musings...

exert from Tom Robbins' "Jitterbug Perfume" ISBN 0-553-17161-5

2010-06-30T14:47:00.003+02:00

The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The onion has as many pages as War and Peace, every one of which is poignant enough to make a strong man weep, but the various ivory parchments of the onion and the stinging green bookmark of the onion are quickly charred by the belly juices and the bowel bacteria. Only the beet departs the body the same colour as it went in.

Beets consumed at dinner will, come morning, stock a toilet bowl with crimson fish, their hue attesting to beet's chromatic immunity to the powerful digestive acids and thoroughgoing microbes that can turn the reddest pimento, the orangest carrot, the yellowest squash into a single disgusting shade of brown.

At birth we are red-faced, round, intense, pure. The crimson fire of universal consciousness burns in us. Gradually, however, we are devoured by parents, gulped by schools, chewed up by peers, swallowed by social institutions, wolfed by bad habits, and gnawed by age; and by the time we have been digested, cow style, in those six stomachs, we emerge a single disgusting shade of brown.

The lesson of the beet, then, is this: hold on to your divine blush, your innate rosy magic, or end up brown. Once you're brown you'll find that you're blue. As blue as indigo. And you know what that means:

Indigo

Indigoing

Indigone

Cabbages are Kings....

2009-11-09T07:02:00.004+02:00

..... when it comes to antioxidants!

That's right! They rank up there with the so called superfoods such as goji, acai and blueberries. So don't worry if your budget is restricted because economical RED cabbage is just as high in antioxidants... having the same phyto-nutrients that give berries their beautiful vibrant hue. These antioxidants trigger the body's own detox enzymes and also neutralize harmful free radicals.

Red cabbage is the highest ranking cruciferous vegetable on the ORAC list (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity).

It's a great food for those who are watching their weight as the anthocyanins increase your body's production of 2 important hormones: adiponectin, a fat-burning one and leptin which serves to reduce appetite. That's over and above the rich fibre and water content which serves to help the feeling of fullness.

Red cabbage is full of essential minerals: Potassium, Iron, Calcium, Magnesium , Phosphorus , Zinc, Copper, Manganese, Selenium, and others and is also a very good source of the following B vitamins: B6, Thiamin, Riboflavin, Folate, and these too: Vitamin A, Vitamin C(a cupful contains 85% of the RDA) & Vitamin K.

Red cabbage contains Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids and one must remember that the leaves of plants are the best sources of protein.... red cabbage contains a profile of 9 different amino acids. Nutirtiondata.com gives its caloric values as 85% carb : 4% fat : 11% protein which is very close to the recommended 80:10:10 by Doug Graham.

Please do eat it raw. I like to use the leaves as a wrap in place of Pita bread... chop tomato, cucumber, peppers, sprouts and spring onions to fill the leaves. If you aren't on a weight reducing stage of life then the addition of mashed avocado is very yummy and satiating.

Add torn leaves to brighten and crisp up a salad or even juice the leaves with carrot, apple and celery.

When entertaining I make Thai Stir Live

Thai Stir-Live

4 cups red cabbage chopped

2 cups cauliflower chopped

1 yellow pepper chopped

2 cups white mushrooms sliced (I used baby button shrooms and they were good)

½ cup parsley chopped

½ cup tomato chopped

1 avo diced

2 inches ginger grated

2 medium cloves garlic minced

1 Tbsp lemon zest

1 pinch cayenne

¼ cup olive oil

4 Tbsp Bragg Aminos

2 Tbsp honey

Mix all together. And enjoy!

Baby Spinach and Fennel...

2009-10-22T08:12:00.001+02:00

A lovely salad idea.... well... main meal actually (for those of us eating Raw Vegan)

Throw a handful of baby spinach in your bowl
Add half a fennel bulb very finely sliced

Matchstick a crisp apple and sprinkle over
throw a handful of walnuts onto this
and scoop out the seeds of a pomegranate to top it all and add the sensual sweetness ... mmmmmmmmmm

In Port Elizabeth, the Figtree Fruit and Veg has a large and lovely pile of ripe pomegranates.

Woolies have nice Fennel... I only have 1plant growing in a pot outside the kitchen door so I just pick fronds from it.

Apples are always available everywhere but if you want to be sure they're good and crisp it pays to get from Woolies.

Important note! Buy shelled nuts from someone who keeps them refrigerated. Nuts are high in oils that can go rancid - and there are only 2 places in PE that I know of who keep their nuts cold... Health Matters in Prospect Rd Walmer and Valley Harvest also of Walmer. Once you've had a taste of a fresh nut you won't be able to eat the stale nuts off Supermarket shelves ever again.

The baby spinach came from sowing I'd made into a half drum behind the garage. Gladly the soft occasional rain we've been having in PE has kept it watered.

