San Antonio Thanksgiving

I put Jessica on a plane this morning. We had a perfect holiday...just the three of us, no schedule, doing what moved us.

I spent the rest of my morning doing some internet Christmas shopping. We made modest purchases for the young people in our lives. Other than that, we will be honoring our far away family and friends with a donation to the Fisher House, homes built adjacent to military hospitals similar to the concept of the Ronald McDonald House. Last year, I put together pasta dinners and hummus appetizers for our local friends. I will likely do something like that again.

Jessica arrived Monday, and even though we had just a few plans, the short visit was a whirlwind. We had homemade meatloaf and spinach salad. On Tuesday, she and Doug picked me up from my studio and we headed down to the Riverwalk. We had dinner at Acenar. They have fresh lime margaritas and guacamole made table side. After dinner, we enjoyed a stroll along the Riverwalk, which has a lighting ceremony and carolers floating down the river starting this weekend. Definitely gets you in the holiday spirit.


Wednesday was more homework for Jessica and grocery shopping for Doug and me. We treated Doug to the action adventure, Transporter 3. It was such a challenge to have to sit through Jason Stratham without his shirt on. Dinner was at home, homemade potato soup and salad.

Thursday found us pretty proud of ourselves. Jessica recommended we only cook a turkey breast to cut down on the prep and cooking time. And the rest of our menu was minimal. It was also her idea to go to the movies before dinner, when we usually go after along with the rest of San Antonio. We had a hearty breakfast of a sausage strata and sweet potato biscuits and watch the Macy's parade. We went to a noon viewing of Four Christmases. We enjoyed belly laughs while we watched the painful, dysfunctional relationships on screen. Upon returning home, I cut a basket full of rosemary from the backyard and stuffed it, stem and all, under the turkey's skin with whole garlic cloves. We roasted the breast (and a few legs), made broccoli gratin, stuffing and a pumpkin gooey butter cake. Before dinner, it was Pom-Cranberry Bellinis (Giada's recipe) under R Muhl's beautiful art and shared our dreams for the new year. We said a prayer of thanksgiving and remembered our soldiers. After dinner, we had the cake together in bed, watching recorded episodes of Law and Order (Jessica's all time favorite) and Criminal Minds (all our new favorite).

Doug and I spent the rest of the day quietly, just the two of us. We played a game of Scrabble and watched our lastest nexflix, Expelled, No Intelligence Allowed. We've munched on leftovers. Tommorrow, it's back to the studio (thank goodness for Pilates) for me early in the am. Doug and I are grateful to have each other's company to look forward to for the rest of the evening.

Our holiday was uncomplicated. It is so easy to be with my immediate family. There is time to be all together. There is time for us to have one on one time with each other, which everyone recognizes the need for and makes space for. It is perfectly okay for someone to retreat to their room to study or take a nap, all without any fuss. Our food preferences are similar. Our political, religious and world views are close enough make a safe atmosphere but individual enough to spark engaging conversation. There is nice balance of being at home and having experiences outside our doors.

Like in Four Christmases, it can feel necessary to have a 'holiday survival plan" when we get around all the extended family. There's something about big groups of family getting together to help one forget how to behave. People forget to keep conversation polite, mind their manners or avoid imprisoning the company of others.

In my early twenties, I happened on a tactic that has now become a tradition to give me a bit of sanity. At some point on Thanksgiving, I would retreat from the madness to my Mom's room. Eventually, the kids would come looking for me. One day, I packed them up and took them to a movie. I got to get away from it all, do something nice for the kids and enjoy a couple of hours of peace while watching movie.

I couldn't imagine a Thanksgiving holiday without that movie all these years later. In the last few years, I have adopted the 5 Hour Rule, which is to disallow being in the company of others/the group for more than five hours at a time. In the last year, it has worked out that we've seen extended family outside of the holidays and focused on ourselves and the spirit of the occasion in ways that are most meaningful to us, without familial obligations or accomodations.

