(un)cook my life

Another post on practice. Some days people ask how my yoga practice has gone. Usually I just say "It went". I figure that it's like asking "how are you?", where, let's be honest, only your closest friends actually want to hear anything other than "fine, thanks, and you?".  This is because even though some mornings are kind of like pulling a ton of limp lead-based spaghetti uphill through sludge (missed filling up at the prana petrol station, and my bandhas are m.i.a), and some mornings are like floating through a magical dance whilst serenaded by a choir of angels that somehow don't detract at all from my focus (jump through. good lady. full benefits). But the actual point is the practice. It's the showing up, day in, day out, that is transformative. I don't always want to practice before I start, but I never regret it once I haul my ass onto the mat.

Ditto for cooking. Sometimes it's not very exciting. Sometimes I have grant applications to write and the mere thought of anything more complicated than a "chop everything into a bowl" salad seems impossible, or I just feel uninspired. Sometimes I have people over for a fancy dinner party at the end of a blissful day spent at the farmer's market and then in the kitchen creating edible art that turned out just so.

Usually things are somewhere in between. And in between days are often soup. I never regret soup.
1/2 head fennel
1 large carrot, chopped
1 cup sweet sweet baby tomatoes from heaven
2 tbs of shelled hemp seeds
splash of balsamic vinegar
pinch of aniseed
about a cup of water

blend all that up, will you?

now add
another cup of ridiculously sweet tomatoes
baby chard (lots)
rocket (lots)
a handful of fresh basil leaves
a little bit of tarragon 

Blend just enough to chop everything, but you should have tomato chunks and recognizable bits of leaf. A food processor would probably work better than a blender. I do not own a food processor, and a blender works just fine.


Add 1/2 orange worth of juice, and a splash of ume plum vinegar (or salt, if you've not got any ume products handy)

If your tomatoes are only sweet instead of ridiculously sweet, you might need to add a bit of agave. go for it, you rebel. 

Yum.

A practice is only sustainable if it is very simple, and if you enjoy it. And let's face it: a girl's gotta eat, and so my kitchendancing practice continues, and is usually very simple.