On Cultivating Trust & Intuition

Collage by Cosmic Collage / Lori Menna

There's this great website that I was introduced to earlier this year called Mystic Mamma. It's a wellspring of wisdom, housing resources for reflection, reverence, healing, and tuning into our interconnectedness with our incomprehensibly expansive world. At the start of each month, the site offers insights about the month's energetic theme. I'm still on the fence about how deeply I believe that the themes presented—which are based on celestial phases and other such scientific/mystical readings—are actually true, but I do find them to be provocative food for thought. 

October's theme of balance does indeed feel appropriate for this time of the year, as we teeter through the seasonal shift that I was bemoaning in my last post. It's interesting to think about the myriad physical/mental/emotional/temporal/behavioral states that pepper our days, which can all be in or out of balance at any given point in time. We can easily assess our personal balance of work and play, activity and rest, social and solo time. Our energy levels and mental states send us clear signals letting us know if and when these need some adjusting. But there was one particular commentary in Lena Stevens' writing about this month's theme that really gave me pause. She shared:

Another area of balance is the relationship you have with trust and intuition vs. needing to know. The need to know can cause severe anxiety when the information simply is not available yet.

As a recovering control freak/perfectionist with a highly active brain and a lot of question marks in my life, I suddenly felt like Stevens was talking directly to me. Like, Hey, Meredith, I know what's been going on in that noggin of yours and you really just need to LET IT GO. Sit with the uncertainty. Continue to trust your intuition and deep knowingness that all will be revealed and work out in time. Relax. "You will sleep better," Stevens wrote at the end of the paragraph. So damn pragmatic. After taking a deep breath and letting the all too resonant advice sink in, I couldn't help but smile.

Finding patience in the unfolding of my life and sitting comfortably with uncertainty are two of the biggest psychological shifts that I've been working on strengthening throughout the latter half of my 20s (which are, needless to say, nearing a close). Residing hand in hand with those two mental/emotional states is a strengthened trust in my intuition. The more you learn to tune into, trust and operate from the truth of your intuition, the more you will be both challenged and able to sit comfortably with uncertainty—especially if your intuition is guiding you along a path that is not what is expected (by you, your family, society, or whomever), traditionally respected, or "safe".

So how does one cultivate this trust, this radar for noticing and identifying one's intuition? And then have the courage to operate from within it? It's like a muscle. The more you flex it, the stronger it becomes. 

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My personal journey with noticing my intuition started out unconsciously—compulsively, even. I found myself making choices that were potentially risky but that I absolutely had to pursue if I wanted to do more than simply survive. Moving from Los Angeles to the Bay without a job or a home and only a tiny network of friends was one such choice. That choice, that gut feeling of needing to get the hell out of LA to try and create a better situation for myself, I suppose sprung from the deep and difficult work of learning to love and value myself, even in the worst of times. It was a decision that seemed completely nonsensical—irresponsible, even—to some people in my life, but I didn't feel like I even had a choice in the matter. I trusted it. I knew it had to be done. And here I am, over two years later, making it work. Still striving for more but also so much more myself.

Another one of those "this is probably irresponsible but my gut is telling me I have to do it" decisions I made just over a year ago when I chose to leave a job at an incredible non-profit because my role and responsibilities didn't align with what I knew I truly wanted to be doing professionally. I left behind the very real possibility of a full-time job with benefits and a decent salary at an organization whose work I deeply believed in to nanny part-time (while relying on the savings I had built up to cover the balance of my expenses), practice yoga, and regroup. To figure out what it is I am truly passionate about. Reading over that sentence, I am struck by how charmed that situation sounds. Let me assure you, though: it was fucking hard. I felt so lost for the first few months. I set unrealistic goals for myself (practice yoga five times a week! eat healthily all the time! become a self-educated holistic nutrition expert!) and was unreasonably hard on myself when I wasn't able to realize them on a daily basis.

But you know what happened? With patience, self-compassion and self-awareness, things began to fall into place. That fall, I started this blog. That winter, I found out about and enrolled in an entrepreneurship course for wellness practitioners. I began to practice meditation on my own for the first time. I slowly developed some clarity around the content that I want to engage with personally and offer to the world. I met the friend with whom I devised and facilitated my first food and wellness workshop this past August. I am woefully strapped for cash but I am discovering how resourceful and resilient I am. Above all, I am becoming ever more grateful for all of the things that make my life full, in spite of its hardships, and trusting of the way the details unfold.

Ultimately, that's one of the most valuable qualities that I have cultivated throughout this journey, and that I wish for all of you: trust. That's not to say that I don't feel disappointment or frustration or anxiety, or that I don't obsess about the outcomes of any variety of efforts I make, whether personal or professional. But that's where the balance comes in. Knowing when to push for something and when to let go. Trusting that, if I've acted in ways that are aligned with my intuition and my true self, the outcomes will be in service of me and my wellbeing, even if I can't immediately see how. And in the meantime, practicing being fully present and accepting of things as they are. Trusting that they will change or reveal themselves when they are ready, when I am ready. When the intentions and efforts that I have put forth and the mysterious flows of the Universe synchronistically collide. 

