mermaidcamp
Keeping current in wellness, in and out of the water
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Ray Villafane, Pumpkin Professional
October 17, 2014
— 5 Comments
Professional pumpkin carving has reached a high level of skill and art. I admire food art of all kinds, and am used to seeing intricate melons and fruits carved by Asians into extremely detailed shapes. Now we can boast of our own home grown American food carver who creates extreme masterpiece pumpkin carvings. While others are hoisting and throwing them Ray is turning the autumn symbols into amazing sculptures. Like a sand mandala, a pumpkin sculpture is born to die. The ephemeral nature of the craft makes it all the more special. Ray shares his technique with kids in school in hopes of nurturing the next pumpkin Da Vinci. If you have considered carving a jack o lantern this year, why not attempt a bust of your mail carrier, or of your child’s teacher? Good luck! Happy Halloween, Gentle Readers.
Hedonism Unplugged
October 15, 2014
— 7 Comments
Cheers!
I am a hedonist. This archetype is a prominent part of my persona. I don’t mind being considered to be a Sybarite. I think I might inspire some people to experiment with allowing a little bit more pleasure into life when they see it does not seem to do me any harm. Art, taste, harmony of elements are all of great importance to me. Often it is much better for me to go to a museum alone because I normally want to stay at least twice as long as most others. I also adore very long, lingering dining experiences that are memorable because of the good company and good cheer. My good friend and fellow hedonist Eric Ellenberg and I once went to the restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center for lunch (long before 9-11). The food and the view were grand. We stayed for hours and I remember it vividly. I have always been happy we went because now we could not if we tried. Most full on pleasurable experiences can’t be repeated. The synchronicity of the moment and all its glory comprise the ecstasy we feel, but that does not mean we should not plan and create pleasurable times. Authenticity is the main ingredient of truly memorable fun times. Holiday excess and obligation often conflict with inner peace and joy. Here are some ways to be festive without breaking the bank or cramming the schedule full of stressful events:
- Decide to spend less money and more thought on gifting
- Decorate meaningfully, perhaps by editing more than adding
- Use synesthesia for parties, combining sensory elements
- Create individual festivities for those you want to recognize and honor
- Stay within a comfortable budget for both calories and money
- Schedule time to meditate and restore peace and quiet
- Consolidate “shopping” to save time
This season many Americans go into deeper debt. From now until next year we will be bombarded with advertising designed to drive the economy. This year you can avoid buyer’s remorse and debt by lighting your own way through the cold winter’s night. Be particular instead of excessive. Use discernment to create gifts and experiences that show how much you appreciate individual taste. I wish all the Gentle Readers good health and financial freedom this winter. Stay solvent, my friends. It is much more festive in the long run.
Fall Food Fiesta, Pecans
September 30, 2014
— 2 Comments
Pecans grow abundantly in Arizona, with large commercial groves to be found both north and south of the city of Tucson. Green Valley Pecan Company is the largest pecan farm in the world. I love the organic pecans from our neighbors just 20 minutes south of Tucson. They sponsor the Sahuarita Pecan Festival to celebrate the harvest and get festive with the local population. This year the festival will take place Nov. 8, 2014 from 9 am to 5 pm at the farm. Parking is free until 8:30 am, and $5 per car after that time. I adore food festivals. I am a bigger fan of nuts than I am of wine, so this local festival is particularly appealing to me. I am not waiting to start eating my organic Green Valley pecans. I have already polished off half of the first bag I purchased eating them straight up. That is honestly my favorite way to have them. I do cook with them, and when I was in Austin this summer I heard about a pecan syrup being used in bourbon cocktails that intrigued me. My friend made a wonderful concoction of bitters by using a whole pecan in the shell as one of the local ingredients she was testing. The flavor of the nut came out nicely in the final product, the shell lending some bitter notes. My mother used to shell loads of pecans each year and give them to me as a holiday gift. It was the best thing she gave me, and she kept doing it until she was very old. She would spend a month or so shelling pecans in the fall for her holiday gifting. She was from Texas, so I imagine this came from her childhood. She made a decent pecan pie, but my mother, Ruby, specialized in pralines. She made no other kind of candy, and it only happened once a year (for the holiday gifts). She put pecans in her fruitcakes too, but then she ruined them with fruitcake (I was never a fan of this extremely labor intensive preparation).
