5 Tips for Cruising Farmer’s Markets
May 3, 2012

One of the best things about spending last winter in Oakland, California, was the availability of fresh, locally grown produce. Coming from the frozen Iowa farmscape, this felt miraculous. There’s a farmer’s market for every day of the week and more—four in Oakland and four in Berkeley. Being a fresh-foodie, I decided to sample a different East Bay farmers market every week.

Sugar cane, lemongrass and winter squashes at the downtown Berkeley Farmer's Market

My husband, Tom, and I hit the downtown Berkeley market (Martin Luther King and Center) on a Saturday morning in January. It’s a great place for Asian produce. I saw something that looked like bamboo, but on questioning the Lao farmer, I found out it was sugar cane. I had seen sugar cane being juiced with a hand-cranked press on the streets of Mysore in the 1980s (and one hot afternoon completely forgot the first rule of travel in India: “don’t eat from the street.” The juice was cool and thirst-quenching, but a few hours later I was terribly sick—probably from bacteria). Anyway, not having a handy sugar cane press in California, I passed it up.

But by now I was friends with the Lao farmer, and she told me how to use the lemongrass. This brings me to

Tip #1: Talk to the farmers. Ask them where their farm is, how the foodis grown (sometimes they are not certified organic but are in essence organic), and how to cook the food you’re buying. 

Broccoli Romanesco

I bought winter squash and fresh lemongrass, which my Lao farmer friend instructed me to cut up and add to veggies while they steam. I found more detailed directions on how to prepare fresh lemongrass  at About.com. I also learned to make Thai Tofu Noodle Soup using the lemongrass, bok choy and Asian greens that I bought at the market.

And I met a new veggie friend—Broccoli Romanesco, which is the flower of a type of veggie that’s green like broccoli, has an amazing sculpted shape like an artichoke, and tastes like cauliflower when cooked. Which brings me to

Tip #2: Try to bring home one new ingredient from every farmer’s market, one you haven’t seen before. It can open up a new world. 

Rainbow carrots—-sweet as candy

On subsequent weekends we explored the Tuesday afternoon Berkeley market (Derby Street and MLK Drive), which had the sweetest walnuts I’ve ever tasted. At this market you not only bring your big bags to haul off the produce, but you’ll need your own smaller bags for loose items like lettuce or snow peas. Otherwise, you can use the free paper bags (which makes it necessary to rebag your produce for the fridge when you get home) or pay .25 for a bag made from recycled ingredients. Which brings me to

Tip #3:  Bring your own bags (big ones and lots of small ones too). This is a great way to use those smaller plastic bags you’re always trying to recycle. 

We did the Grandlake Farmer’s Market in Oakland the following Saturday (Grand Ave. and Lake Park Ave.), festive and fun with great music, kids and babies sprawled on the lawn. This is one of the great things about Farmer’s Markets—they make shopping for food a relaxing social event instead of a chore.

My sister Cathy and poppies at the Temescal Farmer's Market in Oakland

By the next Saturday my sister, Cathy, and her daughter Liana, who live in the Bay area, joined us. Liana found some tangelos that she adored, Cathy and I bought the 3-bunches  of poppies for $5. Which brings me to:

Tip # 4: Share your finds with your friends and family and they’ll soon be hooked on Farmer’s Markets too. And the more we support local farmers, the more they’ll flourish and grow more healthy and tasty things for us to eat.

 

 

That's me with a bag of fresh veggies and fruits

At this point Tom and I hit the Sunday morning Oakland Montclair Farmer’s Market (which, funnily enough, was only a half-mile from our apartment), and fell in love. It was the right size, the right day, the right mix of growers, and Cathy and her family loved it too.  We got into the habit of meeting them there. Cathy and I would cruise the market first, and then go back for the best buys. So that’s my last piece of advice:

Tip #5: Cruise the entire market first, then go back for the best prices and the best-looking produce.

 

After the market, my favorite thing is to cook a meal right away using the produce I just bought. At some markets (like the Tuesday Berkeley market), you can get much more than fresh produce—we bought dried cannellini beans, dried cranberry beans, fresh pasta, freshly ground flour and olive oil—just about everything you need for a fabulous meal.

 

 

And that’s my husband’s favorite part of shopping at farmer’s markets.

 

 

 

Raising Healthy Children
April 17, 2012

Super Healthy Kids: A Parent's Guide to Maharishi Ayurveda by Kumuda Reddy, M.D., and Linda Egenes

Here is my friend Jane Dean’s book review of  SUPER HEALTHY KIDS: A PARENT’S GUIDE TO MAHARISHI AYURVEDA. Jane  is a writer and former radio host who is the executive assistant to the Director of Maharishi  School of the Age of Enlightenment and mother of two. In the past three years she has traveled to 17 different countries to promote Consciousness Based Education.