Namaste... here's to a summer of wonder, merriment and quiet rain

2009-09-15T12:38:00.002+02:00

I hadn't wanted a new pet and certainly never thought I'd ever pay as much as I did for one! But it does come from good heirloom stock that has been passed down in a family for hundreds of years. And I'll be able to sell the offspring for a hefty sum too.
It's white and lumpy.... could be fluffy when dry.
Today I started breeding my new pet... or is it a new pot plant? I'm not quite sure. Flora or fauna? It's Kefir.
Fortunately I can leave it unattended for from 12 to 48 hours so weekends away will be in order. After that I need to drain and feed it milk of some sort... I would like to try coconut milk or almond nut milk. It's going to be fun experimenting. One has to remember tho, that the grains of kefir may stop reproducing if it doesn't have all the necessary growth factors required by the bacteria. Traditionally the medium to grow your Kefir is raw milk... any mammal milk.
I have found my digestion greatly improved with the addition of a couple of tablespoons of Kefir to my smoothies and green energy soups. It boosts the number of healthy micro organisms in the intestinal tract. The longer its left to ferment the greater the folic acid content. It also has antimutagenic and antioxidant properties.

2009-09-08T22:11:00.005+02:00

Greens are not fruit or vegetables... they're in a class of their own. Hence, for those who are concerned about food combining... don't worry!
Leafy greens are the only food that help to digest whatever food they are eaten with and greens help stimulate the secretion of digestive enzymes, and they are indispensable for helping alkalize the body, which is so very important.
For those of us who are vegan... greens are our major source of protein and calcium, and according to Victoria Butenko's research we need to eat 800g of these healthful leaves every day which is 2 of those huge pillow packs of lettuce mix. However, eating one type a day is best for digestion, while making each day a different variety will give you the range of nutrients needed.
I have found a wonderful source of organically grown vegetables and greens in the PE area... such exciting types of lettuce like Radicchio and Romaine that I have only read about and never seen, and 5 other varieties of lettuce!!! That means a different variety every day of the week. There is also Rocket, Coriander and spinach in the form of Chard and Baby leaf.
These are a great compliment to the wonderful Eco-certified organic citrus from Addo. The Clementines and Navel's are over but Valencias are in and make wonderful jugfuls of juice.
Weekly orders will be taken for collection on a Friday!

2009-07-01T10:09:00.003+02:00

The Cape Gooseberry grows in my garden like the natural I thought it was! How surprised was I to discover it is named for the Cape of South America not South Africa. It has an extensive list of common names and I love the South African one of Golden Berry and the Cape Dutch names of pompelmoes or apelliefie. In Chile it's known by the romantic moniker - bolsa de amor which I delightfully presume means "bag of love". (The husk that encloses the fruit is large and loose)
I remember picking bowlfuls as a young girl when staying with my Aunt Iris in Natal. The straggly bushes grew abundantly at the bottom of the garden around her compost heap and Aunty Iris stewed them with sugar and served them that night with ice cream after dinner. It was Angel's food to me! Nowadays I snack on them whenever I walk past and see a ripe and ready berry. I look forward to the day I can harvest a cupful of berries to blend with frozen banana which is my ice cream now that I am eating Raw Vegan.
There are half a dozen bushes growing in various places around the garden that thankfully withstood the heavy rainfalls and several hail drops experienced last week. They are all laden with berries in the process of ripening. I have read that these fruits are poisonous when green. And when ripe they have a golden oily skin filled with delicious sweet and tangy seedy pulp.
Gooseberries are very high in phosphorus and vitamin C and have a good dose of calcium and Niacin and appreciable levels of carotene, iron, riboflavin and thiamine.
In South Africa, the heated leaves are applied as poultices on inflammations and the Zulus administer the leaf infusion as an enema to relieve abdominal ailments in children. In Colombia, the leaf decoction is taken as a diuretic and antiasthmatic.

Shall I try Gooseberry leaf tea? or chiffondale the heart-shaped greens in my salad? I know that, come Spring, I will certainly be having blended pompelmoes sauce on sliced bananas..... or blended frozen banana served with apelliefies..... and will continue to enjoy the odd sun-warmed bolsa de amor out in the garden.

Come dance with me......

2009-06-30T09:52:00.000+02:00

I have sent you my invitation,
the note inscribed on the palm of my hand by the fire of living.
Don’t jump up and shout, “Yes, this is what I want! Let’s do it!”
Just stand up quietly and dance with me.

Show me how you follow your deepest desires,
spiralling down into the ache within the ache.
And I will show you how I reach inward and open outward
to feel the kiss of the Mystery, sweet lips on my own, everyday.

Don’t tell me you want to hold the whole world in your heart.
Show me how you turn away from making another wrong without abandoning yourself when you are hurt and afraid of being unloved.

