As featured in The Elephant Journal

My mother died five years ago, I lost my best friend that day but what I didn't expect is to rekindle her after all this time. While she has left, her spirit remains. On summer nights, as the sun goes down and I sit outside on the patio, I can still hear her laugh and it makes me smile. It reminds me of simpler times when the only entertainment was being surrounded by green leaves, grass and hearing the crickets at night as we talked about whatever came to our minds.

On mornings when I wake up to rain and had planned to go for a long walk, I think of how a few showers and grey skies did not stop my mother. She said, “That is why we have rain coats.”  So out we would go in our rain coats for a run. We came home wet and damp, but smiling. There is something exhilarating about feeling the raindrops on my skin on a morning run. It had a charm all its own, one should try it sometime.

It was her unstoppable nature that I thought I had lost. My mother had this uncanny ability to turn obstacles into something silly and fun.

It took me a while to understand this but now that time has passed. I am ready to do those things that I once only enjoyed with her. The reason is she is not gone - her spirit is very much alive in me. It fosters a spontaneity almost a childlike impulse to laugh and play.

On those nights

Silence fell

I heard your laughter

Your favorite chair sat bare

Worn and unbroken

From nights we talked

Till morning was there

Then walked in the rain

Cried with the moon

But that spark was always there

Throughout tear drops

And black bat wing nights

We shined bright

Alone and with you beyond compare

When you left I thought I had died

But I was lost

Until I found my strengths the ones

You left me

So I decided to laugh in the rain

Cry with the sun

In remembrance of what you showed me

As featured in The Elephant Journal

Mortality is something we all know is coming, yet we fear it. We do not know what will happen at that moment - will we feel pain? Will it all stop? Will we enter some foreign land? None of us know until it happens, but I don not believe the unknown is what we fear most.

We fear the end.  We cannot change anything when it is over. We cannot change what we have already done, but we can take action now so we don’t feel like we did not take the opportunity to do what we wanted in our lifetime.

I truly feel that the reason we postpone what we can do today is the same reason we fear death - failure. We are not ready, we need more time to practice, we have not made it perfectly … all excuses for not accepting that as humans we have flaws.

It is pretty silly when we think about it to avoid doing something we truly want to do simply because we might fail. It is like saying why bother trying, I’m just going to die. That is a rather bleak attitude.

We cannot avoid mistakes. At some point in our lifetime we will mess up, fall flat on our face and feel like we are complete disasters. In that moment we will feel like we are dying because we have exposed the most painful and deepest wound we as humans can expose - our flaws.

If we simply accept that we have flaws and that one day we will die, I truly believe we will be liberated from fear. Fear is nothing more that an irrational response to something we cannot understand because we do not know it or have no control over it.  If we cannot prevent failure or dying, why not just live with it.

Some of the most fearless people I have met are ones who know their lives are about to end or will be cut short due to disease. These people make lists of what they want to do and just do it because they know time is limited. I wish I could live like these people, they are the ones who go sky diving, stay up for nights writing books and travel the globe.

They have accepted that imperfection and death are a part of life and have consciously decided to keep moving forward, because that is the only direction to go.

Death need not be imminently approaching to live in the moment.  To do those things we want only adds a few extra minutes to our day. If we took 10 to 30 minutes to do something we just postpone for another day, we would get it done. Many of us spend that much time thinking of the reasons why we cannot do it now instead of just acting on the inspiration in that moment.

Some things I find helpful in taking a “why wait?” approach.

Stop thinking things are impossible.

Stop being afraid of feeling silly. Being silly is fun. Run laugh, jump through sprinklers let ice cream drip out of a cone onto your shirt.

Start writing a page a day of that book.

Plan the trip you always wanted.

As featured in The Elephant Journal 

Voice is most commonly thought of as the way use our mouths to audibly express our thoughts with the external world. But voice can also be expressed using our eyes to create a unique perception that silently influences our actions.