Personally, I loved this book.  Everything I learned about Maharishi Ayurveda over 20 years is comprehensively explained in Super Healthy Kids.  I advise you to read it through once and then take another stroll through each chapter (with a marker and some post-it notes). Dr. Reddy and Linda Egenes make a good argument that Maharishi Ayurveda is an effective, sensible and cost effective approach to taking care of children.   It is simple to read for the newcomer to Maharishi Ayurveda.  It is also great for parents who need a reference guide on Ayurveda. Super Healthy Kids is packed with patient’s stories, simple charts and scientific research.  Among its advantages the book has great recipes and a charming bedtime story.

Throughout the book Dr. Reddy tells the stories of her patients, all children, who have benefited from Maharishi Ayurveda mostly with a simple change of diet or a change in daily routine.  The book is, in fact, a text on a complex ancient health care system so it is not light reading.  Dr. Reddy describes how the doshas (the three dominant trends in the human body) emerge from the five elements.  She then elaborates on why each child is a unique individual with a unique health profile.  Dr. Reddy gives a detailed overview of the biology and sequence of digestion and assimilation.  This fascinating but exhaustive detail helps the parent understand the vital role good digestion plays in creating the building blocks that create healthy blood, healthy fat, healthy muscles and healthy bone tissues in a growing child.

Dr. Reddy and I relax together during her visit to Fairfield in June 2011

There are four complete chapters dedicated to the ideal daily routine of a child.  They include bedtime routines, wake-up routines and exercise.  Reddy goes a bit further and explains that a cohesive and peaceful family environment is fundamental.  She backs up her arguments against TV and video games with scientific research on the brain and recommends cultivating a softer, richly stimulating family environment.

Reddy and Egenes give a fresh perspective on the prevention of sickness. They show us how Maharishi Ayurveda health and life style habits create health in childhood and beyond.

Local and Sustainable in Traverse City
October 10, 2010

I love it when you happen into a sustainability pocket while you’re traveling. Last summer my husband Tom and I were vacationing in Traverse City, Michigan, with our niece Carina. Here’s what I wrote in my journal about the trip.

July 21, 2010

We’ve swapped houses for the week with our friends Joe and Victoria, and feel like we’ve landed in heaven at their beautiful lake home.

My husband Tom and our niece Carina enjoy the outdoor ambiance of Wellington Street Market

They’ve left a flyer on the table for the Wellington Street Market, so we check it out. It’s at the eastern edge of the historic and charming Front Street area in Traverse City, just a block away from Lake Michigan. We know we are going to love this place when we pull up to a white clapboard house with a porch and two picnic tables under umbrellas in front. (Especially since we’ve just spent half an hour trying to track down a Thai restaurant, only to find ourselves in soul-less suburbia.) As Carina so aptly says, “You can eat in a strip mall any day, but when was the last time you had a chance to eat at the Wellington Street Market?”

It was when I am trying to figure out the vegetable portion of the meal to go with my Kurry Guru that I discover the true nature of this restaurant.

“We can’t serve Mattar Panir (peas and fresh cheese) yet because we’re just starting to get the local peas in,” the woman behind the counter says.

Jennifer Blakeslee, co-owner and chef at the Wellington Street Market

It turns out that the woman behind the counter is none other than Jennifer Blakeslee, the co-owner and chef, with Eric Patterson, of two sustainable and local food restaurants—this casual Wellington Street Market and the elegant Cook’s House a block away by the river. The two are also local celebrities, with their own cookbook (The Cook’s House) and liaisons with celebrity chef Mario Batali, the guy who wears the orange clogs and traveled with Gwyneth Paltrow through culinary Spain for their book, Spain: A Culinary Road Trip.

“Have you been to India?” Tom asks Jennifer, noting the abundance of Indian entrees on the menu. It turns out she’s been to some of the same places we’ve visited there, and she tells us about her amazing six-week trip, when she was the guest of Indian friends and was feted with three-hour feasts wherever she went.

“When they heard I was a chef they so generously laid out the food,” she says. “My biggest problem was getting into the kitchen, which is where I wanted to be. My gracious hosts considered it an insult, since I was their honored guest, but after a few days I made my way in.”

