Hot Juicing

Posted on September 23, 2013

I can’t really claim to be starting a trend with this one.  A similar philosophy and recipe can be found in the 2004 best seller “French Women Don’t Get Fat,” which, I might add, had nothing to do with me becoming not-fat, but it’s an interesting read.  In the book, she prescribed a “Magical Leek Soup” recipe which one is to subsist on for about a 48-hour period for cleansing and weight-loss purposes.

 

I remember trying this weekend cleanse technique when the book first came out. Emotionally and spiritually, I was in no condition to undergo 58 minutes, let alone an entire weekend sans comfort food.  I think I ended up using the remaining leek broth as a boiling agent for an army sized pot of mashed potatoes.  Aaahh, the days of eating ferociously. How I don’t miss them.

 

Fast forward to this nippy, late September afternoon.  I’m feeling sluggish, a little blue perhaps, as I mentally take note at 3 p.m. that I haven’t ingested all that many vegetables. As the wind howled a little louder, it became clear that it wasn’t a day where a cool, tall glass of kale juice was going to cut it for me. Instead, I hightailed it to the vegetable drawer in the refrigerator for some organic kale. Into the stock pot I tossed it, along with five onions and an equal number of celery sticks. Filling the pot half-full with purified water, I brought it to a boil and shut the flame off.  That’s the secret to ‘Hot Juicing.’  Let the ingredients steep, not simmer to gently coax the essential elements and flavors out of the vegetables. Steeping time should be a minimum of two hours, four or five it you have the time.

 

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Since this is meant to be a cleansing drink, just as a glass of ginger-beet juice is, I added no oil, spices, or condiments.  Its flavor?  Clean and mild.  Nothing arousing to the taste buds, but my body sure enjoyed it, and I drank it throughout the afternoon.  There’s plenty leftover for the week, and if I find myself tiring of my own version of magical broth, I’ll simply freeze it.

 

This also makes fantastic base for rice.  And like juicing, ingredients can be tailored to your tastes, or whatever’s hanging out in your veggie crisper.   Happy Sipping!

 

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I’ve Got It All Here In My Heart

Posted on September 14, 2013

I’m not Jewish, but my soul sure could benefit from an honest appraisal of myself and how I can do better in the coming year. If I were sitting in services this evening at temple, what mistakes would I be acknowledging?

Now, in terms of character flaws, I’ve committed some serious infractions.  Most of them took place during my ‘eating years,’ when, numbed out from overeating and on the lam from reality, I tended not to care whose feelings I’d shred to ribbons if my mood happened to be a foul one…and often it was. 

To rid myself of such awful tenendencies took time, discipline, and a willingness to mature emotionally.  And I’m not saying I don’t have my cranky and irate moments, but nowadays, I choose to temper my reactions and refrain from lashing out at others. In essence, I’ve given up the lower-nature practice of hurting people just because I can.

Like my spiritual role model Shirley MacLaine, I’ve spent most of my adult years smoothing out all the personal shortcomings I can find (except the ones I don’t notice).

For the most part, my life and relationships are a pretty smooth road. But what still remains in terms of remorse and repentance?   As I dug a little deeper into my psyche, I realized there’s an unhealthy habit I still cling to which oh-so-subtly harms me and those I care for.  And in a year’s time I’d love to be rid of it for good:  I don’t tell people how I feel.  And by that I mean the good stuff. 

I look back on some of the relationships that mattered most to me, whether it was my parents, a favorite babysitter or teacher, my Aunt Mary, a college friend, or an editor who made my writing better, and feel the sting of omission. 

I’m not saying a gushy stream of “I Love Yous” is everyone’s style. It isn’t mine either, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t have expressed feelings along the lines of affection, gratitude, and admiration that were silent but swirling below the surface like an underground geyser. 

I wish I knew why vocalizing positive sentiments feels so awkward to me. I’ve gotten better at it, but difficulty still plagues me.  If I were even occasionally more open with the people closest to me, there is a very high probability that they would be stunned at the verbal bouquet of glowing adjectives about them that flowed from my mouth. 

If I’m being honest with myself, the reality is, I’m simply not comfortable with it…and by ‘it’ I mean aligning my head with my Heart, which always seems to be brimming with an open-armed kind of love and doesn’t know the meaning of being critical.

Instead, I tell myself it’s a safer option to hide this colorful, love-giving, and velvet-tender part of me…God forbid I should look foolish.  But I’m nearing my 5th decade, and what good has it done shield something so potentially beneficial behind an armor of indifference?  Or the armor of, “I’ll tell her how I feel in next year’s Mother’s Day card?”

Next year’s never a guarantee anyway.

