Sky was having a
heart-shaped clouds everywhere
you look kind of day.
Vegetable Dal made in the slow cooker and saffron brown basmati rice garnished with cilantro and charcoal salt
I don’t like to leave the house with the slow cooker on, but when I’m concentrating through a long work day, it is great to get it started and then leave unattended until dinner time.
Last night I was thinking about what that phrase means. I was talking with a friend who has a similar enthusiasm for studying, practicing, and teaching yoga, who also has a full-time job/career. At some point in describing the number of hours I have spent studying with John Friend and other Anusara teachers, it came out of my mouth that I have been able to pursue this passionate engagement with yoga because, as others have said to me, “I don’t have a life.” My friend, being in the same society after all, initially went right along with that statement as if it was a perfectly reasonable thing to say.
Then we started questioning it. It is not as though we do not both have rich, full, engaged, active lives. How did the vernacular come up with a phrase that says we do not “have a life,” if we are not so occupied with the things that society would have us do (for the “modern” woman I think this means high-powered career, husband, children, nice house) that we have enough time and flexibility to deeply pursue and explore beyond what we are supposed to do?
She was banished to the outskirts of town by the patriarchy, but the outskirts are nicer than the center of town these days (not actually sure whether the latter is true).
She is unassuming on the surface and secretly wild, and she is completely self-sufficient.
I just reread Marilyn French’s The Woman’s Room and it has me thinking about Kali.
Photo taken in front of the Kali temple just outside of Chidambaram on January 1, 2014.
I was at Eastern Market earlier today. As kimchee has been on my mind (given the recent and resounding success with homemade sauerkraut), I checked for napa cabbage and daikon radish. I didn’t see it, but decided to ask anyway (after all, if we don’t ask for what we want, it is far less likely that we will get it–whether it is ingredients for kimchee, or help from a yoga teacher, or needs met in relationship).
Yes, they had a gorgeous napa cabbage and a big, beautiful daikon radish. They sell their own fresh made kimchee (it’s delicious), so I thought they might have the other key ingredient I needed: powdered Korean hot pepper.
I said that I enjoyed their kimchee and that I guessed they made it the traditional way, with a rice flour slurry and anchovies.
Yes, indeed, they do it that way.
I said I was making a simpler version, but did want the right kind of pepper. Did they have some?
The woman serving me, said yes, went in the back, cut open an enormous bag of powdered pepper and, along with the vegetables, sold me a few ounces of the pepper. From this enterprise, I’ve already made a deeper connection to one of my local small businesses, and in a week or two, I’ll also have a big batch of kimchee.
ps. I used Michael Pollan’s recipe as a rough guide. What I like especially about the recipe is that it expects variation based on quality and age of produce and personal taste. The cook is invited to pay attention instead of just follow by rote.