I had my picture perfect Thanksgiving. I hope you all did as well.

Belly Dancing Blissfully

As a teacher of the method of Pilates, it is my main form of exercise. I love the strength, flexibility and endurance I have gain from my study of Pilates. Yet, like most of us, I do not rely on it solely for my complete physical conditioning. I enjoy a Bikram yoga class as much as Doug does. I dedicated 6 mos to strength training with SuperSlow. Rather than grit-your -teeth gym or running regimens, I gravitate towards movement and dance: Andalusi dance, and NIA are great experiential workouts. I am coming to adore Belly Dancing, taught in San Antonio by Karen Barbee.


The Middle Eastern dance form has come along way since being introduced to westerners through the Orientalist artists and exhibitions at the world's fair. Martha Graham, mother of Modern Dance, was initiated into dance by dance pioneer Ruth St. Denis, who interpreted the dance of the orientals in ballet. Today, pop singers Aaliyah and Shakira have introduced forms of belly dancing to the masses. Chances are every community has a belly dance teacher in their area or a restaurant featuring belly dancers as evening entertainment.

Belly Dancing is an ancient ethnic folk dance form. Where belly dancing is native, men and women perform the dance at typical social gatherings such as wedding and night clubs. The origins are debated. There is evidence that it was part of the childbirthing process. The belly dancing we have come to know is the more theatrical version, rather than the simple style of dance performed by today's Arabs.

The term "kootchy-kootchy", which I thought was a euphemism for girly parts, was actually the nickname given to the "little egypt" dancers of the burlesque halls. It refers to the shimmy and shake.

Unlike ballet, where a plie is a plie whether it is taught in Paris, France or Paris, Texas, belly dancing is very stylized. The style of dance one may come across may be influenced by India, Turkey, North Africa, Greece or even Southern Spain. Two contemporary styles include "tribal fusion" and "gothic belly dancing".

The basic movements of the belly dance are hip sways, hip circles, hip slides, rib slides, rib or chest circles, shimmies and snake arms. The accompanying music lends itself to the sensual and erotic techniques employed by the belly dancer.

Pilates is a marriage of the body, mind and spirit. I find belly dancing to be also. The belly dance is a vigorous, cardio workout. It emphasizes the torso, due to the abdominal undulations. I can attest to the incredible workout. There is isolation of muscles or muscle groups. Dancers can expect to tone their "core", and the arms and pelvis get their share of toning. It burns about 300 calories, similar to those of a light jog or riding a bike.

Besides being a great workout, the flowing, expressive movements are sure to inspire more frequent and creative romantic liaisons.



The accessories are fun, too! A triangular hip scarf with 2 or 3 rows can be purchased for about $25. I throw mine over my favorite Lululemon Athletica Reverse Groove pants. They can also be wrapped to make a halter top for going out on the town.



The basic skills of belly dancing are easy to catch on to. Hips go front to back, side to side. Ribs go right, back, left and front. Arms up, down. Put it all together with some cool Arabia-esque rhythms and you are belly dancing. A quick google search will tell you that you don't have to be rail thin or under thirty to be a belly dancing enthusiast. While dancing off a few pounds, new seduction skills are learned, perhaps earning us more gold from our sultan!

Moroccan Mezze

Mez•zé n.(meh-ZAY)
1."something to whet the appetite" 2. the pleasure of savoring little bites

Our friends, Bob and Dottie, are coming tonight for wine and appetizers. I met Dolly on a Unity Women's Retreat and Doug and Bob found they are both home based investors. We are looking forward to getting to know them better, already having learned they see spirituality, politics and economics similarly.

I spent the morning practicing my belly dancing drills. This inspired a Moroccan menu. We'll be poolside. San Antonio is enjoying marvelous evenings and the garden loves the cooler weather, rewarding us with bright blooms.

I made from scratch Ina Garten's Hummus , adding 1 cup thawed artichokes to it this time. I have pita chips, feta and mixed olives to serve with the hummus and vegetables. We will be pouring a Greek Zinfadel, Castello Monaci's Piluna Primitivo. Arabic Groove is cued in the media center.