Here are some savory examples of pecans for fall festivities:
Most of the classic pecan recipes are for sweets:
If you have made the ice cream you can them have a:
What is your favorite way to enjoy pecans, Gentle Reader?
Durga Days
September 25, 2014
— 5 Comments
Durga is the mother goddess capable of killing demons. She was born from the anger of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva and outfitted with every weapon of the gods. She was brilliant, and extremely bad assed. She is the very angry mother who drives demons from the earth and puts the fear of retribution in all her children. She has nine different forms she may assume in her motherly duties. During the festival of Navaratri she is worshiped in three of her forms. First Durga the destroyer purifies for three days as only wrathful mother can. Then Lakshmi takes over for three days of bestowing spiritual wealth. The final three days are ruled by Saraswati, the mother of wisdom. To skip any one of the three mothers is to fail to grasp the whole meaning of the creative essence. The feminine spark, or Shakti, does all the work and holds all the energy. In 2014 Navaratri lasts from 25 September until the 3 October. The Durga puja is an affirmation of good over evil, a classic version of mother knows best. She will remove the miseries of life and chase the demons out of the building. Respect her in all her forms…..you want to stay on her good side.
Equinox Celebration
September 20, 2014
— 3 Comments
fall colors
pumpkins in the house
The Fall Equinox is a time to reflect, budget, delete, and take stock of what we have. In modern times our personal harvest is less crucial to our survival than it was hundreds of years ago. We import and ship what we want all over the world. Because so much of our food costs are transportation related this might be a time to take stock of what we have in our local market or garden that can be a substitute for imported or processed foods. We like convenience, but may be able to find better priced locally made foods, goods, and services of superior quality. We like to be served, but can save money and enhance creativity by doing more of our own food preparation and preservation. It is time to create, prosper and appreciate. Do you have practices to note the day when the whole world has an equal amount of darkness and light? Normally the moon rises about 50 minutes later than the previous night. On the equinox it rises only about 10 minutes later, and the effect is that of almost standing still for a few days.
In ancient Greece this time of year was the time for grand rituals known as the Eleusian rites. From the equinox until the end of the month processions and rites to the goddess Demeter were performed. The elaborate rites involved bathing in the sea, building an altar around a tree, blessing the earth with wine and special potions, and a giant party to honor Demeter, goddess of the earth. Holy Night, on September 28, when the goddess Koré would turn from maiden to krone, and then into the young queen of the underworld. Some of the celebrants were granted the chance to see their own deaths on the Holy Night in order to free themselves from fear of the afterlife. The following day was a sports and games day before the final eighth day of the festival returns to solemn ritual to signify spiritual rebirth. This was very different from football season or American festivities for fall because everything was viewed as sacred. The rituals were believed to be an important spiritual gift to mankind. Can you find a way to honor that seasonal shift in your life this year? I would love to hear any ideas you have, gentle readers. I believe we have instinctive spiritual patterns that evolve, but are also part of historical beliefs and rites. We are still connected to Demeter even if we don’t know who she is.
Season of the Witch
August 26, 2014
— 1 Comment
When September sends kids back to school everyone starts to prepare for winter holidays. I was at the grocery store yesterday and saw the entire seasonal section ready for Halloween. It is still August but the candy, the costumes, and all the yard decorations are on display to get us in the mood. Americans spend about 7 billion dollars annually on Halloween, according to the National Retail Federation. More money is spent on adult consumes than on children’s costumes. The season that begins Nov 1 and runs through Dec 16, known as the holiday shopping season results in 52 billion dollars in spending. You might say that the slow warm up in both celebration time and money spent on Halloween is a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of the spending year. People get very wound up with lists and crafts and party planners as New Years finally approaches. The typical diet/fitness regime begins on January 1, along with new credit card redemption plans. The remorse about over spending and over eating lasts about a month until Super Bowl time.
