Get some Green

What is my Love today> Green Tea. I truly love this green tea from Yamamotoyama and not just because the name is so fun to say.
It has roasted brown rice in it.
The rice takes away the bitterness. I always have my tea with cream and honey. I have heard that green tea is better for you if you take it plain. But I find most green tea to have a bitter after taste so I would add the stuff to doctor it up.
This tea is hard for me to find and I usually stock up when I do find it. It is one of the oldest tea houses in Japan. I wonder if the Japanese find it to be the Lipton tea of their country. Now I like Lipton just fine, but there are many teas that have a better, richer flavor. So maybe I am drinking crap Japanese green tea, I don't know. I only know I love it. They also sell it loose and I like that even better but that is even harder to find.
When you do put the cream and honey in the Yamamotoyama it becomes so creamy and greeny tasting that even my child who does not like much of anything that goes in the mouth, besides candy, gives a "ooo yum" to it every time.
Just like Mikey, he hates everything! If you are old enough to remember that commercial than I love you too!

Favorite Places

Here I am in my favorite place: A Bookstore

Yeah just give me a strong cup o' Earl Grey and a couple hours to roam the stacks and you have one happy Diva.

When I live in San Fran we had a corner book store called Christophers. It was so tiny and so filled with books and other good stuff. It was also a dog neighborhood so whenever anyone got a new dog they would go there and they would take a pic of your pup and post it on the front door. You could come back a few months later and ooh and ahh at how big your dog had gotten.

They also had poetry readings. I really miss that. Poetry is one art that needs to be read aloud and preferably by the author.

I went to my first open poetry reading the other night. Actually it was a poetry potluck! I read a couple of my poems for the first time ever to a group of strangers. I guess I was a Poetry Virgin. It felt kinda scary fun to read them. There were some good poets there and I just had the best time and the food was damn good too. There were all ages of poets there from 20 up to 83 years old. Simply fascinating.

Here is a link to a nice place I have found for poetry and pictures, Princess Haiku:

:http://princesshaiku.blogspot.com/

Orange Orange Orange

Could this be my second Chakra speaking to me? The juice I have been making daily is usually 2 oranges or tangerines. It tastes so bright made fresh and I am also using less plastic and mess as this is just orange rinds left over. I want to get a worm bin like this pioneer blogman at 365 Days of Trash. I call him a pioneer because what he is doing is going where no man has gone before. He is keeping all his trash. Yep...go see!

http://365daysoftrash.blogspot.com/2008/02/my-friend-joey-came-over-today-and-we.html

The picture of the Orange room was taken in Maui at the Grand Waleia Resort. Oh what a piece of heaven this place is. The Spa was a blessing for my body.

The tea with the juice was some of that flavorful Chai I have been making. I just ordered some new teas from Stash Tea. They have a big selection of loose tea. It is hard to find loose tea in most grocery stores. Loose tea just tastes better and of course there is the Agaony of the Tea Leaves to consider! It is thier Agony, the churning in the boiling water that truly releases the authentic tea flavor.

Parsley Salad

This dinner was just a bunch of leftovers! It was a base of Parsley salad. This was made with chopped Italian Parsley and some vinegar & olive oil. Then I plopped some of the Cashew Dip on it. The Cashew Dip is soaked (for 1hr) cashews & some olive oil blended very well in the Cuisinart. I added some fresh pepper to the dip. I topped it with some Kalamata Olives and cayenne and paprika. Around the edge you see some mushrooms....cant remember the type, but they might be monkey paws.
This was very filling and so incredibly HEALTHY.
Parsley is so full of goodness and greenness (did I just make up a word?). It is a little powerhouse that just gets shunted aside as a "garnish".
I used to make this other (back in my cheese days) Italian Parsley Salad that had lots of fresh grated Parmesan cheese, lemon juice and olive oil. It was so simple and so addictive.
It is snowing again today and windy, windy, windy. There was some leftover Chai in the fridge so I heated it up. The flavors got better as they sat for 2 days. Seems it will last for awhile. I made it the traditional way with loose Chai Tea & milk and it is way better than any of those mixes you can buy. The mixes have far too much sugar for my taste buds.

Blue Breakfast

Back to Snow

After a few days of warmth we are now back to snow.

For me this means no more walks, until it stops snowing. That means more TEA. I am going shopping today for more cream for my tea. I really try to get organic cream when I find it. The only dairy I have with any regularity is the cream in my tea.

I don't eat much cheese anymore. If I go to a party and they have a cheese dish or a cheese tray I will have some. Ice Cream is also something I just don't really want anymore either. My love of ice cream goes way back. My Grandfather (the Spanish one) use to eat a quart a day of ice cream. Whenever we went to go visit him you could always count on having some ice cream as his freezer was full of many different types.

My cholesterol is very low and always has been even in my Dairy Queen days. There was a point when I used to have a hot fudge Sunday once or twice a week. Oh and I really loved a concoction called a Tin Roof. A Tin Roof is like a hot fudge only they put salted peanuts in it. The sweet and salty is a craving of mine!

Those ice cream days are over for me. My taste buds have changed and I just don't really want to eat a bunch of sugar stuff anymore.

Now I really like salty treats. A handful of salty nuts is just fine by me. I want to get a dehydrator so I can sprout and then dehydrate my own. There are lots of places online you can buy these kinds of nuts but seem expensive. I just love the taste of the sprouted dehydrated sunflower seeds.

Constant Comment

This morning breakfast was the same as yesterday. Sprouted bread with sprouted Hummus. Only this time I spread some Mellow Miso on the bread first and then nuked the whole thing for 10 seconds just to take the cold edge off of it. I was 18 degrees this morning so a little chill bling reducer is nice!

Now on to the tea. Constant Comment is a Tea from my childhood. Whenever I felt sick my Mother would make me a strong cup of Constant Comment with honey & lemon. At that time the tea was loose and came in a metal tin. I cant find it like that in the stores anymore. It only seems to come in tea bags now. It is still a very flavorful & unique tea. I have it with cream & honey now. The taste is so soothing with all the citrus rind in it. It is just a good cup of tea. We all know how healthy tea is for us. So drink up!

There is just something about a good cup of tea that can make even the bleakest moments become bearable.

Both of my children are tea drinkers. They grew up with all the herbal teas, mint, chamomile and herb blends. When they were tiny and felt crabby I would say, lets have some tea. It usually worked to fix their spirits up. Also tea & toast is a winning combo. Sourdough bread with lots of butter and some hot tea is the best thing in the world anytime of the day or night.

I don't have so much toast anymore as I am doing my raw thing, but I still share some with my kids now & then.

We mustn't be too rigid.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life

Howdy & Hello. I had some lovely sprouted bread with homemade sprouted Hummus for breakfast. I always have Tea with breakfast. Usually black Tea with cream & stevia or raw (if I can find it) honey.

It is such a simple breakfast. I get the bread at Wholefoods. I made the sprouted hummus. It is very easy to make.

Sprouted Humus Recipe

Sprout some Garbanzo Beans and then put them in your Cuisinart with some raw tahini add some olive oil, lemon juice and salt. Whiz it around until creamy and you are done!

I follow the amounts used to make cooked hummus. So any standard recipe you have for that will work fine. I don't add garlic to mine as I like to have it for breakfast and I am not too fond of garlic in the AM.

here is a basic recipe you can use, just use the sprouted Garbanzo & raw tahini instead.

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1618,132176-254196,00.html