Food for the Body

Thoughts about eating well to feed your body and spirit.

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    Late Spring Greetings–Making Time and Space (Web Version of E-Newsletter)

    ByElizabeth

    Dear Friends,
    I hope you are thriving to the greatest extent possible under your current circumstances in this outrageous Spring and weathering (pun intended) the wild fluctuations between apparent late winter and seemingly already mid-summer.  My garden has been uncertain at several moments, but partly due to careful attention at strategic points and partly out of love and luck, it is thriving–providing lots of herbs and greens and promising lots of tomatoes and peppers and beans.

    I write this letter a bit later than might have been desirable, as the summer session at Willow Street has already started, and my partial sabbatical from yoga teaching evidently has begun.  In practical terms of time and space this is the first time in almost eight years that I am not working weekends (first Saturdays and then Friday evenings) and commuting out to Takoma Park from Capitol Hill to teach.

    It took much contemplation to come to this partial sabbatical. Being a part of the Willow Street Community has been and continues to be important to me, and I have learned an incredible amount from the opportunity Suzie Hurley, and Joe and Natalie Miller, gave me to share my enthusiasm for the practices and the teachings with the fabulous variety of people who come to Willow Street as students.  It was an honor and a continuing source of inspiration and focus to be able to study with so many fine fellow teachers over the years.  And change can be hard for me.  It also is hard to let go of something that has been profoundly important.

    For my optimal health and well being, though, there just was not enough time for me to work full time and go where my heart is currently leading and also continue to teach on Friday nights or Saturday mornings.  I had to make a shift or start fraying around the edges, becoming less happy with everything.  Better to make some space to breath and feel and think without pressure.  Freeing my weekends fully will give me some of the space and time that I need at this crossroad in my life.  I am moving, I hope, towards a phase where there is more emphasis on nurturing self and relationship more deeply and exploring other creative pursuits with more seriousness.   To be able to work intelligently and with good will as a civil servant at this time and to continue to engage in our society that is in so much upheaval, leads me, for my abiding health and expansion, to the garden and the cat and my own practice and the growing and very special relationship that began on the trip to India (no value judgment implied by the order).  It also will be lots easier for me to study; going to a weekend workshop will no longer require my getting a substitute to cover my absence–expect to see me as a fellow student at the Friday nights of weekend workshops at Willow Street.  New ideas and opportunities for teaching will likely come, but not for the moment.

    I continue to lead the all levels yoga practice at William Penn House on Tuesday nights where you will be warmly welcomed by the regulars whatever your age or ability level and will be sure to enjoy the fruits of my new and varied explorations in yoga and other practices, while still keeping to the fundamental structure of class influenced by Anusara methodology.  Please join us.  A portion of each student’s payment supports the work of William Penn House.  While there is a suggested amount, if funds are a challenge, just pay what you can.

    Feel free to e-mail me if you are a more experienced practitioner who is interested in the Wednesday night practice or if you are interested in arranging private sessions or semi-private practices with your own small group.

    I look forward to seeing those of you who are local on a Tuesday night or at a workshop around town or in the neighborhood and also continuing to share photos and contemplations on this latest phase of my yogic (yes, I know that isn’t a real word) on the blog.

    Peace and light,

    Elizabeth

    clouds

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    Spiced Rice and Sprouted Lentil Salad with Chiffonade of Leaf Lettuce

    ByElizabeth

    Sprout brown lentils for 2-3 days and use while just showing sprouts.

    Cook one or more types of whole grain rice (here a mixture of red and brown rice) (I like to use a rice cooker).

    Let rice cool.  Mix rice with lentils.

    Add some oil to keep the rice a good texture.  I used sesame oil.  You could use the oil recommended for your Ayurvedic type if you are familiar with the recommended oil for your type.  Though this does not really resemble traditional kitcheree, the basic/unprocessed elements of the dish –the mixture of rice and lentils and the spicing — are the same.

