Friday, March 27, 2009

Fish Stew Espana

Fridge: Halibut fillets, Navel Orange, Chorizo

Pantry: Green Spanish Olives, Smoked Pimenton, San Marzano tomatoes

Sound System: Gypsy Kings Roots

Dinner: Spanish Fish Stew


Avocado or olive oil
1/2 Spanish onion, halved and sliced thinly
1 shallot, halved and sliced thinly
2 cloves garlic, smashed
4 oz Chorizo, half moon slices
1 large Orange, zested, peeled, segmented
1/3 cup olives, halved
1/3 cup wine
1 - 2 tsp Smoked pimenton
Saffron - generous pinch
S & P
2 halibut fillets, cut into 1-2 in cubes


Saute onions, shallots and garlic in oil for 2 min. Add chorizo and continue sauteeing for 3 min. Add tomatoes, orange segments and zest, seasonings, wine and olives. Simmer 10 min.

Add fish to the sauce. Adjust seasonings, cover and cook another 7 minutes or until fish is cooked through.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Devalued Prime Minister

"You cannot spend your way out of recession or borrow your way out of debt."

"We are all sailing together into the squalls. But not every vessel in the convoy is in the same dilapidated condition. Other ships used the good years to caulk their hulls and clear their rigging."


"You cannot carry on for ever squeezing the productive bit of the economy in order to fund an unprecedented engorgement of the unproductive."


"You know, and we know, and you know that we know..."


"You have run out of our money."


U.K. MEP Daniel Hannan, Conservative Party


Sunday, March 22, 2009

Hope and Change Orlando 3/21/09

Protest and dissent from the right....things have changed and maybe there is hope. TEA anyone?




























It's on!
















































Friday, March 20, 2009

Things Good Mothers Know - Quotes

"It seems that in order to appreciate the luxury of simplicity, we first need to crowd our lives with things and with obligations that accumulate until we feel a bit overwhelmed."

"What is simple and beautiful is appropriate."

"Wise people live with their means and save for a rainy day."

"When you know what you want, life is simpler."

"Eliminate an item when we add something."

"Keep an even keel in order not to keel over."

"We can't always choose what happens, but we can always be in charge of how we handle ourselves."

"One shift in reality affects everything else."

"Let us be content with less."

"Peace of mind is not the absence of problems, but rather the overcoming of suffering by training our mind to cope better."

"We stumble on happiness."

"The whole point is to share what we have and create lasting memories."

"The secret is to give yourself the best part of the day. Go one hour..."

"Parents are not meant to shape their children in their own image."

"Children must grow up, and it is childish to want everything."

"We will never feel our life is successful unless we live each day in our own particular, often peculiar way."

"When something doesn't work out or is no longer appropriate or fun, I do something else."
-
Alexandra Stoddard

"Harmony and strength exist in our lives only when our outer selves match our inner selves."
- Albert Schweitzer

"Circumstances! I make circumstances." - Napoleon


"The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances."
- Aristotle

"Every man is a consumer and ought to be a producer."
- Emerson

"Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires."
- Lao-Tzu

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Thinking about Joe and Breath

  • "Breathing is the first act of life, and the last."
  • "Above all, learn to breath correctly."
  • "To breathe correctly you must completely exhale and inhale, always trying very hard to squeeze every atom of impure air from your lungs in much the same manner as you would wring every drop of water from a wet cloth."
  • "Never slouch, as doing so compresses the lungs..."

Joseph Pilates




While it is widely accepted that there are 6 exercise principles, Joe actually recorded only 3 guiding principles to his method: Breath, Whole Body Health and Whole Body Commitment.

In the air.
Out the air.
Repeat. "Your very life depends on it."

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Sea Salt

Post detox, Doug and I are are continuing to do our best to eat the healthiest we can. We found it interesting that salt was allowed on our detox. Natural sea salt, that is.

Like sugar, the conventional way salt is processed is what makes the ingredient problematic in the diet. Jon Barron sums it up:

"Only 7% of salt goes for food; the other 93% goes to industry. Industry requires chemically pure sodium chloride for manufacture of explosives, chlorine gas, soda, fertilizers and plastics. In effect, table salt represents a "cheap" production overrun."

"In today's market, we now have two distinct choices when it comes to salt: unrefined and refined. Unrefined salt (sea salt) is 84% sodium chloride and 16% other minerals. Refined salt is 97.5% sodium chloride and approximately 2.5% chemical additives."



Unrefined sea salt

  • Natural salt is a prime condiment that stimulates salivation and helps to balance and replenish all of the body's electrolytes.
  • The natural iodine in these salts protects against radiation, atomic fallout, and many other pollutants.
  • Unrefined sea salt supplies all 92 vital trace minerals, thereby promoting optimum biological function and cellular maintenance:
    • Here is a partial list of the minerals found in unrefined salt and their function in human metabolism:
      • Sodium: Essential to digestion and metabolism, regulates body fluids, nerve and muscular functions.
      • Chlorine: Essential component of human body fluids.
      • Calcium: Needed for bone mineralization.
      • Magnesium: Dissipates sodium excess, forms and hardens bones, ensures mental development and sharpens intelligence, promotes assimilation of carbohydrates, assures metabolism of vitamin C and calcium, retards the aging process and dissolves kidney stones.
      • Sulfur: Controls energy transfer in tissue, bone and cartilage cells, essential for protein compounds.
      • Silicon: Needed in carbon metabolism and for skin and hair balance.
      • Iodine: Vital for energy production and mental development, ensures production of thyroid hormones, needed for strong auto-defense mechanism (lymphatic system).
      • Bromine: In magnesium bromide form, a nervous system regulator and restorer, vital for pituitary hormonal function.
      • Phosphorus: Essential for biochemical synthesis and nerve cell functions related to the brain, constituent of phosphoproteins, nucleoproteins and phospholipids.
      • Vanadium: Of greater value for tooth bone calcification than fluoride, tones cardiac and nervous systems, reduces cholesterol, regulates phospholipids in blood, and a catalyst for the oxidation of many biological substances.

Refined table salt

  • Inorganic sodium chloride upsets your fluid balance and constantly overburdens your elimination systems, which can impair your health.
  • When your body tries to isolate the overdose of refined salt you typically expose it to, water molecules must surround the sodium chloride molecules to break them up into sodium and chloride ions in order to help your body neutralize them. To accomplish this, water is taken from your cells, and you have to sacrifice the water stored in your cells in order to neutralize the unnatural sodium chloride.
    • This results in dehydrated cells that die prematurely.
  • Refined table salt contains added iodine, which may indeed have helped eliminate the incidence of endemic goiter, but has conversely increased the incidence of hypothyroidism.
  • Refined table salt lacks all trace minerals.
  • Refined salt contains anticaking agents such as ferrocyanide, yellow prussiate of soda, tricalcium phosphate, alumine-calcium silicate, sodium aluminosilicate. All work by preventing the salt from mixing with water, both inside the box and inside the human body. This prevents the salt from doing one of its important functions in the organism: regulating hydration.
"Truth be told, all refined table salt is actually sea salt at heart, either refined from the sea (brine sourced) or found in salt mines created by ancient seabed deposits known as halite. Refined salt is processed at high temperatures altering the molecular structure of the salt (not good) and removing the beneficial trace minerals. The human body doesn't like it."


Looking in the cabinet, all my "sea salt" is the processed kind. So much for spending extra money getting what you think is better. I'll be heading to my Central Market for real sea salt.

Recommended:

Celtic Salt aka French Grey Sea Salt
Fluer De Sel
Himilayan Sea Salt
New Zealand Organic
Matiz Salts