Multigrain Waffles, Roasted Strawberries & Raw Chocolate Olive Oil Sauce

Well hello, October! Where in goddess' name did you sneak up on us from? We've suddenly tipped onto the other side of the equinox and are ping ponging between days that still burn with summer heat and days marked by a crisp, penetrating chill. Two weeks ago, I made these waffles with roasted strawberries. This weekend, I baked a winter squash. Typical, California.

I've been sick for the past two weeks, which I attribute to my body being unable to cope with the clunky and indecisive seasonal transition we've got going on here. If any of you more seasonally attuned people are surprised/confused about why this recipe that I'm sharing on Oct 4 has strawberries in it, you are definitely onto something. I would be confused too. When I made it two weeks ago, the "farewell to summer" recipe still felt passable. Then I got sick and unusually busy and my brain couldn't find any words to put onto this digital paper.  

That doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about it though. I've considered many topics for this post: the autumn equinox (did you know that Uranus takes 84 years to travel around the sun and that its axis is tipped at almost 90 degrees, which means that its seasons only include summer and winter and each last 42 years?!); September 30th's black moon (the second new moon in one month, thought to be a potent time for releasing negative patterns and setting new intentions); and Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year (happy 5777 y'all!), a time of celebration that leads into a week of deep personal  reflection on one's actions in the past year. 

The truth is though, I still don't have the brain power for any of that. I was just talking to my housemate about this dilemma. She told me (in fewer words but with more gesticulation) that her experience of this whole waffles with roasted strawberries and raw chocolate sauce situation was one of sheer joy, of leisurely cooking (okay, watching me cook) on a Saturday morning while playing with light and my new camera (!!!), climbing on stools to get better shots while savoring the smell of maple oozing from the oven, catching each other up on the events and drama from our lives and sitting down to an insanely delicious brunch all together as the family we've become. She asked me to summarize the theme of my blog. After articulating it as best I could, she suggested that I practice some of the self-compassion that I promote in this space and not stress about it so much. Not force myself to write what I feel like I "should" because of the purview of the content that I've constructed. So I've decided to take her up on that. Better to just get it out in the world before the frost sets in and strawberries disappear completely, right?

I will say a few words about this recipe though. The waffles come by way of Sprouted Kitchen and are ridiculously delicious. When I first started getting into subbing whole grains for white flour in basically every single baked thing I made, I was constantly frustrated by not being able to make pancakes or waffles with whole grain flours that tasted good. This recipe proves that it absolutely can be done. It's a little involved and has more ingredients than a standard from-scratch waffle, but it's entirely worth the effort. In addition to tasting amazing, the waffles are packed with satiating and nourishing protein from almond flour, fiber from whole wheat flour, healthy fats from flax and Greek yogurt, and have very little sugar. How often can you say that about a carb-loaded breakfast?!

I roasted strawberries for the first time a few days before making these waffles and was completely blown away by how jammy and delectable they tasted. They immediately became my new favorite condiment. I wanted to put them on everything. So I used them as an excuse to make and post my favorite waffles...and to eat chocolate for breakfast.

As for this raw chocolate sauce, well, it is the icing on this breakfast cake. Is it strictly necessary? No. Will you want to pour it all over your waffle to swirl amongst the jammy strawberries and then eat any that's leftover shamelessly with a spoon and lick the container afterwards? Yes. The sauce is the brainchild of Sarah B. of My New Roots and comes from her gorgeous first cookbook. She put it in the dessert section with some poached pears, but knowing how much I love sweets I'm sure she will not be surprised to find me blatantly encouraging you to incorporate it into your breakfast. (Needless to say, you can put the strawberries and chocolate sauce on your ice cream later, too.)

While you could make the chocolate sauce with unsweetened cocoa powder, I strongly encourage you to buy a small bag of raw cacao powder to use in this recipe if you don't own any already. The nutritional difference is HUGE. As in, there is little to no nutritional value in processed cocoa powder, while raw cacao powder is ground without heat and consequently retains all of its magical potent miracle qualities. If my brain were working better I would do some research and explain said qualities to you, but since it isn't, I will simply direct you to Sarah B.'s highly informative and entertaining explanation, which you can find here.

I think that's about all I've got in me for now. Tune in next time for more grounding, uplifting, meditative words on life, our world and our spirits. In the meantime, go make some badass healthy waffles.

Multigrain Waffles, Roasted Strawberries & Raw Chocolate Olive Oil Sauce
Serves 4

Ingredients
Multigrain Waffles, slightly adapted from Sprouted Kitchen
1 egg, room temperature
1/2 cup full fat plain yogurt
1 cup milk (plant or whole cow's, preferably organic)
2 Tbsp. orange juice, fresh squeezed
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3 Tbsp. melted coconut oil or ghee
2 Tbsp. flaxmeal
1/2 cup almond meal
1/2 cup + 1 Tbsp whole wheat flour
1/2 cup oat flour (make this by blitzing oats in a blender!)
1 Tbsp. muscovado or coconut sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. sea salt

Roasted Strawberries
16 oz strawberries, hulled and cut into halves from top to bottom
1 Tbsp. cold-pressed olive oil
1 1/2 Tbsp. real maple syrup
1/8 tsp. sea salt

