Ujjayi

If you blindfolded me in a yoga studio just two months ago and told me to get my "Ujjayi" going, I'd probably attempt a straddle on the back and do some kegels.  (Something about the word makes me think of the urogenital system).

Now that I know better,  I will keep my legs closed and prepare for some deep, cleansing, calming pranayama.  

Consider how most harried urbanites breathe.  We take quick oxygen from the nostrils to barely the neck and shoulders.  It's expelled just as quickly.  Shallow and short, our daily breathing patterns are not beneficial for optimal health.

In contrast, Ujjayi, is a deep, murmuring breath gliding down the back of the throat, regulated by slow, even contractions of the diaphragm. 

Let's try this.  Pretend you're some creepy stalker.  Whisper to your captive: "Hallo Hahn." Make it creepier.  Draw out the "H" and whisper, "Hhhhhallo Hhhhhhahn."  (Like Hannibal Lecter has laryngitis in Hamburg while trying to intimidate FBI's German liason, Herr Hahn).

Lost?
Okay, watch me first:
Inhale (mouth open) with: "Hhhhhhhhhaaaahhhhh"
Exhale (mouth open) with: "Hhhhhhhhhhaaaahhhhh."
Your turn.

Next step.  Watch me first:
Inhale.  Mouth open, draw, "hhhhhhhaaaaaahhhh." Bring lips together before the exhale.
Exhale.  Mouth closed, whisper over the glottis.
Your turn.

If you find yourself frustrated on the simultaneous Exhale + Closed Mouth + Whisper, try to imitate someone who is in a deep sleep / pre-snore stage.

Now you're ready to Ujjayi like a true yogini.
Watch me keep the mouth closed all throughout.
Inhale (whisper).
Exhale (whisper).
Your turn.

They say the whisper sounds like the ocean.  I don't know.  To me it sounds like a Sleestak.  If you were born after the 80's, google Sleestak and Youtube.  Then tune into the shortest clip.  Listen carefully.

So why Ujjayi?  Well, for starters, Ujjayi is known as the "victorious breath" because it moves you from one asana to another.  Off the mat, it's said to be great for lowering the heart rate and blood pressure as it stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system.

I put my Ujjayi to the test at the airport security line.  This is one place that induces some anxiety and impatience for me.  I was more than willing to be my own guinea pig for this real-life trial.  Conclusion:  just focusing on my Ujjayi breathing put me in a mellow state.  And I moved with less struggle from one action to another until I was free to go to my gate. 

So the next time you're on a crowded supermarket line, at the DMV, or airport security, turn on your Ujjayi breath.  At the very least, the person behind you might find it odd and give you some space.

Namaste ~e

Kapalabhati

Rise and shine ~ with a shiny skull!  NY pharmacist sharing her love for yoga here at 4:30am pacific standard time. 

Doing my kapalabhati, I wonder why it's called shining skull.... 

Inhale through the nose for a full deep breath. 
Pumping out on the exhale through the nose for 50 fast, furious breaths from the lower belly. 
Short abdominal contractions to exhale out a gnat in one's nostrils. 
50 short ones for one minute. 

Of course the pharmacist in me had to understand the mechanism of action in which this pranayama causes skull brightening.  Turns out, it shines the skull because cranial sinuses are facilitated during the exercise.  These canals that run through the dura transport blood and the CSF (cerebrospinal fluid)
away from the brain. 

Daily toxins leave the nooks and crannies of our noggins.  Leaving us with whiter, brighter skulls.

Namaste

Seeing Forrest

6 months ago, I thought Forrest Yoga was a movement born from the hippy-dippy tree hugging culture, possibly involving a lot of tree poses.  I got turned onto this style thanks to my German-born instructor, Anke.  (I even thought it could have been a type of yoga started out in the Black Forrest).

Well, thanks to Google and Anke's amazing teaching, I finally took my interest one step further and explored it on the web.  Alright, it was named after the creatrix herself  - Ana Forrest.

