paraphrasing loosely) contradicts the “it’s all for the best” philosophy of Candide’s tutor by telling Candide to just look around and he will know that things are not in fact always for the best.  A fluffier version of  the debate in the novel, as to whether things are all for the best when there is so much cruelty and devastation, is interwoven into the rest of the play.

    I’ve never had a desire to wear the t-shirt proclaiming that “it’s all good.”  I look around me, and I simply do not believe it.  I do believe wholeheartedly, though, Voltaire’s premise that we have the responsibility to “cultivate our garden.”  As my teachers John Friend and Paul Muller-Ortega espouse, we should “respond from the highest,” regardless of what we experience and encounter.  By having our response make the best of all possible worlds from things that are not evidently for the best, we bring more light into the world, whatever is our world view.  I can only hope that with steady practice of yoga and meditation, I can keep ever truer to these teachings when I am seriously challenged.

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    You Never Know

    ByElizabeth

    When these trucks first came into sight, they were driving side-by-side just below the speed limit, with a number of cars tailing close behind in both lanes. The voice of the monkey mind started down the “what the f**k?” path. But soon after, Johnny law parked in the median came into view. Another half mile down the road a second police car was lurking. As soon as the trucks passed the second police car, the truck in the left lane pulled over in front of his companion, and the passenger cars were able to move a little faster.

    The trucks weren’t creating an annoying obstacle. They were graciously saving the cars following closely behind from getting speeding tickets.

    One never can tell, either at first glance or in retrospective review of life choices, how what might have appeared as obstruction, failure, or missed opportunity in fact either opened new pathways or saved one from harm. Best then, neither to come to conclusions too quickly or to hold onto regrets.

    Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

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