Sunny Day Sweet Potato Soup

Hello.  It's been a while since I've written, and I blame the rain.  The rain has kept me inside, and from the long walks that inspire me to write and share.  But those are just excuses, and excuses are boring.

Taking better care of myself is what has really kept me away, and I think that is a good thing.  I sit all day long, so I have been focusing on the act of not-sitting, when I can.  And this very non-action has kept me away from blogging.

But tonight it is beautiful in Portland, and light at 7:35.  I looked out of my office window at evening clouds drifting to the West and thought, I'd like to write about that.

The clouds are purple and thin and puffy, and the light outside is dimming with every word I write, turning the sky lavender and blue blue blue.  It is lovely.  (Imagine perfect photo here.)

I went to a new yoga studio today and emerged from class relaxed and energized.  The teacher taught in a way I remembered and liked, and it felt very much like home.

I also made soup today, before my yoga class, that K. and I are about to enjoy, as soon as I stop sitting.   I often make soup on Monday mornings, cleaning out the fridge and potato drawer.  Today's felt like a bridge between winter and spring and went something like this:

Get out a good-sized pot.  One that is too big for a long handle.  Better to go big than small.

• Heat up about 4 cups of broth or water over mediumish heat.
• Chop & add stuff while the liquid is warming, like...
• 1 sweet potato, chopped into nutish-sized pieces.
• Other stuff.  I added two carrots, a last bit of fennel, and a leek, all chopped.  
• More stuff.  I added a stalk of lemongrass that had been beaten a few times and a few slices of ginger.  You could add fresh herbs, or dried ones.
• Add salt.  Don't be afraid.  I added about 1.5 tbsp. of fine sea salt from France.  
• If you're lucky enough to have it in the cupboard, add a can of coconut milk.  Yes, the whole can, the fatty lusciousness, too.

Stir and sigh and wonder if there's anything else you'd like to add.  Open your mind. Then, add it.

(Make sure everything can swim a bit, you don't want it to be too stuffy in there.  If you can't make a figure 8 with your wooden spoon comfortably, add a bit of water.)

• Bring to a boil and then lower to a simmer.  (Electric stove read Hi then Med-Low) 
• Cook about 20 minutes, till the sweet potatoes and carrots are tender.  Can you put a fork through it?
• Take out lemongrass, ginger, and anything else that won't blend well with the others, i.e. you wouldn't be able to chomp it raw without getting something in your teeth.

Blend.  Use an immersion blender or do it in batches in the cuisinart.

Season.  Add more salt (if desired), some pepper.  Maybe some Thai chili paste, butter, fish sauce, or cream.  Whatever you have that sounds good.

Stir more.  Taste, add more things or not.

Eat!

I recommend adding stuff on top when you eat it.  I added some chopped hazelnuts, mint leaves, and feta.

Tonight, I'll add some yogurt and olive oil, I think; and more mint and nuts.  Maybe olives...

mmmm.....  have a delicious evening.

Tuesday Tomatoes

The air is golden, and so are the tomatoes...

We feasted this weekend on the bounty of the earth, inspired at every turn by how our world shows us what is possible if we just take time to look closely.

A Sunday Feast has small beginnings.

Fall is beginning so nicely this year!


*****
P.S.  The bread, or Epi Du Sel, pictured above is from Baker & Spice, the best bakery in Portland.  You can taste craftsmanship and love in everything they make.   Every good they sell is made with great ingredients and great recipes.   They love food and it shows.


P.S. #2 The tomatoes above have been roasted.  For this amazing way to make cherry tomatoes even more delicious than they already are, go here: Slow-Baked Tomatoes with Garlic and Mint.  (If you have a cast-iron pan, you can cook them on the grill while you grill other things, cut the time in half.) 

What is right in front of you?

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I am pretty darn happy about how much I have been progressing in my ability to cook and keep K and myself (and anyone else who stumbles into our home) well-fed over the past few years.  My love of food and cooking can border on the obsessive, but I try to keep it within bounds, and to remember that there are many other things to be interested and to do besides concoct a meal.

I love cooking for many (obvious) reasons, but especially for the teaching it provides.  "Learning to cook" is one thing, but the process of finding ingredients, putting them together, and adding little touches is a true teaching.  It is filled with lessons about life, nature, love, family, giving.  And it is full of decisions.  Having to face those small decisions over and over again forces me to continually return to one of the mantras I offer my clients, no matter what the issue: What is right in front of you?

When you are facing a problem in life, it is easy to become stressed, frazzled, and unfocused.