Fall is a natural time to store things and preserve them for winter. Our ancestors endured heavy hardship if they did not prepare and store enough food for the winter months. Harvest was a time of joy and celebration (perhaps not exactly like modern Day of the Dead) when neighbors came together and gave thanks for the crops they had grown. They had to be mindful to keep enough and share enough to make it as community through the cold months. Today we let the food banks worry about feeding society. We follow an unnatural cycle of spending just when we should be doing some saving for future needs. I suggest a few changes we can make to give the earth a better holiday season:
- Buy locally made and locally grown products
- Think twice before buying anything made out of plastic
- Find crafty DIY ways to decorate with up cycled or recycled items
- Teach your kids to give of themselves to those who need help
- Limit the junk food treats as a central holiday theme
- Don’t ask a single person if they’re ready for the holidays
pumpkin spice
glitter pumpkins
Fides, Goddess of Trust
August 17, 2014
TPD SWAT
In our modern world we have nothing that resembles Fides Publica. We can’t reverse history or erase technology, but we must somehow regain the respect for integrity that it once had. Trust is earned and also constantly in flux. Facts or impressions can radically alter faith in institutions when they fail to live up to ethical standards. Rather than working to increase levels of trust our factions and media dramatists like to build separate camps that take pot shots at the trustworthiness of the other camps. The cops in the United States are one of the contentious camps that are forced to deal with dwindling levels of faith from the communities they serve. Many citizens now believe the cops serve and protect themselves but not the public. The advanced incarceration rates and military stye heavily armored local police forces are working against a positive future outcome. I am in favor of having every minute of every cop’s duty recorded on video cameras. This would substitute some evidence for some of the untrustworthy statements we have heard from police. I would think cops would welcome such monitoring because in cities where it is being used complaints against the law enforcement officers have dramatically decreased. That is a good example of Fides Publica…..the camera may change the cops’ attitude since it can and will be used as evidence, and the citizen might feel more secure interacting with a cop if that interaction was being recorded. Our goddess of trust will be called GoPro.
Amaro, a Bitter Wonderland
August 11, 2014
— 4 Comments
full flavor of dessert
I have been reading a lot about amaros in the blogging universe. These herbal digestive concoctions, mostly from Italy, have become a new darling star of the cocktail bar scene. Some bloggers are making their own mixtures by infusing brandy with combinations from their own gardens. This is super appealing to me. Typically served after dinner to aid in the digestive process, straight up or over a couple of ice cubes, the syrupy taste is a delight with a rich dessert. I saw a selection of amaros on the menu at Feast and decided to try one with a malted chocolate cake with rich dense creamy caramel filling. We rarely eat dessert, so sharing one slice was plenty of sweet richness for both of us. Bob tasted the amaro, but I sipped it throughout the dessert course between bites of the dense, full chocolate flavors in the cake. The cake was garnished with candied grapefruit peel, which added another dimension of bitter and sweet to the finish.
I have not been a fan of bitter herbs or any kind of digestive tonic. Since making my own bitters and shrubs this summer I have come to appreciate the ways bitterness enhances both health and flavor. The liberal use of bitters in cooking is fun, and adds extra dimension that is hard to describe, but fills out the profile of any food. More importantly, the flavor bitter stimulates the liver to produce bile, which one needs to digest fat. I am not sure how many grams of fat were in my cake, but it felt like pure butter on the tongue. I am guessing the count in butterfat was very high, but we only had a few bites which we enjoyed. The sipping of the amaro did open up kind of a new way to feel and sense the whole process of dessert. I have had after dinner drinks with brandy, eau de vie, or coffee, but have never sipped an amaro before. I recommend it to anyone who wants to expand their sense of taste. It happens to be good for digestion at the same time. Cheers, to a slightly bitter ending to your meal!
