Sunday, March 22, 2020

Helping People Understand and Savoring Sunsets


It’s a sunny Sunday here on Lake Union in Seattle. A float plane is motoring by, heading for the top of the lake to take off; otherwise the lake is deserted but beautiful. Capitol Hill and Fremont look the same from my vantage point but I know that life amidst the dwellings and businesses there is different.

Speaking of how life is changing, are you paying attention to your local area Facebook pages? Some of you may not care about or be a part of social media, which I totally respect. I have been very limited in putting anything on a Facebook page I created a very long time ago. Facebook, Oh and a long forgotten Pinterest page I created (I wanted to share about my new hobby, at the time, of Indian cuisine), are the only social media presences I have. I do daily visit the neighborhood Facebook page, if there are ways we can help and if we are inclined to do so, locally might be the way to start.

I noticed on there that a “socially active” store down the street announced that they have face mask kits available free for those who sew. I may go down and pick one up as sewing is something I can, and enjoy doing. Maybe it will get me over my wimpyness about tackling my stateroom curtains, lol. I guess I’m encouraging, do what you feel comfortable doing, but do what you can.

On a serious note, this is Washington State and we aren’t formally shut down. I noticed a discussion of concern on the neighborhood Facebook page about a bonfire gathering of about 40 people noticed in a local area park. It brought to mind something our Governor said in some comments recently. I was prompted to post this on our local area Facebook page:

It's being said that some younger people are having a harder time taking the social distancing seriously and continuing to gather and ignore suggestions for helping stem the tide of this virus. Washington's governor made a comment in response to someone not knowing how to get across the seriousness of social distancing to a younger person who was basically saying "What price am I going to pay". His suggested answer was, "Possibly killing your grandparents."

It’s hard; some of us are older and have dealt with some of the harder more existential conundrums life faces us with. Hank and I always offered NeuroTherapy Training (the mental training approach we developed) free to those we could see with AIDS and cancer. It’s about using your mind to help the body and of critical importance it was about using the mind to manage fear. The hardest thing was seeing 20-year-olds with AIDS who had not had time to find their own pathways yet for helping them face the shunning of others out of fear and their own terrible fears of impending death. That is an existential crisis, facing the ultimate in fear with no tools or help in doing so.

I can’t imagine being in high school or college right now, for me it was a time of proms and sporting events and parties, for falling in love and looking forward to an exciting future. Young people don’t want to think about or have to respond to the dire issues of life. But, in this situation we have hope for it passing and life returning to normal. We all have to do what we can to help.

On a brighter note…


A long-time friend and photographer, Bill Hawkins, was at the Everett, WA marina the other evening at sunset and captured this scene:




I thank Bill for sharing, visually, the peacefulness of a quiet evening at sunset…beautiful sunsets are elements of life that “fuel our souls”. I have seen spectacular sunsets over the City of Seattle and Space Needle out my back door. I’m thinking of some of the people who will receive this…one enjoys them out an apartment window looking over Puget Sound...another I’m sure has enjoyed many from his fishing boat in Alaska…another while taking hikes among the hills above Issaquah…another while walking her beloved dog on beaches in the area…several on my list have enjoyed them while onboard boats in Puget Sound and beyond. From wherever you enjoy your sunsets, it’s days like these we need the beauty they provide and the peacefulness they stimulate.





Warm Tortellini and Roasted Vegetable Salad, Further Tales of Our Lives with Food and Crisis’ And Learning To ‘Live with the Sucker”.

Some of you might enjoy listening today, rather than reading, especially my essay at the end. If you would, I have attached a downloadable audio link to my thoughts for you today.

I have today’s press conference on in the background as I write this, this subject is something we really don’t want to hear about but that know we must. Unfortunately the feeling I’m getting from the screen, as I half listen while typing this, is anger and tension and defensiveness. We need to take in information from people who, well let’s say, seem to have a hard time with empathy and people skills. We need, though, to reduce any negative emotions kicked up from all the information coming at us.

I’ve been reminding, are you turning to things that focus your mind, and reduce your stress as you go through your days? When we worked for years helping folks face life-threatening illnesses, for the first time in most of their lives they were facing something frightening that they couldn’t “resolve” or “immediately find an answer to” they had to, as we would say, learn to ‘Live with the Sucker”.

