My mom asked me for this recipe ages ago and apparently it made quite a splash in my hometown. Although the cheques keep rolling in day after day, I have chosen to make this recipe open-source on the grounds that all civilization, and especially The Children, will be benefitted by the distribution of this fine salad.
Cook 1.5 cups dried quinoa in 3 cups water until the liquid has evaporated and the husks are starting to release from the grains.
It's a quinoa WONDERLAND!!!1!
Fluff, cover, take off heat and set aside. Fluff again after about 10 minutes and put in the fridge, or if you’re Canuckistani, outside to cool.
You will also need:
1 English cucumber, topped and tailed and cut into sliced quarters
1 package grape or cherry tomatoes, halved. These little tomatoes will work better than the big ‘uns since their skins help them preserve their structural integrity during the salad-making and storing phase.
OPTIONAL: A good-sized chunk of feta cheese, cut into 1/2″ cubes. Tofu would do if you’re hard up or feeling sorry for yourself, and Bryanna Clark Grogan’s soy-feta is wicked awesome for you vegan cats out there.
1 bunch cilantro, chopped. If you are a cilantro-hating Philistine you can make a respectable tabouleh-esque facsimile of this salad using parsley
1 package pea shoots or similarly robust sprout like sunflower, chopped
1 clove garlic minced
1 shallot, diced finely
1 tbsp lemon juice
Couple of splashes of Bragg’s
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
Sea salt and pepper
In a large [LARGE] bowl, combine cucumber and tomatoes and a couple shakes of salt. Stir to cover and let rest for about 15 minutes to release any extra water out of these vegetables before you prepare the salad. Drain if necessary.
Add feta or feta-substitute, chilled cooked quinoa, cilantro, and then shift to an even larger bowl or even stock pot because you didn’t realize when I said “large” up above I really meant like the largest bowl you have. Then add the pea shoots now that you have room. Stir to combine.
In a smaller bowl or measuring cup, whisk together garlic, shallot, lemon, Bragg’s, cayenne and olive oil. A couple of shakes of black pepper never go amiss. Pour over grains’n'vegs in giant bowl and wind to combine thoroughly. Make the stirring of this salad a mini-meditation on the glories of quinoa. It will last for a really long time, so you can serve it as a side or bring it with you to work as a mini-meal or adjunct to a more substantial meal. It also goes over very well at potlucks as it looks awesome and is suitable for wheat-free diets. Also it costs about CDN$10.50 and will feed a small army.
Dig. I’ve just been so darn mellow since I got back from CR that I can’t stop listening to “Ain’t No Woman Like The One I Got” and lack any desire to scream at people to engage their back leg in Ardha Chandrasana while listening to Dokken, or something. I’m going with my gut and my groove on this one, and proposing a delightful spring of Motown and R&B classics, both old and new.
I'm a Ringo girl, personally
A tip for surviving Big Motown Fridays is to remember that even when the sweat is falling into your eyes from below while you attempt your fourth preparation for full Kapotasana dropbacks: Marvin Gaye ALWAYS has the right idea, and if you’re p.o’d at Marvin for sounding so mellow and joyous while you are about to blow up or swallow your tongue it’s time to chill out and laugh and watch the floor show until sanity prevails. I know you know what I’m talking about. See you on Friday at 4.
“Set The Mood Right/Until The End Of Time Prelude”, Justin Timberlake [I have ALWAYS wanted to start a class with this silly song. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa]
“Let’s Get It On”, Marvin Gaye
“My Girl”, Temptations
“Little Bit Of Feel Good”, Jamie Lidell
“When You Gonna Learn (Didgeridoo)”, Jamiroquai
“Golden Lady”, Stevie Wonder [This right here has been my jam for like 12 years now. I wake up to this song on the Sony Dream Machine every morning. It gives one a decent shot at a great day.]
“What’s Going On”, Marvin Gaye
“Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing”, Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell
“Ain’t No Woman Like The One I Got”, The Four Tops [See above]
“Stay With Me (By The Sea)”, Al Green feat. John Legend
“Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)”, Temptations [What's up with Motown artists (and parenthetical song titles?)]
“Live It Up”, John Legend
“Eddie You Should Know Better”, Curtis Mayfield
“Rope Of Sand”, Jamie Lidell
“Wild And Peaceful”, Kool and the Gang
“All I Wanna Do”, Jamie Lidell
“If It’s Magic”, Stevie Wonder
Stay tuned for more Big Motown/R&B Friday offerings. Can’t wait for Aretha, Sam and Dave, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding…
The best way I can think of to convey how it felt to go through this week, studying and working and healing so deeply, is to submit the following [100% true] series of thoughts surrounding the green canvas of my tent, over time…
Day 1: …bzzzzzzz…bzzzzzzzz…durrrrrrrp
The emerald city
Day 2, 3: I can’t seem to get the windowshades quite right. And it’s a tad damp in the mornings. Can any bugs crawl in here?
