mulberryshoots

“help is on the way”. . .

a hopi yei rainbow man made into a pendant. . .

In the I-Ching, the book suggests entities like the “Helpers” and the “Sage” to whom one can ask for help. This sounds like a simple thing – and for me, one which I have found to be a powerful source of inspiration in difficult times. All it takes is to ask them for help, be open to what occurs/evolves and to thank them when you receive the help that you asked for. Often, an approach will appear that I would never have thought of on my own – and it also feels perfect at the same time.

Along these lines, I was reminded by someone I met recently about the power of the Native American culture and its Spirit World (the Circle of Life.) Years ago when I visited Sedona, Arizona, I read about spirit symbols such as the Yei rainbow man. He embodies a Spirit World helper and appears in various forms in paintings, weavings and in jewelry. Here is an illustration of a Hopi rainbow man made into a pendant.

It is comforting to me that we are not alone in this world to try to solve all our problems by ourselves. How could we? Humans tend to complicate things, it seems to me, while the Universe simplifies things. And asking for help may be the simplest one of all.

“Help is on the way” is not just a platitude for me but an occurrence that enriches my life almost every day. I am very thankful!

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April 29, 2016

an antidote to depression . . .

majestic elm trees by the Mississippi River

Was feeling a bit blue this morning and went out to do some errands. While I was in Barnes & Noble, a local hangout of sorts, I picked up a copy of a magazine, “Psychology Today” and read an article called, “It’s Not All About You!”

It struck a chord, I admit sheepishly and this particular passage about cognitive therapy sounded like perfect pitch to me:

“. . . cognitive behaviorial therapy is about, yes, examining your thoughts, but also learning to take them less seriously, to look at how they might be inaccurate or silly or useless, to stop taking what happens around you so personally, to realize it’s not all about you.”

So, maybe thinking (ruminating/brooding) about what ails us, and spending lots of money talking to a therapist about it so that we can change how we think about it (don’t take things personally and don’t try to change what you can’t) might work for lots of people. But what else?

By getting out in Nature and really seeing beauty around us, appreciating and experiencing awe for all that the Universe provides for us little beings on earth – that’s not that hard to do and puts us in our place at the same too. Plus, it’s free!~

Sounds good to me!

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April 28, 2016

asian noodle salad, rebooted . . .

G. and I thought the asian noodle dish was exceptionally tasty – light and refreshing. We finished almost all of it, believe it or not, and had about a cup left over.

So, this morning after breakfast, I prepared and added these ingredients to that leftover salad:

another batch of cooked angel hair pasta
2 tiny carrots cut on the diagonal
a handful of chopped red cabbage (so convenient in a bag in the salad section)
3 inches of English cucumber, the sides sliced finely – the seeds discarded
a chunk of fresh cilantro leaves
asparagus tips that needed to be used up sauteed in coconut oil in a skillet
1/3 cup leftover marinade

When the pasta was well-drained and still steaming, I poured the leftover dressing on it. I then added the cilantro to the warm noodles and stirred it together. To the vegetable mix, I added the dressed noodles and combined all together.

The dressing from the noodles seemed to be enough for the vegetables too. If not, I’ll make a little more and add it right before serving it tonight. In the meantime, it’s now in the fridge with plastic wrap covering it. Will serve it along with some lamb rib chops, a la Julia Child (mustard, fresh rosemary, garlic) glaze in the skillet for dinner tonight.

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April 27, 2016

an asian noodle salad . . .

A few days ago, I bought a fat slice of fresh salmon, sprinkled it with sea salt, sugar and laid two slices together with fresh dill, topped with a can of beans for weight and wrapped it in plastic wrap to cure for a couple of days in the fridge. We enjoyed the gravlax two days ago, sliced thinly on top of a fresh romaine, cherry tomato, red onion salad with tons of capers and slices of fresh lemon.

Tonight, we’ll have the remaining cured salmon as sashimi which we’ll eat with soy and wasabi- and to go along with it, I made an asian noodle salad. Here’s the recipe which I adapted in the following ways:

Cooked angel hair pasta, drained and cooled.
Sliced: inner leaves of napa cabbage, 2 carrots, a third of an english cucumber, 4 cherry tomatoes, 2 handfuls of red cabbage.
Garnished with grated fresh peeled ginger root; chopped scallions and fresh cilantro leaves
Dressing: Ohsawa soy sauce, oyster sauce, Marukan seasoned gourmet rice vinegar, sesame oil, olive oil, red pepper flakes (pinch); sweetener (sugar-free) – whisked it together and set aside.
Spooned dressing onto warm pasta and mixed well – added a little more to flavor the noodles before adding to the vegetables.
Spooned dressing onto the greens so that they were just coated but not flooded with dressing.
Added the dressed noodles and tossed to combine – tasted for seasoning; covered top of bowl with plastic wrap and put into the fridge until dinner.

