I meant to post this (well, these) yesterday, but I got distracted by cleaning out my closet. I know, sad. Right?
Anyway, it’s time I host a giveaway for MYSELF. I’ve been sitting on quite a few copies of the GreenLiteBites book and all they are doing is collecting dust in my closet. Not cool!
So I decided to give them away on ALL of my sites. That’s right.. all of them. By the way, I’ve decided I really am a nut ball with the blogs. I mean FIVE? Really? What is wrong with me?
The sad thing is I have ideas for more! Not that I’m acting on them, it’s just the way my brain works.
Anyway, If you didn’t know, I self-published a book called GreenLiteBites: Favorites From the First 3 Years. It’s a full color, photograph rich cookbook containing 80 pages of recipes and ideas for lighter, healthier meals from GreenLiteBites.com. Here’s a peak inside…
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Before we launch into the the grown-up portion of this post I must share with you a blooper.
Thirteen seconds which indicate how truly frickin tired this misfit it Ren Man (AKA my cameraman) & I laughed about for AGES.
ONWARD.
The video below began as my FTC disclaimer and, well, you can see what it turned into:
(extra points if you spotted my ‘error’/second indication of how this misfit needs her child to sleep! rest.)
Yes a purely & unadulterated ode of love.
At which point I decided it might be better to just turn the proverbial reigns to the woman about whom I yammer: Charlotte.
Please to enjoy:
Every health expert tells you to do it. It requires zero equipment. You don’t even have to be “fit” to try it. Practitioners swear it does everything from curing chronic pain to aiding in weight loss to nuclear disarmament (Ahmadinejad clearly is not a devotee.) And yet, when was the last time you meditated? Yeah, me neither. What is it about meditation that is so &%*$ hard?!? I think the problem is that it is too easy.
See, all of my previous Experiments (that’s what I do – try out a new fitness program every month!) have required real effort to do them. I had to go places, schedule classes, read books, get equipment, print workouts, e-mail (read: pester) various experts and talk things over ad nauseum with the Gym Buddies. Sometimes I even had to convert kilograms to pounds. You know a workout is serious business if it requires math. But with meditation it’s so simple – just sitting quietly and consciously for 15 minutes a day – that I push it aside to make room for the more complicated things.
Determined to make meditation work, at first I tried to remedy this problem by making meditation more complicated. I decided to read books and research papers about it, ask questions of Zen masters and explore different types of meditation. All of which I faithfully did… instead of meditating.
Obviously this wasn’t working. I decided to bring in the big guns. Sensei Don told me at the beginning of my Karate Experiment that meditation was a big part of Karate; that eventually you get so good at Karate you can meditate while killing people. Those may not have been his exact words but I’m sure that’s what he meant. So at my last lesson I asked him about how to meditate Karate style. Of course I asked this at the end of a long, sweaty class when it was late and everyone was tired, not to mention sitting on their heels which meant that our legs were also falling asleep.
“Well, it’s called Zazen meditation,” he politely started. “And it’s complicated, so I don’t really have time to go into tonight.”
Complicated? Requires explanation? Fancy name? I was thrilled! I raced home and fired up Google to check out this special form of meditation. Here is what I learned: “The aim of zazen is just sitting.”
Um, what?
Well if you want to be techinical about it, “The aim of zazen is just sitting and opening the hand of thought.” Okay then.
Anyone who knows me in real life knows one thing about me: I am very bad at sitting. Very very bad. For instance, I don’t watch TV or movies. I haven’t seen a television show or movie, other than the rare BBC or PBS documentary, in over two years. Most people assume that I avoid television because I am some kind of cultural ascetic. The truth is that I just can’t sit still through them. All I can think about while sitting in a movie theater is all the other things I could be doing and how contrived the plot is and I wonder if I could knit in the dark, I mean they say that Helen Keller could knit so it must be possible and I would love a new soft sweater and WHEN IS THIS SHOW GOING TO BE OVER ALREADY I HAVE TO LEARN HOW TO KNIT WITH MY EYES CLOSED! (Reading the above just made me realize I probably need meditation more than the average person.)
I was going to have to make this a priority. I would have to schedule it. At first it felt onerous. Why am I just sitting here? I could be… blogging about sitting here! But I did it anyhow. And then yesterday happened. I won’t go into all the details but it was a rotten awful day. Bad news from many fronts, obnoxious children (mine, of course) and frustration on every level. My normal coping technique when things go very badly is to go work out. But I had already used up all my gym hours in the morning and my husband wasn’t home and the weather was too cold to go outside. I couldn’t exercise. I felt the panic start rising – my stomach clenched, I felt nauseous and my heart raced.
I locked myself in my room (Mommy’s in time out! Go eat cookies or something!), said a quick prayer and then meditated. At first it was a real struggle. I actually cried with the effort of calming myself down – anyone who has had a panic attack knows exactly what I’m talking about. My thoughts were such a cacaphony that I tasted blood before I realized I’d just chewed a hole in my lip. But then all my practice started to kick in. Since I’m only at the beginning level of meditation, I focused on breathing deeply in and out while picturing a serene lake nearby where I grew up. I just sat there and breathed.
My effort was rewarded with an overwhelming sense of calm and peace. A couple of times I opened my eyes but the feelings threatened to overwhelm me again and so I returned to my zen state until at last I could open my eyes and continue to feel safe. And that’s really what it was – a deep, sure feeling of safety. My panic was gone, my calm restored and none of my children were beaten. I didn’t even need to eat half a bag of chocolate chips like I normally do when I’m feeling that frazzled! Success on every front!
I’m officially a convert. Meditation is a powerful tool. Hopefully I can remember this and stick with it. It’s not about being perfect at it or even knowing everything about it. It’s just about doing it.