Day 4: Wow, it’s wild to be awakened by birds…and there is a crazy burning ball in the sky! I fear it but should probably worship it. I sense it will bring great abundance to my people, in about 3 months.
Day 5: Mmm, this tent is fantastic. I’ve never slept so well. Good morning, green canvas friend. I’m off for morning meditation.
Day 6: I LIVE IN AN EMERALD!! [scampers down garden path]
Down in the valley
the lights shimmer with heat waves
as the last day ends.
Welp, this is my last poolside afternoon here at Pura Vida and I’m experiencing the predictable range of emotions: sadness that this week is coming to an end, excitement about being home, and sheer unadulterated irritation at having to spend the night at the Miami airport for an awkwardly timed stopover.
IF YOU ARE A…
Endlessly branching possibilities, made manifest in the form of a tree
1. Gardener, nature maniac, inveterate scenery connoisseur: The gardenias have started coming out at night. What I thought was a misplaced arbutus turned out to be what’s called a “rainbow eucalyptus”. I keep searching for a feather to bring back home to Evvie and Velcro but so far no dice, although the avian population here is varied and multitudinous. It seems completely bizarre to look up at a tree and actually see bananas or coconuts or those hard little green fruits that look like alien brains inside, it’s like they’ve been duct-taped on after the fact.
2. Asana athlete: Had a practice with the inimitable BJ Galvan on our day off and that one was *iNtEnSe*. Molto handstands, dropbacks, goofy Pincha, doing about everything you can imagine using blocks, and somewhere out there are pictures of me doing my first Mandalasana from headstand, which was easily one of the most insane-feeling things I’ve ever done, and felt like all of my internal organs changed places. I got better, though.
3. Yoga philosophy junkie: The last couple of days have been focussed on sri which is not hard to contemplate when you’re in this environment, but I think I have a deeper appreciation for a word that so often gets hackneyed and used as a fancy abbreviation for “stuff I like” or “pretty things”. And the doshic contemplations we’ve been having have had the bottom drop out of them since my bodywork that I’ve had done since I got here; to be honest, it’s definitely the highlight of the trip so far. I had an Ayurvedic treatment called udvartina and I’m pretty sure it’s made Sjanz’ Top Ten Life Experiences. Now, I know it’s not optimal to do a years’ worth of self-care in one week but if I can be so bold as to lob a little sumthin sumthin out at y’all, it would be TAKE CARE OF YOURSELVES. And ask somebody to help you take care of yourself. Even consider PAYING somebody to take care of you; it makes you take it more seriously. You gotta think about how to create balance…by calming and soothing your tendencies to go it alone, to suffer through what plagues you in stony silence. Sri is about a deep ease, and it can’t be controlled, it can only percolate through the conditions we create for it. So get into the tub or ask for a footrub or something. If there is a deathbed award for “Never Asked For A Footrub”, quite frankly I don’t want it. Is that philosophical? You bet your sweet inner spiral it’s philosophical…you are worthy of that care.
A single orange hangs
fruit of potentiality.
Here we are ripe, healed.
There is a bird here
that sounds like a coyote
from a great distance.
You know what it feels like to be here? It’s a combination of band camp, working on the cruise ship, high school, and Banff. All of which I came to really dig after I’d been able to streamline my little rituals e.g. how much time it takes to go pick up my water bottle/coffee cup/Thermos from my tent/room/locker, what parts of the buffet/cafeteria I like and what the politics are in terms of lines and groups and queues &c., where the Kool Kids hang out. My dad calls this process “peeing in the corners”; it is a mandatory McInnis travelling survival mechanism. It feels like the cruise ship because of the Babel of tongues with Spanish predominant although there are several delegates from Germany and a couple from Japan and of course us Nucksters although Nico and Chloe speak Spanish so really I’m the only one who gapes like a flounder when asked “Como estas?” ["Muy bien", as it happens]
It only took me
one day to feel like this is
home. A new record!
So, everybody out in the blogosphere and back at home’ll want to know different things about this experience. Please feel free to skip ahead to your best self-description or combination of self-descriptions. I know you, my dear readers, are busy busy people with rich, full lives and may not wish to plow through a description of what flora grows in my “front yard” or what sequencing was given to prepare for Urdhva Dhanurasana dropbacks or how the tattvas have been explained to us.
LAX is like
being inside a chainsmoker’s
armpit. Way too much.
Like busy people
busy cities work better.
Unlikely, but true.
My multi-stage journey has depositted me poolside at the Pura Vida Spa in a cool early evening that’s getting cooler by the minute. I love my little tent [well, I call it little but it's probably as big as my room at home] and there are some pretty cool white and light blue birds here that are just exotic enough to make me remember how far away I am, and just homey enough to repeat Evelyn’s usual noises of “brap…braaaak…brrrap brap”
I hear Dr. Dre
coming through somebody’s nose
loud Ipod on bus.
