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    Pickles

    ByElizabeth

    Soon after this article on making your own pickles was published in the New York Times, a friend and mentor sent it to me.  Though she is a mentor for reiki and energetic practices, and I see her regularly for massages, I’m quite sure she wasn’t trying to encourage me to eat more raw food or get into the fermentation fad (but you can read lots about how some raw foodists fetishize fermented food by using your favorite search engine).  I think she just thought I’d like making pickles, and she was right.

    I’m now on my fifth or sixth batch.  The first batch I did exactly according to the directions in the article.  The second, I did exactly according to Mark Bittman’s recipe in How to Cook Everything, which I found used a few years ago at my favorite used bookstore in DC–The Lantern-A Bryn Mawr Bookshop.  After that, I experimented with a little less salt, a change of spices, and different ways of slicing the cucumbers.  The cucumbers for this most recent batch were a little older and seedier so I added carrots and ginger to improve the flavor of the cucumbers.   I also added garlic, a few chili peppers, and some coriander seeds from the garden. A grape leaf or two helps make the vegetables stay crisper; they aren’t needed, but if one has a grape vine in the garden, as I do, why not?

    For my birthday, though you don’t really need one, I just bought myself a nice fermentation crock.  First up:  sauerkraut and then when I’ve had an opportunity to go shopping in Chinatown for supplies, a big batch of kimchee.

    This latest kitchen venture, is mostly because I’ve always loved the taste of pickled food, and because it is amazingly easy to make them.  Pickles and other fermented foods are now added to my list of  love to make foods that with a little attention and some planning and patience yield big results (like sprouting and slow cooker beans and stews).  That my yogi friends who are crazy into raw food would also be excited about what eating fermented foods might be doing for my health is just a bonus.

    pickles

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    “They’re Still Here”

    ByElizabeth

    “They’re still here,” said the evidently conservative (by other things he said and his dress) and cynical young man sitting on the seat in front of me on the bus, as we drove past the “Occupy DC” group. The bus moved forward, and the running commentary on what was outside the window moved to derogatory statements about the homeless. I thought about the discussion a group of us had after meeting for worship this morning about seeking to live witnessing and honoring the sacred in every being. This includes, of course, recognizing the universal spirit worthy of love in those who proudly do not do so nor feel the need to try. Easier said than done, but that is true of most of the profoundly deep practices.

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

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    Yoga Philosophy Word of the Day

    ByElizabeth

    Avidya–ignorance or delusion.

    Very roughly stated, the yoga philosophies and guides to practice teach that it is ignorance or delusion that is the root cause of evil and suffering.  When we act from ignorance of our essential nature–it’s divinity (whatever that might mean to you)–then we act in ways that move away from spirit rather than towards it (one way of describing evil).

    As I interpret the teachings, the point of the practices for a householder is to help us act and respond informed by consciousness of this essential “divinity” in everything we do, including how we care for ourselves, our community, and the ecosystem that we inhabit.  The closer we come to achieving this state of acting consciousness, though there will still be pain and loss in this human embodiment, the less we will be the cause of suffering for ourselves and others.

    Note:  You might say or think it, but I will refrain from actually articulating why this is the word that comes to mind for contemplation today.

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