Choose instead to look and see, What is right in front of you?

Revealing and Revelations

Well.  Today I found out a very exciting thing, or rather experienced what was quite an exciting thing to me.  My post about the book French Women Don't Get Fat was tweeted by the book's author, Mireille Guiliano.  I found out randomly through a my husband's cousin receiving the tweet!  It all made me smile very big.

You can read the post here:The Food Issue

I haven't written here for awhile, sickness and lack of inspiration have clouded my vision.  But today's event gave me pause, and besides wanting to share it here, I wanted to reflect on how my most risky post has been the one I have received the most feedback from.

I have received so many more comments on that post than on any other.  Not necessarily on the blog itself, but via email and other communications.  It is proof to me of the power of honesty and soul-revealing, and how that resonates with others.  I may be  'therapist', but I certainly don't have all the answers.  I can help you learn to climb the mountain, but that's because I'm climbin' my own, right over here.

It is a beautiful experience, to allow vulnerability and have it received with warmth and respect.

I am still so grateful that I finally swallowed my pride and picked up French Women Don't Get Fat.  I don't know where I'd be right now if I hadn't.  Not a morning goes by where I don't think of the huge change that a nice breakfast shared at the table has made in my life, and in my husband's.  And that's just how the day starts.

Let Your Heart Be Light

A wintry hike can sweep out mental cobwebs

Today on a local radio show, the topic was SAD, that is, Seasonal Affective Disorder.  This disorder describes people who become clinically depressed when it's dark outside.

The beginning of the show (Think Out Loud on OPB) described the disorder from a medical view, but the latter part focused on stories of survival and solution during the dark days of winter.

They all involved Light.

Light is the answer.  Whether lightboxes or candles, a walk outside, or the warmth of the oven, it is light that helps.  Makes sense, since it is its absence that creates the problem.

We give a lot during the holidays -- a lot of our own light.  Even if were are not gift-givers, we are going to parties, talking to friends and family, or even just making a small effort to be more friendly.  All of this can add up to a feeling of overwhelm and depletion.  We want to give, but not to give it all away.

Here are 5 ways to help bring in and keep the light this holiday season:

1.  Enjoy.  Don't just do fun things, enjoy them.  When you feel that sense of too much bustle, make sure to pause and survey your surroundings.  Are you exhausted?  Take a seat, have a beverage, take time while you're at the mall or the bazaar or downtown to sit and do something for yourself. Enjoy the day.

2.  Short-shop.  Have a half hour during the work day when you can steal down to a cute shop for those stocking stuffers?  Do it.  Have an extra hour at the end of the day when you could stop by the bookstore to pick up a few things?  Do it.  Just take the time that you have a do a few things here and there.  They all add up and prevent the last minute frenzy.

3.  Eat.  We all eat during the holidays, sometimes too much.  Be sure to take time for nutritive foods during this time.  4 butter cookies is not lunch.  It can make you feel as full as lunch, but it is not lunch.  Indulge and enjoy, but make sure you are eating good meals, getting good nutrition, and adding in the fun foods as an indulgence.  If you skip lunch so that you can 3 glasses of eggnog tonight, you are not doing yourself any favors.

4.  Take time to feel.  Are you missing someone this holiday season?  Take time to feel the feelings you are having and allow them to be a part of your season.  Take a long walk and allow yourself to reflect on how you are feeling as the year ends.  What is it time to let go of?  What do you need as you move forward?

5.  Laugh.  Whatever holiday you do or do not celebrate, bring in the light with laughter.  Watch a favorite comedy with friends, play games, celebrate.  Laughter gives us energy and shakes us out of old patterns.  Make time for fun and let your heart be light.

Nothing gold can (or should) stay

Change with the leaves,
turn golden and die.
Death is a blessing,
the mother of the new.

Nature offers the solace of rhythm and change.  The turning into fall is an exciting time -- new weather, new food, memories of the past, adventures to come.

It is an invigorating time to be a therapist...

Fall brings new clients, and new changes for old clients.  It also brings endings.  All of this brings life to my practice; it breathes.

Letting go is infamously hard, but we have to do it -- there is no life without death.  We must release people, expectations, wrongs done to us, rights we think we have done.

A sunny fall day makes me want to walk, and look up, and feel the air on my face. 

While the exhilaration of Spring after a long winter feels like a rescue, Fall feels like coming home.

I hope you are enjoying it too.