LA, FLA
heard a man say “Ai, Papi!”
without irony.
Nico and Chloe are here, which makes me feel a little less like I’m from space. My complexion from Darkest Canuckistan is enhanced by the big circles of overnight flight under my eyes. I took the opportunity to nap this afternoon as I’m starting to get that sore throat that I get when I haven’t slept and I REFUSE to get sick on this trip <folds arms over chest>
Everyone here is
part of Dude Nation. I’ve never
seen so many Dudes.
All Dudes on Spring Break
seem pre-upholstered against
the onslaught of rum.
Red faced, Shatnerized
Dudes in flip-flops, with hair on
their collegiate calves.
Just outside my tent
Asana and meditation and orientation and mayhem commences tomorrow; tonight is just about eating, resting, cleaning up & generally arriving, which is a stance I heartily endorse. I am kind of quiet right now, a non-Sjanz mode. These big events always wake up a bit of my barely latent social anxiety disorder and I am trying to stay as open and pliant as possible, letting the big tides of time and geography roll over me and do their worst.
It is great to be
in air that doesn’t struggle
against my body.
Palm trees, eco-trips
white-water rafting tours
long flat tin buildings.
Insert dirty sounding double-entendres here. Yes, yes, I know. M proposed this as an alternative to my “boeuf” “bourguignon” since we had egg noodles and sour cream on hand. I was dubious but I figured I’d just freestyle it. I freely acknowledge that this may have nothing to do with an actual stroganoff, hence the scare quotes…
You will need:
Heh. "Stroganoff"
1 lb white mushrooms, thinly sliced
Olive oil
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
1 cooking onion in fine dice
2 stalks celery in fine dice
1 large carrot in fine dice
2 cloves garlic, minced finely
1 tsp dried parsley
Red wine
2 “beef” bouillon cubes
2 splashes Bragg’s
2 russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2″ cubes
1 package veggie “beef” tenders, chopped coarsely
About 3 handfuls of dried egg noodles or vegan equivalent
3 tbsp all-purpose flour dissolved in 1/2 cup of water. Stir it A LOT. No chunks.
Sour cream or tofu sour cream to serve
In a medium enamelled cast-iron stew pot, heat olive oil and some salt and pepper on high. Add sliced mushrooms. Saute until the pan dries, stirring regularly; set aside. Add a bit more olive oil and S&P and add mirepoix + garlic. Saute for what will seem an impossibly long time, stirring a lot. This will be a labour of love and you’re trying to render down the veggies. Patience is a Stroganoff virtue. When the pan is dry when scraped with a wooden spoon [5-7 minutes?], add 1/4 cup red wine, dried parsley and a splash or two of filtered water. Keep stirring, keep uncovered, cook until pan bottom is dry again. Add potatoes, “beef” and cooked mushrooms. Stir to cover and heat through. Add water to cover, bouillon cubes, Bragg’s, a bit more pepper and a splash of red wine. Cover to boil and cook for 10 minutes or so, until potatoes are more than tender and close to falling apart when forked. Add noodles and cook for another 5 minutes. Lower heat and simmer for as long as you can stand it…15 more minutes? Stir in dissolved flour. Simmer a bit longer, God help us all. Remove from heat, cover, and let rest for 5 minutes before serving. A dollop of sour cream and some chopped flat-leaf parsley will set it up nicely.
Also why DFW [RIP] was a yogi, and why I am so sad that he is gone.
“true freedom ‘means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.’ ”
From The New Yorker, h/t Laura
Test, test…is this thing on?
Oh bloggery, how I’ve missed thee. Late winter/early spring 2009 will forever go down in the Sjanz Annals as The Time When I Truly Was Too Busy With My Career, for the first time ever. I used to think I had raised laziness to a high and nuanced art, and pondered the impassable gulf between my own nuanced laziness and those described as “workaholics”; I didn’t DO anything about it, I just pondered it.
I think it was when M plaintively pointed out that we hadn’t had a day off together in a month and a half that I was brought up short. Today is that day: we are watching Much More Retro [np: Parachute Club, fo realz]. I am tempted to either prepare my business statement, embark on a cavalcade of dusting, reply to a technically finite yet uncountable number of unresolved emails and Facebook messages, address the mounting pile of handwashing-and-mending that has come to obscure most of the bedroom floor, watch and critique any one of the last 5 videotaped classes I’ve prepared, take my bike to the shop, deadhead and weed the garden since it has made up its mind that spring is already here whether I’ve pruned and prepared for it or not…need I go on? Once you start doing things, it’s hard to stop. I. Will. Stop.
And once you stop baring your soul on the Internet, it’s hard to START again. The floodgates were open, from the most grandiose philosophies to the technical minutiae, and I miss that momentum.
