Garden Food for the Soul

Oasis Feature: Grappling with Gardens and Untangling Memories

I ride my bike, I roller skate, don't drive no car
Don't go so fast but I go pretty far
For somebody who don't drive, I've been all around the world
Some people say I've done alright for a girl...(Melanie Safka, Brand New Key song lyric.)

Do you remember when you were young and you got your first bike? I remember my parents making an announcement to our group of five children, "We are only going to buy you one bike each. You can select any bicycle you want, but that is the last one you will ever get from us." They were so serious about their parental pronouncements! I chose a Schwinn 10 speed. (Click here to read a fun and informative blog post about this extremely popular bike.) It was the best bike ever. Perfect timing! I was 13 years old, and seriously into health and saving the planet. I didn't care at all about driving a car. I wanted to bike everywhere, rain or shine. I bought a little license plate to hang behind the back seat which said, "Look Ma, No Exhaust". I was inspired to personally help our Mother Earth-and save gasoline! (Remember the oil crisis in the 70's?)

Why am I thinking of this? Have you ever noticed how committed young people can be? My own daughter, Ms A, reminds me to continue my concern about the environment. Through her own effort, I remember that seemingly insignificant lifestyle changes do matter.

Miss A was highlighted in a new gardening magazine, Agrochic, recently. I'm so proud of her!

A new magazine from Puerto Rico that encourages growing your own food-even in Urban areas.

La estudiante Amber Villanueva me dio un 'tour' por el huerto escolar de Baldwin School en Guaynabo.... La chica es presidenta del Club Ambiental y mantiene junto a sus compañeros el huerto. Allí pueden encontrar productos, como: el quimbombó, batata mameya, guineo, recao, romero, espinaca, caña de azúcar, maíz, entre otros. -IVS

In English, it says something like this:

Amber Villanueva,a student of Baldwin School of Puerto Rico in Guaynabo led a tour of the school's vegetable garden. She is president of the Environmental Club, which planted and maintains the vegetable garden. The garden contains this produce: okra, root vegetables, bananas, flat leaf cilantro, rosemary, spinach, sugar cane, corn and other vegetables.
(My imperfect translation-If you read Spanish, I'm afraid I had to add a couple of words. Also, I found this information on the magazine's Facebook page and at the Agrochic.com website.)

Growing Food at Home

Recently, my girl asked me to cook her Healthy Soup, which is our name for a broth based soup concocted to fight colds and the blues. I have made various versions of this soup ever since we moved to Puerto Rico, and as time goes by, I've noticed that it takes on a local flavor. The soup is made from a collection of ingredients that happen to be either in the refrigerator or the garden- no shopping involved. Think of it as a vegetarian kind of "Chicken Soup for the Soul".
One day it might have green bananas, plantains, tomatoes and garlic. On another, it could have corn, green beans, oregano and a bit of pasta added to it. It depends on what is in the refrigerator and what's in season. (I recommend that you choose either pasta or rice, but never select both.)

Readers, you know that I veer from a strict recipe whenever I can get away with it, but here serious diversions are cultivated. Consequently, I suggest you follow these intuitive directions with care. I cautiously warn you that only the brave go into the Land of Insight Cooking where great experimentation may equal great failure or success! (I watched the extended movie version of JRR Tolkien's, The Hobbit and the The Lord of the Rings this week- hence the fantasy language and drama.)

Healthy Soup Recipe

Saute a cup of chopped onions in olive oil until transparent and fragrant. Add some smashed garlic and continue cooking until soft- about another minute. Add 6 cups vegetable broth (or water). Chop the starchy and/or large vegetables- any roots or green bananas-to about the same size (1 inch), and add them to the pot. After about 20 minutes, add softer vegetables-corn, green beans, tomatoes (tomato paste is fine). Season with homegrown herbs if you have any. I like basil, oregano and racao (see photo), which is a flat leafed cilantro. Cook for about 30 more minutes. If you want to add a cup of pasta or even rice, you should estimate the time it takes to cook. (Make sure you don't overcook the pasta.) Add salt and pepper to taste.