This asian noodle salad will round out our salmon (gravlax) sashimi leftovers tonight!

What a lovely, sunny and peaceful day it’s been! And I was thinking that soon, it’ll be time to fire up the Japanese hibachi we have on the back deck – and that variations of this asian noodle salad might go well during the warm weather with grilled teriyaki chicken thighs, shrimp scampi and just about anything asian grilled.

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April 23, 2016

extra-thin, crispy gingersnap cookies!

A couple of weeks ago, I picked up a small packet of gingersnap cookies at Market Basket. They were extraordinarily tasty: crisp, very gingery and not very sweet. One cookie or even half of one with a cup of hot coffee after dinner was very satisfying.

The weather is kind of overcast and grey today so I thought maybe I’d make a half batch of cookies to share with the folks across the street and to have when G. returns from a day’s piano tuning appointments in Boston’s environs.

Since I’m trying to avoid having too many sugary snacks around, I found a recipe that I cut in half which still yielded about two dozen cookies. I erred on the side of adding a tad more spices than called for: cinnamon, ground cloves and ground ginger – and a little less sugar. The dough was creamier than the recipe indicated so rolling balls by hand wasn’t feasible. I did scoop up melon ball sized batter, set them three inches apart and sprinkled with a sugar before baking for about fifteen minutes at 350 degrees in a preheated oven.

They spread out and baked to an even light brown color – and I sprinkled a little more granulated white sugar on top of the warm cookies, dusting off the excess as they cooled to crispy thin cookies. I bit into one to see how they tasted before posting this piece – and next time, I might add even a little more ground ginger – or how about some freshly hand-grated gingerroot! Now why didn’t I think of that earlier?

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April 7, 2016

whole-meal composed salads . . .

a classic nicoise salad (courtesy of Pinterest)

For a long time, I’ve been trying to transition my cooking/meal preparation habits from the standard baby-boomer generation meal of protein, potatoes/grains, vegetables and perhaps a salad on the side. I haven’t been very successful up to now until I was introduced to the concept of a whole-meal chopped salad such as those popular in California and elsewhere. It also offered a new outlook to combine a number of green vegetables like kale and romaine together rather than just one or the other in a salad. Old food habits die hard, I guess.

Anyhow, the leap-frog to the idea of a whole meal composed salad occurred when I came upon some new salad dressings and garnishes that made eating raw greens as the main feature of dinner both palatable and also interesting to prepare.

So, I’m sharing some of these ideas in case you’d like to experiment with them yourselves:

SELECT GREENS from: fresh kale, romaine, napa cabbage, fresh spinach, arugula, lettuces. De-stem, roll leaves together and slice thinly. Kale and romaine are especially good together.

GARNISHES (choose from): chopped scallion, chopped chives, maple salad walnuts, honey toasted salad almonds, golden raisins soaked in warm orange juice, craisins, fresh orange segments, pomegranate seeds

Toss the greens with the garnishes and set on a dinner plate as the composed salad base. Then, choose from various veggie and protein choices that complement the salad on the plate.

VEGGIE CONDIMENTS: sliced avocado, cherry tomatoes, sliced hard-boiled eggs, boiled creamer potatoes sliced in half, boiled green or yellow string beans, caramelized sliced brussels sprouts etc.

PROTEIN CONDIMENTS (to choose from): seared fresh tuna dipped in sesame seeds and sliced thinly; teriyaki salmon, shrimp scampi, marinated beef ribeye cut into strips; chicken tenders, prosciutto ham

(We’ve been surprised by how little salmon we need to buy to make one piece grilled in a pan with teriyaki sauce and divide it into servings on top of two salad dinners.)

But the real linchpin for me that makes this whole meal salad thing work is a salad dressing that is delicious enough to eat often and that harmonizes with the cornucopia of ingredients at our disposal as suggested above. Even better, these dressings are made ahead of time and are ready to use when composing the salads.

I’ve found two that we enjoy; both of them are derived from the Hillstone Restaurant chain to which I was introduced in a Bon Appetit review article (http://www.bonappetit.com/restaurants-travel/article/hillstone.)

One is a fresh-basil vinaigrette with fresh lemon juice from the Napa Grille Restaurant (http://www.popsugar.com/food/Kale-Chopped-Salad-From-Napa-Valley-Grille-Recipe-Video-30110625)

and the other is a buttermilk garlic dressing from Houston’s (http://www.food.com/recipe/houstons-buttermilk-garlic-salad-dressing-80631.)

With this shift in emphasis, our refrigerator is a bounty of washed greens and dressings that are ready to serve; our pantry yields tasty, crunchy and appetizing garnishes; and a small fresh serving of protein can be whipped up in a very short time just before serving dinner.

