misplaced mama

 

not revealing the inner most fibers of my soul today (hallelujah! says the reader). raw as in Raw Food or Living Vegan Cuisine.

I think I mentioned Ani Phyo and her fabulous living food recipes, her SmartMonkey Bars and her beautiful philosophy about uncooking food and it truly being the most sensitive to our planet’s needs.   She used to attend yoga here, the space where I trained to be a teacher long ago, and I was blessed to have placed my hand at the bottom of her spine in a foreward fold, or at the nap of her neck in a triangle pose, or the side of her body as she stretched.  When I stumbled upon her cookbook recently, I was overjoyed to see she has been able create simple raw food recipes with an eco-soul successfully; her beautiful face on a book in my local market.  Applause.

After being sort of nazi about raw food for about 1 month, I let go a a bit but continued eating mostly raw at breakfast and lunch and snacks; saving dinner time to cook with heat.

 

Eating living foods really helped in my post partum depression journey.  I am the kind of person that needs to hyper-focus on diet in my shadow times to actually EAT period, and when I began experimenting in the kitchen and swallowing down the vibrancy of uncooked meals, my energy levels soared.  My face glowed.  My waist wittled.  My spirit expanded.  My core opened up.  Even B was excited every morning and began preparing raw lunches or just eating leftovers from the day before.  If you are interested in raw/living food I highly recommend her book, Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen.  After a few weeks of experimenting, you’ll figure out how it works for you, how to encorporate it into your life as little or as much as you like.  It really is satisfying having no garbage; no packages (i buy all nuts and any other ingredient she uses in bulk) practically no recycling either, which really feels nice not to waste energy in that direction, either.  The only waste is compost for the most part and that I just threw out my kitchen window (I am way too lazy to walk across the property and dump it in the "proper" place) and my Girl Dog gobbled it up (she’s one of the rare vegan Husky, would rather have carrots that steak fat).

My standard raw smoothie that I make a huge batch of every morning and drink for the first few hours of the day is not from her book, but I was totally inspired by her to start making it.

I use whatever berry is growing in my ‘hood.  Right now it’s blueberries and blackberries, but any berry works well.

1 cup berries

1  banana

3 tablespoons hemp seed

1 cup coconut water (not milk, not juice, but the water).

1 tablespoon either raw cacoa powder or spiralina or maca powder  (depends on whether I am feeling ‘green’ or "chocolaty")

3 pitted dates

Blend.  Throw in a big ball jar and take it on the road.

 ***

This is also a recipe that was inspired by Ani, I took her Mango Cobbler recipe and substitued mangos with wild berries:

Cobbler Crust:

2 cups pitted dated

2 cups raw pecans

3/4 cup sea salt

1 vanilla bean, scrapped, or just throw the whole thing in.

Process in a food processor, throwing the pecans in first, then adding the dates, then the rest.  

Put in a bowl and set aside.

Filling:

1 cup cup pitted dates

1/2 vanilla bean scrapped

1/4-1/2 cup raw virgin coconut oil 

maybe a tiny bit of raw agave.

water as needed

Berries, as many as you see fit, a few cups work.  (i don’t measure anything really and also, i don’t have the recipe in front of me so take these measurements with a grain of salt; use your food intuition.)

 Process (no need to clean out proccessor from the crust) the first 3 ingredients.  Then slowly add water, start with 1/4 cup of water.  It needs to be thicker than syrup but not thick like a paste.  Mushy thick.

 The toss the filling in a new bowl with your berries.  Take 1/2 your crust and scatter on the bottom of a pie dish.  spoon in your berries mix and then scatter the 1/2 of your crust on the top.  Pop in the ‘fridge for like an hour.  Oh. My. Goodness.  Eat it for breakfast.  Lunch.  And dinner.  Will keep for a few days in the fridge.

***

The next two favorite recipes comes directly from her book:

Chocolate Mylk (my hard to please eldest drinks this up, it’s nurishing, hydrating and yummy.)

1/2 cup almonds (soak the almonds for a few hours, pat them dry.  You can always soak them the night before you are making a batch as well if you can plan ahead like that.)

1/2 cup pitted dates

3 tablespoons raw cocoa powder or cacoa nibs

pinch o sea salt

5 cups water.

Blend it all up.  Yum.