In my recent batch, I added cubed homegrown calabasa (photo), which is a green encased but orange fleshed squash pumpkin. It's plentiful here in Puerto Rico and is easy to grow. (It can also be the base of a wonderful squash soup.) I also had some white chayote, Christophine, left over from my trip to the local Farmer's Market in Santurce so I added that, too. (photo)
Looking at this as a creative cooking adventure, I thought about what everyone needed and added/subtracted ingredients based on what you might call, insight. Caution: This type of cooking drives onlookers mad as it looks so imprecise. You may change you mind about ingredients and combination at any time, but I think it's a great way to move into the creative feel of cooking.

~~Child: What are you cooking?

~~Mom: You know I don't like to be asked that question!

A Note on Composition: Think of your cooking as an evolving process so that it becomes a bit like creating a painting. You have an opportunity to combine into your cooking all of your food-life-experience, and you get to share it. I like to bring in cooking colors from the north and south- from my childhood and my adulthood. Though impressionistic, this insight method of cooking requires that you consider who you are cooking for. For me, this means I have to consider that my dear ones do not like heat-spice even if it's homegrown! (I make a hot pepper oil that I keep in the refrigerator exclusively for my use.) I have to forgo the selfish desire to warm the soup up with ever so few drops of hot oil.

Enchant your family with "Healthy Soup"created especially by you!

Thank you for spending time with me in my Puerto Rican life. I hope your garden's harvest is plentiful and that you share your version of "healthy soup" with me!

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Untangling Memories' Vine

My Healthy Soup this week surprised and delighted me. While cooking, I remembered the first time I came to Puerto Rico and was served guanimes; which is a boiled corn meal dough that is wrapped in a banana leaf, by my husband's great aunt who lived with her husband in a small house in the Botanical Gardens. What a novelty. My mom was traveling with us and we broke off from the group to go for a walk "in the jungle". We were impressed! The misty heat, piercing unfamiliar sounds and green lush foliage was both relaxing and frightening.
I never before attempted to make guanimes perhaps because the food seemed so wrapped up in the past. Nonetheless, they were a success and I'm glad I let that memory feeling visit me in the kitchen.
Miss A loved them! If you want to make these "corn dumplings", you would need corn flour, a bit of salt, oil and water, and banana leaf for wrapping. (I did not follow the directions on the posted link but maybe you'd prefer to look at it? I think it's a better starting place for the recipe.)

I wish you well!

Pattee asked a question about how to make "the dumplings" so I'm re-posting my answer here:

I have a "cheat" that I tried today. Buy corn pancake mix, rather than cornmeal! If you add oil, a little baking powder and baking soda, and water to mix to the consistency of a soft dough, it is perfect. If you prefer 'hard' dumplings just omit the powder/soda. I also added a dash of salt. Do you have banana leaves? I wondered if maybe grape leaves would work if you used different spices, such as dill and garlic in the broth. If you have corn husks, you can wrap them in that and make something like a Mexican tamale. They taste best boiled in seasoned broth. If you prefer a sweet taste add a sweetener and raisins/apples maybe. Of course, that's becoming more similar to a tamale so you would highlight corn and season with cinnamon and/or nutmeg. (The soup broth ingredients would have to change if you made the dumplings sweet.)

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A voyage into the past with Melanie-who by the way continues to produce a record annually, is married to a talented guitarist and musician, and has three musically inclined children.

Carpe Diem

In the garden, the delphiniums were in flower. Through scented twilight the girl in the white dress walked with a step as light as a cobweb. That evening, she hadn't a care in the world.

Mrs. Delahunty, My House in Umbria

Mrs. Delahunty: I may be dead next month. The moon may have crashed into the earth. Who knows what dreadful things may come to pass? But at the moment, I'm happy. What else matters?

Colonal: Carpe Diem

Mrs. Delahunty: I'm never really sure just what that means.

Colonal: Oh. Seize the day. Embrace the present. Enjoy life while you've got the chance.

Mrs. Delahunty: Carpe Diem. I'll remember that.

My House in Umbria

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Lately, I am aware that I have to do just that, carpe diem, because everything seems to have a feeling of impermanence. Not in a dark somber way but in the way that you feel that some thing's moving, some thing's changing.