We are all facing problems and concerns that cannot be resolved at the moment. How we respond to them is the key. People are contacting me and I have started to do some sessions with people online, but whether you formally practice mental training or do some of the other things that help our bodies and minds…do something to distract your mind, to stimulate that creative right hemisphere, don’t let your brain obsess continuously. My Dad would be out preparing his garden.

This brings me back to salads and kale and fennel and their roles in our lives. Bell peppers, kale, fennel, red onion, spinach tortellini and basil are the main ingredients in a recipe that appeared on my screen this morning. Some of you have taste buds that perked up at the thought of that vegetable mix; others of you are squinting at the screen worried that I might be moving over to the ‘kale crowd’ and wondering where I’m going with this. For those of you salivating, I’ll put the recipe up at the end but several things came to mind as I saw that recipe headline. I grew up with a Dad and a Grandfather who kept huge gardens. They grew up in times and places where keeping a garden was critical for subsistence (and they went through times of national crisis. I wonder how many of you have heard of the Victory Gardens of World War II?) After those times passed, lucky for me, keeping a garden seemed to be long enjoyed habits in their lives. It seemed to be how my dad would relax returning home daily from his job as an electrician. It is something he would be turning to in times like these.  

In all their years with dirt, I’m pretty sure that neither my Dad or Grandfather had encountered kale or fennel. And, pasta with spinach inside of it! That was probably not imaginable in most American homes of the 1940’s, 1950’s and even 1960’s (I never heard about it, we were a long way from Italy). When I read the term “Vegetable Salad” it reminded me of a tale my Dad told me about his mother and which I wrote about in an essay I’ll offer below.

So, as we move forward, drink lots of water (I’m finally responding to that easy and good advice to keep my body well hydrated, come on you guys, we gotta help our bodies out in any way we can.) Find ways of distracting your minds, practice formal mind or body training you have learned or learn new ways. Seattle’s YMCA is offering free exercise classes online for everyone here is a link www.ymca360.org.

I’ll continue to be in touch with my observations and suggestions. And continuing the vegetable theme that ran through my thoughts for you today here is my essay that I titled, Raised Green.

RAISED GREEN
By Marilyn Michael

There is an area in India where, because of religious beliefs, many folks do not eat onions or garlic. Now, you’ll find me a most tolerant person of even the most odd-seeming religious convictions but – onions and garlic!? Since my husband and I are of the ‘live to eat’ rather than the ‘eat to live' crowd, I tried to imagine cuisine without onions and garlic.

Unbelievably, I survived the first twenty years of my life without garlic (I do believe I’ve made up for it since). With all the amazing fresh produce that emerged from my Dad’s huge and thriving yearly gardens and with the universal love of anything green and fresh, I don’t know how garlic slipped by them. I think they pretty much stuck to the vegetable array that had filled their plates in childhood. Thinking about that endless stream of green things to our table, though, they really did stick to the basics, onions, green and yellow, literally tons of potatoes, ears of corn, cauliflower, radishes, carrots, lettuce, cabbage (for vats of homemade sauerkraut) tomatoes, big, yellow Hubbard squashes (to be baked with butter and sugar), cucumbers and a few pumpkins for Halloween carving. There was that odd and wonderful asparagus patch my Dad tended lovingly and bunches of rhubarb on the side of the garage. Oh, and his huge and enviable raspberry patch with plants in it that were, he’d proudly explain, ‘75 years old’. How spoiled was I by all those readily munchable raspberries. And by the beautiful quart jars filled of peaches, apricots, and pears that lined our basement shelves each year. One day each year the whole family, grandparents, aunts and kids would trek to Wawawi, a sunnier place some twenty miles or so near a river to spend the day picking fruit for canning.

And, they’d bring home extra cucumbers from those picking trips because every year they would “put up” 60 quarts of dill pickles. Only after my cousin married a German fellow who introduced the “amazing” idea of hot peppers amidst the pickles was there a change from the established pattern. After that a certain number of quarts would get the peppers, for my Dad who quickly developed a taste for the peppery hotness. Hot peppers had certainly not been a part of those gardens or of the food they ate (wrong soil I now know - hot peppers had grown well in the soil of my husband’s folks in Nevada and, thus had been a part of what he had learned to love.)

