Recipe for Happiness

Well not exactly…….. but it may make you momentarily smile. I never wanted to blog about food. There are a million great food blogs out there and I can’t hold a candle to most of them. I have a few recipes that I can say are really good but I think cooking is an art. On the days when I’m feeling inspired by ingredients or a new recipe, I find my kitchen to be a happy place and whatever I’m making reflects that spirit. I remember reading once that Carl Jung used to speak to his wooden spoon and ingredients when cooking. He was actually turned on to his own energy and to the energy around him, just as successful gardeners know that Classical music helps plants to grow. Anyway I digress. Today was the last day of Ramsey’s Farmer’s Market until next spring and I will sorely miss it. I prefer to buy in small quantities and eat seasonally. My favorite vendor, Blooming Hill Organic Farm may begin to home deliver and that will surely be a recipe for success! Guy Jones of Blooming Hill Farm supplies many restaurants in NYC with his produce. When I was trying to organize the catering for the upcoming 30^th Annual John Lennon Tribute at The Beacon, I inquired of him to see if he could recommend a caterer. He recommended two and offered to donate the veggies as well. Each year the tribute benefits a charity so his generosity and that of Fancy Girl Table Catering is a wonderful help to Playing for Change Foundation. Backstage there will be at least 75 artists, management and crew to feed. It is still coming together but I am confident it will and have no fear ;) For those of you who do fear cooking and would like a foolproof recipe that is easy and wonderful, go to your kitchen and try this. After all, John Lennon spent 5 years being house husband occasionally cooking for Sean and Yoko, and maybe he once made~

Rice Pudding

4 cups of milk

½ cup of rice

½ cup of sugar

¾ tsp of salt

Stir, (with a wooden spoon you are friendly with) over medium/high heat, until sugar is melted. Lower heat, cover and cook for 1 hour. Every 15 minutes stir.

Mix in a small bowl 2 egg yolks, 1 cup of light crème and ½ teaspoon vanilla. After rice mixture has cooked for 1 hour add this mixture, whisking it in and continue to cook for 7-9 minutes more. Pour into a dish and sprinkle with nutmeg and cinnamon.

Dressing Rooms, Antique Genes and Reflection

I went shopping last week needing jeans, wanting a jacket and looking for boots. I was really pleased to find a couple pairs of jeans I really liked. That doesn’t always happen. All bets are off when a woman walks through the threshold of a dressing room. The smoke and mirrors can cast a poor reflection or a good one that actually tricks you into believing you look good. Ever notice how the word LIE is placed center stage in the word BELIEVE? The right pair of jeans can be as challenging as choosing the right bathing suit or the perfect dress. But I was lucky and Lucky Brand works well for me. I came home from shopping, made rice pudding and called my Dad to tell him to come by and pick it up. He was a little bothered about an argument he had with his Uncle, which I actually thought was comical. I feel I have a picture to paint here. My Great Uncle Ralph lives on 8 acres in Oakland in an area called Ramapo Park. It is off Skyline Drive, located by a mile marker, down a single lane road. There are six other houses that share the Park with my Uncle’s. It’s adjacent to state land and a reservoir. The house is perched off a cliff in a very private location that sits in juxtaposition of my Uncle, who is very outgoing, interesting and loving. He is 100 years old and has lived there 50 years. Each week he entertains, cooking for a group of friends that come by to play cards, my Dad arrives once or twice a week to eat lunch and shoot the breeze and Uncle Ralph’s girlfriend stays several days a week, unless it’s summer. Until he turned 100, Uncle Ralph spent summers at his house on Cape Cod. This year he gave the house away to my Aunt Jodie’s family. Well you get the picture. He is very special and he follows the footsteps of his sister Marie and his mother who both lived till they were close to his age. My father is 86, has vision problems and walks with a slight limp from an injury to his foot. The argument was because my 100-year-old Uncle wanted my 86-year-old father to go in the basement (which is outside down steep stone steps like Aunt Em’s Farm in Kansas) and change the water in the furnace. My Dad said not until November because then the snakes will be hibernating. My Uncle terse response was “What are you afraid of, they’re only black snakes?” My Dad said to me he can’t see well and moves too slow to be in the basement (snake den) changing water on any furnace. Apparently Uncle Ralph has seen the shed skin in the basement and his 89-year-old girlfriend saw a snake on the stairs in the house going to the second floor. My Great Uncle is unfazed. He was also unfazed two summers ago when he was driving up to Cape Cod and was pulled over for speeding. That was the only other argument I’ve heard my Dad have with him. My Dad now prefers to drive but Uncle Ralph likes to as well. Maybe because my Dad has limited vision in his left eye………

