Cute things on Etsy!!

Christi has an Etsy Shop! She makes some of the most adorable bags and pouches and crayon rolls. Check her out - send some business her way - you won't be sorry!! You can buy what she has up on her site, but she also can do special orders!! AMAZING!

Stop. Go. Stop. Go?

Sometimes you just have to take a break, even from the very things you love most. And then you find yourself getting back together, stronger and happier and better than ever. Such was me and my beloved yoga practice the past few days. I had gotten to a point mid last-week when it was getting almost ridiculous, the number of hours a day I was spending in sadhana, in practice, trying and reaching for something I just couldn't quite grasp. Like a drug that had lost its potency, I just kept practicing and practicing. Trying harder practices, every level 2/3 vinyasa flow on YogaGlo, pushing those challenging postures and sequences, trying to be the coolest yoga girl around. And then doing long, deep Yin classes the very same day, and finally a guided meditation or relaxation...all to no avail whatsoever.

And then I poured my heart out to a dear friend, and she said, "Hilary, I dare you to take three days off of yoga."

Wow.

Sometimes you have to walk away from the very thing that gives you peace to remember how to find your peace at all.

__
In other news, this video gives me the fucking CHILLS. It just rocks. Thoughts?

Grow where you're planted.

Grow where you're planted. This phrase keeps running through my head, over and over again. Grow where you're planted, Hilary. Trust the universe. Trust yourself. Trust that you are exactly where you are supposed to be at this moment. I can't get the idea out of my mind, so I'm really focusing on growing where I'm planted right now, even if I may end up uprooting myself in a few months and planting myself somewhere else.

Over the past few weeks I've been slowly but surely moving into a new place, and I have to tell you, I'm falling madly in love with this quaint little house. It is beyond adorable and it seems to have about two million windows, so the amount of natural light that pours in is just so beautiful and uplifting. Oh, windows and sunlight, how I love thee!! It's been a long time since I've been able to really spread out and feel that sense of breathing room that comes with having my own space, and it's hard for me to put into words how absolutely amazing it feels.

I'm not even fully moved in yet, but of course I've been cooking up a storm as of late in my new kitchen. I'm having an absolute blast! So far I've made Lebanese tomato rice soup, roasted cauliflower with chamoula sauce, bacon-wrapped tilapia with a lemon-caper-white wine reduction, cheddar stuffed turkey burgers with basil-caper aioli and a wilted spinach salad with caramelized onions. Yum, yum, yum, yum. Every single one of these recipes is a KEEPER. And tomorrow I will wake up early to make challah, because no house is a home until I've befriended some yeast and transformed 5 lbs. of flour into my favorite kind of bread. =)

Finally February. Exhale.

I really hate to admit this, but I loathe the month of January. I hate the pressure of New Year's resolutions and the general feelings of deprivation based on self-hatred that always seem to accompany a resolution. The month of January feels so empty and cold, probably the way someone would feel inside if they actually attempted that ridiculous Special K diet of eating processed cereal for every meal (and no offense if you dig the Special K diet, but at the same time, really?!?) It isn't that I hate winter - I actually like winter a lot. I love December and February, and when I was a little kid I used to love playing in the snow more than anything. I was one of those children who lived in her imagination, dreaming up fantasy worlds and playing in them all of the time, having to be shocked back to reality by the adults in my life. I remember, distinctly, laying completely still in a huge snow drift in the yard of my childhood home in Cleveland Hts., Ohio when I was about six and thinking "I'm not cold! I'm not cold at all! I must be a snow angel. Yes! That's it! I bet I'm a princess from a magical snow world!" and being REALLY ANGRY when my mother made me come inside, and even trying to explain to her that no, I didn't need to warm up, because I was a snow princess, DUH.

So it's not the COLD of January that gets me. The cold of January always feels less about the temperature and more about something else. It's an emptiness, a hollowness, something dark and gray and awful that the cold temperatures make all the more unbearable and obvious to me. It's this painful ice-blue color that I'm not sure I've ever seen in real life. I'd be remiss to not also acknowledge that my mother passed away in January, 2004 after a 2 year battle with breast cancer. She died on January 25, so the whole month that year was living through the final stages of her illness. It was an awful, devastating month. I don't necessarily associate my negative feelings about January with her death, but at the same time I'm sure in some underlying way it makes it that much worse. Suffice to say - I tend to plod through the month of January focused solely on making it through. And, true to my nature, I always seem to FORGET that January has this effect on me and I spend a lot of the month wondering why I feel so completely awful most of the time. And, in fact, it isn't until I suddenly feel better on February 1 that I realize how bad I actually WAS feeling. Oy. Life is such a curious thing.