    Add a mix of spices.  Here, too, you could vary the spicing according to your dosha if that is something with which you have experience.  I used turmeric, ginger, clove, black pepper stirred into the salad mixture and then minced some green coriander seeds from the garden to sprinkle on top.  I think a squeeze of lemon, had I had it, would have added extra zest.

    Serve the salad on delicate, freshly picked greens–spinach and baby chard would be good, though I used lettuce because it was what needed most to be harvested.

    sprouted kitcheree salad

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    State of the Garden

    ByElizabeth

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    The white flowers growing with the tomatoes and cucumbers (cages) and the beans (red supports) are coriander that over-wintered, and gave lots of good leaves from late winter through mid-spring. I’m now letting them go to flower and then seed. I like to use the flowers as a garnish. Still green and newly forming coriander seeds minced, along with whatever greens are still tender on the plant, are delicious in lightly cooked young vegetables. Almost flowery, like some Persian cooking. The fig in the right foreground, alas, has no buds this year. It wants to be planted in the ground on a sunny side of someone’s house. Local readers, if you want a healthy fig tree, comment or send an email.

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    Sun Burning Through Clouds

    ByElizabeth

    We need protection from the sun as much as we need the sun. The yogi philosophers could perhaps point to this pair of opposing forces/needs as an example of the elemental pulsation of opposites (spanda) that is universal to all manifest being.

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

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    This Evening on the Catio

    ByElizabeth

    The snow pea shoots were
    Especially exquisite.
    And the kale flowers.

    Hydroponic tomato from one of the farmers at the Penn Quarter Thursday market and organic avocado, tossed in tahini and then sprinkled with fine balsamic vinager, supplement sprouts grown on the counter and an assortment of tender garden greens.

    Cool infusion of peppermint, spearmint, lemon balm, and licorice mint.

    The season has turned.

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

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    Slow Cooker Granola (and Intentions)

    ByElizabeth

    It is my intention to write a newsletter talking about the shift in my life that is leading me, effective this week, to take a partial sabbatical from teaching yoga.  I will still have my Tuesday night class at William Penn House and hope to see many on at least an occasional basis.  I will also be available for single and group privates and expect to teach a workshop or two in the Fall.  But after eight years, I will no longer be  traveling up to Takoma Park every weekend, currently on Friday nights and before that Saturdays, to teach. In this shifting, I have much to say about Kali–goddess of sequencing–and moving within the limits of time and space and some other things beside.

    In the meantime, while I am wrestling with how to say what I believe are among the things I want to express and as I deal with a bout of being very busy at work and spending far too much time at the computer to want to spend more time writing in the evening, I just want to mention that it is indeed possible to make decent granola in the slow cooker.  I experimented with that today, in between conference calls and emails and document reviews (slow cooking, after all, takes very little consistent attention).  The cooking reached its conclusion while students and I gathered for Wednesday night practice.   More important than requiring little attention after the initial preparation stage, the slow cooker doesn’t heat up the kitchen, and I refuse to turn on the oven if it is going to be 80F or above.  Slow cooker granola is an excellent compromise between no homemade granola in the hot months and turning on the oven.

    When I’ve experimented some more, perhaps I’ll create a recipe, adding to the many dozens on the internet.  My first attempt was relatively low fat and no refined sugar.  Yum.  And if you’re a local, do come join me this Friday for a sweetly nostalgic and celebratory evening of restoratives.  5:45pm-7:15pm, Willow Street Takoma Park.  Drop-ins and make-ups welcome.

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    Mostly Anticipation (State of the Garden)

    ByElizabeth

    It changes daily this time of year.  In the sink, the last of the spinach that over-wintered.  Making way for new plantings.  A garden can only be this full at the beginning, if there is a commitment to thin constantly; otherwise the garden would suffocate itself.   This kind of gardening plans on picking shoots and baby vegetables, while things that need to mature progress.  A constant harvest, though because of the limited space, I need to supplement–mostly from local farmers’ markets for produce.

    state of garden 1a state of garden 1b state of garden 1c state of garden 1d state of garden 1e state of garden 1f state of garden 1g state of garden 1h state of garden 1i