Blender Juice

My Functional Medicine MD doesn't recommend juicing because it can create glucose spikes, but she approves of my fruitless juices (veggies only), since my sugar levels are good. 

I found a lovely papaya yesterday and decided to make papaya/celery juice, a combination that is very cleansing for the organs, while also replenishing minerals and electrolytes. Remembering my doctor's advice, I opted to use the Vitamix instead of the juicer for this.  Incorporating the natural fibers of whole fruits and vegetables takes care if the glucose issue.  We digest the sugars much more slowly this way.  This juice, a cup of papaya, a cup of celery, a little water, ice and sea salt, was much more delicious and filling than one would imagine.  My liver is smiling now!!

A New Paint Color?

The hue of my wonderful juice this morning reminds me of a recent "color of the year" shade.  I'll call this one celery-broccoli-lemon.  It tasted as good as it looks!

A Lovely Day!

Finally, after at least a week of oppressive heat here in the deep South, we do have a fresh and lovely day! I enjoyed my particularly delicious juice today on the screened porch with my pups. The juice was from garden cukes, half a bulb of fennel, an organic orange, a knob of ginger, a few broccoli stems and a big handful of Italian parsley. It was a very juicy batch, yielding 30 ounces! I'll enjoy a bonus glassful after lunch.

My garden pup, Emma, who always follows me out to the garden and plops down beside it while I pull bugs and caterpillars off my crops, tends to be camera shy, but I caught her!

Normally more ready for her close-ups, I had to look under the hammock to find Ellie today. She's going to hate this photo. I think the girls were just enjoying the weather.

The Bully

When we returned from St. John, I found that my cucumbers had gotten an attitude. They aren't supposed to be outside of their enclosure. Even the normally prolific Chinese longbeans are cowering on their edge of the trellis, tentatively reaching their tendrils away from the cuke. I found one climbing on the sprinkler nozzle. This photo was taken after I had chopped some cuke limbs from the mint and basil, who were trapped in their pots with no escape. One leg seems to be inching its way toward my neighbor's yard.

Here's the tomato plant striving to evade the grasp of the monster cuke, with nowhere to go but up. It's about as tall as I am now. I've used no fertilizer this year. Notice no tomatoes are on this plant. I think it needs all its strength to fight off the bully.

I reaped a harvest of one tiny tomato, three Chinese longbeans and seven very large cucumbers. Many more blossoms portend pickling, Greek salads and juice in my future.

Thank goodness I'm a juicer. This one bully-cuke, along with a tiny orange and an even tinier knob of ginger, yielded nearly 30 ounces this morning.

(That's not my pancake in the background)

I feel bad for the bullied veggies, but enjoy juicing organic cukes I don't have to peel first!

Glow Juice -- It's Alive!

No, I didn't empty a glow stick into this fresh veggie juice. Yes, I am just as surprised as you that 100% organic veggies and fruits produced such an otherworldly shade.  With this juice, I stepped out of my comfort zone of sweetening with an apple and instead used an orange. The juice contained: One large bulb of fennel, complete with stalks and fronds, 1/4 head of green cabbage, one head of romaine, 1 whole orange, including peel, 1 whole lemon, also including peel. These veggies produced over 20 ounces of juice, so I sipped it all day long over ice. The flavor was amazing -- sublime. For those who are not fond of the licorice notes of the fennel plant, try it with orange and lemon first before you pass judgement. The juice was light and mild, yet bursting with fresh flavor -- alive!

Reset

We are well into January when most of us have implemented resolutions or beneficial changes, but I realized today I've still been operating in "triage" mode, i.e. living reactively rather than proactively. I've been like the vaudeville performer who focuses only on the plates spinning atop vertical rods, looking for a wobble that needs a little spin. For a creative soul, this is no way of living. Yes, I've indulged in yoga here and there, and have been reasonably mindful, though not innovative, of diet, but I've not tended to creativity -- my need as a mother to continue "birthing" (projects, not progeny -- that chapter has closed).

My Dad came for a visit recently, and we had a lovely time. I don't know why it never crossed my mind while he was here to pull out the juicer -- something he and I so enjoyed last time he came. I never thought to pull out the bottles of champagne he bought for us either. My attention must have been so fragmented from tracking my wobbling plates that he's lucky he got fed at all, I guess. I'm grateful for his non-judgemental tolerance of my out-of-whackness.