My father and I always had a somewhat rocky, Ralph-and-Alice dynamic in our 40+ years as a father-daughter unit. We tended to communicate in a way that sounded a lot like bickering.  And for the most part it was good-natured bickering, but still, but the tone established between us became both a habit and a convenient covering to some of my deeper rooted feelings for him, specifically, that I silently adored him.

There’s no truth serum like the shadow of death and when my beloved Aunt Mary was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given six months to live, you can bet I spent as many hours as I could at her side, and told her in no uncertain terms what she meant to me. And last September, as my Father’s decade-long ordeal with Alzheimer’s was coming to a close, I knew it had arrived:  a minutes-long window of opportunity to take a wheel-spinning, Thelma and Louise style risk, or let the moment fizzle and pass into eternity. 

Heaving out a sob, I decided to let the armor drop, relieved as it finally clattered to the ground. Then I gripped his hand and kissed his left temple.  “I haven’t wanted to admit this,” I whispered. “But I’m going to miss you.”

It was a simple statement of truth, predicated upon my state of extreme vulnerability, and obscuring it with my mighty shield just wasn’t an option.

The producers of Thelma and Louise never did reveal the final fate of the movie’s heroines as they triumphantly drove their getaway convertible off a cliff.  The frame froze and they hovered magically in mid-air.  I’d like to think the two trailblazers had a Chitty Bang-Bang style of an ending, soaring off towards the clouds instead of plunking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.  Because that’s exactly how I felt in those final moment with my Father. And actually, it’s how I feel every single time I’m real with someone. 

So I’m pledging allegiance to my feelings of admiration, respect, and Love this Yom Kippur, asking forgiveness for all the times I let the moment of truth die, and promising to do better this year…especially to those who matter most to me. 

 

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Dragon Fruit – Our Maiden Voyage

Posted on August 23, 2013

Every time  we visit Chef Bill’s hometown of Rochester, N.Y. we make at least one pilgrammage to Wegmans. To call it a supermarket is understated and almost irreverent. I consider it to be one of the most smoothly running and dazzingly stocked purveyors of all things edibly good, plus wellness items like essential oils, vegan protein mixes, and yoga mats. It’s at Wegman’s that we treasure-hunt for things like caramel-colored bricks of Getost cheese, gluten-free fusilli, fresh figs, quart containers of vegetarian chili, and, as was the case this week, Dragon Fruit.

Beet-colored, but soft and slightly sweet

Beet-colored, but soft and slightly sweet

It’s been on our radar to try for a while, in large part, because of its intriguing pink exterior. So we placed one tenderly in our cart, along with a half-dozen green figs that had just landed from California. A few hours ago, as I prepped the morning fruit platter, I noticed we had a handful of plums from the farmers market at the perfet stage of ripeness. Luckily, there are no rules regarding fruit platters – anything fresh is all good in my book – and what a delightful way to begin the day.

On the advice of my food and fitness mentor, Terri Lange, and my nutritionist Nancy Guberti, I eat fruit on an empty stomach in the morning.  As much as I love the a.m. caffeine rush of an espresso-almond milk latte, fresh fruit in the morning is one of the best ways to wake up the body and get the metabolic engines off to a good start.  It’s also tremendously cleansing for the digestive track – as long as you don’t throw a protein or starch into the mix…that’s when you’ll start to get (pardon the candor) back up that can lead to gas, bloating, and other stomach issues. I’m not saying your health will go to weed if you eat fruit throughout the day with other foods, people do it all the time. But this particular scenario is optimal. If you can make this part of your routine, odds are you’ll feel (and probably look) better and your body will thank you.

Now back to the dragon fruit.  As the Wegmans cashier instructed us, we peeled back the rose-colored, leafy exterior which revealed a juicy, beet-colord interior speckled with black seeds.  The taste was pleasantly sweet and mild.  Not as delectable as a mango or guava, but still pretty good.  The Dragon Fruit is said to be high in vitamin C and antioxidants. Its taste and texture was similar to a kiwi. At $6 a pop, we won’t be doing Dragon Fruit too often, but I must admit, it’s a fascinating departure from apples.

 

A platter bejeweled with fruit - what a bewitching way to start the day!

A platter bejeweled with fruit – what a bewitching way to start the day!

 

 

 

 

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A Captain Crunch Craving: How I Handle It Now

Posted on August 22, 2013

It’s been nearly five years now since I took the bull by the horns and reformed my eating habits.  In the process, a monumental change occurred:  I dropped 185 unwanted pounds. For those of you struggling with excess weight, this may sound like a mountain too high to even think about climbing.  If I had looked at it that way on day one, the challenge ahead of me would have been too overwhelming…I likely would have spun around on my heel and gone back to my “Fat Cave” for more extended hiding rather than take the first step up the mountain.