Raw Chocolate Olive Oil Sauce, slightly adapted from My New Roots: Inspired Plant Based Recipes for Every Season by Sarah Britton
3 Tbsp. cold-pressed olive oil, preferably with a sweet/mild flavor
2 Tbsp. pure maple syrup
pinch of fine sea salt
3 Tbsp. raw cacao powder

Directions
Multigrain Waffles
1. In a large bowl, mix all of the wet ingredients (egg through melted oil) together.
2. In a separate bowl, mix the remaining ingredients together.
3. Whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ones. Let sit for a few minutes while you heat up your waffle iron. If you'll be waiting to eat once they've all been cooked, pre-heat your oven to 200 degrees.
4. Pour enough batter into the iron to fill it without overflowing it (I tend to err on the conservative side). The waffle will be done when the machine stops steaming.
5. Place each waffle on a baking sheet in the oven to stay crisp if you aren't eating immediately.

Roasted Strawberries 
(It's best to get these started and in the oven first, so they're baking while you're mixing your waffle batter)
1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. In a small bowl, whisk together olive oil and maple syrup.
3. Pour the mixture over prepared strawberries and toss to coat (you can do this in a bowl, but I often do it with my hands directly on the baking sheet because it means one less bowl to clean).
4. Sprinkle a generous pinch of salt over the strawberries.
5. Roast for 30 minutes, until collapsed and jammy.

Raw Chocolate Sauce
1. In a small bowl, whisk the olive oil, maple syrup and salt together.
2. Sift in the cacao powder and whisk well.

Summer Stone Fruit, Cherry Tomato & Chickpea Tabbouleh

Tabbouleh is a Middle Eastern salad composed of mostly parsley, speckled with bulgur, tomatoes, onion and a hefty zing of lemon. In less traditional versions, you may see mint and cucumber thrown in too. I put a very unorthodox spin on this tabbouleh, harnessing on the bounties of summer and tossing in some California flair. Peaches because they're fragrant and delicious; black chickpeas because, hello, BLACK CHICKPEAS!?! and because I'm a fan of fiber and plant protein; and quinoa instead of bulgur because it's gluten-free, so more bellies can enjoy it. It’s a total party in a bowl of bright, sweet, juicy, and fresh flavors and textures. Summer incarnate. Enjoy!

Summer Stone Fruit, Cherry Tomato & Chickpea Tabbouleh
Serves 4

Ingredients
1/2 cup quinoa
1/2 cup dried chickpeas, black or white (or a can of chickpeas if you don't want to cook your own)
2 ripe peaches or nectaries
2 Persian cucumbers
1 cup cherry tomatoes
1/2 cup minced mint
1/2 cup minced parsley
1/2 bunch chives, minced
1 lemon
high quality cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil

Directions
If you are cooking the chickpeas from dried:
1. The night before, put dried chickpeas in a very large jar and fill it with water and a splash of apple cider vinegar.
2. Once the chickpeas have soaked for 12 hours, drain and rinse them.
3. Place chickpeas in a large pot and cover 2" above with fresh water. You're welcome to throw in some smashed garlic, half an onion, a carrot or celery, a bay leaf, a cinnamon stick, or a sachet with any spices you like to enhance the flavor.
4. Bring the water to a boil, reduce to a simmer and let chickpeas cook until tender, 40-60 minutes. If the water level sinks to the surface of the chickpeas, add more water. If white foam collects on the surface of the water, skim it off with a spoon.
5. When the chickpeas are tender, strain and rinse them and remove any aromatics you added to the pot.
6. Congratulate yourself for cooking chickpeas from dried and marvel in how much better they taste than the canned ones! 

To assemble the salad:
1. Rinse quinoa and place in a small pot with 3/4 cup + 2 Tbsp water. Bring water to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook, covered, for 15 minutes. When the time is up, turn off the heat and let the quinoa sit, covered, for 10 minutes.
2. While the quinoa is cooking, prep your produce. Chop your peaches or nectarines and cucumbers into 1/4" cubes. Quarter your cherry tomatoes, making an X with your knife from the top down. Mince your herbs, if you haven't already.
3.  When your quinoa and chickpeas are ready, add a generous drizzle of olive oil, squeeze of lemon and hefty pinch of salt to each. Toss to coat.
4. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Taste and add more olive oil, lemon and salt as needed.

On Mindful Eating

©Carolyn Mason, “Pink Frosting,” 2004.

In one segment of her book Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert recounts an experience she had in a busy office building in New York. Upon rushing into an elevator, she caught a glimpse of herself in the security mirror. Processing the familiar face, her brain registered her own reflection as a friend of hers; Gilbert reacted, for a fleeting moment, with surprise and joy. As quickly as this happened, she realized her mistake and laughed it off in embarrassment.

Gilbert reflects back on this moment in the midst of a night in Rome—where she has been living most vivaciously—when she finds herself suddenly overcome with depression and loneliness. Turning to her own self for support, Gilbert remembers this incident in the elevator. She scrawls in her journal: "Never forget that once upon a time, in an unguarded moment, you recognized yourself as a friend."

