Recipes for Lock Down: 3/25/20

Recipes for Lock Down:

First - is a recipe from one of my patients for Lemon Turmeric Ginger Tea. It's easy and delicious and you can drink it cold over ice or hot. 

Lemon Turmeric Ginger Tea
Mix together in a small saucepan:

1 1/2 quarts filtered water

1/2 lemon - rough chopped (including peel)

1 1/2 inch ginger root  - rough chopped

Big dash each of turmeric and cinnamon

2 tbsp maple syrup

Bring all ingredients to boil

Simmer for 10 minutes

Allow to cool

Strain and enjoy hot or over ice!

Next - I have been trying to come up with easy and healthy recipes that are not too labor intensive. Here are two. One requires a trip to Trader Joe's. Wear your gloves.

Thai Green Curry with Tofu and Vegetables

Ingredients:

1 onion - diced

4 cloves garlic - minced

1 /2 inch ginger - minced

2 tbsp coconut oil

Whatever vegetables you have in your fridge: cut up into bite sized pieces: carrots, peppers, mushrooms, cabbage, kale, string beans, broccoli, etc. (FROZEN IS ALSO FINE!!!)

One block of extra firm organic tofu - cut into cubes

One jar of Trader Joe's Thai Green Curry Simmer Sauce (yes, that easy!)

Heat the oil in a large saute pan until shimmering. Add onion and a little salt and cook over medium heat for 5 minutes. Add garlic and ginger and continue to cook for a minute or two. Add vegetables and saute for about 8 -10 minutes. Add tofu and Simmer Sauce and cook, covered for 5-10 minutes until hot.

Serve over rice, quinoa or cous cous.

One Pot Chicken Sausage with Rice and Vegetables

Ingredients:

1 onion - diced

6 cloves garlic - minced

2 tbs neutral oil, such as avocado or grapeseed

One package chicken sausage (4 or 5 links) cut up in 1/2 inch slices

Whatever vegetables you have in your fridge: cut up into bite sized pieces: carrots, peppers, mushrooms, cabbage, kale, string beans, broccoli, squash etc. (FROZEN IS ALSO FINE!!!)

1 15 oz can crushed or diced organic tomatoes

1 1/2 cups rice

3 cups organic chicken or vegetable stock (can be from a box!)

Heat the oil in a large saute pan until shimmering. Add onion and a little salt and cook, stirring occasionally, over medium heat for 5 minutes. Add garlic and continue to cook for a minute or two. Add chicken sausage slices and cook for a few minutes. Add vegetables and saute for about 5 minutes. Add tomatoes, rice and broth and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for 20-30 minutes, checking to make sure rice is done. 

Day 1 of Stay-at-Home Chocolate Dilemma

Day 1 of Stay-at-Home: Today I'm thinking about food. How are we going to continue to be in lock down and not constantly be eating junk food? I figure for starters I have to STOP BUYING IT. Then I really should clean out all the chocolate in the house (chocolate is one of my personal weaknesses). So here's a funny story: This morning, I walked into my daughter's room to put something away. She returned to college a week ago, although the school itself has been emptied out because of COVID, to move back into her off-campus apartment and be with her friends. On her night table sat a glass of wine (full!) and two containers of Trader Joe's chocolates: one box of chocolate covered almonds and one bag of chocolate covered power-berries. OK now I am faced with an ethical dilemma. I SHOULD just throw them out. But there is so much down time with the family...What would you do?

Teacher Teach Me

I watched the movie, “Amy”, the other night. It’s a sad and poignant film about Amy Winehouse, a uniquely talented young woman who had a troubled life of addiction. The movie was important, as it showed Amy – on her catapult to celebrity - as a human being with foibles and weaknesses, and how destructive fame can be to those who do not have the constitution for it.

The profound moment for me came in a scene with Tony Bennett, veteran crooner and – who knew? – philosopher, when he said to the camera, “Life teaches us how to live it – if you are lucky to live long enough.”

On the eve of turning 50, I cannot say how strongly this resonated with me. When I think of the things that used to bother me, the way I used to think, even last week, I can see the teacher of time – showing me more wisdom every day.

People are always complaining about getting older. There are entire industries dedicated to stopping the march of time. But we seldom hear a celebrity talk about the greatest gift of aging; wisdom.

My mother will be celebrating her 80^th birthday this year. She is one of those rare birds who, despite the aches and pains and troubles of being almost 80 (and there are many), appreciates that many of her ‘people’ were not lucky enough to live to be almost 80. And here she is. Life has taught her how to live it – and she is grateful to be here.

A Moving Story (somewhat explicit)

Recently, at a Bat Mitzvah, I had a conversation with a lovely gastroenterologist. She informed me that it is best to move your bowels in this way: just do it. There should be no reading material on the back of the toilet, no crossword puzzles or Sudoku, it is not the time to meditate or cogitate or write imaginary blog posts in your head. It is time to poop. Get in and get out.

This may well be good advice, although for those who tend more toward constipation it will be difficult to impossible to follow.

On the other hand, my aunt used to make the point that pooping takes time. She saved a whole fifteen minutes for it in her morning routine! She would make sure the house was quiet, she was not needed by anyone, and slip into her bathroom to give time to the process. Relaxed, she could let her autonomic nervous system do what it needed to do in its own time. Books, magazines, pondering; bring it on!

Like my husband’s grandmother used to say: "That’s what makes horse races." Honoring the differences in our bodies.

Either way, I find it a little awkward that, when I am on the toilet, I think of these two women. Three, actually.