Anyway, later that night as I put my Lucky jeans away I couldn’t help but think how Lucky I am to have some great family gene’s too. There’s no smoke and mirrors here and it is clearly a part of my own reflection. My Uncle is amazing. There’s so much more to his story than I’ve written today. In two weeks when the weather cools I’ll make him some rice pudding and stop by to visit with my Dad. Meanwhile, here is the link for Great Uncle Ralph's birthday story published in The Record. My next post will include the rice pudding recipe, after all I will be making it should you decide to visit me when I'm One Hundred.

http://www.northjersey.com/community/89661037_He_apparently_has_the_century_mark_in_the_corner_pocket__too_

STICK with ME

Ever wonder where the idiom ‘Stick up for yourself” came from? I never did…until recently. Each night my sleep is filled with dreams that I remember upon waking and this month I had two dreams involving sticks. In the first I was with a group of people on the edge of a rocky shore looking for sticks to defend ourselves against whatever was coming at us from the sea. The waves were rough, the rocks slippery and I remember the group of us wildly waving the sticks toward some unknown threat.

The morning after this scene, I checked out “stick” in my dream book. One reference was ‘sticking up for oneself’ which made me smile, thinking how through the universal consciousness language evolves. Encoded in my dream, I may have been working through a way to assert myself…. The stick now becomes the symbol of my ability to become empowered however primitive the image or weapon.

In last night’s dream, an intruder chased me through my house and out into the street. In the street I yelled “Fire” somehow cognizant, remembering how my Dad always said if you were in trouble don’t just scream, but scream “Fire”. People who would be otherwise scared and possibly immobilized by a scream will come and look when they think something is on fire. In my nightmare a neighbor came out and distracted the guy and I then picked up a stick to defend myself. It crumbled like a cookie in my hand but I found another and went toward my attacker with the stick up, defending myself, a little more courageous with my neighbor out in the street and my stick in hand.

I woke from this street fight with the knowledge I am somehow doing my best to assert myself and take care of me, sticking with the theme of empowerment. I wondered however if in the dream world of the universal unconscious I’m actually enrolled in some sort of cosmic night school. If I am, I must be in the class of Practical Life. I’ll just have to stick with this and see where it leads. Hope I get a good report card.

Altared View~A Kaleidoscope of Spirit

At high noon today I went to Mass at Saint Paul’s Church in Ramsey. The architecture of St. Paul’s differs from most Roman Catholic Churches because it is not traditional. Instead of a building shaped as a cross where most of the congregation looks straight ahead to the altar, it is crescent moon shaped, almost circular with the altar in the center. Because of this unique form, in any chosen seat, much of the church, the parishioners and the stained glass windows are visible and people face each other as they look toward the altar. It is always the stained glass that calls my attention as the colors filter the sun and soften the room radiating the richness of faith. I noticed that the windows high above the altar, though smaller, today were truly different. The wind blowing outside must have been catching the treetops making the leaves move, which played with the light, shading the colors and creating constant change. I began to think that all over the world there are churches with stained glass windows. I wondered if God looked in on us at moments when people were in prayer. All over earth, each one of these Houses of the Holy filled with Spirit in various incarnations, colorful, changing, an intricate design held in his hand while looking in through the window…God’s own Kaleidoscope of Spirit, a constantly changing pattern. It made me smile and wish for a kaleidoscope of my own.

The image above is from the Union Church of Pocantico Hills. It is the largest of the nine stained glass windows by Marc Chagall commissioned by the Rockefeller Family and shares the space with a Rose Window created by Henri Matisse. Higher callings inspire the creation of such works of art but higher knowledge may be in that they elevate Spirit having far reaching effects on people and prayer. Stepping into that sacred space may be like creating a battery-powered kaleidoscope with ones energy……And again I smile remembering my Summer visit to the Church in Pocantico Hills and wishing to return.