The good news is that I honestly feel myself come out of the January fog the MINUTE the month ends. It's so strange. I woke up this morning and felt better than I have in a long time. I'm excited and hopeful about a whole slew of things, and sometimes feeling excited and hopeful is the best part, right?

So, hello again blog-world. You will be hearing a lot more from me in the next few weeks, I'm quite sure.

And now for a bit of yoga, if you're interested:

Some unsolicited advice: take at least five minutes today to be ALONE and quiet, and do some pranayama (breath work) today to welcome the month of February. Here is my suggestion:

Find a comfortable, seated position, perhaps on the edge of a cushion, block or folded blanket to bring the hips higher than the knees. Soften everything in your body as you elongate and extend through your spine, imagining the space between each of your vertebrate expanding like a fluffy pillow. Feel your energy both grounding you down but also lifting you up: a bouyent torso on a firm, strong base.

Begin by noticing your breath exactly as it is in this moment. Do not change a thing. Meet your breath wherever it is. After a minute of observation (non-judgmental, compassionate observation if at all possible!!) begin to deepen your inhale, filling to the bottom of the belly, letting it puff out (all those years of sucking in can be a hard habit to break, I know!) and then watching as the breath continues to come in, filling and lifting the rib cage three dimensionally, finally coming all the way over the collar bones in the upper chest. Exhale and release starting from the top, then from the rib cage, finally squeezing all of the air out of the belly. Continue taking long, slow inhales and releasing controlled exhales through the nostrils, just watching the breath as it travels in and out, in and out. Do this for at least five minutes. Then, inhale deeply and hold the breath, hanging suspended for a count of 10 - noticing what it feels like to be completely full - and release with a big, audible SIGH. Do this a few more times - big, slow inhale, hold, exhale with an audible sigh, letting go of January, letting go of stress and anxiety, letting go of everything you think you need to do or accomplish. Letting go of everything in your life that is holding you back or not serving you. Just let go.

Now, close your eyes and notice how you feel for a minute or two. Notice the effect of the practice, the effect of breath and prana - life-force - as it swirls within.

End with a big OM and say hello to February. =)

PS - I'd love to hear your experience if you take five or ten minutes to do this!!

Let's EAT!

Sometimes blogging feels weirdly self-indulgent. But hey, there is really nothing wrong with a little bit of self-indulgence every now and then, right?

Whew. Now that THAT is out of the way, let's talk about one of my favorite indulgences in the world. FOOD. I love food. I love cooking, smelling, tasting, touching and EXPERIENCING food. Food is romantic, playful and exciting. It can have an air of comfort (like 40-clove garlic chicken, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes or a Waffle House breakfast at 2am) or be completely shocking (who knew oven roasted kale could rival potato chips?? And has anyone tried that Paula Dean recipe where she put tomatoes on ice cream??)

What I love most about where I am in this journey of life, as it relates to food, is that food is no longer my enemy. At some point over the past few years I finally figured out how to combine how much I LOVE to eat and experience food with how much I love feeling and being healthy. Maybe someday I'll have the balls to write about the dysfunctional relationship I've had with food in the past, but that will be another time. For now, just know that it's really wonderful to be able to truly ENJOY food without feeling guilt, shame, fear or (my least favorite) nothing at all.

Over the past few weeks I've made some ridiculously simple, healthy recipes that turned out to be over-the-top DELICIOUS. And they involve a few of my very favorite NUTRITIONAL POWERHOUSE foods - so not only are these crave-worthy dishes (trust me, you will start to CRAVE kale after you try this) but you actually SHOULD eat them, and on the regular!! Win!!

So without further ado, my verbose attempt at writing down the things I've been doing in the kitchen as of late.

Honey Tahini Sauce (with fresh fruit) (from Whole Living magazine)

My new favorite breakfast and/or afternoon snack and/or dessert and/or midnight snack
 
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce (tip: the 4 oz snack packs come in handy because you don't have to dirty a measuring cup AND you don't waste a whole jar of applesauce to use a half cup. Maybe I just don't eat applesauce enough, but I never get through a whole jar before it goes bad!)
1/4 cup tahini
1 tbsp honey
2 tbsp water

Blend the ingredients together until the sauce is smooth. Pour a few spoonfuls over fresh fruit - I think it goes EXCEPTIONALLY well with grapefruit, apples, pineapple and mango. Sprinkle with sea salt. You could also throw some raw nuts or coconut on top. This makes about four servings - which is ideal because after you have it for breakfast you'll crave it again for a snack. Keeps in the refrigerator a-okay, though I've never had a batch in there longer than 36 hours, give or take. ;)

Oven Baked Kale
I love this because you can either follow the directions to the letter and end up with kale that is half crunchy, half chewy and is side-dish worthy, or you can bake it for an extra 5 minutes and end up with kale chips. Either way is DELICIOUS. Use quality olive oil and quality sea salt, because you can REALLY taste both!