Time for a reset. Today I started the day with something fresh. This morning's juice contained a head of organic romaine, 4 leaves of kale, a cucumber and a half (the other half was in a salad during Dad's visit) a knob of ginger, an organic apple, most of a lemon (it was starting to rot at one end) and a nice handful of mint -- stems and all. I craved the refreshment of the mint which goes very well with the flavors of ginger and lemon, by the way. The result was a fresh, flavorful blend -- mild and rejuvenating.

There she is! Ahh -- now I'm ready for anything, but more importantly I'm ready today to chart my own course and let some of those wobbling plates right themselves. It's a great day!

When In Doubt, Add Kale

How was your Thanksgiving? Ours was lovely, just the four of us this year. With Hans off at college and Wynne in high school now, it's nice to be able to rein 'em all in for a bit. Now that the day-o-cooking has passed, the annual challenge of reinventing leftovers is upon me. Roasted veggies are great  piping hot and crispy, fresh from the oven, but the next day, cold and a little soggy, they need a creative reboot.

I warmed them in a pan with olive oil, on low heat at first, then I turned up the heat to help the roots get their crispy on. A big bowl of kale was then dumped on top and I tossed the whole panful with two wooden spoons for about 3 minutes. The resulting "breakfast hash" was just what I wanted.

In other news, after a recent juicing mishap, I noticed veggies on the ceiling. I fetched the ladder and did what I could to eradicate the mess, but it looks like there'll be a permanent stain. I got a good belly laugh from my 16 year old though -- any little thing I can do to entertain that sweet girl, who revels in my veggie adventures.

Hello, My Love

Look at her sitting there in all her verdant glory! My favorite way to start the day. This is like Yoga in a recycled glass -- then I proceeded logically to actual yoga, courtesy of my friend, Liat. Ahhhh!

Wynne is working on noticing the way different foods make her feel, and is choosing accordingly. She's a pasta girl, but she is broadening her outlook and including more whole foods, and enjoying the noticeable holistic changes.

Here's a recent compromise which provided us all plenty of delicious wholeness:

Clockwise from top left, we have amaranth with sauteed onion, pasta with vegan artichoke alfredo sauce (from a jar, made mostly from cashews) topped with fresh tomato, Chinese longbeans sauteed in olive oil. This food was a hit -- what's not to love?

Promise

A blossom, caught just before it bears fruit -- common, ordinary, lovely. As I take a moment to really see this miracle once again, I am reminded of the blessing of rebirth. Like all of nature, we have a chance to begin again. Unlike the rest of nature, we sentient beings have a chance for a fresh start every day, every moment, in fact.

When the promise of a fresh start becomes all consuming, we begin to lead an examined life. Without judgement, with an open mind, we notice and acknowledge our proclivities. Those which feed our souls, we maintain and nurture. The others we shed, or temper. These blossoms, ripe with promise, breed hope for those times we will choose to change course.

The flowers above appear to be bean shoots. You can see a tiny bean beginning to emerge in the middle, in fact. At the end of my wonderful day planting a couple of months ago, it looks like I had fun putting a little of everything into this pot. I don't remember planting a bean here, but I obviously  did. I thought those leaves didn't look like cucumbers! Garden surprises -- bonus! Peppery, space-saucer-shaped nasturtiums appear to the right of the bean vine. Mom always planted plenty of these, and we'd eat the whole plant, leaves, stems and bright orange and yellow flowers. They were wonderful in salads. A zucchini is also in bloom in this pot, but it doesn't appear in the photo.

The patio grape tomato begins its process. Ellie observes.

Also around the patio, the nasturtiums pair with petunias

Back in the garden, at a later stage of the fresh start process, are the radishes -- see how they push themselves out of the ground?

I pulled a few, along with one of the larger onions. They became a delicious juice with some romaine, kale, ginger, cucumber and an apple. I shared the juice with my Dad, who's been visiting. We all love it when he comes!

Promise for the future is all around us. I'm grateful I took the time today to notice.

Dad's Here!

Dad's here for a visit! We all love it when he comes.

The dogs quietly go to the front window when they hear the sound of his car's engine rounding the corner. The sound of the car is imperceptible to humans at the point they notice it, but within a minute or two he is pulling into the driveway, and they each, still not barking but smiling and wagging, compete to be the first one to put her nose through the door as I open it to welcome him. Unlike every other time the beasts slip out the front door, they do not go on a joy run throughout the neighborhood for me to chase, sweating and panting with leash in one hand and box of treats in the other. No, when Dad is here, the girls only walk out onto the front stoop to encircle Dad's legs, smiling up at him adoringly. They continue to follow him into the house, Pied Piper that he is. Still, neither has uttered a woof.