I guess there wasn’t a lot of vegetable experimentation. No garlic appeared in our dishes. I never met a bell pepper until I was grown. An avocado was a foreign animal to them (an adventuresome Uncle would return once in a while and enjoy avocado with salt, I heard said. I vividly remember my mom commenting, “They taste like soap.” Though a vegetable lover and willing experimenter, it took me way into my twenties to develop a taste for avocado (in guacamole) and into my thirties to enjoy it straight on sandwiches. Yeah, I know it’s really a fruit but it seems awfully vegetably to me.

The tomatoes were eaten fresh, not “put up”. Dad ate the thick sweet slices with salt and pepper. Mom and I loved sugar on ours. In the summer, salads (something unfamiliar in their youths because of no refrigeration for mayonnaise) would appear. They were made with iceberg lettuce (a favorite to this day) and chunks of fresh tomato mixed with mayonnaise. On special occasions, a can of shrimp would be added. The concept of a salad appearing as part of what they ate stuck in my Dad’s memory. He told the tale of remembering his mother chatting with friends on the party line all agog over the new idea of a “vegetable salad”. He called them vegetable salads all his life.

Ah the vegetables of my youth all freshly picked and full of taste. And back to onions, my Dad loved those little green onions we now call scallions, on a little plate at dinner alongside those slices of white bread. He'd eat each one with a little salt. Funny, as so many other dishes were filled with onions, no one ate them straight except dad. I guess there were some chopped into those simple green salads sometimes.

Since learning to make Indian food, I’m amazed at how they’ve come to combine vegetables. I make a Dahl (a dish with lentils or dried peas). It’s a heavenly mixture of zucchini, onions, tomatoes and green peppers all swirled together with aromatic spices and at the end combined with yellow peas. My folks would not ever have imagined combining vegetables this way. The only combining they did was to dump carrots, potatoes and onions together into a beef stew. The only vegetable combining I truly remember was when the “new potatoes” were on, new potatoes and fresh peas swimming in a cream sauce with a pinch or two of sugar. It was yummy, but certainly not the serious vegetable combining of the Indian dahls. And, even though where I was raised (the wheat country of Eastern Washington) is now known as the “Pea and Lentil Capital of the World” no dried pea I ever knew existed outside split pea soup and I never munched on one lentil during my entire childhood.

Ah, see where onions and garlic can lead one? I certainly thank my folks for my love of vegetables. I wish I could share with them some things I’ve learned and amaze them with my vegetable repertoire. I think they’d have loved, or at least tried, anything done with vegetables as long as avocados weren’t in the mix. And, if dad had his garden today, I’ll bet I could convince him to plant some garlic.

Here’s the promised link to that salad: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchen/warm-tortellini-and-roasted-vegetable-salad-3364638

It's An Adventure Facing The Unknown - More Ideas For Healthier Coping


Adventure, that is a good word. There have been a lot of adventurers throughout history and many of the adventures upon which they embarked involved facing the unknown and experiencing fear. Currently we are facing the unknown and many are experiencing fear. Even though we didn't choose this adventure we need to tackle it like we have the other adventures of our lives. Prepare ourselves with knowledge, keep ourselves in the best shape we can for it, stay focused to not let our brains and bodies be hijacked with fear.

The messages about the world's current situation are getting scarier for many. Our lives are being disrupted in way's we've never experienced.

When we talk to people, the conversations so often turn to "the situation" how our country is handling it, how it is impacting our lives.

When we make decisions about where we might go or what we might do, we first think of "the situation".

Some people are facing the scariest decisions of their lives. When I was caring for my husband he often needed to go to Urgent Care, numerous times to the hospital and required a care center 3 times with infections. There are folks right now worrying about the possibility of having to make what they fear might be life and death decisions for someone they love and are caring for.

I just learned of someone whose cat is ill and there is nothing that can be done. This person's heightened emotion over that is accelerating the cocktail of emotions, like fear, that are already flowing. There are uncertainties - triggers for our fears coming from so many directions.