Big bunch o' kale (the original recipe I saw called for four cups, but I've never measured the kale. Hmm.)
1 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1-2 tsp sea salt

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Wash the kale, pull the leaves off the thick stems, tear into bite size pieces. Pat it dry with paper towels (it's one of those general rules of thumb if you're trying to bake or roast something so that it's crispy: if there is water involved, your food will steam first, making it mushy. The drier, the crispier.) Toss with the olive oil and put in the oven. Bake for five minutes, turn over, bake for seven more minutes. I think because I try to make a LOT of kale at once, this timing tends to result in chewy-crunchy goodness. If you use less kale it might be all-out kale chips at this point. With lots of kale on your cookie sheet, you have to bake it for about five more minutes for the kale chip experience. =) When it comes out of the oven, immediately sprinkle with sea salt. It cools down really quickly, so if you like it warm (and I do) you have to hurry up and start eating! (No problem!)

Roasted Garbanzo Beans (aka, healthy corn nuts!)
2 cans of garbanzo beans
about 2 tbsp of any seasoning combination your little heart desires (I've done 1 tbsp cajun seasoning + 1 tsp garlic powder + 1 tsp onion powder + a sprinkle of cayenne and been happy with it! But next time I'm working cumin into it. I love cumin.)
olive oil cooking spray (Confession: I usually loathe cooking spray. I like to use REAL olive oil or REAL butter, thankyouverymuch. But for some reason, the cooking spray really works in this recipe. I haven't even tried it with actual olive oil!)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Rinse the garbanzo beans and pat dry with paper towels. (Whenever I do this, the little skins of the beans roll off; I take them time to pick them out and throw them away. It probably doesn't matter, but they'd probably burn if they are off the bean anyway, so why not?) Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil and spray with cooking spray. Toss the beans in your spice mixture, pour onto the pan, spray the beans with cooking spray. So with these, like the kale, you can experiment with the cooking time and find out what texture you prefer. If you bake for 45 minutes (shaking the pan every 15 minutes) they turn out crispy on the outside with a little bit of give when you bite into them. If you bake them for another five to ten minutes (50-55 minutes) they are TOTALLY crunchtastic. It's your call. The crunchtastic method really does produce something almost exactly like those gas station corn nuts we used to eat on road-trips!

Pasta with Cauliflower Sauce
Last weekend I was watching Rachel Ray and she made a cauliflower sauce that looked so yummy! I decided to make it, but I made a few changes to her recipe - namely, I roasted the cauliflower before adding it to the sauce and I added lots and lots of sliced baby portobello mushrooms so it would have a richer flavor. Oh, and I threw in some roasted cherry tomatoes and fresh parsley for some contrasting flavor notes. I am really happy with how it turned out, but I bet if you added really high quality hard cheese as a garnish it would be superb. (I had none on hand. Tragic.)

1 large head of cauliflower, washed, cut into florets, dried well
1 package (about a cup) of cherry tomatoes
2-3 tbsp olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
5 to 8 cloves of garlic, chopped (so I have a garlic THING. If a recipe calls for two cloves, I always add six. At least.)
1 package (about two cups) sliced baby portobello mushrooms
1 cup chicken or vegetable stock or broth
salt, pepper, thyme, red pepper flakes
handful of fresh parsley, chopped
1 box of pasta - any type (Rachel said that cauliflower lends itself to whole wheat pasta; I used Barilla Plus, so I don't know if she's right or not.)
2 ladles of pasta water (reserve after cooking)

Toss the cauliflower in a tbsp of oilve oil and roast at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes, turning it over now and then so it browns evenly. Meanwhile, put the other tbsp of olive oil in a large pan over high heat. When it's nice a hot, add the garlic and cook for a few minutes, then add the onion and cook for about five minutes. When the onions are translucent and a little brown, add the mushrooms and a few tbsp of water and cook until they are soft and delicious.  By now your cauliflower is out of the oven; add it to the pan. Add the chicken broth and simmer, covered, on medium heat for about ten minutes. While all this is going on, boil your pasta, making sure to reserve a few ladles (cups) of pasta water after it is done. Also, wash and dry a box of cherry tomatoes and toss them in a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper and throw in the 400 degree oven for ten minutes, shaking the pan just once during that time. They can sit on the pan when they come out until you're ready for them. After your sauce base has simmered for about 10 minutes, grab a potato masher and get to work on your cauliflower - you can leave it just kind of mashed or mash it up really good - it depends on the kind of texture you're looking for in the sauce. (You could even blend about half of it up in the blender and add it back if you want a really saucy sauce. For me, a quick mash was good - I like the texture of the roasted cauliflower!) Add the pasta water and simmer for a few more minutes. Season with salt, pepper, red pepper flakes and thyme.