So at Jennifer’s recommendation, we order the spicy aloo gobi (cauliflower and peas) curry, along with the root vegetable salad, which consists of fresh local greens topped with roasted sweet potatoes and beets, dollops of goat cheese and a light olive oil and herb dressing.  We eat under the picnic table with the umbrella and are divinely happy.

Jennifer also clues us into a Food for Thought festival of local and organic food vendors that we can attend, and it turns out Mariam, the helper behind the counter who serves our food, is friends with people we know from our hometown of Fairfield, Iowa.

I love making connections like this.

Mariam tells us about Oryana, a natural food market, and after a swim in Lake Michigan at a small, unpopulated beach that Jennifer directs us to via a quaint foot bridge that goes over the river and under the highway, we stock up on a few items there, including local yellow zucchini, local basil  and local peas.

Back home Carina blends up a light, delicate pasta sauce of basil, blanched almond, sea salt and two cloves of garlic. It’s awesome on the pasta with crisp green Cerignola olives and sheep-milk feta, and when paired with the bright colors of yellow zucchini and green peas, we have a locally grown feast of our own.

Next food mission of our trip: pick local fruit and eat it. That shouldn’t be hard, being northern Michigan, the home of the best-tasting strawberries, cherries, blueberries and raspberries in the world. The cherry season just ended, so we’re banking on raspberries.

Three Keys to Stopping Childhood Obesity
September 28, 2010

During the past twenty years, the average American diet has become substantially higher in saturated fats and trans-fats, and deficient in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Meals, snacks, and fast foods consumed by children reflect this trend. For instance, a typical serving of french fries contains more than 13.2 percent hydrogenated oil, and a serving of potato chips contains 39 percent partially hydrogenated fat. Government school lunches have been found to contain more than one- third of their calories in fat, and it’s usually the unhealthy type of fat.

These unhealthy fats are taking a toll on the health of American children. Forty percent of five- to eight-year-olds show at least one heart disease risk factor, such as elevated cholesterol, hypertension, or obesity. In the past, arteriosclerosis rarely appeared until after age thirty. Now it is showing up in some children as young as age five.

Key 1. Avoid Trans Fats

Unhealthy fats such as trans-fats, contained in almost all packaged foods, have been shown to increase cholesterol, decrease the good (HDL) cholesterol, clog the liver’s waste-removal system, and block the assimilation of essential fatty acids. In many foods, trans-fatty acids make up 60 percent of the food, yet they contain less than 5 percent essential fatty acids. Trans-fats are made from hydrogenating (adding a hydrogen molecule) to vegetable oil to make it solid. This process of hydrogenation changes the molecular structure of the fat, making it literally indigestible by the human body. Hydrogenated fats in packaged foods may be a major contributor to the high cholesterol levels found in American children today. These fats also create toxins (ama) in the body, since they do not fit the body’s molecular framework and cannot be digested. They disrupt the natural balance of body, because they do not fit the specific requirements of the digestive system.

Hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated vegetable oils are found in almost all packaged goods available at your grocery store, including shortening, margarine, baked goods, candies, chocolate, crackers, chips, cookies, soup mixes, and breads. It’s also contained in deep-fried foods, convenience foods, and fast foods such as french fries.

Just because a package is labeled “low in fat” doesn’t mean that’s so. Many foods labeled “low in cholesterol” contain hydrogenated vegetable oils, and thus are actually high in cholesterol and indigestible to humans. Avoid buying these foods. If you must buy packaged breads or other foods, try your local health food store. Many of the foods sold there will contain fats that are not hydrogenated. Be sure to check the labels.

Key 2: Avoid Oxidized Fats

Other types of fats to avoid are oxidized fats. Aged, processed foods contain oxidized cholesterol, oils, and fats, which means that air has been pushed into them during their processing. These foods include meats, sausages, aged cheeses, fried convenience foods, and stored foods. Especially because they are lacking in the antioxidant minerals and vitamins that fresh foods contain, these are the foods that build up fatty wastes in the arteries and create damage. Also, if you serve your child fresh, whole foods you will avoid serving him oxidized fats altogether. Saturated fats, found in large proportions (up to 60 percent) in animal meats, are associated with heart disease, arteriosclerosis, and other health problems later in life. With a vegetarian diet, these harmful fats can be avoided.

Key 3. Feed Your Child Healthy Fats

Some parents are confused about fats, thinking that they should limit fats even in very young children in order to keep their cholesterol down. This can be very damaging to the child, and can even cause “wasting disease.” The brain itself is over half fat by weight. At birth a newborn’s brain contains only 30 percent of the billions of brain cells that it will need as an adult. Your child’s brain acquires 95 percent of its brain cells by age eighteen months—a phenomenal rate of growth.