Sometimes we need to let our eyes be the voice that fully processes what is before us. We can then gather the information we need to completely convey what we are experiencing inside. If our audible voice was taken away, we would have no choice but to be immersed in the silence of our thoughts and the sensual perception of our surroundings.

Perhaps one of the only times, we can experience this loss of audible voice is under water. The other day, I listened to a man describe his experience of scuba diving.

“Our eyes become our voice,” was the most poignant phrase he used to describe it. At such great depths, the only sound we hear is the bubbling of water as we breathe the oxygen from a tank attached to our back. We have no feeling of our surroundings as the wet suit numbs our touch to the outside world. Our eyes are the only thing to engage us with the surrounding world.

In that under the sea world, that I have never personally seen first hand, yet vicariously envisioned through his words, our sense of vision is magnified. All that we witness is through our eyes, motion, sound, light and color. In this heightened state of vision, the darkness becomes the most riveting moment under the sea.

He described the fear of being blinded by a large gold fish making a quick turn in front of him, cutting him off from all he could see.

All is dark

a spark of light

projects a tunnel

transporting me

through the night

a quick spray

and a trail of bubbles

like a wand in the wind

aside an golden orange

glow it flipped past

like a clap of lightening

deflecting the path

lost in a golden firework

an explosion in my mind

in the aftershock

it passes by

a sky line of a tail

leaving all dark

As featured in The Elephant Journal

When I was in high school, I visited my grandparents in a small town, Westminster, outside of Baltimore, Maryland.  This was before the scone was reinvented to become the latest craze. There was a bagel shop on the main street of town that made power bars using bagel dough as a base. I can still taste them. They had the texture of a whole grain bread, with a nutty aroma and the gooey sweet chunks of white chocolate and dried fruit.

It is like a granola bar and a bagel collided. These bite size treats are sweet but add powerful nutrition of whole grain oats, healthy fats, fiber and protein.

Recently, I had a gathering on a weekend morning and wanted a bite sized treat to go with coffee or tea. I thought of these power bars I craved as a teen. And decided to reinvent them as a scone.

ingredients

two cups bisquick

two cups steel cup oats

one cup turbinado sugar

one cup chopped pistachios

one cup chopped dates

one cup white chocolate chips

one half cup smart balance light

two tablespoons almond milk

one tablespoon vanilla bean paste

Let one half cup of smart balance sit at room temperature until soft.

In a large mixing bowl, combine bisquick, turbinado sugar and steel cut oats. Mix well. Mix in the soft smart balance, vanilla bean paste and almond milk until a smooth thick dough forms.

Mix in pistachios, dates and white chocolate chips until all are even blended.

Chill dough for one hour in the refrigerator.

Place parchment paper on a baking sheet. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Take  tablespoon size pieces of dough and roll them into a balls.  Evenly space on baking sheet.

Bake for 12 to 16 minutes until golden brown.

Makes about 3 dozen mini scones.

As featured in The Elephant Journal

Do we want love? Or do we merely want to skim its surface? The distinction is not subtle but it is often overlooked, as we get lost in idyllic fairy tales and seductive images of romance.  The picture of love we fantasize is not always what we want in day to day life, and this is what I mean by wanting only to touch the surface of love.

But we see so many, like myself who at times only wanted the surface of love, because we are afraid to be alone, to accept and acknowledge that we only truly have ourselves. It can be a scary thought, if we let it, or it can be the most fulfilling realizations we will ever have. For years I refused to see what I had inside,  flitting from one partner to the next. At first, each one seemed to have what I was looking for - the answers to my every question. But the first time, a partner left to resolve something on my own, I moved to the next, because he wasn’t there. I felt abandoned and even worse trapped into looking at myself.

It took me a few trips wandering like a vagrant in search of that one person who would make everything feel okay, and just when I thought I found him, he looked at me one morning and said, “you are terrified of yourself.” So I quickly walked out that door never to turn back.

