MOON Fruit: La Lune est Plein -- and we're pleased about being NUTS

This past month, I haven't been cooking much.  We've had a goal of offering you a much more robust website and it has been consuming my free time.   Somewhere between baking a coconut bread and trying (and loving!) a new creamer made from coconuts, I realized it was only two days before the full moon--the monthly cooking segment (with recipe due).  Instead of preparing for this lunar event, I'd spent weeks eating roasted chicken, veggies and coconut sugar cake (no sugar/no flour)...   Worse, I hadn't noted the ingredient proportions because I was just "cooking for Home" not for posting.   I felt a little "in crisis" about writing a blog with recipes of any kind when I myself couldn't remember cooking anything particularly interesting in weeks.  Then, it occured to me...

MOST people don't have time or desire to cook as much as I normally do in the first place.

I know this, of course, and spend most of my "for the public time" coming up with ways to teach how NOT to have to cook as much, but get more health and taste out of faster, simpler options.  So, if you follow this blog (or frequent the Facebook page), you can count on these options taking precedene over my more labour-of-love recipes.

On days when I’m home cooking lunch as an ordinary part of my day, I sometimes smile at a fond memory I have of a good friend and co-worker being happily surprised at this cooking habit of mine.  She already knew I loved to eat out, and have chosen places to live (including my current home) based on the proximity to good food.

My friend and I had made plans over a week beforehand when she first started working on a short-term project for my company—an online education outfit where I worked as Excecutive Director of Knowlege Projects.

By the time of our lunch date, however, my friend was a little embarrassed to admit that her budget didn’t allow for us to have lunch at one of the more common, pricey and ritzy restaurants along Restaurant Row in Fort Greene, Brooklyn—the neighborhood where she and I lived at the time.

Chicken Meal, by Suat Eman (I usually purchase roasted chicken, add a few more spices and bake another 15 minutes on my "no cook" days)

It took me a moment to process what she was saying. 

“Oh, no, I invited you to lunch,” I insisted.  “I’m only going to roast a couple of hens and serve with wild rice.”   

No sooner had the words left my mouth that I’d suddenly wanted to stealthly turn the oven knob to the "OFF" position, as I was worried once again, that I’d made yet another in a series of immigrant faux pas on correct, social graces.  

Luckily, before I had time to get really worried that my friend would notice the tell-tale scent of rosemary wafting into the living room (and rue her choice of "social misfit" as gal-pal), a most peculiar thing happened.   She leaned forward and embraced me.  She then offered to help me prepare  the salad.

Happily chopping lettuce, she launched into her rantings of joy:  “This reminds me of when I was in France!” she exclaimed.  “I miss it so much…, actually cooking a meal...and doing dishes in a tiny sink.”  

I was not nearly as excited about the doing dishes in a porcelain sink from the 1920s as she seemed to be.  When she later offered to actually wash the dishes as a thank you, I had only one choice:  say “yes” and eat my guilt in the form of another helping of sugar-free, crème brulee.

I still cook, but not nearly as much as I used to.It's not as easy to buy exotic ingredients on my way home like I used to in Brooklyn.   Or get inspired by a flashy, purple onion preening as it sits amongst its cousins at the corner fruit/vegetable grocer.    

Instead, I'm a bit ashamed to admit, I've had to rely on the kindness of strangers.  Namely those in the whole and natural foods movements, who make healthy prepared food.   And when I do cook now, I have the option of sealing and freezing my own foods using an ordinary, at-home sealing machine. 

Yet, with a few tricks, I also am able to make virtually every meal I buy healthier by the time I sit down to eat it.

So, this full moon, I’ll be offering those tips, and posting throughout the week.  Stay with me, as I've needed to be kinder to myself with the self-imposed schedules I've created.

We’ve been hard at work on one other very important thing--getting our full-featured website up and ready so that we can make so much more available to you—including easy-to-navigate shopping links for healing foods, spices and best cooking devices.  For those of you who have joined this venture early, I promise to reward you with some exclusive surprises when we preview that splashy site in a few months.

Till then, I’ll also have my Skinny Carib “Pantry Man” write about ingredients and actual pantry purchases that we suggest.  This will help you reform, begin and maintain a healing pantry, not just a well-stocked one.  By the time the recipes are posting fast and wild, you'll be happy you upgraded your pantry and took advantage of sales on stockable items.

As an FYI, (though I’m sure many of you realize this by now), it should be noted that the Skinny Carib® Pantry is a  blog spot written in part by me; my real Pantry Man ;-); Grace Asagra Stanley (Holistic Health Coach); and my helpers Anne Murray (Anna-Bettina) and Roxanne Janecki (Anna-tude).  We also anticipate the contributions of several other health-care, whole foods industry professionals (which could mean YOU, if you'd like to participate; e-mail MyPantry2012@live.com)
The pantry will supports the continue to support this Skinny Carib® Kitchen (and website) --- the Healthy Living, Loving and Laughing “daughter” of THE Caribbean Folklore Project™.   