I read her book - Fierce Medicine - and was completely blown away.  Being a pharmacist, anything with the word "medicine" holds my ADD-riddled "modern" mind.  Being a new yorker and of a certain temperament, the word "fierce" preceding "medicine" will definitely seal the deal.

What is Ana like?  My initial impression after barely a week with her is a mixed bag - and so it should be with dynamic personalities.  She is not boring.  Yet, she is not flighty or flaky.

There are times I find myself wondering how the heck I'm finding pleasure (pleasure was yesterday's morning lesson) waking up before dawn to take a yoga intensive from 6 to 9am every flipping day - weekends included.  And then she'll say something so off-kilter, I'll find my pleasure howling with laughter.

Let me illustrate her sense of humor.  There's an exercise in which students are identified and grouped according to numbers.  The instruction was something like this, "As we go around the room, say your number from one to three."

Well, the way the students were spouting off numbers was just horrible in tone, pitch, etc... I'm one of those ultra - sensitive types that can't stand horrible voices.  A man would be better off bald and fat than have a bad voice.

And what is really a turnoff is a yoga instructor who walks in and starts talking with flat affect in her own voice.  We have one at the gym who has such a lame voice,  I stopped going to her class.  "Is she happy to be here?" I 'd wonder.  "Maybe her true calling is to be a postal worker?.."  If I no longer attend a yoga class, it's mostly because I can't stand the voice.

So we trainees are spouting off "1, 2, 3..." etc.  The noises that were being uttered would make the lowings of a cow sound like Mozart.  Ana interrupts and starts to go into a well-served tirade about being responsible for our own voices - especially those of teachers.  (I remember slipping out of a professor's class during 7am Pharmacology.  I will buy the notes that will be sold after the class, I thought.  There is no way I want to hear her grating voice 7 in the morning).

Ana explains how she is weary of these low vibrations in our voices.  Her final word on the matter:  "Just stop putting that sh*t out into the world."  I died laughing.

Wellville ~ The Eternal Quest

This past month, I have been happily MIA doing a health retreat.  Health reform is very much in my blood, thanks to two generations of Seventh-Day Adventists in the family.

For the record, I do not subscribe to any particular denomination.  I am merely grateful for the guidance it proffered me during my more formative years; I will be the last person crooning Gimmee That Ol' Time Religion.

The SDA heritage comes with ties to the Battle Creek Sanitarium.  For most who are not in the know about the beginnings of Dr. Kellogg and the Sanitarium,  I would recommend watching a movie with Matthew Broderick called The Road to Welville.   I made a note to go to a theater to watch it when it came out in the 90's but never got around to it.  My reasoning, I guess, was along the lines of why watch it when I'd lived it?.. and would live it intermittently, all throughout my life.

Engaging in health retreats, is not so much out of obligation, tradition, etc., but more out of comfort and pleasure for me.  Pleasure is based on past experiences.  And one of my favorite recollections as a child was watching my grandmother put out her trays of wheatgrass by the bay window in our living room.  This was the early 80's.

When I became an adult, a health retreat became more enjoyable to me than luxury resorts, clubs, lounges, bars, and decadent food.  While other mother-daughter types bonded during facials and shopping sprees, mom and I bonded over colonics, rebounders, and dehydrated snacks that looked very much like Kibbles 'n Bits.

It's a bit odd for many to understand this predilection so I really have no one to take with me on these retreats.  Colonics are not featured on a vacation cruise.  A wheatgrass implant is not well-received in exclusive spas, but it's just my cup of tea.

These retreat centers are certainly not a place to meet men.  The guys you meet here will be sort of weird - kind of like the treatments and the food.  But the guests - men and women alike - are mostly single.  Here, it's a different sort of "Club Med."  It doesn't stand for "Club Méditerranée."   It's more like "Club Medical" to address all sorts of afflictions - physical, spiritual, emotional, real or imagined.

Socially, it was a mix of Calistoga, Esalen, and summer camp.  It would've been a bit Big Love too if this kahuna poseur could have kept up his game with all the little hens.  You could fool some people some of the time but you can't fool girls from the Big Apple... We can spot a worm by the way he wriggles with his words.