What a revolutionary concept: that we can be our own friend. That we can offer our own selves compassion and solace, even in the depths of despair. I would argue that this—this befriending of ourselves, this treating ourselves as we would our nearest and dearest—is one of the most vital practices in which we can actively engage. (And I say “practices” because it truly is evolving; truly takes repeated effort; truly takes disciplined attention.) A practice that makes life easier. Healthier. More fulfilling. And it is not just vital in moments of depression, strife or despair. It is work we can weave into each moment of our lives. What we allow ourselves to do with our time. How we approach our aspirations; our creativity; our play. How and when we work. How we judge and speak to our own selves.

So where does this process of self-befriending begin? There are many points of entry. Combating negative self-talk. Expressing gratitude. Giving ourselves credit for our achievements. Operating from a place of trust rather than fear. But those are not what we're going to talk about today. Today, we're going to talk about the point of entry that sparked the journey of self-befriending, in truth, for me. We're going to talk about food. 

Or, rather, the way we eat our food.

Mindful Eating or The Gateway Art of Attentiveness

I first encountered the concept of mindful eating in Michael Pollan's book In Defense of Food, which I highly recommend. He espouses this simple yet somehow radical belief that when you eat you should just eat. Don't eat and scroll through any media or communications on your phone. Don't eat and read the newspaper or even Bon Appetit magazine. Don't eat while driving. Don't eat straight out of the fridge while making your ritual boredom lap through the kitchen. Don't eat standing up, rushing out the door. Don't eat at your desk, working through your lunch break. Don't eat while watching TV or Netflix in bed.

So what, just…eat? Yes, just eat. Eat and give your full attention to your meal (and your present company, if you are sharing the meal with others). Eat and relish the colors, textures, scents and tastes of your food. Take your time. Put your utensil down between bites. Chew thoroughly. Savor the flavors. Take deep breaths and feel the reactions of your body to your meal. Appreciate the care that you put into preparing your meal, or that someone else put into preparing it. Acknowledge and appreciate the hands that nurtured and harvested the raw ingredients and the wonders of our earth that enabled them to grow. And, while we're at it, also be sure to eat off of proper dish ware, treating yourself like the deserving human that you are. You wouldn't serve your guest a meal straight out of a jar, wrapper or tupperware, would you?

These propositions in and of themselves have the capacity to trigger all kinds of resistance—let alone what might come up in the actual act of trying them. Our internal monologue, that voice of defense, has its lines firing. I don’t have time for that! I won’t get to read the paper if I don’t do it over breakfast. I can’t get my work done if I don’t eat at my desk. What, I’m supposed to sit at home alone, at the actual dining table, and have a meal with myself as company? I could never have a meal out in public and not be on my phone—that is way too awkward! Why dirty a dish when I can eat right out of the jar?

These are all valid concerns, but hear me out. Mindful eating has incredible physiological, psychological and emotional effects. For starters, when we take the time to slow our eating and chew more fully, our bodies actually have greater access to the nutritional benefits of our food. Believe it or not, chewing is the first step in the digestive process. When we chew completely, our teeth essentially liquidize our food, which enables our bodies to digest it more easily and frees up internal resources to focus on nutrient absorption. Our saliva also contains digestive enzymes that are necessary to break down the food for optimum conversion into energy. Slowing down and chewing fully means we physically gain more benefit from the food we eat and help our digestive systems do their job with more ease and effectiveness.

These aren’t the only ways that mindful eating benefits our physical health. When we actually pay attention to (or dare even savor!) the process of eating, we are better able to tune in to our levels of hunger and satiety. This helps us avoid overeating and feelings of post-meal discomfort, which in turn helps prevent unwanted weight gain and chronic stress on our digestive systems. Additionally, as our minds and bodies are constantly in relationship, eating with attentiveness helps us remember the experience of having eaten, which actually keeps us feeling fuller longer. 

And then there's the joy bit. The benefit of pure pleasure that comes from truly noticing and appreciating how delicious your food is, how curious of a sound it makes, how many hands it took to get from the field onto your plate, or how wonderful that even amongst your hectic/frustrating/disappointing/exhausting day, you took time to create something for yourself. By making an effort to eat away from your desk, away from your phone or television, off of real dish ware at the dining room table—even if you're by yourself—you are actively showing yourself that you're worth caring for. That, in itself, is something to be practiced and celebrated.

Words really cannot express how radically the practice of mindful eating has changed my life. It has so many benefits and an incredible ripple effect. Start paying more attention to your food and your eating and suddenly everything in your life will seem deserving of increased attention, care and even reverence. The mundane made magnificent. Trust me. You'll see.

On Coming Home to Yourself

© Collage by Nathalia Greghi

I went back home to Los Angeles last week. The home of my past selves. The home of my elementary and middle school self, who was joyous and carefree and destined for greatness. The home of my high school self, whose mind was ever expanding and whose heart felt perpetually bruised. The home of my post-college self, who had a burgeoning career she loved and a boyfriend she loved and friends she loved in a city she loved. So many selves contained in photos and diaries, coursework and notes passed in class. Selves written into the bed sheets, into the rough and fading dusty rose carpet that has forever cradled that floor, into the piles upon piles of mementos that I can't seem to throw away. So many selves that are intimately familiar, yet so far gone.