It took a few more journeys but I could not shake the irksome feeling of his question, why was I so terrified of myself? Why couldn’t I just sit still and stop this exhausting search to feel complete? That is when I decided to challenge his accusation, and prove that I could be alone. So for the next 3 to 4 years, I had no romantic relationships and just did some deep soul searching and that is when I found love.

It wasn’t the kind in fairy tales, in novels or celebrity romances, it was a deep and unfettering commitment to myself. During those 3 to 4 years, I traveled to foreign countries alone, ate out alone, went to law school and moved a few times. Each time I did it without a fear that someone would leave me. That feeling of that I would be abandoned evaporated as I learned to love and trust myself.

And for the first time, I didn’t need someone and I wasn’t searching for someone to make me feel okay, I was okay being me.

I believe that is the difference between love and merely skimming its surface, is that when we are willing to compromise. We do not view compromise as a sacrificing our individuality, it is a way of meeting the needs of an enduring partnership while at the same time maintaining our own inner identity. If it sounds complex, that is because love is, and to do more than touch its surface, we must first fall in love with our own visions and dreams.

The surface of love is the idea of it, without the commitment. It is  the romance, the long walks in the park, hours of making love but it stops at just that. It is easy and uncomplicated because it does not involve the mundane details of living together while at the same time respecting one another’s independence. But yet it is unstable, inconsistent and always leaves us wondering whether that feeling will be there at the end of the day.

As featured in The Elephant Journal

It doesn’t have to be Memorial Day, July Fourth or Labor Day, to celebrate with red, white and blue. The colors are inspired by the fresh fruits of the season. Watermelon, cherries, coconut, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries and peaches all dawn the patriotic hues along with summer roses and whites for sipping.

Summer is a time for freshness in palette and aesthetic. Salads are light and succulent with a hint of citrus and a little zip. A dry rose or white wine gives a fruit salad just a taste of languidness to capture the mood of a hot summer day.

I chose watermelon, rainier cherries and blueberries for this salad. Their sweetness is offset by the dry crisp and slightly citrusy sauvignon blanc. I chose a sauvignon blanc blend, the semillon cuts the citrus taste ever so slightly balancing it to make the perfect compliment this trio of fruits.

one half seedless watermelon cubed

one half pint blueberries

two large handfuls of rainier cherries pitted

lemon zest

one quarter cup semillon sauvignon blanc (http://www.chateau-lazaridi.com/en/the-black-sheep-semillon-sauvignon-blanc/)

After cubing the watermelon and pitting and halving the cherries toss all the fruit in a large porcelain bowl. Pour the sauvignon blanc into the mix and toss some more. zest lemon over the top. Let the salad marinate in the refrigerator and serve.

As featured in The Elephant Journal

I love the gooey, sticky consistency of cookie dough. It’s soft like a freshly baked cookie, slightly chewy like a square of caramel and it can be eaten with a spoon. Somehow, everything tastes better when licked from the rim of a spoon.

I wanted to combine the taste of cookie dough with the consistency of whipped cream my other favorite thing to eat off a spoon, to have fluffy yet slightly gooey mousse that can be eaten alone or as a dip. It reminds me of the cream inside of a cannoli and this recipe has less fat and an added punch of protein.

2/3 cup of plain coconut milk yogurt

1/2 cup creamy cashew butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 teaspoons maple syrup

1 handful mini dark chocolate chips

Blend coconut milk yogurt, cashew butter, vanilla and brown sugar in a food processor until creamy and smooth. Transfer to a bowl and stir in mini dark chocolate chip. Chill for 1 to 2 hours. Save a few to sprinkle on the top as a garnish.

As featured in The Elephant Journal

I am a fan of finger food. My college roommate once teasingly said I was on a small object diet. Tater tots, mixed nuts and crudités are all my friends, and if they are accompanied with dipping sauce even better.