***

Sun Dried Tomato Hummus (bean free)

2 cups zucchini, chopped

2 cloves garlic

Juice of 1 lemon

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1/2 cup tahini

1 tsp. sea salt

2 tablespoons fresh parsley leaves

1/3 cup sun-dried tomatoes, chopped

pinch of paprika.

Process first 6 ingredients together until smooth.  Then add the parsley and sun dried tomatoes.  Set aside and allow the sun dried tomatoes soak up the moisture for 10 minutes or so.  Stir.  Eat with everything under the sun, I like just a spoon.   My kids love to dip all veggies in it.  It will keep for 2 days in the fridge.  

The next recipe, Crazy About Donut Holes…ohmydonutgods.  I’ll just let her give you that recipe herself.

***

Anyway.  If you are into raw cuisine, she has some really rad ideas.  Plus she is totally adorable.  Love her. Wanna be her.  Will continue to post more recipes, but I do hope you check out her book.  She deserves the support.

She has a recipe for All American Apple Pie and my SEVEN apple trees in my yard are almost ready. Will let you know how that goes.

Enjoy.

it’s not the same as being there, but dis here one is for you.

there is only one buru.

and then there is josey. Classic.

a nice little ronnie chant from a favorite, welton irie:

not a dancehall but sister nancy is my wisewoman.  dancehall doesn’t usual have loads of sistren on the mike, but when they get up there, they are POWER. apparently, she doesn’t like the folks who are tight with their sensi. here is one with her mashing up the dancehall.  she is so rad.

and neither is this a dancehall, but come on, it’s sister carol!

and my all-time favorites gals, could get a sweeter duo?

***

thank you Jane for connecting me with the roots this late night.  i know the kids today don’t do the dancehall thing like they used to back then, in the early 80’s.  these days are a bit more pum pum and slack, but what was will hopefully come around again; where beat and flesh and mic and hip carry us through political and cultural strife. 

 irie, for real.

 

 

the littles were playing in their room, keeping busy, bossing eachother around.

the baby was on my lap, we were lounging on the couch in our bedroom,  on and off nursing, her favorite style.  looking out the window at the slick wet of the green, the mucky brown of the almost tilled garden plot, the brightest blue jays soaring by, a turkey vulture even higher.  i sipped my coffee and water (becasue i was nursing after all, the kid needs something other than caffiene) and I revisited her birth.  i felt it in my wole body, in her whole body as she laid across my lap, hands reaching for my golden dove necklace pulling it, tugging it, her feet pressing into my belly flesh, her little toes flexed then pointed, flex then pointed. pushing herself away and then coming close.  i closed my eyes tight and saw the space of that night she came through; the lit fire, the blue of the tub, the bubbles in the water, the shoulder of my lover.  and the people around that should not have been there. i wanted to erase it.  rewind.  play it again.

oh, i long to write her birth story.  but when i will, the fear will stop me from sharing it.  unless of course i take the easy route and talk about it as it seems, at it looks to the bystander. Joy! Peace! Life!  but to talk about the deep work that happened inside, the drum of destruction and the flag of surrender and the ache of regret.  because the birth journey and the baby in arms are two very seperate experiences.  yes.  i give thanks i had my Z, not surgury all healthy.  and no, it is not the birth i would have gotten if i honored the voice inside that said: intimacy.  create intimacy.

i stopped myself in my tracks.  i looked back at my ivory white child, her cheeks to damn rosie, her eyes rings of gray around swamp-green.  she is here, and i love her. 

i put her to my breast and she fell asleep finally.  i played around on the computer, catching up on women who write and write really well.  and i came across this, and she wrote exactly what i needed to read.

http://fourlittlebirds.blogsome.com/2008/06/28/intimacy-in-birth/

her post is why i fear to share a story of a birth that was so perfect yet so painful.  and her post is why i must share it. 

to truly listen to oneself and hear is the only story we can share.  i can write Z’s birthstory the way everyone wants to hear it because damn it, i had a homebirth with a live baby.  or i can tell it as it really happened, i can tell it with the lessons i learned.  i can tell it as a heroine, which i am, but i must tell it as it was given to me. 

i should have done it all alone.

As soon as i can muster up the courage to write it, I will.  until then, thank you fourlittlebirds.  Thank you.