To serve, ladle a spoonful of the sauce (honestly, it's a little bit thicker than a sauce - but if you added more broth/stock you could make it saucier without losing flavor) over your pasta and top with a few roasted cherry tomatoes and a sprinkle of chopped fresh parsley. So good!

Mango Smoothie (from Whole Living magazine)
I practice a LOT of yoga (shocking, I know) and one thing that drives me crazy are foot cramps. I find if I make sure to eat a banana, some prunes, or drink some coconut water each day, I don't get foot cramps as often! Yay potassium! This smoothie is a fun way to up your fruit consumption and get your coconut water in for the day. And speaking of, coconut water is a great replacement for milk, juice or yogurt in any smoothie recipe. I lovvvvvvvvvvve it.

Put in the blender:
1 ripe mango
2 tbsp lime juice
1 cup coconut water
pinch of cayenne pepper
5-6 ice cubes

blend. enjoy. =)

A few other yummy things that hardly count as recipes but I'd like to recommend:

Plain Greek yogurt, topped with 1 tbsp flax seeds and 1 cup frozen raspberries, defrosted for about a minute so they are still cold, just not frozen. Yummy. Satisfying. Wonderful. (Yes, I know you're supposed to grind up your flax seeds for the most nutritional punch, but I just LOVE eating them whole - so crunchy!!)

Sesame Ezekiel bread, toasted, topped with cream cheese, smoked salmon, red onion and capers. I know the bagel is the traditional stage for cream cheese and smoked salmon, but I'll tell you what: the crunchy, nutty Ezekiel bread lends itself BEAUTIFULLY to the smooth cream cheese and smokey salmon.

Grapefruit sections and raw almonds, nestled in half an avocado. Sounds silly, tastes divine. 

Popcorn, popped in 2 tbsp of coconut oil. You don't need butter on-top and it pops up SO crispy... and I love the hint of coconut flavor the oil imparts!!

Lime La Croix with 1/2 cup cranberry juice cocktail, and 1/4 cup fresh pomegranate seeds, served in a wine glass, garnished with lime. It makes mid-afternoon feel fancy and fun.

Happy eating!!

Momentum

I've been feeling incredibly STUCK as of late - on a lot of different levels. I decided to take it to the mat and really challenge myself with some advanced classes on YogaGlo - it seemed like a good way to try and build heat and momentum and inspire forward movement OFF the mat. Guess what? I hurt myself. I'm pretty sure I strained my lower back trying to transition from Dancer's Pose to Warrior III. It could have also been my focus in my personal practice on back bends, teaching a back bending intensive class on Saturday, trying to do an advanced version of camel, or playing around with some arm balances (most likely all of the above culminating in the dancer-to-vira-ouchie) but it has officially slowed me down. Ouch, ouch, ouch. Unfortunately (and/or a pretty obvious INQUIRY) I do not deal well with injury. It makes me exceedingly ANGRY. I'm trying to BRFWA my way through it (breath, relax, feel, watch, allow for those of you who don't know) and maybe understand why physical injury always makes me feel really, REALLY mad. But I'm mostly just mad. And even more confused and paralyzed in terms of making some important decisions.

Is it a sign from the universe or a fluke? In my life off the mat do I need to slow down and not force change and transition or do I just need to GO, swallow my uncertainty and push through?

Om Mani Padme Hum.

Choices

You can spend your life being afraid or you can choose to live in hope - you can choose to put all of your cards on the table and live honestly, passionately and without apology. You can choose to see yourself - truly see the depths of your being - or you can plod along, only skimming the surface of your vast internal world, always too afraid of what you might find were you to plunge deeper, never realizing that there is nothing to be afraid of at all.

Every moment - every breath - is an opportunity for choice: to choose to fully live this one life - the darkness and the light, the happiness and the sorrow... or to not live at all.

I've realized that it's not about being happy. It's not about feeling good. Happiness is always fleeting, and feeling good can be nothing more than an illusion. But the joy of life is always present - and hope is the eternal constant.

I know exactly what I want to manifest for my life in the next year, and yet I'm aware - very aware - that nothing is guaranteed except for this moment. And, at least right now, right now, I'm at peace with that.