I looked for a way to make a bite size nibble similar to a chicken nugget or falafel to pack in the protein.  I wanted to keep it simple enough to be baked or grilled, but didn't want to chintz on the flavor. Tofu tends to lack firmness and taste so the trick to this recipe is in the preparation.

And the secret to firm tofu with texture is to get rid of excess water, before marinating it. Even extra firm tofu has excess water, and if we marinate before removing the water, we lose flavor.

Start with a block of extra firm tofu. I like to buy it at an Asian Market where it is freshly made. Wrap it in a clean terry dish cloth. Place it on a baking sheet to catch the excess water. Place a heavy book on top to apply pressure. Let it stand for 4 to 8 hours until most of the water strains

The block will shrink in size. Its texture will be firm and spongy, like a boiled potato. Now it is time to season it. My favorite is lemon pepper.

1 tablespoon olive oil

Freshly squeezed lemon juice

Black pepper

Massage olive oil, lemon juice and black pepper into the tofu. Refrigerate overnight. Cut into cubes.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place tofu cubes on greased baking sheet. Bake until lightly brown. It usually takes about 10 minutes to get that gold colored coating.

If grilling, grill entire block until crispy brown before cutting into cubes. Cut into cubes after cooking.

Serve with honey mustard or my favorite pesto.

As featured in The Elephant Journal 

We need more than just sexy time, we need languid naked time. Sex is far more than the physical act, after the orgasm, the best part is that naked time in one another’s arms and somehow that gets lost as the relationship progresses. It is funny how it always seemed readily available in the beginning, where did it go and more importantly how do we get it back?

Remember the days when we were first in love, before marriage, before children, Sunday afternoons, snowy days and summer nights we spent in bed naked, spooning after making love. Lingering in one another's arms telling stories, watching movies and making love again. We were in no hurry to get dressed. In fact we didn't want to, those were our naked days at home.

And then something changed. Making love turned into sex, just the act without spiritual or intellectual connection. It’s not that we stopped caring or didn’t want the time. The frenetic pace of everyday life got in the way and we forgot how to reclaim that naked time.

By naked time, I don’t just mean the absence of clothes, I am referring to that uninhibited space where we candidly speak our minds and don’t feel rushed to complete what we have to say. In the beginning of a relationship, we consider this the getting to know one another phase. After time, as we grow accustomed to each others patterns and idiosyncrasies, we think we know it all, but there is so much more to explore.

While a quickie is fun every now and then, when it becomes the norm, we miss out on experiencing a closeness beyond even the best sex physical chemistry can bring. And it is that sharing of thoughts, views and even just stillness together that accentuates an already dynamic physical connection.

Lately, I feel my love making sessions have turned to plain old sex. It frustrates me. It’s not that my boyfriend desires me less, its just that as years have passed his idea of intimate time is squeezed into a 20 minute space afterwork and before tennis or a night out. It is not enough for me, just as I start to unwind and enjoy what I feel as the post coitus buzz, he is getting dressed for the next activity.

He can’t understand why I don’t think our ten minutes of intimacy is romantic? I do think it is sweet that he wants that time, no matter how rushed, but I just want it on a night when we have a few hours to linger together alone. I want my time with him to feel more than a brief interlude with my vibrator.

That’s when I decided  to get creative. Allowing time for a quickie wasn’t getting it done for me and I needed to reclaim our naked time. So I had to ask him to schedule in a full night or afternoon - a block of 2 hours or more. I told him we were having a date night, meeting friends or doing something that required more than just the 20 minutes that had become his typical time allotment for sex.

When he got really inquisitive about what we were doing and why he couldn’t do something later, I said don’t ruin the surprise. He went along with it, at first with some resistance, but once he saw what I had planned, he didn’t have any problems acquiescing to my seduction.  Here are some tips to create the mood.

Schedule more than hour block.

Create a romantic environment - that can be as simple as wearing fun lingerie or barely nothing at all, light candle, put on music.