It's hard to go back to that house in Los Angeles. To enjoy the things I still love deeply about the city without free falling down the rabbit hole of my past. At 24, I left all that history behind and made a new home for myself in London. The city magnetized me, drew me to it and activated me in ways I could never have dreamed. At times, those two years in London were devastating and inconceivably challenging, yet I somehow managed to show up for myself like I never had before. I built the most incredible home, fell in love with a city, fell in love with food, fell in love with amazing friends and communities and conversations. And then, because of a situation well beyond my control, I had to leave. 

In the two years following my move back to the States, I would often tell people that I left my heart in London. But if home is where the heart is and my heart was 5,500 miles away, where did that leave me? 

There are so many things that can make a place feel like home. Comfort, familiarity, community, ease. Home can smell like pine trees or eucalyptus or mothballs or ocean air. Home can feel like a lover's embrace or the squeeze of a mother's hand. It can be the taste of empanadas or matzo ball soup. It can be the sinking into a well worn armchair or sitting atop a vista overlooking the city where you grew into you. It's strange now to say I'm going home when I take a trip down to LA and then to again say I'm going home when I get into the car to drive back up to the Bay. But that's another thing about home: it is multiplicity, evolving, physical and emotional, transient and eternal all at the same time.

The making and leaving and re-making of homes is one aspect of adulthood that I was definitively unprepared for. No one tells you how challenging and joyous and heartbreaking and perpetual it is. 

Through all of this, I'm coming to learn one essential and not often discussed thing: at the end of the day, the most important home I can make and return to is within myself. Which often feels impossible. To feel at home in my own self. Comforted, happy, at peace in my own company, irrespective of anything else.

But that’s part of the work. This life work. Can we learn to sit with ourselves, be with our breath, hold ourselves tenderly and still feel at home—even when everything else is in chaos or falls away?

White Peach, Fresh Corn & Shredded Kale Salad

Kale salads have become a bit ubiquitous these days, which is actually a great thing. Everyone knows that this dark leafy green is mega good for you, but do you actually know how good it is? 

A member of the cruciferous vegetable family (along with broccoli, Brussels sprouts and cabbage), kale is bursting with beneficial vitamins including vitamin K, vitamin A and even vitamin C! Vitamin K promotes bone health, prevents blood clotting, and crucially regulates our bodies' inflammation. Vitamin A supports healthy vision and skin. Vitamin C is a necessary nutrient to help maintain our immune system, hydration and metabolism.  Kale also contains high amounts of manganese, fiber, and calcium (more calcium than milk, calorie-for-calorie!). Of all the leafy greens, kale boasts the highest level of carotenoids, which are plant compounds that studies have shown help lower our bodies' risk of developing certain types of cancers (in the case of kale, this includes breast, colon, prostrate, ovary and bladder cancer).  On top of all this goodness, kale is super detoxifying, as its high amounts of fiber and sulfur help maintain healthy liver function.* Pretty amazing.

A quick note/advance warning that this recipe also asks you to massage your kale. Yes, you heard that right. Massage. Many of you may be familiar with this technique by now, but in case you aren't: vigorously rubbing raw kale leaves for 2-3 minutes with a drizzle of olive oil, lemon and/or vinaigrette is a wonderful method to use when serving it raw because breaks down the leaves' tough and fibrous structure, making it much easier to chew and digest. It also mellows out the bitter taste, which I think merits extra bonus points. So wash those hands and get ready to get intimate with your salad! 

I've been on a crazy raw corn kick this summer because raw corn is so sweet and delicious. Succulent, ripe white peaches work alongside the corn in this salad to bring an aromatic sweet note to offset the bitter undertones of the kale, while basil provides an herby punch and feta rounds out the plate with its salty creaminess. This salad screams of summer. Maybe not as much as a caprese, but pretty damn close. So what are you waiting for? Summer won't be around for much longer, better celebrate it while you can!

*Nutritional information from WHFoods, MindBodyGreen, & My New Roots

//

White Peach, Fresh Corn & Shredded Kale Salad
Serves 4

Ingredients
1 bunch lacinato kale
2 ears of corn, shucked and kernels sliced off cob
2 ripe white peaches, sliced into 1/4"-1/2" wedges
12-15 basil leaves
3 oz. (generous 1/4 cup) feta cheese
1 lemon
2 Tbsp. cold-pressed olive oil
salt + pepper

Directions
1. Remove the stems from each kale leaf. Stack about 8 of the leaves on top of each other into a horizontal pile and roll them together into a long log. Using your fingers to keep the leaves rolled together, slice the log perpendicular to the roll into strips as thinly as you can (this technique is called chiffonade). Repeat this with the remaining kale.
2. In a large bowl, drizzle 1 Tbsp. olive oil onto the kale and massage with your hands by rubbing the strips vigorously between your fingers until the kale has softened and vastly diminished in volume, 1-2 minutes.
3. Add corn kernels to the kale. Squeeze in juice of half a lemon, season with a generous pinch of salt and a crack or two of black pepper and mix gently.
4. Stack the basil leaves as you did with the kale, roll into a log and cut into thin strips.
5. Add basil, peach wedges and crumbled feta to the salad. Toss gently.
6. Taste and adjust dressing and seasoning. If your palette is anything like mine, it may need more oil and will definitely need more lemon. Enjoy!