Of course these health retreats existed much earlier in human history - long before even the word "sanitarium" came to be.  The formidable La Paiva, herself, had gone to a wellness center before the adoring husband pickled her dead body in a glass jar.  Now that's undying love and devotion.

I am also certain Madame Pompadour entered health retreats and ate weird foods to compete with the ever changing new flocks of nubile young things in the court of Louis XV. 

Who am I competing with?  The younger version of myself, perhaps.  The girl that never thought she'd reach middle age.

Happy Valentine's  ~e

The Cheese Stands Alone

It came to mind that if it wasn't for the cheese, the farmer in the Dell could never have taken a wife.

See, the mouse takes the cheese, the cat takes the mouse, the dog takes the cat, the kid takes the dog, the nurse takes the kid, the wife takes the nurse, and the farmer takes the wife.  We see the evolution of a dairy farm here.  Yes, Heigh-ho, the dairy-o!, the cheese stands alone.  It is the end and the beginning.

As cheese is the Source, it is my deep interest and pleasure to make sure the curds come from the milk of well-treated cows.  That - and I simply love nibbling on a good piece of fromage.

"How do we really know these cows are happy?"  This was what I did on my spare time in San Diego.  Yes, you take a girl out of New York City and she drives people crazy in all other parts of the country.

I was asking the poor man at Jimbo's if raw dairy products from Happy Cows truly came from happy cows.  "Have you ever gone to the farm to see how happy they are?"

"And what is the gold standard on surveys for bovine happiness?  Do they say Moooo once for content and twice for very happy?"  The employee was good-natured and affirmed the dairy engaged in best practices.

A friend visiting from NY thought I was nuts for shopping at Jimbo's (forget even mentioning raw dairy back then).  The prices were a bit higher than at Vons, Trader Joe's, etc.

"Hey, if you're going to Bimbo's, would you please get me an avocado?" was one of the endless stabs at my favorite market in Del Mar.

The reason why I loved Jimbo's and Happy Cows during my Cali days was that they gave consumers the power of choice.  This is the beauty of California.  It's not so paternal in governing our way of eating.

But thank goodness, Hotel Cali-farmia doesn't hold a monopoly on lovely places and lovely faces.  Welcome to Vermont by way of Bardwell Farm.   And meet Kelly, Bardwell's remarkable cheesemonger.

Lovely and so gracious.  She will stop cutting the cheese, offer a sample to a curious stranger, and smile. This is the holy trinity of good foods:  passion, competence, and care.

So why do we want raw cheese?  The enzymes are intact - for digestion.  There are many people who are short on dairy enzymes, but many of us love cheese.   At this time of the year, we'd like to indulge a bit.  So, for the holidays, consider raw cheeses - consider Bardwell Farm.

What makes good cheese?  Good milk, of course.  Here are some qualities to consider in making good milk:

Certified Organic
No Antibiotics
Heritage
Rbst-free
Range-raised
Hormone-free
Pasture-raised
Family farmed

What makes a good cheese raw?  Raw milk, conscientiously collected - with the qualities listed above - is treated at 90 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit to create the curds.  These curds are then aged anywhere between 2 to 18 months at 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

Rupert, the raw Alpine is delicious.  I just can't get over it.  It's perfect for holiday events.  Just cut it up and offer with marcona almonds and dried fruit.  Then watch your guests get happy - just like the cows at Bardwell Farm.

The Post-90: Gluten-Free Bialys

I ran into a friend at the gym.  She was kicking a habit she no longer felt served her. "I'm at Day 56."


"Wait, didn't they say it was 21 days to lose a habit?  Now they've upped it to 56?!"  I'm always the last one to receive the memo.

"Actually, it's been increased to 90 days.  They say it takes 90 days for us to see something differently."

They say.  They say.  I guess one ought to really do than accept what they say sometimes.  So what did I do in terms of giving up things?  I'd given up TV over a year ago.  Or maybe it's been two.  Now,  I don't miss it.  My approach to passive viewing has changed.  I derive much more pleasure from TV because it's occasional, conscious, and more social.  I have to watch it at other people's homes.