After making love do not get dressed for at least 30 minutes or more.

Choose a time of day when both are awake, not tired.

Don’t plan anything immediately afterwards.

As featured in The Elephant Journal

There is a coffee shop in Stamford Connecticut. It’s a small but it is rich in charm.  Filled with eclectic pattern tiles, a variety of pastries and one of my favorites tea lattes, earl grey. Sure there are chai tea lattes and matcha lattes, but earl grey are a true treat.

Earl grey is a unique blend of floral notes. We typically think of it as a black tea, but it is hardly that common place. It is graced with notes of bergamot.  It is sweet with a hint of smokiness, and with the creaminess of almond milk, it is delightful.  And this coffee shop adds a secret ingredient lavender.

The lavender adds the zen tranquility we think of when sipping a cup of tea. Lavender’s taste just like its aroma is soothing because of terpenes, chemicals that give the scent and flavor not just of lavender but to all botanicals.

As the scent of lavender wafts through our nasal cavities it gets into our blood stream, the terpenes in it interact with messengers in the part of our brain which controls mood, emotion and behavior to create a calming effect. (https://www.medicaljane.com/category/cannabis-classroom/terpenes/#synergistic-effects-of-terpenes). So it is more than just the pleasant smell of lavender that makes us feel so relaxed, there is an actual physiological reaction caused by the terpenes in lavender.

But it is not that hard to recreate the of a lavender latte at home. The lavender and earl grey are made into a simple syrup which is then infused into a steamed almond milk.

I made the syrups at home

Earl Grey Simple Syrup

3 Earl Grey tea bags (I prefer Twinings)

1/2 cup Turbinado sugar

2 cups water

Place 3 bags in 1 cup of boiling water. Let steep for 6 to 8 minutes or until dark in color.

On the stovetop, bring 1 cup of water to a boil. Add one 1/2 cup of Turbinado sugar. Mix until all sugar crystals are completely dissolved. Pour the sugar mixture into the Earl Grey concentrate.

Lavender Simple Syrup

1 tablespoon dried lavender  (purchase at The Bulk Apothecary) (http://www.bulkapothecary.com/lavender-flowers/?mkwid=sGqFFb4IM_dc|pcrid|93695433188|pkw||pmt||slid||product|20-0268-001|&gclid=CjwKEAjw7e66BRDhnrizmcGc8VcSJABR6gaRw67rfM--CZh7wWKvawUEsFZ99h87s5Hc_nXDZyqy6hoCboPw_wcB)

1/2 cup Turbinado sugar

1 cups water

Place 1 tablespoon of dried lavender in a tea bag. Tea bags can be purchased at most tea stores. Teavana carries them. On the stovetop, bring 1 cup of water to a boil. Add lavender tea bag. Add one 1/2 cup of Turbinado sugar. Mix until all sugar crystals are completely dissolved.

Lavender simple syrup can be purchased at The Savory Pantry (http://www.savorypantry.com/product/pink-house-alchemy-lavender-simple-syrup/honey-syrup?sid=google_shopping&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping&gclid=CjwKEAjw7e66BRDhnrizmcGc8VcSJABR6gaRdXFG20e6GwuVurY1j0YX_zSWBkt4xyBEYx_zonCH4xoCfJbw_wcB)  if you do not want to make it.

As featured in The Elephant Journal

I have a sweet tooth. As a vegan, I am always looking for ways to get additional protein. So what better way that with a mint chocolatey chip treat.

Plus it’s that time of year when we hear the bells of the ice cream truck in the distance, and savor the flavor of a creamy cold treat. Ice cream is nostalgic - makes us feel like a kid again. And it is hard to resist something chocolatey and sweet. But we may not always want the added sugar that is in so many ice creams and ice cream treats.

Particularly if you are parents of young children. We all know that the sugar after dinner leads to late nights with kids running off the excess sugar high. So if you want the creaminess and a little added nutrition with all the fun of mint-chocolate chip, here’ s a shake to try.