"Some guard dogs you are!" Dad says by way of greeting.

The girls love Grandad! He spoils them rotten as a grandparent should.

Look at the lovely fodder for juice in the photo above! I made a couple of good batches the last two mornings. Dad saw the broken nozzle on my fabulous juicer (see Lazy Food Season + An Island Mystery for the backstory) and before I knew it, he -- puttering on his little travel computer at the kitchen table -- he'd ordered me the replacement part. Dad's awesome!

Look what else Dad found for me:

Isn't this cool -- this caviar is vegetarian -- made from seaweed! It is delicious and very like the taste and texture of real caviar, only a little less salty.

Dad got me this sturgeon flavor variety, and also salmon roe flavor. Mmmmm!

Time to go create another fabulous dinner with Dad.

Another Pulp Mishap

So, how long have I been juicing? This is what I get for multitasking during my sacred juicing process. What went wrong here? That's right -- No pulp bin! I just shoved the first kale leaf through the juicer and sprayed the pulp all over the counter and the floor:

When I'm working in the kitchen, Ellie is always listening carefully for some sort of utterance from me that would indicate food might be on the floor. She did indeed hear me say . . .  something, and pitched in right away to do her part:

The girl loves her greens!

Emma seemed at first to want no  part in the process:

But then I realized the dried out kale pulp from the juicer would not have much flavor or scent left and so it would be like the ice cubes I have to point out on the floor to the pups. The dogs' vision is great for noticing a squirrel twitch 100 yards away, but up close not so much. They really rely on their sense of smell more than vision at that range. So if something has little or no scent, I have to point right to it for them to find it. Once I did, Emma did her part in the clean up as well.

I just thought you might enjoy another laugh at my expense!

Lots of Leafies

You know I love my greens, but when it comes to leafy veggies, like with anything else, a bit of diversification is a good thing. Above are some juice veggies that were inspired by something I saw recently from Kris Carr-- I believe hers was called "Cabbage Rose". I'm pretty sure it was not exactly this collection, but the purple cabbage instead of greens was the start of the inspiration, and I went from there. In this batch was: 1/4 purple cabbage, a whole fennel bulb with stalks and fronds, two gala apples, a big cuke, and lots of raw ginger. This batch really packed a powerful flavor punch, which I liked, but others may want to reduce the fennel and/or ginger quantities. That was before. Here's after:

 Look at that color! Isn't it "mauvelous"? This was very yum.

From the rest of the cabbage, I made some cole slaw for fish tacos I served the family the other night. The slaw was easy -- sliced thinly, the cabbage was mixed with the juice of half a lime, 2 tablespoons of veganaise, a pinch of salt and green onion. A meal like tacos is perfect for my mixed family of carnivores, a vegetarian and a vegan. Other toppings I featured besides the slaw and the fish were sour cream - dairy and not, dairy cheese, garlicky collards and chick peas, black beans and salsa. Wynne had bean tacos with cheese and salsa, and I had bean, collards-n-chick peas, slaw and salsa tacos. The guys had whatever it was they wanted. I didn't pay attention, but nothing got wasted.

The next day, the slaw tasted even better. It was a great snack on some delicious multigrain sourdough bread spread with earth balance -- mmmm.

Before I close this "diverse leafy veg" post, I want to share my favorite prepackaged salad:

Normally I prefer to get whole veggies and wash and prepare them myself, but this is great for those busy moments where not having it on hand would make our food choices less wholesome. Organic Girl Super Greens is so much better than any other mixed prepackaged salad, in my opinion. They had me at "our most nutritious salad". Seriously -- this combination, of red and green swiss chard, tat soi, arugula and spinach, is so flavorful I eat it with no dressing. Give it a try if you haven't yet. I'd show you the greens, themselves, but, ummm, I already ate them. Here's my little trick for keeping these boxed salads fresh -- after the box is opened, lay a paper towel across the top of the greens before replacing the lid and putting it back in the fridge. The towel soaks up and holds excess moisture so the greens remain perfectly dry but the air within the box is moist enough to keep the veggies fresher longer. You may have already figured this out as well.

Leafy veggies of any color rock!

Yes, Another Juice . . .

I'm certain you are tired of my juices at this point, but this one is worth sharing. I was inspired by my husband this morning, who is ailing just a tad -- a bit sinusy, a bit tired and prone to chills. I was sure fresh, mostly organic juice, with its megamicronutrients, would be his best bet. The man likes my "buttery" collards-n-cabbage for dinner, but he's not crazy about muddy-looking green juices with their accompanying slight bitter edge to his sugar-addled palate. So today I didn't make a green juice at all. I made an orange juice.

