Creamy Drinks for Dreamy Chicks!

In a constant consumption evolution I have found myself upon this path:

mother's milk->cow's milk(by the gallon from costco)->organic milk->soy milk (in a tetra carton)->rice milk (in a tetra carton)->canned coconut milk->abstinence->home made nut and rice milk

...basically I'm trying to say that there are times you just want to reach for something cool and creamy, maybe to start your day, maybe to calm you in the evening.  But the traditional choices just don't work for me anymore.  After giving up milk years ago I have been purchasing Trader Joe's Organic Rice Milk and Organic Chocolate Soy to use in smoothies and most often to be drunk in the evening as a midnight snack of choice.  But these cartons have become unacceptable to me now, just another processed food creating lots of trash in my trash can.  I've pretty much gone without for awhile, reaching for organic canned coconut milk when a splash of milk is needed in oatmeal or in a baking recipe.  But that occasional evening craving or smoothy base was still missing in my life!  At a charity event I attended this weekend I was able to try several flavors of a new juice brand, Suja, they were sponsors of the event.  The almond coconut milk was delicious, I especially liked the spices.  If they can make a great bottled alternative milk, so can I!  I've made two varieties so far this week, a coconut and nut milk similar to Suja's and a traditional horchata, or rice milk.

Nutty Coconut Milk
1/4 cup of raw almonds
1/4 cup of raw cashews
1/2 cup coconut milk
8 ounces coconut yogurt
1 mango
teaspoon cinnamon
pinch of salt
1-2 cups water

Soak the nuts over night then strain.  Remove the skins from the almonds by pinching or rubbing them between your fingers.  In a blender combine all the ingredients starting with just one cup of the water.  Blend on high until well combined and then taste.  Adjust the ingredients to your own liking, adding water, sweetener, other fruit, ice...Store in the fridge in a glass container, mixing up well before drinking!

Horchata
1 cup of rice, I used basmati
4 cups of water
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch of salt

Soak the rice for a few hours, strain, and then soak again in 4 cups of water over night.  Pulverize in a blender on high for 5 minutes then strain, discarding the rice pulp.  Return the milk to the blender and blend again with the remaining ingredients.  Store in the fridge in a glass container and miw up again before serving.

Horchata Berry Smoothy
1 cup of Horchata
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup fresh raspberries
1/2 cup frozen blueberries
handfull of beet greens
1 tablespoon organic hemp protein powder
1 teaspoon bee pollen

Blend all the ingredients together on high and enjoy!

Horchata and Horchata Berry Smoothy

A Swim Competition

The Lead-Up
In the summer I find myself swimming out to the buoys placed at different intervals from La Jolla Cove towards the Marine Room Restaurant.  It's something I mostly do in the warmer months, when the ocean is calm and there hasn't been surf in awhile.  My body will be bored, yearning for some surf, instead I give it a swim.  It can be equally magical.  I usually swim alone and it is the quietest time in my life, just the voices in my head and the slush of ocean and air around me.  I don't go with any regularity, and have no particular course, I let myself be free to swim however far and however often just feels right.  This is much the same as my surf routine, except with surfing I have the motivation of a very enthusiastic surf partner!  Often I'll ride my bike to the Cove, I think of it as my personal triathlon:  I walk my dogs first, then ride to the cove, swim, and ride back.  It's quite a morning!  I'll often swim to a tall yellow buoy that is farthest to the northwest, or you might call it the deepest buoy.  Other times I'll swim towards the white buoys that line up towards the Marine Room, occasionally making it all the way to the sandy beach and back.  When you get to the shallows over there it is not uncommon to see big schools of small sharks hanging out in the warm water, getting to know each other!  Along the way I'll often see sharks as well, dark shadows cruising through the kelp caught in a glimpse as it heads deeper under water.  When I tell others about my swims they often ask if I'm afraid, but really I'm not.  I know that there is risk swimming in the open ocean, but I feel it is no greater risk than walking my dogs along the bike path, driving my car on the 8 or locking myself alone in a room with a stranger to give them a 75 minute massage!  The ocean is my friend, a sometimes angry and cold friend, but if you try to understand her each day, even at different times throughout the day, she will share with you some of her wisdom, and you will feel more safe inside of her!

There are different events and organizations related to this beautiful activity, swimming at the Cove.  One such venue is the La Jolla Rough Water Swim, a competition held every year at the start of September.  For a while now I tell myself, This Year I'm going to Do IT!  But I chicken out due to cost, my perceived fitness, anti-social attitudes, who knows?  But this year I did it!  I had been swimming a lot recently, due to crumby surf and warm tranquil oceans both at home and recently in Spain.  So about ten days before I become definitive and took a few extra swims that week.  I am fortunate to have a neighbor who is a world famous open ocean swimmer and she graciously accompanied me a few times and offered up a few suggestions and strategies.  The days leading up to the race I got very excited and visualized the race many times in my mind.  The day before I signed up for the race and got my number, wristband and anklet with computer chip to record my time, I was ready to go!