In contrast, adults need less than 30 percent of their diet to contain fat. Thus infants and children under three years of age need high-fat diets
to grow properly, and this is best provided through mother’s milk, cow’s milk, and ghee.

Besides feeding your child’s growing brain, fat is essential for building the bones and muscles. Fats help membrane development, cell for- mation, and cell differentiation. Fat protects against mutations in the cells and contains antioxidants.
But it’s essential to choose healthy fats that do not raise LDL cholesterol or create other imbalances in the body. As we mentioned above, Maharishi Ayurveda recommends ghee as the most healthy and wholesome cooking oil and as a spread to replace butter. Healthy sources of fats to include in your child’s diet (in moderation) include olive oil, ghee, avocado, nuts and seeds and green leafy vegetables.

Remember that when it comes to children, they will be more influenced by what you do than what you say. If you eat foods that are wholesome and fresh, your child will be much more likely to eat a healthy diet, too.

First in a series, excerpted from the newly released book Super Healthy Kids: A Parent’s Guide to Maharishi Ayurveda by Kumuda Reddy, M.D. and Linda Egenes, Maharishi University of Management Press, 2010, available at www.mumpress.com.

Goin’ to the Country
July 9, 2010

Me celebrating the 4th with new friends Pakshi Raj and Vaj

Last weekend my husband and I were invited to a 4th of July celebration at the home of Claudia Petrick, my editor at the Iowa Source. Tom and I drove a mile or two north of Fairfield, turned onto a country road, and entered another world. Claudia lives on a five-acre spread with organic gardens, a pear and cherry orchard, and horses.

These guys are living in horse heaven

Soon after arriving, I follow my friend Cynthia Arenander to the cob house barn where her impressive dressage steed, Pakshi Raj, boards with Claudia’s handsome Arabian, Vajrashrava (“Vaj” for short, meaning “thunderbolt” in English and “diamond” in Sanskrit, a perfect name since he has a white diamond on his forehead). At first I’m intimidated by Pakshi Raj’s immense size and mythical horse energy, but when Cynthia places a flower on his head I can connect to his playful side. I feel even less intimidated when Cynthia tells me that her husband Alarik plans to film Pakshi in a Mr.-Ed type video for their line of organic anti-aging products.

Cynthia has a mythical force of her own–she was given this spectacular steed when a horse whisperer told its owner that he would prefer to live with Cynthia. “I’ve been around horses all my life,” she says as she slips on the horses’ bridles and leads them to the front yard where they graze in idyllic beauty next to Claudia’s lily and bee balm garden.

Cynthia, Claudia and I relax on Claudia's deck while the horses graze behind us

It’s soothing to spend an evening in the country, and my mind and body relax in a way they can’t even in the low-stress environment of our home on the Maharishi University of Management campus. I wonder again whether we shouldn’t move to the country, despite the fact that my husband doesn’t like to garden or mow or work in the yard. I grew up on a tall oak forest about 5 miles from Naperville, IL, and found solace in nature—but also some loneliness from living so far from friends. Not to mention the work that goes into keeping up a country home. I know my own limitations, and I’m completely in awe of what Claudia has created. The question on everyone’s lips all evening is “how does she do it?”

Back inside there’s a vegetarian feast for the eyes and palate waiting, mostly prepared by Claudia: wild rice salad, mung bean cakes with a tangy tahini-lime juice-tamari-turmeric sauce, a golden quinoa salad, steamed beets, tomatoes with pesto. For recipes, Claudia says, “The wild rice salad comes from Miriam Hospodar’s Heaven’s Banquet, slightly altered. The rest is sort of made up. For the sauce, I started with tahini, and then added the other ingredients and a little water ’till it tasted right.”

Others have contributed: Dolly Donhauser with a creamy potato salad from Martha Stewart, the Arenanders with a green salad from their garden, Maggie Squires with crispy sweet-and-salty middle eastern crackers.

Claudia brings in the boys

After the meal, which ends in a sumptuous homemade fruit shortcake, we trail outside to put the horses to bed. “We treat our horses better than we treat ourselves,” says Claudia with a laugh. They get vitamins, organic food, loving attention, regular brushings.

Shepley, Pakshi Raj, and Maggie make friends

Fireflies spark the sky as Claudia and Cynthia take turns showing their horses canter around them in a circle. When the horses leap we “oooo and ahhh” in unison as if the horses were fireworks.

