How to Roast Chiles

Back to the subject of cooking on this eclectic blog of mine.  I started my recipe posts with Chile Rellenos but I left out the actual instructions for roasting your chiles.  If you like mexican food, salsa, flavor, you must learn to roast your own chiles.  Growing up my mom would roast her chiles in the oven.  But my mom has been living for forty years in a house with an electric range, so the oven was the only option.  I am lucky to have a beautiful antique gas range and after a discussion with a mexican yoga friend, I began roasting my chiles right on top of the flame of my stove top and  prefer the results. Chiles are no joke, so use a hood or vent if you have one and be sure to wear gloves when peeling and seeding your chiles.  If you do not use gloves, was your hands several times in cool water when you are done, and try not to touch your face for the rest of the day.  The oil from the chiles will remain on your hands for awhile and can really burn your eyes if you touch them.  You can roast any type of chile.  I usually pick pasilla or ancho for chile rellenos and jalapenos for salsa.

I balance the chiles right over the flame.

I use tongs a turn the chiles occasionally.

When the chiles are finished they should be charred all over.

Next is a weird step called "sweating" which involves placing the hot chiles in a plastic bag for about ten minutes.

When the chiles are cool enough to handle, wearing gloves scrape off the skin then slit the side and remove the seeds.

Here are some finished chiles waiting to be stuffed!

Self Healing in 3 Minutes

I studied massage and other health related topics at the International Professional School of Bodywork in San Diego.  My education there was fun, hands on and full of essential information on health and the body. One of the first things I was taught at IPSB was a series of exercises called EK, short for exercise kinesiology, also known as Brain Gym.  Later I became a teacher at IPSB, and the first piece of knowledge I was allowed to teach was the wake-up exercises of EK.  This Summer I began studying a new health modality called Touch for Health and to my surprise, we began class with EK!  I was starting to get the message, these simple exercises are powerful and should enter my repertoire of movement education.  So I have begun to add these simple opening exercises to my yoga classes and have written this post to help my students remember them.  This is only the first opening exercises of the EK routine and not the complete routine.

We begin with having a sip of water if you have some available.

Next we Zip-Up by drawing a line with our hand up the center of our body from pubic bone to lower lip, you don-t need to touch your body, but just move your hand an inch or two from your body in a strait line up the center and at the top touch the impression below your lower lip with your fingers like you are pressing a button to turn something on.

Now we Switch On by rubbing or circling for about 30 seconds 3 sets of points.  The first points we call brain buttons and these are two depressions you find just below your clavicles, the end points of our kidney meridians.  Next we have our earth buttons, the depressions above and below our lips.  Lastly we have our space button, our tail bone.  For all three points, with one hand you rub the point, and with the other hand you ground yourself by resting the hand on your lower abdomen.

Once we are turned on, we are ready to Tune In.  This consists of a 1-2 minute ear massage.  Get your fingers rubbing and pulling and stretching all the surfaces of your ears.

Here is a link to the Touch for Health website which also explains these exercises and has photos showing more clearly how to do the exercises.

Just Say "YES!" Marketing Plan

I can feel it, I'm getting older, things are changing.  It's a good thing, like the aging of a good California red wine.  I am feeling different about myself and where I have found myself in life.  I am coming out of a decade of play mixed with work and study and I'm feeling proud of where I've brought myself.  For a few years I thought I might just be playing at life, and that was somehow not legitimate adulthood.  But I'm beginning to understand that my playing at life is my greatest skill and it creates a healthy, strong and balanced therapist able to truly help others.  But still I feel the daily struggle of money and recognition pulling on me.  I love my new shop, but it has taken so many attempts to get to my Nest that the growth of my business has been slow, and I feel every day the need to grow things, to make things around me better and better.  This leads me to my new marketing plan.  I have a great location, tens of thousands of people drive by my shop every day, but not so many stop.  Lots of potential, but in my first 3 years, not so many new customers.  So I started putting a sandwich board sign out, decorating it myself with different chalk designs.  It wasn't helping much, maybe an occasional summer rental customer, but not a big surge of new clients.  Then I came up with a great slogan a month ago, and I've probably gotten ten new clients.  People love the sign!  It's funny, relieving some of the anxiety of a stranger giving you a massage.  But the humor is backed up by self-conviction.  I believe my massage is an out-of-this-world experience.  I believe my shop is a cozy sanctuary safe from life's stresses.  I believe I can help others to feel more connected to their bodies, their minds and even their dreams.  It has been a lifetime of deep study into my own body, mind and dreams that has prepared me for this particular moment, 2012, La Jolla, 34 years of age.  I'm saying "YES!" to this crazy skill set God has given me, and I'm asking the Universe for all that I need, and she is responding with a "YES!"  Schedule a massage right now!

This new marketing plan is deeply influenced by my special play time, surfing.  I grew up getting tossed around the ocean with my brothers.  Adulthood and the love of my life (who I met 12 years ago while sitting on a bench looking at my favorite surf spot) elevated surfing to a new level of performance, challenge and opportunity in my life.  For many years I have been laying down the foundations, learning the mystical movements of the Ocean in her different hours and seasons, assessing the crowds, perfecting my equipment, placing myself in dangerous situations I have survived.  And now I find myself entering the Ocean like a Queen, self assured and ready to dominate!  At my favorite surf spot, the waves come in as A-frame peaks, allowing for two surfers on each wave, one going right and one going left.  Sometimes there are as many as 60-80 surfers (almost exclusively of the male type) paddling around the peak, hoping to be graced by God with the perfect position to catch those beautiful waves.  If you don't believe 100% that the wave is coming directly to you and that you are chosen by God to surf that wave into the beach, you won't catch it, the guy next to you will.  As I paddle to the peak chanting in my mind mantras to the Goddess, I am thinking "YES!" and the Universe is responding "YES!"

And here's another fun photo of me catching a big one on my friend's website A Day with BA