Kids and adults will both love it and not even notice that it gets its green color, not from artificial dyes, but spinach. So when our children are wanting dessert, but pushing their vegetables aside during dinner, here’s a tasty way to sneak in those leafy greens.

3 pitted dates

2 tbsp hot water

1 tbsp epic vanilla protein powder

1 handful of baby spinach

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 small hand full cacao nibs

4 mint leaves

8 oz. coconut milk

Soak dates in hot water for 30 to 45 minutes until they look as if they are falling apart. Drain water. Place in blender with agave nectar, vanilla extract and 2 oz coconut milk. Blend until smooth. Add spinach and mint leaves and rest of coconut milk. Blend until smooth. Add cacao nibs and blend until smooth.

For a smoother consistency, strain to remove excess spinach and mint leaf pulp. Add back to blender with cacao nibs and blend.

Chill for 4 hours.

Garnish glass with mint leaves.

As featured in The Elephant Journal

Many of us have felt it, maybe even experienced the dreaded moment of standing in front of a crowd, ready to give a speech. And after all those hours of preparing what we were to say fallen silent, immobilized by the eyes watching us, ears open all waiting for what we have to say.

As we search to find the words, it feels like hours maybe even days. In that pause, the words we arduously prepared feel still and unreal just like the crowd frozen before us.

I have been there in that moment, waiting to break the silence. When I begin, I say what comes to my mind letting go of order, tossing away what I worked so hard to prepare, I feel so confident. Like I have climbed a long way to the top of a mountain. Once I am there, in that mountain top, my fear is over. I have done the hardest part. My irrational thoughts fade and I say what I know most deeply as if I were the only one in the audience. Because that's all stage fright really is -worrying that what we say will not be good enough, but once we let go of the judgment we have for ourselves there is nothing we cannot say.

Prepared so neatly in my mind

I knew my story

Sure of what to say

But when I walked in the room

Before you

All that was important walked away

Silent I stood embarrassed

Screams of the night

Anxiety dreams

Rang true in my brain

The crowd waited patiently

For those words once neatly prepared

Now lost from my mind

I smile and look around

but nothing, not a thing is there

Afraid I have forgotten to speak

When suddenly off my tongue

that momentary lapse of speech

For which they sat waiting

At the edges of their seats

Leapt off my tongue

Words in a jumbled order

Impromptu and sincere

What I thought made no sense

Just transformed and recombined

To find a moment I tried

As featured in The Elephant Journal 

This cocktail is the product of happenstance. About ten years ago, Mom and I went to a cocktail party. She never went empty handed and liked to bring a bottle of freshly infused ginger vodka wrapped with a yellow silk ribbon. When we arrived our friends, were always happy to see the brightly adorned and intoxicating delicious libation which we typically served with seltzer and wedge of lime.

On that night, a rare event occurred, our friends had no seltzer as they had planned on just serving wine and still water for non-drinkers. As the guests arrived, seeing the bottle on the bar, they were curious to try it, but there was nothing to mix it with. A few brave tried it neat or on the rocks, and enjoyed it just like it was.

Then, one straggler, a foodie with a flair for Indochine cuisine, arrived. He came bearing a platter of handmade spring rolls and a pitcher of watermelon punch. When he saw my mother’s infused vodka on the bar he poured a shot in a glass and topped it off with his punch. Soon other guests followed suit.

By the end of the night both the pitcher was empty and the last drops of vodka were drank. All were merry and left asking what was in the punch.

1 small seedless watermelon

2 limes cut into wedges

Freshly grated ginger to taste

2 tablespoons Turbinado sugar

1 to 2 bottles seltzer

Cut a watermelon in half. Scoop out the pulp of the watermelon from each side. Place it in a food processor and puree until liquified. Pour watermelon puree in an air tight container add Turbinado sugar, ginger and limes. Let it marinate overnight.