OK, WHAT CAN WE DO

I’m going to focus on the importance of caring for ourselves. We can get the information we need, do what we can to respond to it and then try to focus our minds away from obsessing. We can work to follow the wisdom of philosophers of the ages...live in the moment.

 It is a time to quiet our minds. I've been teaching a mental training approach for years and I use it every day. I will keep encouraging - do you meditate, practice self hypnosis, do tai chi, yoga or practice something else that focuses your mind? Do your practice daily. If you know how, but haven't, when you find your minds and bodies overwhelmed or crawling toward that state - STOP - turn, at least for a little bit, toward those practices. Quiet the overwhelmed left hemisphere, the thinking center of your brain; don't let it hijack your body.

If you have not learned formal skills for quieting your mind, look on You Tube, look in your library of books, I'll bet you've been "meaning to" learn some sort of mental/physical discipline. Now's the time to give it a shot, your brain and body need it.

Do you like to run?  That can be a form of meditation. If you regularly went to the gym and now cannot, find a way to exercise at home (don't we all have hidden, somewhere in a box, an old Jane Fonda exercise video? :- ) somewhere in all the streaming we do these days there is an exercise program, find it.)  Hey, remember the Wii device craze, if you have one get it out- there are all kinds of diversions available. Even if you weren't a regular gym goer, when you're feeling overwhelmed jump around your living room a bit, go for it. Family members might think you're nuts but I bet it makes them smile - and they need that. Here's an idea, do you or you and your partner like to dance? Put on some music, the music and the movement will put your brains in a different place.
If reading is an escape (and yes our brains need escape time now), pick an engaging book and immerse your mind in it. You non-readers grab a cookbook, yes a cookbook. My husband was dyslexic and didn't read for fun but he used to love browsing cookbooks. They offer great ideas and lots of interesting trivia. Plus, browsing through a cookbook might give you inspiration to throw something together and throwing it together will distract your mind further. And, those of you who have an Instant Pot and still haven't used it (I know you're out there) now's the time. I mean, really, your fear of the Instant Pot has been put in perspective.

To get ourselves rationally through these irrational times, we've got to get a little disciplined here, not in a "will power" sort of way but in a "take care of our brains and bodies" sort of way.
Caring about all of you,
Marilyn

We Don't Like Things We Can't Resolve and Stories of Pizza and Oysters

We don't like things we can't "resolve"; that we can't find a safe or comfortable solution for. Most often we are faced with those kinds of situations when we are in a state of fear - like being hit with a life threatening illness or in the current situation. In this situation we are having to live with continuously changing frightening things over which we don't feel much control. We have to take care ourselves first.

I heard a line today that is very apropos for the times we are facing and the message I've been promoting...Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes...including you.

Looks like the airport is almost empty. Choosing whether to go or not go somewhere isn't a singular conflict, it is inevitably going on in many, many households in our area and, inevitably, all over the country. And, remember, neither choice, going or not, will not feel "good". People have had plans and, looked forward to getting away, then this happened to concern them about travel and it came with frustration. When things like this happen, the ten-year-old in us starts "stomping his/her feet" angry about not getting to do what was looked forward to. It isn't going to do us any good, though, to obsess about the undesired change in life plans. The "live in the moment" thought I have shared is important here. Sit down, bring, your mind back out of the conflict, and begin thinking about what you are going to do instead to feel good, to treat yourself well and go forward in your life. 

I fried up some chicken strips last night with Panko and chicken thighs. I'm sitting here this morning with my coffee and munching cold chicken. I'm the type of person who loves cold pizza slices for breakfast, lol.That reminds me, for those of you for whom cooking is a good diversion I've posted my really yummy recipe for Shrimp and Portobello Pizza Splotches on a blog I've kept and am starting up again. Here's a link: https://ourpastourfuture.blogspot.com/2020/03/shrimp-and-portobello-pizza-splotches.html (And don't worry, people probably aren't hoarding Portobellos, lol)

Food! Comfort Food! It can be part of helping you cope. It's definitely what Hank would have been thinking about during the time of any crisis. On my way out of Trader Joe's yesterday I grabbed a bag of comfort food, Baked Cheese Crunchies. I love them and so do the two crows that visit me daily. I read an article on crow researchers who found that Cheese Puffs were a favorite of all crow snacks. I also treated myself to a tub of dark chocolate covered almonds (the crows aren't getting those). 