Peace be upon us.

Roasted Vegetables in Charmoula

1 Asian eggplant, cut into chunks, salted to release water
1 Zucchini, cut into chunks
1 Red bell pepper, chopped bite size
1 Red onion, chopped bite size

Charmoula
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 tea cumin powder
1/4 tea smoke paprika
dash cayenne pepper
1/4 c olive oil
1 lemon juiced
1/4 c cilantro minced
salt and pepper to taste

Prepare the charmoula, a marinade customarily used for fish, ahead of time. Coat the vegetables with charmoula and let marinade for 30 minutes. Roast vegetables at 450 20 min or until soft. Serve warm or room temperature.

Rendevous With Destiny

"Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us that they have a utopian solution of peace without victory. They call their policy "accommodation." And they say if we only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he will forget his evil ways and learn to love us. All who oppose them are indicted as warmongers. They say we offer simple answers to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a simple answer--not an easy answer--but simple.

If you and I have the courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national policy based upon what we know in our hearts is morally right. We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion now in slavery behind the Iron Curtain, "Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skin, we are willing to make a deal with your slave masters." Alexander Hamilton said, "A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one." Let's set the record straight. There is no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there is only one guaranteed way you can have peace--and you can have it in the next second--surrender.

Admittedly there is a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson in history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face--that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight and surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand--the ultimatum. And what then? When Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we are retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary because by that time we will have weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he has heard voices pleading for "peace at any price" or "better Red than dead," or as one commentator put it, he would rather "live on his knees than die on his feet." And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don't speak for the rest of us. You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin--just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard 'round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well, it's a simple answer after all.

You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." There is a point beyond which they must not advance. This is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits--not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty."

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness."

- Ronald Reagan, A Time For Choosing

Nutella Cinnamon Coffee Cake

National events being disturbing as they are, I find myself seeking the comfort of home, family and friends this weekend. Jessica and I spent time making holiday plans. Our friends, Michael and Martha, joined us for an old fashioned chili supper and Halloween candy giving. And a sleepless night provided me time to seek meditation and mindfulness in a mixing bowl and baking pan.

Earlier this week, I came upon a guy boasting of having perfected a Nutella mousse on Giada de Laurentiss' website. My only Nutella concoction has been a Nutella Mocha Frappe that I have made frequently over the summer. I must say J.C.'s post got me thinking this morning. I believe I have a recipe submission for the upcoming World Nutella Day!

Nutella Cinnamon Coffee Cake 1 8" x 8" cake
















2 cups All purpose flour
1 1/2 tea Baking powder
1 tea Baking soda
1/2 tea Salt
1 cup Sugar
3 Tbsp Sugar
1/2 tea Cinnamon
1 stick Butter
2 large Eggs
1 cup Sour cream
1 tea Vanilla extract
1/2 cup Nutella chocolate-hazelnut spread

Bring butter, eggs and sour cream to room temperature. Preheat oven to 350°. Spray baking pan with non-stick spray or grease with butter. Mix sugar and cinnamon together, put aside. Combine remaining dry ingredients in a bowl. For 5 minutes, cream butter and sugar together, until light and fluffy. To butter-sugar mixture, add eggs, fully incorporating one at a time. Continue combining wet ingredients with the sour cream and vanilla.

Mix together flour into wet ingredients in two batches. Mix lightly. Spread 1/2 of cake batter into prepared pan. Melt Nutella in microwave 15-30 seconds, just until it will pour in a stream. Sprinkle 1/3 of the cinnamon sugar over the cake batter. Pour and spread the melted Nutella next. Spread the remaining cake batter over the filling, spreading carefully to cover the Nutella. Sprinkle with remaining cinnamon-sugar. Bake for 30-35 min or until a toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out clean.

Revision of Janet's Chocolate Coffe Cake in the May 2007 issue of Every Day with Rachel Ray