For those of us who want to make the adult version of this drink. Buy one quart of vodka. My mother used Luksoswa potato vodka. Peel a large root of ginger. Cut it into chunks small enough to fit in the bottle. Infuse for a day or two at room temperature. When it reaches the desired strength of ginger taste, pour vodka into another container to strain out ginger. You will need a funnel to pour the vodka back into its original bottle.

To serve add equal parts selzer and watermelon puree mixture over ice in an old fashioned glass. To spike it add a shot of chilled ginger vodka.

As featured in The Elephant Journal

I had reached a new level of frustration. No matter how many times I told him, my boyfriend could not keep track of the times of our dates.  A late afternoon brunch with friends on a Sunday was a 7 pm dinner that night. And a movie on the 10th suddenly became a movie on the 17th.

Initially I took it personally, then I started to see that it just wasn’t dates with me it was breakfast meetings with clients were construed as lunch dates and times to pick up his children were confused. He is so attentive to details when it comes to historical facts, sports trivia and cleaning windows of all things, but when it comes to time, he is like the absent minded professor.

We had tried google calendars, but with one schedule for work, one for his children and another for me, he was confused. I was determined to end these scheduling snafus, if not I was sure to lose my mind or throw him out a window. There was one thing we had tried when we were on vacation, a good old fashioned paper calendar. That week was blissful, he didn’t miss a single time we had scheduled to play tennis, go to a movie or a yoga class. That was it, all this time I had been taking the wrong approach.

Many of us are visual learners, in order for it to really stick in our minds we need to see it. Sure we can hear dates and times, perhaps even read them in an email, but unless we see them in on a grander scale - as an appointment penciled in an agenda or on a calendar it we lose track of it. Weeks can get juxtaposed and times of days mixed up.

Sometimes the paper calendar is cumbersome to carry, gets misplaced or simply needs to be reinforced. So a great way to keep all scheduling needs in order not just for ourselves, but for our significant others and our families is to create a chalkboard calendar. It is a fun do it yourself project.

white paint

chalkboard paint

masking tape

paint brush

paint roller

white paint pen

chalk

Go to a local paint store or a Home Depot to purchase both white paint and chalkboard paint. Chalkboard paint comes in a few different colors - slate grey, green or an earthy brown.

Section off the area that you wish to create your calendar with masking tape. Paint this area white using a paint brush or a roller whichever you prefer. Let the paint dry. If you are painting over a dark wall, you may need two or more coats of white. Now measure the size of the squares you wish to use for each day. If you want a 3 inch by 3 inch square, make sure to include the width of the masking tape in your measurement, because you will be using the masking tape to separate your day boxes. So starting from the edge of the masking tape you used to section off your calendar’s perimeters and assuming the masking tape is 1 inch wide, add 1 inch to the width of your box to make 4 inches in this case.

Use the masking tape to create a grid of boxes and a row at the top to write the days of the week. Paint over the masking tape grid with the chalkboard paint color of your choice.

Once it is dry, remove the masking tape grid lines and write in the days of the week with a white paint pen. Now you can pick up some chalk and start scheduling. We started this process about a month ago. We have it in a central location, the kitchen, we both look at it when making morning coffee or when grabbing something to eat at night. As we are unwinding from the day, we can ask questions in a calm relaxed manner about scheduling and since it is in front of us in a room where we both can see it we are reminded to make those changes to the schedule that came up during the day.  And it is a great way for us to add new events, like concerts and movies that we read about and want to see. So instead of scheduling frustration, it is a  way to manage time in a fun way.

As featured in The Elephant Journal 

I have a picnic favorite. A friend taught me this simple, but catching recipe years ago. Having gone to law school in New Orleans, he developed a taste for cajun cuisine everything from crawfish, gumbo to souffle potatoes. And when we entertained during the summers we had to please everyone from gourmands, children to vegetarians.