The Swim
It was a beautiful day, blue skies, calm and warm waters.  The swim was exciting.  I felt nervous waiting on the staircase for our time to step on to the beach.  I was swimming one mile with women from the ages of 19-39.  There were many college and university swim teams there gathered together in groups and I was impressed at the idea of swimming with them all!  At the start of the race I was excited to be amongst so many fast swimmers and I found myself swimming faster than I was planning on and needing to breath at a much faster rate with my strokes.  It felt like being in a school of tuna, so much splashing all around.  And I could get a sense of my space in the pack by the view of the splashing of the group extending in front of me.  The first buoy was much farther away than I expected and I was glad I had swam all the way to Marine Room the week before, that gave me confidence over the distance.  I did the best I could to keep up and keep going!   I finished the race in 32:26, finishing 7th in my age group and 102 out of 280 women who competed in the mile race.

The Vision
The race was exciting and only a positive experience.  I'd like to swim again next year and I would like to improve!  If I could get a little faster I might place in the top five and get a trophy!  I'll use this blog to record some of my swims.  Maybe you'd like to join me?

A New Surfboard

On this "yoga" blog that seems to be less each day about yoga and more about yummy food, chickens and honey bees, lets talk about one of my rarely mentioned passions, surfing!  I never write about surfing, there is something that happens in my mind when I am surfing that takes me out of language and memory and transforms me into pure instinct and existence.  I also find surfing to bring out all sorts of editorial in me due to the bizarre mix of deep connection to nature and deep disconnect with fellow man.  There is a lot of negative energy in the water from the other surfers.  A lot of egotistical, macho bullsh#t!  I guess instead of writing commentary on how annoyed I am about something I witnessed in the water I simply skip the subject. 

Sharing a Wave with my Best Friend

But surfing is also a deep source of love for me.  I met my husband many years ago while sitting on a bench, looking at the surf.  We surfed together that afternoon and many, many times since.  He has probably made me 15 surfboards or so and together we have surfed in many exotic and sometimes unusual places like Ireland, Italy and Peru.  In two weeks we leave for our third European surfing safari.  First we will have a city tour of London where Tim will be having a solo show at D*Face's gallery, Stolen Space.  The show will be an exposition of Tim's Andy Warhol Surfboards.  

He built the most amazing crate last week to ship the ten Warhol surfboards plus our own personal surfboards for the safari.  We have a system when we travel in response to the high expense of traveling with surfboards, at the end of the trip we sell out boards on location.  Sometimes this even generates a new foreign repeat customer!  This trip I have a problem, all my boards have such aesthetic and sentimental characteristics and value for me that I'm not willing to part with any of them!  Tim's solution, a new board for me to take to Europe and sell to the Portuguese market!  It's exciting to have a conversation with a shaper to determine the size and characteristics of your new board.   And even more exciting to watch the board come to life under his artisanal care.  And its even more exciting to surf great waves with all of that experience in tow!

It starts with a block of foam and some numbers

Creating the design

The asymmetrical tail design

Square noses are all the rage this season

Perfecting the design

 The finished product and the bag she'll be shipped in.

I'm ready!

Paraguay1994

I've created a new blog, Journey to Paraguay.  It is photographs of the pages from my journals during a six month study abroad program when I was 15.  It will be honest, naive, painful and inspiring.  I hope you enjoy a flip through the pages of my past.

Pizzelle Cookies

My husband and I love to go shopping at swap meets and second hand stores.  Wherever we travel, if we see a thrift store will stop and take a look.  At home we often check out Kobey's Swap Meet to wander the rows for treasures.  Last Saturday on a table marked all items $3 I spotted an interesting dessert iron, like a waffle iron, but for a this round cookie shaped like a lace doily.  Unfortunately it was missing a cord, hence the great price.  It would need a very specific cord, so I didn't see the point of purchasing an essentially useless item.  My husband though saw the potential and had cash out in seconds, telling me he had just "put me in business."  Sure enough, within just a few minutes of getting home he had somehow taped together a replacement and the iron was heating up!  I  cleaned her off, she had a name on top, "Pizzelle."  A quick google search and I had a recipe.  The first batch turned out great!

For the second batch I changed up the recipe adding cacao.  I rolled the cookies quickly when still hot.  Later when they cooled I dipped the ends in melted chocolate and served filled with vanilla bean whip cream and some fresh raspberries.  My family was all smiles and love that night!

Amazing things I've learned recently about Queen Bees

The Queen's body is twice the length of the worker bees and with a tapered point.