I also think of my cousin’s daughter who, at a young age, asked this most brilliant question: Why is it that when it’s hard to poop it’s easy to wipe and when it’s easy to poop it’s hard to wipe?

Monday Morning

There are two kinds of weekends. There are the weekends where you do a lot; you travel, you have parties, you go to parties, you have planned activities. These are the weekends where you make memories. You feel like you actually did something. And on Monday morning, you and your memories are tired. You feel wiped out, not quite ready to hit the ground running.

The other kind of weekend is the one where you just BE. You take long walks. You clean. You cook. You hang out and watch football, or movies, or read a book. Very few memories are generated by that kind of weekend, but you gain something else. You rest.

Most of us are not used to making REST a part of our week. The Orthodox Jews, who don’t do any kind of “work” or travel or use electronics or cook or clean on the Sabbath, have put REST as a priority – mainly because it is written quite clearly in the bible! On the seventh day, you rest.

Much is written about the healing power of rest. When you start feeling a cold coming on, go to bed. Sleep is a powerful healing agent for all kinds of ailments. And yet, the importance of sleep is largely overlooked in our society. We push it to the edge, we burn the candle at both ends, we try to function on 5 or 6 hours of sleep just so we have more hours of the day to be productive. In grad school, I had a friend who was listening to subliminal tapes that allegedly made him need less sleep. Needless to say, he frequently fell asleep in class!

But there is another aspect to the importance of rest. We need rest from the daily grind of our mind.  Some people do a meditation practice, giving their brain a rest for a certain period of prescribed time. Others, like me, need purely unstructured time – to let the brain just unravel with threads of nothingness. I need the kind of weekend that allows for much staring into space. This is the kind of rest that no one talks about. This is the kind of rest that we might even feel ashamed about! In this day and age, to lie about doing nothing?

[As a side note, when I say 'nothingness' I don't really mean watching TV or playing video games. Those activites are not nothing - they stimulate our brains with constant barrages of images – to me, that is the opposite of rest.]

But there is great value in doing nothing. It can feed us in a way nothing else can. It can relax our brains – which are WAY over-stimulated – and help us get ready to face the week again.

[Another side note: everything in moderation J]

End of Summer

Aaaaah, summer. I think I am in the minority, but for most of my life, I have not loved summer. First of all, I don't love heat and humidity. I have very thick, curly, often unruly, hair - which means summer weather has historically not been my friend. I don't like to sweat, unless it's after a good work-out. I also don't do well with lots of unstructured time. It's not that I don't love a good vacation! But I do get excited when September rolls around again - the routine comes back, and I get energized in a different way.
When I was a kid, I loved going back to school in September. There was always a new-ness, a fresh-ness, a revitalization that felt good to me; new clothes, new books, new teachers, sometimes even a new school. In the start of the new year, you could promise to do some things a little differently. Like a New Year's resolution. Being Jewish, this time of year makes more sense to me for making New Year's resolutions. But putting religion aside, the way the light is waning, the weather is crisper, there is a quickening in the air that feels right for reflection.
I think September is the perfect time to take a look at yourself - take stock - and make a change for the better. There are so many easy things to put into place that can make a profound difference.
One thing I did recently was download a new app on my phone called "Headspace". Headspace is a free app that literally walks you through doing ten minutes of mindfulness meditation for ten days. The teacher is a well-spoken, genuine-sounding man who clearly has a lot of experience in mindfulness education. He uses real language, very accessible metaphors, and even lively animations to teach concepts so they are easy to grasp, even for the most distracted among us. He is also British, so I certainly don't mind listening to his voice for ten minutes! I have enjoyed these mini-meditations so much that I actually go to bed looking forward to waking early so I can listen to the next day's guided meditation! 
(I haven't yet gotten to the end of the ten days, so I'm not sure what he offers beyond that.)
As a health-care provider and a health educator, I certainly know of the myriad benefits of meditation - on mental, physical, chemical and spiritual health. I have an overactive mind, which in some ways is a huge plus, but has made it difficult for me to stick to a meditation practice in my life, although I have tried many times. In the five days that I have done this meditation, I have noticed feeling more energy, more calm and more insightful for the rest of the day. I am feeling very hopeful that with Headspace leading the way, I can start my new year with a new habit.

Christmas Cactus

I have a beautiful Christmas Cactus that sits in a turquoise clay pot. In the summer, it adorns my front porch, adding a splash of green and blue to my everyday comings and goings. Once the frost comes, the plant gets transferred inside to my living room, to take its place with the other plants. 

For those of you not familiar with the Christmas Cactus, it is a green succulent plant that doesn't look much like a cactus. For approximately 350 days a year, it is a generic green plant. I don't mean that in a bad way; I love the green-ness of it, and it adds a fresh alive energy to the room, as all healthy plants do. 

But in December, something happens to my Christmas Cactus. As if it had a smartphone or some sort of cosmic calendar to alert it of this specific time, the plant begins to develop pink buds on the ends of its leaves. By mid-month, those buds have bloomed into the most exquisite magenta-pink flowers. They are like little explosions of color, exploding from the green leaves. It never ceases to amaze me - year after year!

I love this constant source of surprise and joy. In my office, I am always spouting on about the body's 'Innate Intelligence'; "the power that made the body has the power to heal the body." I talk about the intricacies of physiology, the subtleties of the human being, life force. And then I look at my Christmas Cactus. Now there is an example of Innate Intelligence at its finest. Nature's gift to us. My cactus is an excellent reminder of the beauty of this time of year- the beauty of giving and of coming together with friends and family to share the surprises and joys (and explosions) of life.