Perfecting the Swirl

Hi everyone.  Sorry it has been so long since I have checked in…and even longer since I have added any recipes…I will have a slew of them coming for the Fourth of July chapter.

I am happy to report that everything is going great at delisheeeYo.  The word is spreading fast “there is somewhere to get something healthy on Hilton Head…buzz buzz buzz” and the folks coming in to try our stellar product are leaving delightfully surprised at just how good frozen yogurt with fresh fruit can be.  I am telling you…this stuff is different…in a good way.

I am making a dent in the profits by eating at least 2 cups a day and I have to say, my belly is thanking me.  I am also shooting Wendy’s faboo Kombucha twice or three times a day and I know that is doing some magic in my rumbly as well.  For those of you that are not familiar with Kombucha it is an intensely interesting entity.  Kombucha is a fermented beverage, taken as a tonic, made from tea and a sweetener.  The starter, the mother, the cause of the fermentation is referred to as a “mushroom”.  The true name for the starter mushroom is “skobie”.  The skobie isn’t a mushroom at all, it is more like a jelly fish, but not from the sea…okay…intrigued?  You know that stuff that floats on the bottom of your apple cider vinegar when you let it sit around for a few months?  That is referred to as “the mother”.  If you harvest that mother and put it in some apple juice you will make your own vinegar.  The Kombucha Skobie is the mother.  The liquid we are fermenting (rather than apple juice) is Silver Needle White tea sweetened with agave nectar and local honey.  The sugar is needed to activate the fermentation process.

We are using an oak barrel for the ferment, just like the beer and wine people.  There is something in the oak that makes for a better result.  The scobie and the sweetened tea go in the barrel and kick back in a slightly warm, undisturbed location for a couple of weeks and eureka…you have a lovely batch of super pro-biotic, alkalizing, energizing, slightly alcoholic tonic….and, the skobie reproduces itself during the ferment.  You then remove the new skobie and keep it in a “skobie hotel” until you give it away or in the case of the Happy Herbalist…the nice gentleman that sent us our skobie starter in the mail…you sell it to someone.  Wicked fun no?

According to my research, the original Skobie came from the Caucasus Mountain region of Russia and the thing has been reproducing itself since.  Fascinating!!  The Russians are known for living a really long time and I like to believe that a daily draught of Kombucha has something to do with that.  And you know…what you can conceive and believe you can achieve.

I also believe that the Kombucha and my daily Yo is giving me the energy to pull off these 12 hours days I have been logging since we opened.  There is a lot to do as we settle into a routine.  Fortunately Ruby has been out of town for a couple of weeks so I have been able to focus my attention here, but in the mean time I have landed an exciting new consulting job in England!  Next week I fly to Manchester to help craft the culinary program for a new venture called Academy 4 Wellbeing.  I am totally excited about the project and looking forward to a few days in London on the heels of the job.  It’s been a long time since I was last in Europe and I am looking forward to a real scone with some curd and cream! It IS all about the food you know.

As I perfect the swirling of 4 ounces of delisheeeYo into our little bio-cup I am reminded that all of life is a swirl…everything spins in a spiral.  Energies undulating from us and to us. When we relax into what is immediately here and allow life’s flow, say yes, trusting that what we need in the moment will show up, knowing that life is abundant and benevolent, then goodness multiplies, like that scobie, feed your life with sweetness, grow your own jelly fish mushroom and live long time!

 Print This |  Email This | No Comments

It’s Happened

If you are like me…and of course you are…you have  one or two friends, contacts, acquaintances, family members that writes emails in the middle of the night.  You get up in the morning and read their mail and notice that the time is 2 am or something dumb like that.   I have always thought to myself  “wow, what a drag, not sleeping, writing emails in the wee hours, surely there is something better (that pitiful someone) could be doing?”    And when will I ever learn that the things I eschew (I have never used that word before…how exciting…oh my…I really am in trouble) will soon be the very things I will be doing too.  So here I am, responding to old facebook posts, checking email, ordering stuff and blogging… in the middle of the night!

I would love to blame my insomnia on menopause.  I could, it is lurking, although all systems have been fairly normal for some months.  I could say that my distress about the Gulf spill woke me up-and I am distressed, freaked in a way that I haven’t felt since I was 10 and worried that my two older brothers were going to die in Viet Nam.  I could say that the crazy wicked thunder storm that rolled over an hour ago, with crashes so close and so booming I thought I was in an air raid woke me-oh wait it did.  But the thing that got me out of bed and onto this gizmo at 4:24 am was my belly.  I’m hungry!  Which raises the question-does the body know or care what time of day we eat?  If it is good for the metabolism to eat every 2 hours then why have we all been told we shouldn’t eat in the night?

I have done a little research on this topic and there isn’t really that much out there.  Some simply state the obvious, that it would be best if we were resting, sleeping, tucking into a little REM.  Others suggest if you do get up to have some water because it is likely that you are thirsty rather than hungry…I don’t know about you, but I can pretty much tell the difference between a dry mouth needing a drink and a full on rumble in my tumble.  No one can seem to really prove that eating in the wee hours is a bad thing.  This is what I know  about it.  I make crumby choices in the night.  I want cookies, pie, sweet cereal, toast with lots of butter.  I am not making a salad or slicing an apple…it’s a full on grab and go of whatever I can get my sleepy fist around.

Knowing this about myself I do the following: I do not keep that sort of thing in the house.  If it is here, I will eat it.  And if I do it in the middle of the night, that is more calories in, cals that I might not have had if there wasn’t anything in the kitchen worth getting out of bed for. Turn on the light, read for 10 minutes, sleep will return.

Moral of the story; don’t buy the temptress foods.

That is all the wisdom I have about that.  Lame perhaps, but it is 4:33 am.  Yikes!

 Print This |  Email This | 1 Comment