Tell me a story of who you are,
And see who I am in the stories I am living.
And together we will remember that each of us always has a choice.

Don’t tell me how wonderful things will be … some day.
Show me you can risk being completely at peace,
truly OK with the way things are right now in this moment,
and again in the next and the next and the next…

I have heard enough warrior stories of heroic daring.
Tell me how you crumble when you hit the wall,
the place you cannot go beyond by the strength of your own will.
What carries you to the other side of that wall,
to the fragile beauty of your own humanness?

And after we have shown each other how we have set and kept the clear, healthy boundaries that help us live side by side with each other, let us risk remembering that we never stop silently loving those we once loved out loud.

Take me to the places on the earth that teach you how to dance, the places where you can risk letting the world break your heart.
And I will take you to the places where the earth beneath my feet and the stars overhead make my heart whole again and again.

Show me how you take care of business
without letting business determine who you are.
When the children are fed but still the voices within and around us shout that soul’s desires have too high a price,
let us remind each other that it is never about the money.

Show me how you offer to your people and the world
the stories and the songs you want our children’s children to remember, and I will show you how I struggle
not to change the world, but to love it.

Sit beside me in long moments of shared solitude,
knowing both our absolute aloneness and our undeniable belonging. Dance with me in the silence and in the sound of small daily words, holding neither against me at the end of the day.

And when the sound of all the declarations of our sincerest
intentions has died away on the wind, dance with me in the infinite pause before the next great inhale of the breath that is breathing us all into being, not filling the emptiness from the outside or from within.

Don’t say, “Yes!”
Just take my hand and dance with me.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Oranges and Lemons Say the Bells of St Clements....

2009-05-31T07:08:00.010+02:00

The ACT Centre in Target Kloof hold a monthly Farmer's Market and this Saturday I found myself a part of it.
Early Friday morning I was surfing the net for local organic produce growers for my own personal pantry. Google offered me only one prospect.... on a UK tourism site I found Rosedale Farm in Addo that advertised their organic citrus. I recorded farmer Keith's contact number and made a note to phone him after 8am.

Meanwhile I downloaded my email and found the reminder of the Farmer's Market which had stalls still available. A couple of calls later I had booked a stall, commissioned Keith to pick me nearly R1000 worth of fruit and got busy making labels, threading bags, ordering posters and having T markers made.
The weather was crisp and fresh, the people were lovely, the fruit was beautiful and, all-in-all the day was wonderful and the project was well worth the effort!

Peace & Pachyderms

2009-05-09T07:01:00.005+02:00

Are you looking for a spot of peace in your hurried life?
Then I highly recommend a visit to Addo Elephant National Park in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. I spent an awesome couple of nights out there this past week and was deeply impressed with the standard of the Park. The cleanliness everywhere was exceptional and the service was friendly and efficient..... but this blog isn't about touting Addo Elephant Park's trumpet ......

I want to tell you about the wonderful peace and beauty of nature. Obviously this is the perfect time of year to go out there... autumn ...... and just after some much needed rain... the vegetation was lush, green and fresh and the day spent driving around the Park was a warm sunny day without a breath of wind. A host of animals were out and about with plenty visible from the well-kept roads - Zebra, Warthog, several species of buck, Ostrich, monkeys, tortoises and of course the main attraction... great ponderous pachyderms! A herd of mothers with calves was out on a wide plane and at several water holes were small groups of really big guys.

It is quite disconcerting to come across evidence of an elephant ahead on the road - behind me and beside me, but never blocking my escape please. A littering of fresh dung and broken branches brought on my flight or fight response... a huge, lone bull trundled tediously up the road before thankfully swinging off to refresh at a small water hole.
Another great lone bull was quaffing copious amounts of water at the hide where one can stand in close proximity presumably out of sight behind a boarded and electric fence. I noticed that elephants do much the same as most other animals... once they have showered themselves down they wander off to the nearest dust bowl, suck up the dirt and spray dust all over themselves. Hmmmm ... that brings to mind my mother dusting herself with talc after bathing.
Stopping at the safely enclosed picnic spot is worth the drive even if no game is spotted. Each thatched roof table and benches is privately surrounded by the indigenous flora and is immaculately clean and naturally neat with wonderful views over the surrounding land. Each spot has its own braai facility and there are water taps conveniently placed and an exceptionally clean ablution block.
But, ablutions aside.... its the perfect peace pervading your soul that impresses the most. Utter stillness and quiet that is apparent even at night back in main camp. One catches a feel of it very briefly on a quiet night in the suburbs when the power is down and there is no hum of electronics and machinery... and the stars shine more brightly.
The National Park has expanded in recent years and includes a diverse array of biomes.... 2 nights is not sufficient to explore them all... the Woody Cape section near Alexandria provides a tremendous hiking experience for nature lovers.... the 7km Tree Dassie trail through coastal forest was breathtaking... in more ways than one! Prolific with birdlife and butterflies, peace and oxygen.
Venturing out of camp wasn't even necessary to experience the greatest highlights of the visit. Birds galore visited at the chalet and while breakfasting on sliced banana sauced with granadilla pulp we watched 2 Kalahari lions ambled across the veld as large as life. Roy and Megan - lions have names too - were relocating to a spot just above the floodlit waterhole that has a viewing deck inside the camp. A pack of Black-backed Jackal then followed them and were a delightful sight to see there in the floodlights and at close quarters from the underground hide.
The kudu were barking warnings to one another across the veld and although they had freely used the water hole the previous night, none came close while Roy and Megan were lying in wait.... that is.. until one wounded kudu came limpimg into view. Immediately the lions stirred, stretched and slowly strolled in opposite directions encircling the hapless buck which seemingly had sacrificed its life for the herd.
The lions fed that night... as did the jackal.