So what was my strategy, aside from not obsessing on how much weight I “should” lose?  Take it in stages.  And that’s exactly what I did.  First to go were the binge foods.  I had to own up and admit that Italian bread soaked in butter, chocolate chip cookies, and potato chips with clam dip really weren’t serving me nutritionally.  They gave my taste buds a bang and sedated me – a win-win at the time for me.

Once I learned to live comfortably without drugging myself with certain foods, I began tinkering with food groups and choices. My fitness mentor Diamond Dallas Page was adamant about the elimination of gluten and cow dairy.  Dallas had never even met me in person, but was convinced that I, like so many obese Americans, was gluten-intolerant.  That means I can ingest heaping amounts of gluten in the form of cereals, breads, pasta, etc. and not fall deathly ill as a celiac would.  My symptoms, though problematic, were subtle enough to live with: bloating, achy joints, lethargy, patches of rough skin, mental fogginess. Our bodies are resilient and wonderous enough to adapt to just about anything. They’re designed to survive, and survive my body did for many years under these conditions.  Heck, I still could be plodding along on half-steam had it not been for the wake-up call from DDP.

And once I agreed to give gluten and cow dairy-free living a try, BOY did my body rejoice.  The before and after montage speaks for itself, and in reality, making the change wasn’t as unpleasant as I thought it would be. There are endless varieties of gluten-free carbs on the market, as well as goat and sheep cheeses that closely mimic the flavor and texture of cheddar, gouda, and parmesean.

Now about that Captain Crunch craving…I had one this morning and decided it was the perfect opportunity to show you how I handle it.  I’m pretty conservative nowadays with the frequency with which I eat simple carbs.  Boxed cereal has largely given way to more fiber and nutrient-dense hot cereal such as oat bran, gluten-free steel cut oats, and cream of brown rice.  But when the kid in me wants a bowl of peanut butter crunch, I do more than just reach for a gluten-free version.

This particular brand  is found at most supermarkets where I live. It’s got clean ingredients and evaporated cane juice instead of white table sugar as a sweetener. To make a bowl of cold cereal even more adult, I sprinkle a few super-foods over it before dousing it in unsweetened almond milk. This morning it was ground chia seeds and hemp hearts (both loaded with omega-3’s and fiber). It not only added nutrition, but their healthy fats meant I didn’t get hungry as quickly as I normally would have if it were just a bowl of cereal.  That’s the double-edged sword for simple carbs…they’re fun to eat, but don’t really stick to the ribs longterm.

If this all sounds like I’m taking a bowl of cereal a little too seriously, well, mea culpa.  I want food to really do something for me; simply tasting good isn’t enough. Much like my requirements in a mate – I want the WHOLE package. Happy to report that this morning’s bowl of cereal fit the bill perfectly. Like I’ve done since was 8, I poured the milk, let it marinade for 10 minutes so the contents got nice and squishy and then dove in. Delicious, just sweet enough, and no sugar-crash at the end.

 

 

Gluten-Free cereal sprinkled with a few superfoods

Gluten-Free cereal sprinkled with a few superfoods

 

 

 

I don't think there's any question as to why I make the effort

I don’t think there’s any question as to why I make the effort

 

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Life’s A (Baked) Bowl of Cherries

Posted on July 29, 2013

So this morning I was feeling a little less than chipper thanks to 6.5 hours of sleep (still working on reversing the deficit). As writing deadlines and a growing to-do list loomed, my mood was brightened by the recollection that there was a mountain of cherries in the refrigerator, as well as a clay baking pot in the cupboard.

The combination of the two plus a 325-degree oven for 30 minutes mean one of my favorite and most juicy ways to enjoy fruit. If I do say so, it’s one of the best and most simplest dishes I’ve invented to date. OK, I  know I’m not the first one to discover the concept of baked fruit, but the first time I tasted the utter purity of a baked cherry with no interference from sugar or flour, I shimmied with joy. It had all the allure of a pie or cobbler with none of the labor or calories. I’ve since gone on to work similar magic with blueberries, raspberries, nectarines, apples, and peaches. But it’s cherry and blueberry season and for the time being, I’m going to be doing a whole lot of this in the morning:

Cherries

 

A baking tip:  I suggest using a lidded casserole dish or clay pot. My particular favorite is a line of Cazuelas made in Spain that’s crafted from 100% mud.  In other words, no lead. I got it at the Hamada Egyptian Bazaar in Saratoga Springs, but they’re available online.

 

CherriesLid

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