On Repairing the World

About a year ago, while searching for things to listen to on my impending drive from the Bay down to LA, I happened upon a podcast called On Being. Oh my...this podcast. It is the stuff of life. The bafflingly well read and ever thoughtful host, Krista Tippett, speaks with a variety of thinkers—including philosophers, artists, activists, religious figures, poets, scientists and social researchers—about the things that make us human, that shape our world. I've been slowly working my way through her new book, Becoming Wise, and was struck by a parable she shared that was originally from her recorded conversation with physician Rachel Naomi Remen.

Remen, who recognized and integrated the power of personal story into her approach of cancer treatment with patients, recounted for Tippett a tale of one of the fundamental ethics of Judaism: to "repair the world". Her Orthodox rabbi grandfather told her this story as her fourth birthday present. She shared:

In the beginning there was only the holy darkness, the Ein Sof, the source of life. In the course of history, at a moment in time, this world, the world of a thousand thousand things, emerged from the heart of the holy darkness as a great ray of light. And then, perhaps because this is a Jewish story, there was an accident, and the vessels containing the light of the world, the wholeness of the world, broke. The wholeness of the world, the light of the world, was scattered into a thousand thousand fragments of light. And they fell into all events and all people, where they remain deeply hidden until this very day.

Now, according to my grandfather, the whole human race is a response to this accident. We are here because we are born with the capacity to find the hidden light in all events and all people; to lift it up and make it visible once again and, thereby, to restore the innate wholeness of the world. This is a very important story for our times — that we heal the world one heart at a time. This task is called “tikkun olam” in Hebrew, “restoring the world.”

Tikkun olam is the restoration of the world. And this is, of course, a collective task. It involves all people who have ever been born, all people presently alive, all people yet to be born. We are all healers of the world.

And that story opens a sense of possibility. It’s not about healing the world by making a huge difference. It’s about healing the world that touches you, that’s around you. That’s where our power is. 

In my years and years of Jewish education, I had never heard this story before. It baffled me and it touched me deeply. The idea that we all of us are healers. And when everyone does small things to make the world as they experience it better, more just, more connected, more curious, more generous, more equitable, more thoughtful and more human, the entire world is transformed.

//

As I let the message of this parable sink in, I couldn’t help but frame it within the context of my own personal healing, the avenues through which I aim to help heal the world, and the truths that I have come to take as fundamental. One such truth is this: While we certainly have a responsibility to be good to one another and to care for the earth as well, our foremost responsibility is to our own selves. To acknowledge and tend to the light within each of us. We must treat ourselves—mind, body and spirit—with curiosity, tenderness, non-judgment, generosity, and care. This was not something I remember being taught as a child, but is something I now believe to be of utmost importance.

In her talk, “The Power of Vulnerability,” Brène Brown makes a bold assertion that we can only love others as much as we love ourselves. I believe this to be true. And so: in order to see and bolster the light in others, we must tend to the light within ourselves. We must meet our struggles with compassion. See the opportunity in our failures. The gifts in our imperfections. The cumulative transformation in our slow growth. The strength in our vulnerability. The perspective derived from our wounds. The absolute necessity of our unique offerings to the world.

We can only begin to attend to our responsibility and power to heal the world by first attending to our responsibility and power to heal our own selves.

By living in ways that bolster our own light, we are poised to genuinely champion the light within others. And. By living each day in our light, we create an energy and model of behavior that imprints itself onto the world. That allows others to step into their own light. And in our wake, the world changes—becomes, increment by increment, more repaired.

Blueberry Ginger & Rye Hand Pies

I have been known to describe myself as a health nut with a massive sweet tooth. It can be quite the conflicted state of existence.

When I first began to learn about nutrition and the very real ways particular foods and ingredients wreak havoc on our bodies, I became vigilant about eliminating them from my diet—all in the name of “health”. As extreme approaches to things often do, this wreaked psychological havoc on me (although I of course could not see the forest for the trees at the time). For over a year and a half of my life, I was afraid of butter. And sugar. And white flour. If I ordered a veggie burger at a restaurant and it didn't come with a whole wheat bun, my body would enter a state of physiological panic. I ate heaps of plants and whole grains. Dates after almost every meal to satisfy my sweet tooth. Ate only when I was truly hungry and stopped when I was 80% full. My metabolism completely changed; I eventually lost so much weight that my friends and family started to worry. 

Almost a year into this passionate and incredibly inflexible love affair with healthy food, I began to apprentice in the kitchen of my favorite restaurant. Guess what? They loved butter. And sugar. And loads of vegetables and healthy things too. As a learning chef, I was required to taste everything. Which, of course, reminded me that I loved butter. And sugar. And then I couldn't stop eating it. In the years that followed, which were rife with personal, professional and financial disappointment and struggle, food (read: flour, butter and sugar) became my outlet, my method of comforting myself and showing myself how inept at life I was all at the same time. I gained back all the weight I had lost and more. I felt completely unworthy and completely out of control.

It's scary to write that here. But as both a lover of food and someone who is committed to helping people heal and love themselves (my version of tikkun olam), I feel that it is important to share my story. Because as I have looked within to establish my truths and learn how to embody them (which is an ongoing process), I have seen both my personal world and the world around me change. I eat kale salads and I spend a disproportionate amount of my meager income on baking supplies. I spent an afternoon making these divine hand pies and I allowed myself to savor every bite I ate of them. And that, dear friends, is about self-love and balance and communion with friends and creating beauty and being human. 

