Category: Food

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HARVEST TIME: PLUMS, CUCUMBER & POETRY

It’s harvest season, and this year plums top the list of luscious edibles. These don’t yet grow in our backyard garden though we planted an Italian Plum tree two years back. Which reminds me to share another sort of offering which has taken years to find its flourish: You Can Call It Beautiful, a collection of poetry, debuted September 1—thanks to MoonPath Press.

Plus–we’ve enjoyed three varieties of cucumber from our backyard garden: Lemon cukes fresh like an apple and pickled with basil, and the Asian cukes are delicious in tzatziki and perfect for raita. Holding this poetry book and reading to friends in late summer, felt almost as joyful and nourishing as those cucurbits.

Like tomato and kale, zucchini and chard, these poems have grown from seed. Some happened spontaneously—without forethought or shopping first. No trek to the nursery for starts or special nutrients to feed the soil. But most grew after huge dedication to the dig. All required care and water—tender and wanting to grow into their own life.

Just last weekend, pounds of plums arrived on our front porch from a neighbor. The next bounty came from across town. She lives in Kailash Ecovillage. These acres grow apples, figs, and pears, too. Residents tend rows of vegetables they eat and sometimes sell at the market. They’ve built a tall tree house in one corner of the land, big enough to host a party. The place is amazing in urban southeast Portland. Surprises everywhere!

Another lover of good food has been sharing her joy of simmering plums into a sauce she and her husband enjoy through the winter. So, I tried it. I’m sold! It’s one of my new faves—and a terrific topper for tapioca pudding which reminds me of my grandma. It will adorn my steel cut oats as mornings grow cold. On vanilla bean ice cream, we’ll share with guests in the evening.

You Can Call It Beautiful became title of this poetry collection because so much of life can scare and scar. Trauma and tragedy, bangs, barrages, and debt can pull our attention so far from today: We forget the gift of simply breathing alive. We lose our way. We fail to connect with each other or first with ourselves. Yet those kinships can feed and sustain us.

For me, these poems, these words, the plums, cukes, and all of the dear people who share moments in person or through poetry,  their recipes, song, art on the walls, the cashier at Natural Grocers–and Brent who fixed my bumper back onto my car in Port Townsend so I could drive home safely down I-5–divine life. There will always be pain and burnt berries, and still, You Can Call It beautiful. Continue reading “HARVEST TIME: PLUMS, CUCUMBER & POETRY”

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FERMENTING WITH FRIENDS: SAUERKRAUT, KIMCHI & DOSAS

“A soul is but the last bubble of a long fermentation in the world.” George Santayana

On that sunniest and warmest Saturday yet of 2023—almost spring—Louise White and her daughter-in-law, Amie Oliver, showed up to our house with two suitcases on wheels—full of supplies. They hauled up the stairs an assortment of crocks, tall jars from the feed-store, and bags of thrice-washed and pre-chopped cabbage from the restaurant supply store. Louise had purchased pounds of ginger and a sack of green onions bigger than I’d ever seen—from H-Mart.

Louise at the head of the table

Over the course of the next few hours we would make sauerkraut, eat a lovely lunch of dosas, curry, and rice prepped by Louise—and then onto the kimchi-creation.

For the morning sauerkraut-making, we cheated. Those bags of pre-chopped saved us from the need to sharpen our knives just yet. The only “work” for this fermented white cabbage was to measure and massage.

Each of us had our separate bowl. We used a digital kitchen scale and weighed out the cabbage, tossed in the pre-sliced bag of carrots, a bit of radicchio, and three-plus teaspoons salt. We used our hands to squeeze and toss—until a brine filled the bottom of each bowl—and would eventually cover the kraut when jarred.

Me & sauerkraut fun

Making sauerkraut is easy: cabbage, salt, and water–though we tossed in some extras. The brine is the brew and likes about 2% salt to 98% water (a heaping teaspoon of sea salt to a cup of filtered water if ever you need to add more liquid.) The trick to fermentation is keeping the veggies submerged under the brine so mold won’t grow. I learned the hard way!

Continue reading “FERMENTING WITH FRIENDS: SAUERKRAUT, KIMCHI & DOSAS”
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Let’s Stay Strong & Find Joy in the Moments!

This includes supporting our body’s Immune System!

Welcome back to LIT ― Live(s) Inspiring Today! If you haven’t been here before, THANKS for sharing some moments now!

Our first Portland snow fell this morning, in mid-March; a friend was in town for a conference this past week and sent home after hundreds had arrived to Portland from as far away as Chile; people all over the world feel worried in new ways. YET, I feel a lovely surprise of “free time” to do what I often don’t do―such as blogging.

Given the challenges of now, let’s talk about the wondrous human body―and immunity. We want to stay healthy and strong. I might even bring poetry into this conversation!