What we share

I noticed today that I follow and read a lot of blogs written by people who do not live where they were born; I am fascinated by the ex-pat, it would seem. One of my very favorites is written by a French woman who lives in the United States. And though I have a feeling that her blog would be just as beautiful if she were living in her native France, I wonder if she would have ever come to write it.

It seems to me that blogs often serve as a kind of travel log, and for many they have turned life into a journey, or allowed it to redeem itself back into one. I do love a good food blog, but the ones I enjoy most involve narrative, discovery, and the delight--on the part of the writer--of finding something new.

Longing to get away, be away, run away, is a symptom of burnout, or the result of it, or both. When we feel down, stuck, or aren't feeling at all, our minds (very naturally) turn to wondering what is the trouble.

Do I need to find a new job? I really, do, actually, dislike my house/city/car/partner. Something needs to change! But what is it? If I could only figure it out...

This effort to "figure out" what's wrong is the hallmark of being stuck in our minds. When we are trying to use the very thing that has us stuck to figure out how to get unstuck, we are truly in the labyrinth. And not the good kind.

Rather than trying to figure something out, writing about life, whether in a blog, letter, or journal entry, can be very therapeutic. It brings to life perspective, helps us see what is happening from a different vantage point, and encourages us to highlight the positive. Which is what therapists try to get their clients to do every day!

The bloggers I really enjoy write about the celebrations of life, post pictures of what they're most proud of, focus on what feels good and true in their life. I have to remember as I read them, though, that these folks are just folks, and that what I am seeing is not them, but the things about their life and self that they love most. It is so easy to get caught up in making someone you admire a super-human when they are not. No one is!

So the next time you are reading a blog and perhaps simultaneously enjoying it and muttering under your breath about how 'of course it's great to live in beautiful french village' remember that a blog is not a whole person, it is what they are choosing to share. And chances are, it is a way in which they are enriching and dealing with their own life. Which is a human life, full of folly and foibles, pain, disappointment, and the days where things just don't go right. Just like the rest of us!

The Food Issue

It has been consistently documented, talked about, and encouraged.

Every newspaper and magazine with anything to do with health addresses it continually.

Beyond the already difficult body-image issues that Americans struggle with, we know that eating is related to mood: good nutrition is essential to mental health.

Is it really a surprise?

Food is essential to the life of our body.  How could it not be related to our mood?

Eating good food is one of the great pleasures of life.  How could a lack of this not make us feel like something was missing?

For years, I myself have struggled with this.  Even though I have always loved to cook.  I have gone through many food phases.  Raw food, vegetarian, ending last year with the "giving up" phase.  I had resigned myself, at the tender age of 34, to the fact that because I would never a) run or b) go to the gym regularly, I would never be "fit."

And I couldn't imagine that I would ever have time to cook "good meals" with my busy schedule and later evening working hours.

But I was frustrated by how I felt. I went home in the evening with headaches all the time.  I wasn't in shape enough to enjoy the outdoors like I used to.  And it was all making me very sad.  Something had to give.  And it did.

Two people changed it all.  Well three, if you count me.

The first was my wonderful health coach, Katie Decker.  I worked with Katie twice a month for 6 months.  I committed to change.  I kibitzed, I complained, I celebrated.  She listened.   Katie is a wonderful coach, beautiful person and friend.   A good coach at the right time can be just what you need.

And then, I finally bought and read the book I'd been eying for years: French Women Don't Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano. I was at the airport after a trip to see my beautiful little sister in San Diego.  She was looking and feeling so good, and I wanted some of that.  I saw that book and something clicked.  The next day it was on its way from Amazon. 

I read FWDGF over the course of 2 days.  By the second day, I was eating breakfast--something I have always struggled with--and haven't stopped.  I began cooking at home, eating delicious food, drinking water, going on the long walks I had always loved, the list is endless.

If you choose to read it, do as Mireille says, give it time.  Read the whole thing.  Let it sink in.

For whatever reason, this book gave me permission to live life in the way that feels good to me.  No spandex or big sweats (unless I'm hiking someplace magnificent!).  Just a good 20 minute walk everyday, and 3-4 hikes up the 8 flights of stairs to my office every week. 

I work in downtown Portland and discovered that I spent every week day in the best walking neighborhood in Portland.

I began to see possibility all around me.  Good food seemed possible, fun, and I was losing weight and feeling good.

Next weekend it will have been one year since that fateful reading.  I'm celebrating that by coming out of the FWDGF closet.  It changed my life, maybe it could change yours.  I've recommended it to a few clients like a secret, as if as a therapist I should be above such things.

But a good therapist is never above what helps--why should I be?

To your health!