A funny thing happened while I was shopping TJ's the other day. After years of laughing at kale and kale eaters, (yes, there are people who are judging you for eating kale, get over it! ;- )) TJ's was demonstrating a salad mix that included kale and other really crunchy greens. The kit came with dried blueberries and nuts. It might have been the sweet dressing but I loved it and have since been buying said salad mix and adding fresh blueberries and some sliced almonds and pecans. And, last night's chicken strips were chopped up adding protein to said salad. Hank would probably be laughing at me for eating a salad mix with kale but, hey, I indulged him his anchovies and pickled fish! 

Ok, I have to tell you one more food story. When were first dating and dining at FX McRory’s on 4th Ave an amazing bistro and fine dining venue ( now closed, alas) that had the best Irish Coffee and Bouillabaisse in town, he wanted me to try raw oysters, "Think Ocean!, Think Ocean!" he encouraged with gusto as I, reluctant as I was, slurped down said bivalve. Oh My God...the taste, the texture, the whole experience is still one of my most horrible food memories. Years later I decided to make an old family favorite (my dad grew up on a farm) pickled tongue. You boil it, peel it, slice it and pickle it in a vinegar broth with onion slices. Hank eyed the whole process warily, now here's a guy who would eat anything. Remember Clinkerdagger Biggerstaff and Petts? His favorite dish was their Escargot Extraordinaire. Anyway back to tongue, after the slices were appropriately pickled it was time for him to try one...as he looked it over hesitantly, I couldn't help myself and encouraged with gusto, "Think Barnyard!...Think Barnyard!"

Stay hydrated (my new favorite libation is San Pellegriuno cans of carbonated Blood Orange juice. If sttress is rising, STOP, take a deep breath and do something to distract your mind. As often as you can, do what you feel like doing. The 10-year-old in you who would have been "stomping and upset" about not going on that trip, is feeling a little scared these days.  

Some Reasons We're Feeling So Stressed And Things We Can Do


I woke to, what continuously seems like, a rapidly changing world. Continued news stories about the Coronavirus, just growing more depressing. In normal times, our lives get going on a role, they sort of fall into an automatic pattern of activities. The general pattern evolves; then, our brains anticipate and build onto that framework as we add new things. We generally feel in control, that pattern gives us an inner sense of order.       

Ever wonder why even positive changes like a marriage or moving into a new home are high on the stress scale? The general pattern of our brain activity is disrupted; we are not on automatic anymore and we feel less a sense of inner order. Things like this disease making changes in what we’ve come to depend on, further disrupts our inner sense of order. And some of those changes are not even chosen, but forced on us, a rare situation in modern American lives; it’s something we are unused to. Then, in this case, add the chemicals of fear to the mix of an already disrupted inner order. This may result in a constant low lying concern for some or a feeling of almost terror for others.

There are a lot of neurologically explainable reasons why some people get hit harder than others when the disruption of inner order occurs and why the chemicals of fear are felt more intensely by some. It doesn’t matter, though, how people are responding is how they are responding. Judging them removes you further from being a calming force in their lives and increases your own feeling of inner disorder or chaos. Sitting in a state of judgement is not a healthy way for us to restore our own inner order.

What to do, what to do? Well, we can begin by attempting to spend some time focusing our minds, concentrating.  If you practice yoga, tai chi or enjoy jumping around in your living room to Beach Body workouts, this is the time to spend some time doing that. If you enjoy Sudoku, or crossword puzzles or, yes, you can admit it, even jig saw puzzles, force yourself to find some time to sit and put your brain to work on a very order creating activity. Two things are happening to make you feel better, first, your brain is experiencing a familiar pattern and second you are being forced to concentrate. These activities move your brain away from the overwhelmed “thinking” left hemisphere and into the creative, big picture thinking, right hemisphere. If you have learned and regularly practice a formal “concentrating” routine, like NeuroTherapy Training, you’ll be handling things better. If you’ve learned a method of concentration and shifting your brain but have stopped practicing it, this is the time to reintroduce it into your daily activities. YOU’VE GOT TO HELP YOUR BRAIN by calming the chemicals of fear and moving away from the chaotic overwhelmed left hemisphere.