Hope you might also enjoy experimenting with this way of eating: prioritizing fresh greens and de-emphasizing large servings of protein.

It’s healthier, it’s a lot more economical and now, we’ve found it to be even more delicious!

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March 24, 2016

our little screech visitor this a.m. – 3rd visit!!

THIRD visit this morning, 24 March, 2016!!

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March 13, 2016

a little visitor (again!) . . .

a second visit by our little screech owl

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March 3, 2016

march madness . . .

Boy, if you have been breathing here in the U.S. of A. you’ll know that what we are seeing happen on TV and in other news could be only be described as “March Madness” – and I am talking about politics, and not basketball either!

Now that Super Tuesday has come and gone, there is finally talk about the possibility of brokered conventions, at least for the Republican party should no one including Donald Trump have the required number of delegates required on the first ballot. That magic number turns out to be 1237. And Trump now has only 285, 952 short of the required number of delegates. That’s a long way from Tipperary if you ask me – and so I don’t really understand all the hype that says that Trump is now unstoppable. Really? Even with plump Chris Christie playing the royal syncophant standing by in case the Donald wants a drink of water?

Last night, Greta Van Susteran devoted almost an hour to featuring Melania Trump in an “up close and personal” peek at their luxury apartment in Trump tower. I have to say that Melania does well in the couple of interviews I’ve seen on TV. She even offers up good marriage advice: be your own person and speak your mind. Just don’t expect the other person to do what you think they should, even if you disagree with their behavior. Most of us know how to voice our opinions, but implicitly, at least I find, you want the other person to follow your advice. That doesn’t work, it seems.

Anyhow, the growing rumble of conversations about how to stop Trump have revealed a few other idiosyncracies about the Republican National Convention rules – more than you or I ever wanted to know, probably. It turns out that if there is no majority in the first ballot, then ALL the delegates can vote for anyone they feel like on subsequent ballots. Apparently, there could be as many as 100 or more ballots if you read about past brokered conventions! Sounds like voting for the Pope and seeing when the grey smoke will appear, it sounds to me!

The only Catch-22 is that there is a current rule that says no one can be nominated as a candidate who hasn’t won a majority of delegates in EIGHT STATES during the Primary. Well, I guess that lets out Paul Ryan, who seems to be champing at the bit to be the putative nominee, a dark horse who seems to be trying to become more visible by the day.Have you noticed that the Koch brothers have been sitting on the sidelines, along with some of the other billionaires although the Ricketts family seems to making its move now to fund a Super Pac to oppose Donald Trump or to support a third-party candidate. Is this a reality show or what?

Sure, Donald Trump has brushed Ryan’s viewpoints away, threatening him, just as he has anyone else who has gotten in his way who has said a cautionary word about him. People are not silent either about Christie’s stooge-like stance beside Trump for over a half hour as though he’s already the VP candidate to the Donald. Six New Jersey newspapers published a joint editorial complaining that Christie is spending taxpayer money running around the country campaigning, first for himself and now for Trump while ignoring his responsibilities to New Jersey. But what do they expect from a lame-duck governor whose hubris and ambition is so obvious that it is painful to watch? Even the New Hampshire Union Leader published an editorial saying “Boy, Were We Wrong!” to have endorsed Chris Christie prior to the NH primary a couple of weeks ago.

And so it goes. Ted Koppel appeared briefly on Bill Reilly’s show last night in which he succinctly placed the responsibility for the shift of news broadcasters from Walter Cronkite (as “the most trusted man in America”) to Reilly’s influence in the past decade by making it all about HIS opinion, rather than providing objective news to the American public. This trend has now opened a Pandora’s Box where each and every broadcaster now feels it’s their right to voice their opinions and ask dumb questions while they are on the air. Never mind that the major networks spend all of their budgets showing EXACTLY the same news features with only a few customized People-Magazine human interest features every night!

Oh, how I wish Tim Russert were still alive. He would have made this political season truly interesting. As it is, we get to watch Megyn Kelly joust with Donald Trump tonight.

What must the rest of the World be thinking about what’s happened to us and what’s going on in this country?

Don’t answer that!

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February 26, 2016

“OrchidDelirium” exhibition . . .

a “pathiopedilum” (lady slipper) orchid that C. gave me . . .

A couple of years ago, I drove down to the New York Botanical Society from central Massachusetts to see an exhibition on Chrysanthemums. I wrote a post about it with many photos of this amazingly beautiful display of this favored flower of Far East Asian cultures (China and Japan.)

Today, I read an article about an exhibition of orchids showing in the same Enid Haupt Hall as the “Mums Show” and thought I’d post it, especially as they have a photo (scroll down in the article) of a “paphiopedilum” orchid – otherwise known as “lady slipper” orchid very similar to one that my daughter, C. gave me before Christmas.

It is still going strong on our kitchen table!

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