In a colony of bees, only the Queen can lay eggs that will become females, that is, future worker bees and future queens.  The worker bees can also lay eggs, but they are unfertilized and that makes them males, or drones, which have only a small function in the survival of the colony.  When the colony wishes to raise new queens, they form a special droplet shape form of honey comb and they feed the larvae there royal jelly, a substance worker bees secrete from a gland on their head.  The queen is fed this royal jelly directly to her mouth throughout her life, it is all that she eats.  Regular bee larvae are fed a diet of honey and pollen known as bee bread.  In Southern California wild bees are Africanzied, the so called killer bees.  They are more aggressive than european honey bees.  Capturing a wild hive, rescuing it from an undesirable place on someone's property, is a great way to support the bees in this time of crisis for bee populations.  But a rescued colony of bees should be re-queened to help calm there genetic disposition. If you replace an African Queen  with a European Queen, in about a month the genetics of the entire colony will be transformed!  You order a Queen from a bee breeder, in the Spring you can go ahead and order a whole colony of bees, thousands of bees and a queen, or you can just order a queen who is shipped in a tiny cage with a few attendant bees who feed her and keep her alive.  They are kept in their cage with a candy or sugar plug that they slowly eat.  Replacing the Queen isn't easy, you can't just drop her in the hive, they won't recognize her and they will kill her.  First you must find the existing Queen and execute her.  Finding the Queen is like playing a very complicated game of Where's Waldo, but in this game you have to wear lots of heavy clothes and all of the Waldo's can sting you!  It has recently taken me three hive inspections to finally discover my queen, pull her out, and give her the royal smoosh.  Once you have eliminated the queen, you leave the hive without a queen.  The bees will begin to detect her absence, they will know that there is no longer a Queen I they will try to raise a Queen by feeding royal jelly to some of the larvae.  After a few days you place the new queen in to the hive, but still in her cage.  The bees will begin to smell her pheromones and after a few days of eating at the sugar plug, it will open up and she will be released from her cage.  Hopefully they have grown accustom to her scent and will accept her as they know they are in need of a Queen.  You must manage there possible creation of new Queen cells, pinching them off and discarding them.  If new Africanized Queens emerge, they will probably kill the new queen.  In a half hour I will drop my queen into her new hive and say a prayer for her success and survival.  My Queen has been neglected, it has been so difficult for me to find the feral queen that my poor European Queen has been in her cage a week.  She is still alive with one attendant, but the other attendants are in a pile on the bottom of the cage, dead.

Work is made easier with new gloves and a frame gripping tool

A happy comb!

Placing the Queen cage in the comb, this work also made easier with new technology, a rack made of cinder blocks

The beeswax easily holds on to the plastic cage

Replacing the top bars, I numbered them so I won't make a mistake

Smoking the bees as I press the bars together so as not to squish any bees

Well I opened the hive, so much brood cell!  A drastic difference from what I have been seeing in my other hive.  I didn't see any queen cells forming yet.  I installed the Queen in the middle of the hive in comb with lots of brood cells.  I reunited with an old friend from high school and he got some photos as well as a video in which I am so excited by what I see I am basically at a loss for words.

In 2 or 3 days I'll open the hive again and see if the Queen has been released from her cage.

Blessings tos the Queen, may she be healthy and vital for many moons.

Nicoise Salad

It's been some time since I've posted any recipes.  I'm still cooking, but with the late nights in the summer, we often go surfing after work and then its such a struggle against the clock and the pillow to get some dinner on the table, forget about documenting it!  I am also generally unimpressed with my food photographs, especially taken in the evening.  But enough of the complaining, let me tell you about my favorite salad this summer, Niçoise Salad.  It is a fun way to eat our homegrown eggs!  Traditionally the salad includes hard boiled egg, green beans, olives, anchovies, and tomatoes with a vinaigrette, but there is no reason to feel defined or limited by this list.  Last week the Nicoise inspiration was caused by some fresh green beans my mom brought from her garden, last nights inspiration was definitely the desire to eat some eggs for dinner.  I usually use canned tuna instead of anchovies.  Trader Joe's has a canned tuna packed in olive oil that I love, I drizzle the oil on the salad for flavor.  As for a dressing, I simply squeeze some fresh lemon (another gift from mom's garden) and some olive oil, no fancy vinaigrettes, my husband prefers the simplicity of lemon.  It is such a simple salad, no real need for a recipe, but instead it is a great way to learn some foundational cooking tips which I have listed below.  What will you put in you Nicoise Salad?.

Cooked but chilled vegetable such as green beans, carrots, kale, or cauliflower
A major protein such as tuna, hard boiled egg, other fish, or nuts
Raw vegetables such as lettuce and tomatoes
Some pickled items such as olives or capers
a light dressing of vinegar, lemon and olive oil

Hard Boiled Eggs:
I cover the eggs in cold water in a small pot and place over a medium-high flame.  When the pot comes to a rolling boil I remove it from the heat and set a timer for 12 minutes.  When the timer is finished I transfer the eggs to an ice bath.  Once they have chilled I crush the shell on all sides and then peel it away.

Julia Child's French way to cook vegetables:  I learned a lot watching this video, the part I want you to see is at the beginning.  Basically you heat a lot of water and cook your vegetables for just a short while at a very hot temperature.