It contained: three oranges, half a lemon, a one-inch knob of ginger, about 6 smallish organic carrots and two cucumbers. All fruits and veggies were peeled except the carrots and ginger. The citrus pith would've been too bitter, and the waxy, pesticide-laden skins of the unorganic cucumbers had to go. By the way, I wash those nasty skins first with soap since I don't want the peeler to transfer so much of the yuckiness to the fresh cucumber flesh within. I obviously need to find a better source for my cukes!

The man is looking better, I think. In any case, I don't think I've ever tasted anything so lovely as this juice. I am craving more of it right now. It is dessert-worthy.

Lately, without boring you with tedious details, there have been some challenges involving kids' and my own health, doctors' appointments, a car accident, talks with lawyers and insurance agents, etc. As you might imagine, time hasn't been mine to the degree that I've not been creative in the vegan part of my kitchen. I've been using a lot of vegan shortcuts to help me maintain my standards for health and fabulous food. I always try to jazz up the prepared meals with a little something to remind myself that I'm worth it. Stay tuned for a future post with some of what I've been eating in addition to my juices.

Juice Pulp Crackers!

This was way more effort than I usually expend, but an early sampling of these crackers revealed an unusual but not disagreeable flavor. Once they are crunchy, I just might like them. I spent an hour getting the texture and seasonings right. I first spread out a batch of this "dough" and cut it just like this, and struggled to transfer each little piece to the dehydrator without it falling apart or falling through the mesh of the tray. I finally got wise and scraped it all back into a bowl for some more ground flax seed. I am not sure how much I used. I just kept adding it until the dough was quite bready. It was at least a cupful. I used the pulp from two batches of juice -- again, an unknown quantity. I seasoned with salt, pepper, shoyu, lemon juice, a little sprinkle of curry and coriander. I came up with this combo from several different pulp cracker recipes I found online. Once the dough was bready enough, it behaved well for me, keeping its shape on the dehydrator trays. It's been going an hour so far, but it is not crunchy at all yet.

There was a lot of complaining about all the food processing I had to do to homogenize the pulp. The guys were trying to watch football and I was making an awful racket. My 14 year old daughter came in as I was spreading the dough out and when I told her what I was doing she burst into hysterical laughter, taking photos to e-mail all her friends. I do tend to keep that lot entertained with my vegan antics. It is a curiosity to them -- very different from the way things happen in their own homes. At the last sleepover, Wynne's friends all tried my fresh juice. They said they liked it. I was so proud!

Here's the pulp with only half a cup of flaxseed -- way too moist to hold together.

Here are the crackers in the dehydrator. I stacked four of these trays. The pulp of two juicings, a cup+ of flaxseed, etc. was the perfect quantity to fill the dehydrator.

The khaki-green color is kind of pretty in an odd way. These crackers are raw, vegan, gluten-free and utilize the fiber from my juiced veggies much more effectively than my ill-fated bean soup/chili experiment.I need to wait another couple of hours at least, but I'll report on the final verdict of whether this exercise will be repeated once I've had a chance to take a crunchy bite.

Leftovers on a Lovely Day

Finally some food! I know I've mostly been featuring juice lately, but I do also eat. I love leftovers. Yesterday was such a beautiful day that I decided to have an alfresco lunch. I sat on my screen porch -- gotta love that natural light! This taco salad utilized leftovers from our dinner the night before. Dinner was chicken tacos from the leftovers from the night before that (rotisserie chicken) The taco bar is an example of how I can best feed a family with different diets. I am feeding a quasi-health-conscious-omnivore (husband), a non-health-conscious-carnivore-with-food-allergies (son), an almost-vegetarian (daughter) and a vegan (myself). Lucky for me, the food that was mostly left over was my kind of food! You can see what it all is. That's non-dairy sour cream on top. Delish!

I am still juicing daily, and today I will share this pretty photo of a pre-juice pile:

This was yesterday's juice: romaine, kale, carrot, two apples, two cucumbers, ginger and lemon! I just want to say that ginger and lemon are the rock stars of this flavor combo -- soooo good! I used a whole lemon (peeled -- the white pith is too bitter) and the lemon flavor was a bit forward toward the end of the glass, so you may want to try a quarter or half of a lemon first and see what you think. But seriously do consider adding fresh lemon to your juice. It is very bright and energizing.