I wonder what it is about life that after you hit a certain age, you wake up with memories of people and places that you haven't thought about in a long time. And fragments of youth-inspired dreams come back to your mind with a strong force. When I was a teen, I wanted to travel to Europe, and I did. I think my early obsession with travel was connected to my romance novel addiction. The love story inclination was left in the past, while the enjoyment of other lands and people remained.

I think that's why I love Maggie Smith in My House in Umbria. She's a writer of romance novels who has a calling to help people. She quirkily entertains us by her thriving imagination about the people who stay with her after they all are involved in a train explosion. (I wanted to post a link here but it's difficult to find a positive evaluation- to many spoilers. ) Nevertheless, I love the movie and the character that Maggie Smith plays, Mrs. Emily Delahunty- who has many other delightful nom de plumes.

The movie is set in Italy and if you can watch it and not yearn for travel to Italy, you are a strong person. It has magical views and entertaining cultural moments. If you are having an Italian themed movie night, you might rent Under the Tuscan Sun or go out to see Letters to Juliet. Both of these movies will make you feel as though you have been in Italy -or that it's essential for you to go there now!

I have read the memoir, Under the Tuscan Sun (Frances Mayes), and found it to be richly satisfying-and NOT A ROMANCE. I loaned this book to a close friend who found it tedious with detail about the Italian countryside, garden restorations and house renovations. However, I like these boring details of ordinary life. I like to see how people make decisions and what occupies their time. I'm interested in both real and spruced up life. (A little magic making fantasy is fine with me.) Another popular book that has an enchanting section on an extended vacation in Italy is Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir, Eat, Pray, Love. Did you know that Julie Roberts is going to play Gilbert in the movie? (Scheduled to be released in August.) There is another saturate-yourself-in=Italy movie that I have already mentioned in previous blogs, Enchanted April, which documents a life transforming month in an Italian Medieval castle. Gorgeous scenery! If you want to explore Italy this summer, or imagine yourself there in real life, try Rick Steves' link to travel.

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As for myself, I plan to stay in Puerto Rico, cook vegetarian lasagna, solve concrete everyday problems and at every moment-carpe diem! If that doesn't excite, think about my lovely gardenia bush that finally bloomed after three years of waiting, hoping, and supplementing with coffee grounds. Finally, it has a fragrant white bloom! Maybe it foretells of positive moments yet to come? ~~~~~~~~

Happiness Inspired?

Oasis Lifestyle:

Who needs inspiration? Me!!

I inspired myself this week by planting a little kitchen garden of sweet peppers, grape tomatoes, basil, cilantro, recao, golden marigold, and purple inpatients. It was a quick project because I planted it in a large pot and set it on the patio wall which overlooks the central mountains of Puerto Rico.

After reading a few pages from The Happiness Project a new memoir by Gretchen Ruben, I joined the website so that I receive inspiration on a regular basis. (!) I have also joined a time management site so that I can cut down my stress level.

~Are you feeling overwhelmed?~

Lately, I have been overwhelmed with tasks and stress, which has made me solution-oriented. I want to write a little about this problem. Just to keep it manageable, I have identified three common areas where we can be overwhelmed; work, finance and family. In my case- all three overlap.

@Work

What makes us happy at work? I found this John Ruskin quote at "The Happiness Project" website:

In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: They must be fit for it. They must not do too much of it. And they must have a sense of success in it.--John Ruskin (Ruskin is mentioned in Enchanted April- a must-read about love and reconciliation!)

[photo credit/painting by Sir John Everett Millais]

Makes sense?! What gives you a feeling of success at work? Is it recognition? trust? validation?

Does that affirming sensation have to come from the outside or can we give it to ourselves? I'm not going to answer these questions because I think Ruskin's wise comment is enough for now. However, I'm sending out a gentle suggestion that we learn to validate ourselves-to notice the good that we often do for others. We are all connected in some way. Our work extends our connection and can be employed to uplift others.

@Finance and family (I'm giving this problem breathing room. No solutions offered!)