Here’s another idea for calming us physically and emotionally - take a glorious hot bath. Dig out those fizzy bath balls, light a candle or two, make your favorite tea to have within reach. Part of what is accelerating your discomfort is physical stress. Relax those muscles in that warm water and some of the feeling of inner chaos will mechanically diminish. And, the aromatherapy of your favorite bath accoutrements and familiar scent of the soothing tea will both help bring some order back to your brain

Those of you with an artistic bent, dig out some paints and make a personal hand painted card to send to someone you care about or if you love to sew, turn on that machine and dig into that fabric stash and make a throw pillow or a cat toy or something simple and fun, and possibly something that you can use to brighten someone else’s day. It’s the same with you who find pleasure in the art of cooking. Go stand in your kitchen, (do the dishes if they are in the sink, that will help restore your inner sense of order as well) then get creative, call up your favorite recipe and start organizing the ingredients needed, the activity is like putting together that jig saw puzzle. Or maybe just dig out that cake mix that has been languishing in the back of your pantry and make it. Let yourself and your family indulge cutting off chunks and eating it without frosting.  Or get carried away and make that Teddy Bear cake you’ve been planning to try ever since you bought that pan at the yard sale. Art and the art of cooking force our brains away from the chaotic, worried left hemisphere and focus our minds. They also produce things that can be shared with others not doing as well as you may be with the disruption of inner chaos.

Whatever you do today, add something that calms your brain and helps you restore that inner sense of order. And, if you can, reach out to someone in a positive way, even if only by phone or internet, who may not be handling things as well as you are. Offer them conversation, or if they are near, one of your fizzy bath balls, that cat toy or hand painted card or maybe sit down with them over a cup of your favorite tea and discuss something that makes both of you feel good.

Friday, March 13, 2020

Shrimp and Portobello Pizza Splotches


Ingredients:
Dough:
Use premade dough you can keep frozen, or this recipe:

1 ½ cups bread flour (I often use strong flour recommended for pizzas, but regular flour works)
1 teaspoon dry yeast
½ -2/3 cup s lukewarm water
1 tablespoon olive oil
Topping:
Butter
16 to 20.medium fresh or frozen (thawed) shrimp. (I cut each shrimp into three chunks before spooning the sauce onto the dough.)
Two Portobello caps sliced into 1” strips then cut into 1” chunks.
About 3 Tablespoons of a sweet, thick sauce as a binder (I use Mango Ginger Chutney and have used Fig jam; you could use apricot or other fruit preserves you may have on hand.)
Grated Mozzarella
Tomato-based pizza sauce of your choice (As it doesn’t take a lot, we keep prepared pizza sauce on hand, our favorite is Classico brand.)
Instructions:
You can use frozen dough to make it easy

If making dough from scratch:
Starting with a large mixing bowl, Sift in the flour. Add the yeast, stirring it in. Pour the water and oil into the center of the flour and mix it into a soft dough. (I happened to have some disposable plastic gloves on hand that made this step slick, no sticky fingers)
On a lightly floured surface, knead the dough for around ten minutes. This was kind of fun, better than one of those little stress balls, but I digress. You’ll want it smooth and elastic.
Grease a large bowl, I use metal, and place the dough in the bowl covering with plastic wrap. Put it in a warm place for about 1 hour to let it rise. It needs to double in size.

While dough is rising…
Prepare the topping. Slice the Portobello caps into 1” strips then into 1” chunks. Begin sautéing in butter on medium heat until they start diminishing in size. Peel about 16- 20 med. shrimp fresh or frozen. Add shrimp to mushrooms and sauté until bright pink and done. When shrimp have cooked for about a minute add the chutney or other sweet binder and mix well. Remove topping onto a plate (I cut up the shrimp into three pieces each at this point) and set aside.
Preheat oven to 425.
Back to your lightly floured surface, with your dough now raised, knead it again for 2 to 3 minutes. There are two of us so, when done, I cut the dough ball in half then cut each dough ball into four pieces. I freeze one half dough ball in a quart-sized bag for later use.