Touch Me

2009-04-20T16:35:00.002+02:00

by Juliet Klieman ( I found this beautiful poem on the Esalen Massage and Bodywork website - just had to share it)

Touch me...
In secret places no one has reached before.
In silent places where words only interfere.
In sad places where only whispering makes sense.

Touch me...
In the morning when the night still clings.
At midday when confusion crowds upon me. At twilight, as I begin again to know who
I am, In the evening when
I see you and
I hear you...
best of all.

Touch me...
Like a child
who will never have enough love, For I am
a person who wants to be lost in your arms,
An individual who has known pain to love,
An adult who is strong enough to give.

Touch me...
In crowds, when a single look says everything,
In solitude when it's too dark to even look,
In absence when I reach for you through time and miles.

Touch me...
When I ask,
When I'm afraid to ask.

Touch me...
With your lips,
Your hands,
Your presence in the room.

Touch me...
Gently, for I am fragile,
Firmly, for I am strong,
Often, for I am alone.

Persimmons and Windowsills

2009-04-18T13:13:00.006+02:00

One of the secrets to living Raw is to eat a vast variety of fruits and vegetables. I love to explore produce I have never tried before. Persimmons are a new favourite of mine and are available from now and into winter which is perfect because they are an excellent source of vitamin A and a good source of vitamin C to keep away the colds and 'flu that may sneak up on you at this time of year. They also contain a very good protein profile (15 or more different amino acids!!!) and they are high in fibre which must be the soluble mucilaginous type because, although the skin is rather tough, the flesh is very pulpy - especially when very ripe. They also contain calcium and iron.
The type I have found in our local produce markets here in the Eastern Cape are the Fuyu Persimmons which look somewhat like a large squat tomato. These may be eaten when still quite firm, unlike the heart-shaped Hachiya which need to be well ripened and pulpy or they are very astringent due to a high tannin content. I chop my Persimmons into the blender with bananas but they are also wonderful chopped into fruit or vegetable salads.
The first time I examined a Persimmon in the local supermarket I wasn't quite sure what they were or whether the hard yellow/orange fruit was ripe or not. Fortunately, a kind gentleman dispelled my dilemma when he pounced on several and added them to his basket telling me that a few days sitting on an east facing windowsill and they would soon darken and soften to perfect ripeness. Luckily my kitchen has an east facing window - every kitchen should have an east facing window so that you can see the sun rise - and yes, those Persimmons ripened beautifully and I still don't know why it must be an east facing windowsill yet every autumn my Persimmons are placed on the windowsill above the sink where they ripen in the rays of morning sun dappled through the leaves of the Wild Pear tree.

I went pillowless this weekend .....

2009-04-16T20:55:00.006+02:00

Have you ever tried it, or even given it a thought?!
Victoria Butenko, in her book on eating raw, mentions how she and her family have been sleeping on hard surfaces without pillows ever since their Pacific Trail hike, and have found it beneficial to their health. So, finding myself sleeping on a fairly hard flat sofa this past weekend while visiting on the West Coast (of Africa) I decided to discard the pillow and sleep on my back. Sleeping on the back is mostly a cosmetic consideration yet having found myself so very easily drifting off to sleep in the corpse pose on a hard floor without a pillow at the end of an hour of Yoga I figured that that position would be the best one to start with sans pillow.
I drifted off to sleep very quickly and awoke in the early morning without having changed position once in the night. Could just have been that I had driven 11 hours to Vredenburg that day. However, I felt refreshed and had none of the usual cricks from sleeping in a strange bed with a different pillow. In fact, I was quite excited at this new experience and have not needed to use a pillow since.
Next challenge........ to sleep on the hard floor. The thought of bugs crawling over me in the night keeps me from attempting this although I guess the solution is just to discard the mattress and sleep on the bed base. We shall see.