Where do you fall on the meditation spectrum? Do it every day religiously? Can sit still as long as there is no trickling fountains nearby to make you have to pee? Hate it?? Got any tips for me?
Author of a dozen bestselling cookbooks and beloved columnist for The New York Times ("The Minimalist"), Chef Mark Bittman bookends his award-winning modern classic, How to Cook Everything, with How to Cook Everything: Vegetarian the ultimate one-stop resource for meatless meals. Refreshingly straightforward and filled with illustrated recipes, this is a book that puts vegetarian cuisine within the reach of every home cook. You'll want to spend countless days in the kitchen with Bittman's latest culinary treasure.
Recipe Excerpts from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian
â?¢ Spinach with Chiles â?¢ Chickpea Fries (Panelle) â?¢ Braised Tofu with Eggplant and Shiitakes â?¢ Amazon-Exclusive Crunchy Corn Guacamole
5 Questions for Mark Bittman
Q. What motivated you to write a comprehensive cookbook of vegetarian recipes right now?
A: What motivated me--several years ago--was seeing the handwriting on the wall: That although being a principled, all-or-nothing vegetarian was not a course of action that would ever likely inspire the majority of Americans, the days of all-meat-all-the-time (or, to be slightly less extreme, of a diet heavily dependent on meat) could not go on. Averaging a consumption of two pounds a week or more of meat (as Americans do) is not sustainable, either for the earth or our planet. And, as more and more of us realize this, I thought it was important to develop a cookbook along the lines of How to Cook Everything, but without meat, fish, or poultry. Needless to say, there’s plenty of material.
Q: In the course of writing How to Cook Everything Vegetarian did your approach to food shopping, cooking or dining change significantly?
A: Completely. The more I tried new ways of cooking with vegetables, whole grains, and legumes, the more I enjoyed them. I probably eat sixty or seventy percent fewer animal products than I did three years ago.
Q: Because meatless cooking isn't limited to a single cuisine, your recipes introduce the flavors and techniques of many different cultures and cuisines. How did you manage to cover so much ground? Seems like a daunting task.
A: It’s what I do.
Q: Out of the more than 2,000 recipes in the cookbook do you have a favorite dish or dessert that you turn to again and again?
A: No. There are hundreds I wish I could cook all the time, but one can only cook and eat so much. But in the last week, for example, I’ve made Fava Bean and Mint Salad with Asparagus; Lemon-Ricotta Pancakes; Cornbread Salad; and Red Lentils with Chaat Masala.
Q: Why is simplicity so important in cooking? What does the novice home cook need to know to cook and eat well?
A: Simplicity is only important because it’s the way to learn to cook; it’s very difficult to start cooking with complex dishes. For people to learn to cook, they must start simply--the way everyone used to cook. And, for most of us--including me--there’s no reason to carry things much further. Even the simplest cooking is rewarding, enjoyable, and--obviously--the healthiest and best way to eat.
Author of a dozen bestselling cookbooks and beloved columnist for The New York Times ("The Minimalist"), Chef Mark Bittman bookends his award-winning modern classic, How to Cook Everything, with How to Cook Everything: Vegetarian the ultimate one-stop resource for meatless meals. Refreshingly straightforward and filled with illustrated recipes, this is a book that puts vegetarian cuisine within the reach of every home cook. You'll want to spend countless days in the kitchen with Bittman's latest culinary treasure.
Recipe Excerpts from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian
â?¢ Spinach with Chiles â?¢ Chickpea Fries (Panelle) â?¢ Braised Tofu with Eggplant and Shiitakes â?¢ Amazon-Exclusive Crunchy Corn Guacamole
5 Questions for Mark Bittman
Q. What motivated you to write a comprehensive cookbook of vegetarian recipes right now?
A: What motivated me--several years ago--was seeing the handwriting on the wall: That although being a principled, all-or-nothing vegetarian was not a course of action that would ever likely inspire the majority of Americans, the days of all-meat-all-the-time (or, to be slightly less extreme, of a diet heavily dependent on meat) could not go on. Averaging a consumption of two pounds a week or more of meat (as Americans do) is not sustainable, either for the earth or our planet. And, as more and more of us realize this, I thought it was important to develop a cookbook along the lines of How to Cook Everything, but without meat, fish, or poultry. Needless to say, there’s plenty of material.
Q: In the course of writing How to Cook Everything Vegetarian did your approach to food shopping, cooking or dining change significantly?
A: Completely. The more I tried new ways of cooking with vegetables, whole grains, and legumes, the more I enjoyed them. I probably eat sixty or seventy percent fewer animal products than I did three years ago.
Q: Because meatless cooking isn't limited to a single cuisine, your recipes introduce the flavors and techniques of many different cultures and cuisines. How did you manage to cover so much ground? Seems like a daunting task.
A: It’s what I do.
Q: Out of the more than 2,000 recipes in the cookbook do you have a favorite dish or dessert that you turn to again and again?
A: No. There are hundreds I wish I could cook all the time, but one can only cook and eat so much. But in the last week, for example, I’ve made Fava Bean and Mint Salad with Asparagus; Lemon-Ricotta Pancakes; Cornbread Salad; and Red Lentils with Chaat Masala.
Q: Why is simplicity so important in cooking? What does the novice home cook need to know to cook and eat well?
A: Simplicity is only important because it’s the way to learn to cook; it’s very difficult to start cooking with complex dishes. For people to learn to cook, they must start simply--the way everyone used to cook. And, for most of us--including me--there’s no reason to carry things much further. Even the simplest cooking is rewarding, enjoyable, and--obviously--the healthiest and best way to eat.
Q. What motivated you to write a comprehensive cookbook of vegetarian recipes right now? 
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