As a person (that's me, Monique S. Simon) with an underlying autoimmune disease, I’ve been concerned about health for as far back as I can remember: I started yoga practice at the age of 8 or so, and later --- with the aid of my palette and the reaction of my body --- committed to natural foods, therapeutic herbs and “alternative” therapy since the time when this kind of lifestyle was for poor people who couldn’t afford good health care AND kooks: both states of being I know well --the latter of which I wear as a badge of honor.

Coconut on Tree, bright green variety, by tung photo

So, join me this lunar cycle, when I'll offer a LOT of health information, recipe picks and shopping links for coconuts J.   It’s the perfect place to begin…

In Wellness,
m.

by Suat Eman

Spring Cleaning for the Palette: Launch of the Skinny Carib Kitchen

White Wine Splash, by Paul

If you have watched the series of films Oceans 11, 12, and 13 you may have heard the elder cons debate with the handsome young cons about the difference between a Grand Opening and a Soft Opening.

Why not get out the ticker tape, balloons, bands and fan fare and just open, or in this case LAUNCH the "Skinny Carib" Kitchen? 

When have you ever started a diet or exercise plan that you started out "guns blazing", pumped and from start-to-finish-to-now actually succeeded in reaching your goals?   In that case, I raise my glass to you, and I cannot wait 'till you decide to become our guest blogger! 

For most of us, especially after the religious and secular Spring holidays, college and other school exams, the debauchery of Spring Breaks and in the United States--TAXES!!--we, uhm, need a moment..., to decompress.  We are walking around hung over from living life as the modern pace demands.



Flying Balloon During Sunset, by Teeratas



So, today, with the wisdom of compassion--for you and for myself, we start with a soft launch.   Think of it as saying grace in the moments before you partake in our course of meals, mellee [meh-lay = chatty gossip] and movement [my simple exercise philosophy].

www.amway.com/GoodCleanLife for products we recommend because they are eco-human friendly since 1959 and they give back to communities in need.  We also receive a large portion of our funding from the Peace Pair, LLC  indepedent distributor that you connect to through the link provided: www.amway.com/GoodCleanLife  

My first lesson is in Spring Cleaning.  Literally changing how you clean the kitchen itself (some of you are already doing a phenomenal job, here).   And, more like a Skinny Carib from way back in my Mamma Mary's Caribbean kitchen, adding your physical body to the kitchen line up and giving the body a good internal cleanse.

White Towel and Flower, by Sura Nualpradid



NO! NO!  Not that juicing fast thing.  I don't know a thing about it and wouldn't promote it here or elsewhere.  That sort of thing is for professionals and mystics.   I am not a doctor or herboligist in real life and I don't play one online.  

 

BUT, my Grandmother (Mamma Mary) knew what she was doing…

One Spring, when I was 11 years old, I became very ill--I now track it back to the beginning of the active stages of my disability.  My white blood cell count was extremely high, my hair was only healthy in patches, my neck became very swollen and one morning I woke up and I could not turn my head in any other direction than the one it was facing--to the left.  The toughest part for me is that I could not go to school.  Although it was not called "Home Schooling" my lessons were sent home to me and I could not participate in my beloved labs in Science class--unless you count the probings of doctors and random potions of well-meaning neighbors as my personal science lab.  At the end of that school semester, having turned the age of 12 in bed at home alone, I was sent Home from St. Thomas to Antigua to my grandmother... 

By the end of that summer, it was anybody's guess what sort of body would return--if one would return at all.  

I remember overhearing a woman talking to my mother: "Eh, Miss Ruth...how's 'de child? Mon-eeque?" 

And my mother saying simply: "That's Monique. Right there."  My mother pointed, directing the woman's attention to my self standing behind her skipping--up on the concrete divider and then down into the open yard.  I was too happy to be too upset that this woman, my mother's good friend and sewing client, had ignored me the whole time she was there talking to my mother in the yard at Kromprindsens Gade #65 in St. Thomas, USVI—as she had always been one of my adult fans who made me feel happy to be alive in my Carib skin.

Months earlier, my grandmother, after her observations and evaluations, had held my chin, angled it to meet her face, and looked directly into my eyes.  I smiled back.   SHE began with a cleansing...

And though there were herbs, teas & "bush baths", it was nothing like the sort of dramatic fasts that I recognize is an important part of some methods.

I know you, too will have your way to begin.   I do advise cleaning up the pantry and refrigerator if the items there contain certain additives.  And though this is not a Vegan or Vegetarian blog/philosophy, I do suggest more whole and organic foods.   It also helps to have a mind-set that is able to accept that not all changes should be done at once: there is a difference between running water over dishes to wash them and stacking them up in the middle of the tub and getting out the hose--a gentler path can be more precise.

I've found that I learn something when I can apply patience in the process.   It's usually the very thing I needed to learn so that it's impossible for me to repeat old habits.  AND it respects my schedule. 

So, on April 18^th, 2011, we begin here too with our version of a rocket launch, in honor of the pacing and quietness of a full moon --lighted, gentle, glowing, soft and yet remarkable set amongst the flicker of stars.  

photo by Sujin Jetkassetakorn

 

Welcome to the Dance of the Skinny Carib(R),

The Festive Launch of Healthy Living, Loving and Laughing--Caribbean Style!

m.
The Skinny Carib(R)

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