Mostly, I what to remind you and me what we can do any moment of our lives to grow and remain resilient. Not that we control much, yet even when stuck at home, even as plans go berserk and we miss our usual workouts and events are canceled, even when our livelihood feels at stake―on our own time, in our own homes, phone calls and webinars–we can make small decisions that will help not only ourselves but neighbors we’ve never met.

Self-care is good for everyone!

Growing scientific evidence shows that stress reduces the ability of our bodies to fight off ALL diseases and illnesses.

Fantastic if none of these suggestions are new to you! Here goes:

1. Food First: We are what we eat, and when it comes to staying healthy, a colorful plate is an image to behold. While there is no one best diet for all of us, we each need a balance of all three macro-nutrients (fats, protein & carbohydrates).

We need good fat to utilize the protein we consume, and we need protein in our diet in order to digest fat. Carbs are everywhere, and getting enough of those is not a worry for most of us. Don’t forget the greens–lots of them!

Keep in mind that constant snacking is a drain on the body: If always busy breaking down and absorbing food, the body can’t complete its other essential functions―such as detoxification―imperative to a strong immune system and our vital organs working well.  Continue reading “Let’s Stay Strong & Find Joy in the Moments!”

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Colleen Bunker’s Journey: Nutrition, Needles, Ease & Flow

“We live in a vastly complex society which has been able to provide us with a multitude of material things, and this is good, but people are beginning to suspect we have paid a high spiritual price for our plenty.”
Euell Gibbons

When I first met Colleen Bunker, LAC, with her needles and certification as a Nutritional Therapist, I was waking up at 2 or 3am many mornings and lying restless for hours. I suffered a chronic hip pain and hoped acupuncture might help me to hike the mountains and snooze through the night. Almost 50, enrolled in massage school, and learningg to use my brain, body and hands in new ways, I felt stressed.

Colleen had begun acupuncture school at age 45, after years of managing a whole-food co-op in Maine. Before that she had an acre market-garden, three green houses and grew food for the store and elsewhere.

While working at the co-op, her father fell terminally ill and moved into her home. She still had two teenage boys around, and a man on the board of the co-op noticed her distress: “You need to come see me,” he said, and those visits were her introduction to acupuncture.

She also met her now-husband, Joe, at the co-op, also a board member. They eventually moved to Vermont where he studied Meditation and Conflict Resolution. She continued to receive acupuncture treatments, and several years later they moved to Portland, Oregon where she enrolled at OCOM (Oregon School of Oriental Medicine). Continue reading “Colleen Bunker’s Journey: Nutrition, Needles, Ease & Flow”

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On the First Days of the New Year: Be Inspired by Something Yummy

 “Cooking is like love.
It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.”

Harriet van Horne

 

IMG_20150103_173428As we drove home from our New Years visit to Port Townsend–always an amazing eating venture with friends Paul and Sharon–I thumbed through a cookbook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library. I even jotted ideas in my notebook! I knew I’d get lost imagining flavors and textures, so I scribbled possibilities for first-week-of-the-year menus.

Mollie Katzen is author to one of the first cookbooks I used back in my twenties: The Enchanted Broccoli Forest. Who wouldn’t love to cook from a book with such a great title?

Since then, Katzen has updated her nutritional understanding: Continue reading “On the First Days of the New Year: Be Inspired by Something Yummy”

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In Season! Sauteed Delicata Squash with Carmelized Onions & Feta

“I cook with wine. Sometimes I even add it to the food.”

-W.C. Fields

For IMG_20141116_152131this week, why not get down to basics? Food and the harvest can keep us warm.

Friends have been swapping recipes all over the internet lately, but here’s one I picked up at the King Farmer’s Market this icy morning.

To give shoppers a sense of what’s possible, the market managers, Anna and Amber, have arranged for someone to demo a recipe each week. They offer a sampling of food and highlight a piece of the bounty being sold by local farmers.

They often choose a vegetable people might not know how to cook–like delicata squash: It’s wonderful! No peeling necessary! Slice, seed, saute–or toss into a saag or a stew. Options are endless.

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The farmers and vendor and people like Amber and Anna who make the market happen are inspiring. They help to build community–while providing fresh food. And this extra effort–the cooking onsite–gives all of us some new way to find delight.

The cook looked happy as she chopped the delicata and sauteed it fresh. She then mixed in the already caramelized onions–and sprinkled some fresh cheese on top. (Since no one sold feta today, she bought what a vendor had on hand.)

sauteed delicata squash with onion and fetaWe had today’s demo-recipe for dinner tonight–along with beet greens harvested from the garden yesterday–and some leftover brown rice.

What’s inspiring? Anna and Amber run the market, and a lot of others work alongside and behind the scenes. It’s dedication. It’s community-building. Thanks for being there!

 

Click the recipe image to expand.

“My doctor told me I had to stop throwing intimate dinners for four unless there are three other people.”

-Orson Welles