And the same thing seems to apply to food.  I believe it's been over 90 days since I had a bialy or a bagel.  My long work commute had ended and there was no routine to go into Grand Central to grab one. 

And living in an area with no deli to roll out of bed to (if you're in the 60's between Mad and Fifth, you know what I mean), getting a morning bagel or bialy takes focus and planning.  I need to channel my morning focus for other things so bagel/bialy fell out of routine.

So how did I find myself approaching the bialy differently after 90 days?  I wanted to make a homemade bialy.  I upped the ante.  I wanted it homemade and gluten-free.

I don't have Celiac's but seeing a friend not be able to eat a baked good because it wasn't gluten-free made me realize this holiday baking would have to include GF items to my sleeve of tricks.  It just seems to be necessary to stay relevant in the kitchen.

An amazing find was Bob's Red Mill Xanthan Gum.  Plant-derived, it replaces gluten's job of giving a dough its elasticity and rise.  

Loving the onions in the middle of the bialy, I decided to raise the bar again and make it an onion/potato/leek bialy with mango chutney.  Hot out of the oven, I took a bite and I don't think I'll ever be the same again.  It was that good.  It was worth the 90 days of doing without.

The Post-90  Gluten-Free Bialy Recipe

You will need:

6 three-inch diameter tartlet pans  (can be found at Williams - Sonoma)

1 cup of Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free (wheat free, dairy free) All Purpose Baking Flour 

2 teaspoons of  Bob's Red Mill Xanthan Gum

1 teaspoon of Aluminum-free baking powder (can be had at Whole Foods)

1 cup of lukewarm water

2 tablespoons of olive oil (and a little more for greasing the tartlet pans)

1/2 an Idaho potato

1/2 cup of chopped leeks (some from the base and some from the top)

1/4 cup of chopped onions

2 cloves of garlic

olive oil - q.s. (quantity sufficient) to sauté the vegetables

Himalayan pink salt - q.s. to make it tasty but not salty

optional - a little mango chutney to dab on your bialy

Instructions:

1)  Chop up the potato, leeks, onions, and garlic.  If you have a mandolin slicer with a wide tooth, it's easier to run the potato through it as if you were making latkes.  I prefer to smash my garlic through a press.  But you can easily get by without these gadgets if you just stick to chopping finely.

2)  Sauté the vegetables with olive oil until the onions become translucent.

3)  Put the flour, the xanthan gum, the baking powder, lukewarm water, and 2 tablespoons of olive oil into a Vitamix.  Turn the dial slowly to 10 and keep it there until you feel resistance from the blades.  There should be a small, smooth ball if you look into your Vitamix.  If not, set the dial back to zero and swish around the lumpy things with the tamper and turn the dial back up.  The end result of Vitamix effort should look like this:

 

The dough feels a little gummy.  And that's okay.  It's supposed to feel gummy.

4)  Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

5)  Grease the tartlet pans with olive oil.

6)  Using a spatula, fill and spread the gummy paste of dough into the tartlet pans.  If the tartlet pans look like the outer paper mold of a large Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, fill and smooth the dough so that the top of the paste looks as even as the top of the chocolate cup confection.

7)  Add a little bit of the potato / leek mix in the middle of each "tart".

8)  Bake for 25 minutes.

9)  They will rise like popovers but once out of the oven, they will fall again.  Out of the oven and a bit cooled, they are ready to flip out of the pans.  Using a metal spatula or a knife, gently separate the bread from the edges of the tartlet pans.  Turn it upside down and have the bialy gently fall off.

10)  Dab a bit of mango chutney onto the center and you have an incredible bialy.  This is fabulous. 

And what was more fabulous was how easily I digested this bialy.  This is the bialy that'll love you back.

Happy Post-90! ~e

Life is a Tabaré

There are so many undiscovered food places in Brooklyn, I feel like Ferdinand Magellan when I'm in this borough.  The natives are friendly so I just hop on a train and ask one where I should eat.