Blueberry Ginger & Rye Handpies
makes 14 4" pies
Adapted from recipes by Yossy Arefi, Apt 2B Baking Co.

Ingredients
Crust
1 1/3 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 1/3 cups rye flour
1 tsp. salt
1 cup + 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter (preferably organic, pastured/grass fed, European style), chilled
1 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
8 Tbsp. ice water

Filling + Assembly
2 1/2 cups blueberries
1/2 cup unrefined cane sugar
2 Tbsp. cup unbleached all purpose flour
2 tsp. ginger root, freshly grated
1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped
1/2 lemon (unwaxed), zest only
pinch of salt
extra flour for rolling out dough
1 egg, beaten
2 Tbsp. turbinado sugar

Method
Crust
1. Combine apple cider vinegar and ice water. Set aside.
2. Mix the flours and salt into a bowl. Cut the chilled butter into 1/2" cubes and then add it to the flour. Using your fingers and the palm of your hand, crumble and smash the butter into flat discs, scooping up the flour from the bottom of the bowl and incorporating it as you go. Stop when most of the butter is about pea sized. It's okay if not all of the butter is incorporated. 
3. Sprinkle six tablespoons of the ice water mixture over the dough and work it through gently with your hands. Pick up a bit of dough and see if it sticks together when pressed. If it is still too dry, add more water a little at a time until the dough has reached this state. 
4. Gather all the dough together into a large ball and then gently press it into a rectangle about 1" thick. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least two hours, preferably overnight.

Filling
1. Combine sugar, flour, ginger, vanilla and lemon zest in a large bowl. Using your fingers, incorporate the small and grated bits into the sugar.
2. Add blueberries and gently toss to coat.

Assembly
1. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. After the dough has set in the fridge for at least two hours, lightly flour a large surface to roll out the dough, keeping the flour nearby. 
3. Roll the dough out into a large rectangle until the dough is about 1/8" thick (aiming for a 12"x16" rectangle), flipping it over as you go and adding more flour if necessary to ensure it doesn't stick to the counter. If it rips, don't fret; just patch it back together. If the dough gets too large and unwieldy, you can cut it in half and place half of it back in the fridge to roll out separately after.
4. Trim the edges of the dough into straight lines so you have a perfect rectangle. Pat the trimmings into a disc, re-wrap and put back in the fridge. Cut the rectangular dough into 4" squares by cutting vertical lines 4" apart from each other starting from one side and then the same horizontally. If you kept the dough in one piece, you should have 12 squares.
5. Brush around the perimeter of each square with your egg wash. Place a small spoonful of the blueberries into the center of each square. 
6. Pick up one corner of each square and fold it to meet its diagonal opposite, creating a triangle. With a fork, press around the folded edges of the triangle. Place on baking sheet.
7. When a baking sheet is full, put it back in the fridge to allow the hand pies to firm up again, at least 15 minutes.
8. Repeat process with the scrap dough that you placed back in the fridge.
9. Preheat oven to 400F.
9. Once the hand pies are all assembled and re-chilled, brush their tops with the egg wash and sprinkle with turbinado sugar. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until golden brown.

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ONE MORE THING, friends! An ANNOUNCEMENT!

I am super excited to invite you to attend my first ever wellness workshop in Berkeley, CA on Saturday, August 13!

Join me and my dear friend/fellow wellness practitioner Leyna Brabant in exploring your relationship to food and developing tools for balance, attentiveness and vibrancy in your life. We will also be making healthy raw chocolate truffles, so there's that. 

Register here: http://calmmindhappyheart.wix.com/foodasfreedom
Have a friend or loved one who might benefit from diving in with us? You can share it with them on Facebook too.

I look forward to seeing you there!

On Courage, Perseverance & Meeting Yourself Where You Are

©Francesca Woodman, Untitled (New York), 1979

"To create one's own world takes courage"
                                         -Georgia O'Keeffe

I've been thinking a lot about balance lately. Not so much the typical idea of work/life balance, but balance of a more internal and personal kind. That sweet spot between constantly striving for better and knowing that what you do, make or share—even in its imperfections—is worthy. That space between brash confidence and utter lack of faith in your capabilities or qualifications. That tenderness, compassion and flexibility that yearns to be breathed into your choices when you tell yourself you're "slacking off" on whatever aspirations or regulations you have set for yourself, be it exercise goals or eating goals or personal project goals. That delicate and somehow elusive courage to keep doing, making and sharing even though you know there is still so much space for you to perfect and to learn.

It is both incredible and entirely unsurprising how many beautiful food blogs exist today. And now, with the ubiquity of Instagram as a tool for people to compulsively and publicly share their lives, we can stare at gorgeously prepared and styled photographs of food literally ALL DAY LONG. In ways, this is massively exciting. It is also terribly overwhelming and can spark a dark vortex of self-doubt. The "I'm not ______ enough"s are endless, if you let them be. I speak from experience. Even if you aren't a food blogger or aspiring Instagram superstar, the avenues through which people are now able to carefully curate and share a particular image of their lives are many; with innumerable opportunities for comparison today, it is often hard to trust that what we have to offer is enough. Maybe you can relate.