Amaro with 2 cubes of ice
Why Sew?
August 5, 2014
— 1 Comment
Alma Llanera
There are not many stores that cater to sewing today because there are very few people who know how to sew. I always enjoyed the selection process as well as the craft and fitting. Now I feel like a kind of special agent of fashion because I know how to sew. You do reap what you sew. You also wear what you sew. It can be the best way to truly express unique fashion choices. I like to wear something that nobody else has, or even has seen. I also have a funny commemorative way of dressing that harkens back to days when I did long trips all over the place. I would assemble my trip wardrobe with great care and anticipation, thinking about weather and activities. Time permitting I would sew something for the trip that would make a debut on the road. I liked to associate certain clothing with certain places where I thought they looked their best. I no longer globe trot at such a pace, nor do I plan so many back to back obligations when I travel now. My wardrobe is casual like it is at home, with few exceptions.
Last year when I attended a reunion party at my old junior high I sewed a special skirt in honor of the home economics teacher who gave me a D on my apron in seventh grade. She was not in attendance, but I had something to prove when I went on a tour of my old school with my old classmates. The skirt turned out okay and I had my triumphant secret moment in the hallway where Mrs. G had been the hall monitor daily. I swished right by her imaginary self and let her know that I could sew. This year when I attended a reunion party in Austin with a group who lived in Venezuela in the 1960’s I made a signature pair of pants. I found some fabric with little skeleton cards portraying Day of the Dead figures. Tucson has a very big celebration of this holiday each year, so I decided to make a pair of pants as a conversation piece about my home town. The pants are fine, and on the first day in Texas I found a tee shirt that matched perfectly and had a purple longhorn, too. I was stylin’ and not too hot since the pants were loose fitting cotton. I received many compliments on them during my visit, and then wore them to the Venezuela reunion party. It was National Dance Day and I was ready. Here I am singing and dancing in my fancy pants, which I will forever associate with this party. While I don’t think it would be good to try to have your clothes match everything you do, sometimes it is fun. That is why I sew.
Coffee vs Bacon, Battle to Dominate August
August 4, 2014
— 1 Comment
Two of the internet’s most darling substances are having their national recognition months in August. Before twitter I can’t imagine how people stayed filled up with bacon and coffee. Now there is a digital sip and a crunchy imaginary bite around every corner. To tweet with no coffee is to tweet a dull stream. A month of coffee celebrations could leave the nation jittery, but the addition of bacon means we are risking putting on some porky pounds in the process. I imagine that National Bacon Month will attract the seriously obsessed, while the coffee month will go mostly unnoticed outside of Starbucks. The good news about both of these months is that you do not need to indulge in or purchase any bacon or coffee to party with your digital friends. The use of both digital bacon and digital coffee is ubiquitous. To refuse it or to mention your dietary restrictions is very silly when all you have to do is digitally toast your coffee and share your bacon. The official International Bacon Day is the Saturday before Labor Day. Can you think of the best festive way to cheer up all your friends this month by serving coffee and bacon, or dressing up like these items? Here are some dedicated posts ready to stir your creativity about bacon.
- Have a parade-dress up in coffee or bacon costumes and walk down the street
- Invite friends to a pot-luck on line- bring exotic coffee drinks and bacon themed snacks
- Start an expressive arts contest- poetry, prose, visual arts derived from the inspiration of bacon and coffee
- Find the most obscure uses for both coffee and bacon and tell everyone about them
- Create a game in which coffee and bacon battle to be the one remaining digital sustenance available on the internet
If you had to go to a desert island and have only coffee or only bacon for a month, which one would you choose? I would go with coffee. Are you planning to celebrate either of these special occasions? What are your plans? What could be more important than this?