In the deepening twighlight we stand at the end of Claudia’s driveway and gaze at the fireworks display over nearby Cypress Villages, an up-and-coming eco-development of Vedic architecture homes that are LEED-certified. Beside it the Jefferson County fairgrounds fireworks also light the sky—and soon we spot the golf course display south of town, and in the far distance Mt. Pleasant’s. What better way to celebrate the 4th—with light in all directions.

Cooking with a Solar Oven
February 22, 2010

Probably I’m way behind the eight-ball here, but I’d never really thought much about solar ovens before I visited my sister Cathy and her family in northern California last Labor Day weekend. Cathy took me to a dinner party at the home of Alice Friedemann and her husband, Jeffery Kahn, the webmaster at UC Berkeley. Alice is a freelance journalist specializing in energy and peak oil issues. She is also developing a cookbook on whole-grain cooking, and has experimented with using a manual grain grinder and solar ovens to make truly sustainable and awesome breads.

In this video she talks about using a solar oven. Alice bought hers but recommends building your own.

Alice says she’s still trying to figure out solar cooking. She thinks the plastic on her oven needs replacing and that may be creating less than stellar (solar?) results. But she feels it’s worth the effort because solar cooking is going to become more and more important in the future.

IMG_5141
Besides learning about solar ovens that evening, we were treated to a sumptuous dinner featuring Alice’s homemade whole-grain flatbread along with beets, basil and Early Girl tomatoes from Jeffery’s amazing garden.

I was totally in awe of Alice and Jeffery’s gardening skills. First of all, the way things grow in sunny California, something like rosemary, found in Iowa as a small plant, grows as big as a tree. But it was more than the climate, it was super smart brains at work.

Check out this rather perfect apple tree that grows in Alice and Jeffery’s back yard. A neighbor grafted it with four different strains, so you stroll around the tree and find four types of apples, including Pink Lady and Misui.

According to Alice, most nurseries these days sell apple trees with more than one strain of apples grafted into them, but still, you seldom see such perfect looking trees in someone’s yard.

Says Alice, the trick to getting a lot of apples is to rigorously cut back the tree before spring (in California sometime in January or February) but not snipping off the buds that will produce apples. Later, you’ll get clusters of more than two, and you need to get rid of all but one or you’ll have very small apples and many will fall off in addition if you don’t, wasting the tree’s energy.

After dinner we peer through the telescope from Alice and Jeffery’s second-story balcony, and catch a rare glimpse of the Bay Bridge without any cars (closed for major repairs over Labor Day).

Now I feel inspired to make my own solar oven, but will have to wait until spring as the sun is at too much of an angle now. Will let you know how that goes.

For free directions to make your own solar cooker go to

http://www.solarcooking.org/plans/

Additional links on Alice Friedemann

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/2401

http://www.energyskeptic.com/

Stay Well this Flu Season
November 3, 2009

A friend of mine has been down with the swine flu for eight days. This is a person who never gets sick, and it’s hard to see her suffer. I have two elderly parents that I am caretaking, so I didn’t go over to visit her when she was sick. Even though I feel pretty strong right now, I don’t want to tempt fate.

One good thing about writing in the health field as that you tend to find yourself doing the healthy things you write about. In ayurvedic medicine, the traditional health care system of India, which I write about a lot, good digestion is considered the foundation for strong immunity. And immunity is considered to be the weakest in the fall, when the sun’s strength is waning. So I’ve been eating light, easy-to-digest foods this autumn, to keep my digestion and immunity strong.

Here are a few ayurvedic tips for preventing colds and flu, excerpted from some articles I wrote for the Iowa Source and other publications.

1. Eat smaller quantities of food. By eating less, the digestive fire becomes stronger. This helps digest impurities and strengthen immunity. Even doing this for a few days in fall can help give your digestion a rest and increase its strength.
2. Eat lighter food. This means less cold or heavy food. During autumn the digestion is weaker, so eat less meat and cheese. Avoid leftovers and processed food. Eat fresh, organic vegetables and grains that are freshly cooked and served warm.
3. Get extra rest. As the days grow shorter and darkness falls sooner, it’s important to be attuned to nature and go to bed earlier during fall. For best quality sleep, it’s ideal to go to be in bed before 10 p.m. and rise early.
4. Exercise every day. Exercise keeps your digestion and elimination running smoothly, and helps purify toxins and create overall well-being.
5. Eat your meals at the same time every day. Plan to eat your meals at the same time every day. When your meals are on a regular schedule, your digestion runs more smoothly and efficiently, creating less undigested food and toxins.
6. Eat your main meal at noon. This is when the digestive fire is at its peak and can handle larger quantities of food. Make breakfast and supper lighter meals.