Most of my students and friends know that I’ve started to take the first little baby steps towards my Anusara certification. Even saying that seems weird since connotatively the opposite of “certified” is “Uncertified” i.e. crazy outlier gone totally maverick and unendorsed by any sane governing body. For those of you who are unclear on the difference between Anusara-Inspired status and Certified Anusara status, and if you have 4 or 5 hours to kill, here’s some light reading. Yes, it’s a big deal, and I’m focussed on it, and it’s very intimidating and encouraging all at the same time. It’s brought an aspect of Psjanz Psychology into sharp relief: I hate being wrong. I just HATE IT! The last time I failed something was my driver’s license test. I’ve passed everything else, from physical exams to cruise ship safety quizzes to Cosmopolitan personality surveys, with flying colours, ever since. Have I ever retaken my driver’s test? Oh HELL no.
I’ve chosen very abstract pursuits for my life’s work, fields like music and yoga where the PERCEPTION is that, sure, there’s discipline involved but ultimately they’re more “free” than, say, being an actuary or a lab tech or something. Au contraire, mon frere. Yes, our intention is increased freedom and freedom does ensue. My adolescent self would have been SHOCKED to hear that increased freedom required increased boundaries: in this case, stringent boundaries of study, anatomical accuracy, the courage of my convictions, and most importantly the willingness to be wrong.
The process of having my teaching vivisected by well-meaning but ultimately highly skilled and trained mentors has scared me off of the whole shooting match for months. You see, somewhere in my brain is a little chip that runs the following program:
10 HAVE OPINION
20 IF OPINION>CORRECT, GOTO 40
30 IF OPINION<CORRECT, PHRASE MORE VAGUELY
40 SHARE OPINION LOUDLY [VALUES OF LOUD=>75]
50 ???
60 PROFIT!!
70 GOTO 10
This is where we get phrases like, “kind of “ “a bit” “a little bit” “maybe” “if you like” “if you want to”: the congested spit-takes of somebody who doesn’t want to be caught in a lie, especially not when what they’re talking about is so damned important to them, as yoga is to me. I have a recurring day-mare wherein I am called upon to answer one of my teacher’s questions in a public setting and I CAN’T DO IT. I have defined myself so successfully in 3 decades of life as being somebody who is right that I have avoided putting myself in situations where I could be wrong, even when those situations are the most life-affirming. It’s like when you are trying to encourage a friend to ask an object of their desire out on a date and you casually toss off the bon mot: “What’s the worst thing that could happen?” Dude, the worst thing that could happen is the WORST THING: you’ll be rejected, found wanting, you’ll be WRONG. From the outside you see that this fear hamstrings even the tiniest steps towards love, life and possibility. From the inside it is ontological death.
How this pertains to teaching is an interesting exercise. We take what is called “the seat of the teacher” and we anticipate [hopefully humbly] that our philosophical flights and physical requests are honoured. Putting the responsibility of the teacher back onto the student, with the “a little bit”s and “if you want to”s and “maybe”s, is not taking that seat. Having said that, can I be ready to be wrong? Can I let my truth be as flexible and open as I hope my body is becoming? There is a difference between true, vital strength and intractable stubbornness.
More on this subject to follow. In the meantime, consider situations where you have been just straight up WRONG and how the initial sting to the fragile self of the surface has given way to a soothing affirmation of your true, deep self. Being wrong can be sweet, even if it seems bitter.
BOSS. It’s been so long! Some oldies, some, uh, newies, and some requests. Come and sweat out 1/5 of your body weight with us this afternoon at 4.
“November Rain”, Guns’n'Roses
Reminds me of the guys that used to hang out beside the woodworking shop
“Any Way You Want It”, Journey
“Run To The Hills“, Iron Maiden
“Shout It Out Loud”, KISS
“Highway to Hell”, AC/DC
“Doo doo doo doo doo &c.”, Rolling Stones
“Let It Bleed”, Rolling Stones
“The Chain”, Fleetwood Mac [This song came on Heroes the other night when Syler was in the diner and M and I looked at each other at pretty much the same time and said "I REALLY like this song. Who is it, again?". I've noticed the older I get the more I forgive Fleetwood Mac.]
“Love Rein O’er Me”, The Who
“Long As I Can See The Light”, Creedence [This song keeps showing up on BRF because I have concluded it accesses the parasympathetic nervous system directly. As soon as the intro starts the temperature of the room drops 3 degrees and peoples' heart-rates slow down]
“Born Under A Bad Sign”, Jimi Hendrix
“Nothin’”, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss [check out this album if you haven't already; it contains much goodness, esp. for a household based almost entirely on Zeppelin anthologies and Coen Bros. movies like ours is]
The “Solitude/Orchid/Fluff” trifecta, Sabbath
“Julia”, Beatles