I am so appreciative of the bloggers who keep their entire history of posts up to view even after achieving massive success, book deals, etc. It's easy to forget (or not realize in the first place) that many of them have been producing work online for YEARS, as far back as 2008 or 2009. If you look at those first posts, they never look like they do now. The lighting, the props, the composition, the image quality—all of these things are skills and resources that take time to acquire. And these bloggers acquired them through their passion, their tenacity, their belief that what they had to share was exciting and worthy even when they had five readers and their posts included sentences like, "Hi, Mom!" They had the courage to create their own worlds, to pursue the activities that made them feel alive, and to share their offerings with the world not because they wanted fame or notoriety but because it was something they felt deeply compelled to do. Everyone, at any given time, is at a different point in the process, the journey, of their life. In this world of excessive sharing and digital connectivity, we should take inspiration from those further along in their journeys than we are and, even amidst comparison and kernels of frustration or doubt, find the courage to keep walking our own.

//

I've been sitting on this post for awhile. I was excited to have a free morning to shoot it and thought that the early afternoon light would be perfect. As it turned out, the light was harsh, blew out the colors in most of the images and cast drastic shadows from the windowpanes onto every shot I composed. I didn't have the "right" plate ware for the dish (wherever I get my ideas about plate ware from), and the salad took up way too little space on the plate. Some of the images were salvageable, but needless to say, I was bummed. Weeks passed and the images sat idly on my computer. And as I continued to flutter between engagement and disengagement with the other projects and things in my life, I began to think about balance. And worthiness. And the courage to do, make and share things with this world even when I don't think it's my best. To trust that in being gentile with myself, in being authentic, and in continuing to actively show up in this process that is life—in all of its messy imperfections—everything will, in time, fall into place.

Marinated Asparagus, Red Onion & Goat Cheese Salad

If you read my first-of-the-season asparagus recipe post, you'll already know that this oft-coveted springtime vegetable was a reeeeeally hard sell for me. Like, 27 years of life hard sell. But eventually, as my taste buds and my psychological aversion to vegetables both evolved, I began to willingly eat these green stalks of goodness. The recipe that was the asparagus turning point for me is actually the one I'm sharing with you here. It was created by one of the chefs at my former place of employment (hey, Mike!), who made this for staff lunch one day. It blew me away, not only because it was delicious, but because it was RAW. Raw asparagus?! Who would ever think to eat such a thing?! As it turned out, I actually like the taste of raw asparagus better than cooked because I find its flavor to be more mild. It also retains more of its vitamins and minerals when consumed raw. Letting it marinate in some acid, like we do here, also helps break down its starches which makes it softer and easier to digest. Win-win!

Asparagus: All the Best Anti-'s

I'm sure it comes as no surprise that asparagus is crazy good for you. While it is not in the cruciferous vegetable family (think cauliflower and cabbage), it contains comparable levels of anti-oxidants and anti-inflammatory phytonutrients as these powerhouse vegetables. Its antioxidant profile includes beta-carotene, vitamin C, vitamin E, zinc, manganese and selenium. Eating a diet rich with anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant foods is essential to ward off some of today's most prominent diseases—type 2 diabetes and heart disease—which develop out of chronic inflammation and oxidative stress in our bodies. Vegetables like asparagus help keep our bodies in balance and these diseases at bay. Food is medicine, y'all! 

Another health-supportive property of asparagus is its incredible B-vitamin content. One of the main responsibilities of B-vitamins is to convert the food we eat (carbohydrates, fats and proteins) into into fuel (glucose), which then gives us energy. Because they play a key role in this metabolization process, they are essential in maintaining healthy levels of blood sugar. Asparagus contains high levels of vitamins B1 B2 and B6, folic acid (B9), niacin (B3), choline and pantothenic acid.*

*Nutritional information from WHFoods and University of Maryland Medical Center.

Marinated Asparagus, Red Onion & Goat Cheese Salad
Serves two
Recipe adapted from Mike de la Torre

Ingredients
1 bunch asparagus
1/2 medium red onion
1 large Meyer lemon (regular is okay too if you can't find a Meyer), zest and juice
3 Tbsp. good quality cold-pressed olive oil
generous pinch of salt
1/4 cup raw almonds
goat cheese, to finish
soft boiled egg (optional)

Directions
1. Slice the onion into very thin half-moons. 
2. In a medium bowl, zest the lemon and then squeeze 1/4 cup's worth of juice into the bowl.
3. Add the onion slices, toss with the lemon juice, add a generous pinch of salt and set aside.
4. Cut off the woody bottom third of the asparagus stalks. Slice the remaining tender part of the stalks on a diagonal into 1/4" thick coins.
5. Add the asparagus to onions and toss to coat.
6. Heat toaster oven to 325°F. Toast the almonds until fragrant, about 10-12 minutes, tossing halfway through. Roughly chop.
7. Add the olive oil to the marinated asparagus and onions, gently mix, and transfer to your serving bowl. Add chopped almonds and your desired amount of goat cheese. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Finish with a soft boiled egg, if desired.