Spicy remoulade sauce is a crowd pleaser. It’s perfect for the indecisive who can’t decide whether to have ketchup, mustard or mayonnaise. It has it all, and it is just a tad spicy. Which is a somewhat inside joke, because his son who at the time was five, called anything with a different or new taste spicy.

So we added the adjective to describe our version of this versatile but tasty condiment that is served in one of New Orlean’s most prestigious restaurants Antoine’s. So for as fancy as it sounds, it is rather easy to make.

1/2 cup mayonnaise (or vegannaise)

1/4 cup ketchup

1/4 cup course grain brown mustard (I use Maille)

2 tablespoons horseradish (I use Golds)

1 tablespoon Tabasco Sauce

Mix all ingredients together. Chill and serve as a garnish to all picnic favorites hamburgers, hot dogs, veggie burgers, grilled fish, shrimp cocktail and crudites.

But I like it best of all with roasted cauliflower which can easily be made on the grill.

1 head cauliflower

1/2 tablespoon olive oil

black pepper to taste

sea salt to taste

As featured in The Elephant Journal

The month of June is the start of summer, it is when longer, the sun shines more brightly and warmly. It is the time to eat cooling succulent foods like watermelon, cantaloupe and cucumber. June is also the time of year when my town has its annual Greek festival.

The air is filled with the aromas of vinegar, slightly sweet freshly baked flaky pastries with warm honey and a personal favorite Greek salad. There is something so refreshing about biting into the juicy cucumbers and salty olives and feta cheese, that revives me after a long hot summer day. I know Greek salad has more ingredients than just those three, but for me those are the quintessential flavors that make it so irresistible.

It probably has something to do with the combination of extremely hydrating cucumbers and salt that make me feel so great. In the summer, we lose a lot of fluid and electrolytes in the heat. Sure we can replenish with sports drinks like gatorade, but it is a lot more nourishing to avoid the artificial ingredients and in my opinion more fun to eat fresh fruits and vegetables.

Many fresh vegetables and fruits contain sodium, chloride, calcium and potassium which replace those minerals that we lose so easily on hot days (https://www.acefitness.org/certifiednewsarticle/715/electrolytes-understanding-replacement-options/). Olives and sea salt contain both chloride and sodium. The feta cheese in the recipe has calcium. Cashews (if using the vegan option) are rich in magnesium. (http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=98)

I took the liberty of making the salad even more fun. By making noodles out of the cucumbers, who doesn’t like to twist long strings of spaghetti around a fork. It’s just fun.

For this you will need a vegetable spiraler, to make a cucumber pasta. I used the Gefu Spiral Slicer which I purchased at Sur La Table.

1 cucumber

1/2 tablespoon olive oil

pinch sea salt

8 to 12 kalamata olives (pitted)

a handful feta cheese (or to make vegan toss in cashew pieces)

red wine vinegar to taste

Take one large cucumber and slice it into spiral spaghetti strands. Toss with olive oil, sea salt, and red wine vinegar. Slice the kalamata olives length wise and add to the mixture. Sprinkle in feta cheese (or cashew pieces if making the vegan version). Toss again.

As featured in The Elephant Journal

We think our memory is a perfect recording of past occurrences. But like a game of telephone, our memory takes on new details and omits others that seem less prominent. And in time, our recollection of the event is very different from what happened that day.

And that is all it is a memory, not right, not wrong, it’s just our way of making sense of those events that happened in the past.

past the purple house

at dusk

when the coffee cup stain dried

but the lyrics still rang in our head

rushing like the hum

of a mountain stream

chilling cans of gin  

that lay in between the stones

we stepped across

to collect berries in the woods

that tasted like the mint

in pink confectionary rounds

or was it pink liquid to

soothe tummies filled

with too many fire roasted marshmallows?

those were summer nights

filled with chatter, laughs and stories

similar in time but unique in detail

and the forgotten rock

upon which he fell one of those

many nights when I was five

and we rode

to the state park

so long ago

and I am the only one