On a lightly greased cookie sheet, spread each quarter into a splotch (no perfect size or shape) each is about the size of a large pizza slice.

Spoon and spread pizza sauce onto each splotch. Spoon on the shrimp and Portobello topping allowing 5 or 6 shrimp per splotch. Top with Mozzarella.

Bake for about 12 minutes until crisp.


Tuesday, March 3, 2020

For Those Who Love To Cook - You Have A Gift That Can Brighten Someone's Life

THIS IS FOR THOSE AMONG YOU WHO ENJOY COOKING…we are having a tense moment in our country with the news 24-7 re. the corona virus. There are people out there whose lives are already overwhelmed, maybe trying to raise children and manage careers, facing a physical problem that already weakens their immune responses or someone who, for whatever reason, has more challenges than we do. This is a call to action for you to lift someone up a bit with something that will lift you up as well.
IF YOU LOVE TO COOK YOU ARE LUCKY...my tension, like others, has risen a bit in the face of this addition to normal concerns. But if, like me, you love to cook you are lucky. I had the Sunday morning political shows playing at a low level; the normal political punditing was, in this case, being interrupted by more information on the virus crisis. It was irritating me BUT, I knew what I needed to do…spend some time with some ingredients concocting a tasty dish. It would force me to concentrate away from tension-increasing thoughts…It would take me into my creative right hemisphere rather than the troubled, analytical left…It would evolve into the most amazing aromatherapy and then a treat for the taste buds. Not everyone is lucky to look at the process of cooking as creative and fun. They’ve never understood cooking as a way of expressing themselves and their individuality.
NOW, SINCE YOU ARE SO LUCKY and since there is at least one person in your life, if only being a neighbor, who really didn’t need the heightened tension and angst of the moment, I’m suggesting that you share an act of kindness with yourself and with another.
WHIP UP A DISH TODAY AND SHARE IT. Don’t go out to the store, you keep certain ingredients on hand for some of your favorite foods or desserts. We usually keep things around for recipes like Split Pea Soup or Snickerdoodles. You can go so far as to look over your ingredients and invent a dish. So…Chop those veges…whip that piece of meat out of the freezer put in a zip lock and immerse in warm water for fast defrosting…grab that favorite recipe…measure out all your spices into a little bowl. Start up the stove, or Instant Pot, or oven, or air fryer or Sous Vide…we have such great toys, don’t we? Soon that warm simmering or baking dish will be wafting and creating the most amazing aromatherapy. When you are done you’ve got something special to enjoy and something you can share with that family member, friend. neighbor or acquaintance who is more stressed than you and who could use a boost…the boost of a surprise of a person showing up with something warm and wonderful to eat.
MAKE WHAT FUELS YOUR SOUL. I made my Tomato, Onion Zucchini Dahl. I will offer up a comfort food recipe that you probably have the ingredients on hand for. It’s one that I’ve carried with me and loved since college days when I was attempting a Vegetarian lifestyle. I make it periodically because I love it and, also, because the aromas and taste bring back good memories. It always takes me back to the special time of college days…like awakening to feminism and riding a bicycle everywhere and sipping warm soup while enjoying engaging conversations with friends.
VEGETARIAN SPLIT PEA SOUP
Ingredients:
5-6 cups water
2 cups split peas
1 small onion, diced
1/2 cup pearled barley or rice (I love the texture of pearled barley)
1 tsp. Salt - then add to taste
1/2 tsp. dill seed
1/4 tsp. each sweet basil, oregano, mustard powder, celery flakes and black pepper
1 moderate handful toasted sesame seeds
Instructions:
Bring water to rapid boil. Add rinsed split peas and salt. Let boil 3 minutes or until soft but still intact. Add barley, spices and onion; continue to cook, adding more salt to taste. After about 1/2 hour, add sesame seeds. (If untoasted, stir in a frying pan on stove top using high heat till they start to turn golden.) While simmering the soup be sure that heat is on medium or lower all the time; too high a heat will destroy the vitamins. Soup is done when peas are dissolved and grain is soft.