It is not how much one makes but to what purpose one spends. --John Ruskin

Recently, I bought a pocket size black Cash Book. I thought I would like to record expenditures there. It's not going well. I just haven't been able to record what I spend. One day passes and then another, and I still forget to record purchases. I tell myself, "I will have to start again on payday." I refuse to admit that I just don't care enough about money. I like to say "yes" when the children ask, "Could you pay me back for... I had to spend my own money for a book, a ticket, a ..."; and "Could you give me a little money for...lunch, going out, just in case...". I think they are reasonable in their requests. I don't like to say no.

My poor little Cash Book is neglected, yet again.

I'm seriously flooded with memories of that powerful money management book, Your Money or Your Life. (Vicki Robin, et al.) Have you read it? It teaches you to recognize your own spending patterns and identify the feeling of enough. It's been updated but I'm thinking of the first version. I have a strong memory of the authors celebrating the fact that they were able to wear a pair of shoes for a few years!

Weakness? I buy shoes... often. (I'm feeling a bit of guilt. I'm still looking for that perfect pair.) My parents were frugal. Yes, frugal. As a child, I could not bring myself to ask for anything because I dreaded the inevitable, "No." Concerning my own money management-or lack of-my working theory is that I am now overcompensating with "yes" but it's under control. (If only I could verify my expenditures...poor little Cash Book-we need another reconciliation.)

~My New Sandals~

I love these stress relieving shoes. I recently purchase another pair at the local health food store. If you want to relax and increase your energy, you might try these sandals. Still, I must caution you that they cause some soreness while you become accustomed to the pressure. (A bit like a bed of nails?- no, just rubber nails!-ouch!)

reflexology health shoes -Mine cost about $20 but the link here has a pair for under $4 See how I'm trying to lessen my guilt by inviting you to spend money? Shame on me! :-) ...sigh...I should have waited to buy my shoes. What is my weakness? I don't comparison shop and I seek immediate gratification. (Note: these are insights for my little neglected Cash Book.)

~Digression~

There is a delightful scene in Enchanted April-the movie-where Lottie is suppose to record every cent in her own little cash book. I remember her husband, Mr Wilkins, asking her, "You are recording every cent you spend in that little book I gave you?" She replies, "Even the flowers." (He considers flowers a waste of money because they die.) Lottie does a much better job of record-keeping than me- even if she does waste money on charity and flowers! (Mr. Oasis is not involved in my money management project.)

As I'm on Lottie's side, I want to leave you with a pot full of tiny purple lantana flowers. (I think they are a lantana variety.)

Have a lovely week!

[photo credits-me]

(Run your cursor over the text for hyperlinks)

Wish-Garden

When I was a pre-teen and garden dreaming in the north, I would read seed catalogs by the fireplace. I imagined the green returning to the earth and could hardly wait until the weather changed. I suffered from the anticipation of spring. I remember my sisters and brother would all go spring-fever crazy when the weather changed. We were like a litter of puppies, jumping over each other, barking and biting until someone cried out, "Mom, he/she hit me!" I always had a garden project in mind and many times my efforts at the standard tried and true were successful. But once I tore up a plot of grass and planted various tulip bulbs and such, only they did not thrive. I was disappointed at the failure but I learned that you try and give what you can and the rest is nature's decision. I could say the soil was not prepared properly, or the bulbs were not planted the right side up, or it was too wet/dry that year but I won't because I think somewhere in the other-and-beyond that the bulbs did not want to grow-and I respect their decision. I continued to attempt the garden but I decided to encourage what responded, give it whatever it needed, appreciate the bounty of the ordinary marigold, eat hot tomatoes off of the vine, and cherish the silk tops of sweet corn. Meanwhile, I still read the "wish-books" (my father's name for catalogs) and now my dreams can be large scale: a Japanese garden with a bridge where I will contemplate the meaning of life; Monet's garden where I will paint water colors like Beatrix Potter or Tasha Tudor; and an English cottage garden where I will have tea and chat with dear friends such as you- and those readers who enjoy the memory/wish-garden almost as much as the real thing!

Note: The above garden photo was taken at Yogaville, VA where the Integral Yoga retreat is located.

http://www.yogaville.org/index/php