"Go to Tabaré.  It's a Uruguayan place."

"What should I order?"

"The empanadas."

Really?  I wasn't too keen on this local's advice.  The last time I had an empanada, my stomach felt like there were sandbags inside.  From then on, I dismissed empanadas as gut-bombs.  Every culture seems to have one.

In Korean tradition, one would have super glutinous rice cakes piled high on festive occasions.  One piece of rice cake is probably equivalent to 10 compressed bowls of rice.  Unless your stomach is made of iron, you will suffer.  This is one tradition from my heritage I'm not sure I'd keep.  

In Lebanese culture, there is the fried lamb kibbe.  A friend's aunt who is Lebanese kept insisting I eat her lamb kibbe.  To be polite while trying to catch a flight, I slammed that kibbe and regretted it soon after.  On the plane, I thought about pulling out the oxygen mask.

And then there was my first empanada.  It was at a potluck years ago at work.  A colleague urged me to try it.  The pastry looked thick.  Not wanting to offend, I ate it and almost died.
 
I asked the local, "Can you recommend anything else?"

"No.  Get the empanadas."

Something in his tone was quite compelling.  So I went to Tabaré and ordered what I'd silently used to refer to as the Hot-Pockets of Death.  Empanadas caseras.  Caseras, que sera.  Let's hope for the best.

I took a bite and it was so divine, I was smitten.  I never even thought to take photos of them.    There are no empanada photos to share.  Nada.  So you will have to go there to see these light purses of gold nuggets for yourself.  Order the caramelized onions, gruyere, & fontina cheese empanada if you are somewhat vegetarian.  If you're an omnivore, make sure to have the free-range chicken empanada in the mix. 

Unbelievably light and airy.   I was lost in enjoying these empanadas.   I even want to learn how to make them!  And perhaps this will have me re-examine the whole rice cake / kibbe situation.  Maybe there are better ways to make them...

Anyway, I dipped these empanadas caseras into a chimichurri that blew all chimichurris out of the water.  Actually, all of Tabaré's dipping sauces and herbed oils were sensational.  I told Bruno (co-owner), if they bottled their condiments, I would stock up on the chimichurri.  He said I wasn't the only one who's told him this.

Here was something else that is a must-try.  The hostess brought over a complimentary dessert.  It was flan.  I like flan but the last time I had one was years ago - the one packaged in Goya.

Goya's is good.  But it's Tabaré's twist on the flan that will have you gasp, "Oh boy-a."  This was an incredible dessert.  I usually don't take dessert because I rarely like to end a fabulous meal with something sweet, especially if it's dry like pies, cakes, or cookies.  But I would have cried if I'd missed out on this one.  It was topped with bitter coffee or espresso.  So each bite was moist, just the right sweet, with bitter, and silky.  Heaven.

If I'm not mistaken, Tabaré was named in honor of Tabaré Aguerre.  An agronomist, he is Uruguay's Minister of Stockbreeding, Agriculture, and Fisheries. 

I am pretty sure he is the Tabaré who inspired the place from reading a bit of their philosophy on the menu.  The namesake restaurant supports sustainable fishing practices.  It acknowledges our responsibility in animal stewardship.  The restaurant also believes good food comes from strong relationships with their suppliers.  "We like to know where our food comes from - farmers, ranchers, artisans."

The ambience is just as perfect.  There is a very relaxed, cozy vibe.  Dimly lit with great music (perfect volume) from all parts of South America, it is really a cozy place to go alone or with a date.  I was utterly content to eat my empanadas with a glass of Malbec and listen to the music.

The hostess, Lorena, adds a great deal of personality to the place.  Her stunning beauty is matched with a very charming, gracious, and easygoing manner.  If reincarnation is possible in this world, I'd love to come back as a beautiful Latina from South America. 

Tabaré Co-owner Bruno (left) and Hostess Lorena (right)

Tabaré Restaurant

221 South 1st Street

Brooklyn, NY 11211

ph: 347.335.0187