For today's juice (no photo, I think you've seen enough) I tried pears  instead of apples. Because of the delicate flavor of pears, I didn't use the lemon or ginger. I wanted to taste the pear. I was disappointed. The pear flavor got swallowed up by the kale. The juice was fine, but not great like my ginger-lemon rock star juice. Fresh juice is such a treat, I'm sticking with my favorites from now on!

P.S. - Happy 18th Birthday to my wonderful son, Hans! We are so proud of you!

Learning Curve

Today I will share with you some candid, unstyled photos of the inside of my home after everyone has been here every day for two weeks straight. Today is my husband's first day back at work. We normally take a little trip this time of year but that did not work out since my almost-18-year-old is still finishing up last semester due to all the school he missed with his daily migraines. So, the kid was studying, the other kid was running in and out of here with many different friend combinations, and the hubby was staycationing, My daily vacuuming became unpopular (they don't like the noise, bless them). But the point of this post is not to share the level of filth with which I've recently become accustomed -- that's just a side effect of telling you today's installment of my juicing saga.

As with any new equipment, there is a learning curve with using, cleaning, drying and storing the many parts of my amazing appliance. Today, after filling my glass with a fabulous elixir made from cucumbers, celery, a leaf of kale, half a head of romaine, a fuji apple and some ginger root (YUM!), I absentmindedly poured the second glassful into a cup for later. Unfortunately I poured as if pouring from the coffee pot, the lid of which remains attached. The lid of the juicer pitcher is not attached. So here's what happened:

Ugh -- doesn't just looking at that make you nervous? Ellie came running when she heard the catastrophe. That's her tail there poking up over the edge of the counter, and that's her fur there under the cabinet across the room. Fortunately, I had already taken a sip of this fab elixir before said catastrophe, so the mood-soothing effects of greens were already working their magic. I just felt thankful that nothing was on fire this time, then called Emma over to help her sister get started on the cleanup:

My beasts sure love veggies! After the pups gave me a head start, the rest wasn't that difficult to dispatch. And I was left with this:

Ahhh!

In more good news, I've been fighting a little cold which is going away very quickly from the juice and from this bowl of easy curried chickpeas I ate yesterday:

I added half a chopped yellow onion to a bowl of Amy's Lentil Soup, simmered it until the onion was cooked, then added a can of chickpeas, some curry and turmeric. I served it over leftover quinoa and topped  it off with some green onion. This was such a satisfying New Year's Day stew!

Now -- vacuuming!

Crave!

Here's today's elixir of health -- two cucumbers, two organic gala apples and five stalks of kale. I wish I could show you the lovely pile of plantfoods before they were processed, but while I was photographing a lovely pile of veggies and fruits, my camera was seeing something else. The resulting photos turned out to be, um, not fit for general audiences. I'll be more aware of my food styling in the future.

I digress . . . This combination is more pleasing to my palate than yesterday's which was too sweet for my taste with three apples instead of two. I believe the organic apples are much sweeter. I like to taste a bit of green. My husband asked for some of this elixir, and grimaced a tad, but then he asked for seconds! He asked if it would dye his teeth green -- isn't this funny? I think we are programmed from childhood that saturated color will leave a permanent mark. There is no green dye number 7 here, and, aside from the odd bit of pulp between the teeth, he has little to worry about.

I've received a comment about wasting the pulp from the juicing process, and I'll be addressing that in the future as I try a couple of options. There are definitely copious amounts of pulp that result from the juicing process. Until I decide how to best utilize the pulp, I will be saving it in the freezer. I'll keep you posted.

Juice!

Thank you, sweet husband! Look at my wonderful Christmas gift from my hubby. I've coveted this Breville juicer since reading Kris Carr's Crazy Sexy Diet. It's hard to jump in with both feet to Kris' plan without the necessary equipment. This thing is so cool. The first juice we made was carrot, celery and apple. The result was shockingly delicious! The next day, with no more celery, I made apple, ginger, carrot and kale. I tried one less apple (3) than the day before (4) and it was still delicious. After two days of juicing, I am actually craving the next juice. Yes, that's right, with a refrigerator full of decadent vegan meal items from our holiday fare, what I really want more than anything else is my next juice! I'm eating the holiday leftovers too, by the way, but am surprised by the swiftness of this new craving. My 14-year-old daughter and her friends giggle over how thrilled I am with this juicer. I'm so glad I can provide entertainment for the next generation!

Today I think I will make cucumber, apple, romaine and kale. Yesterday and the day before I used the only apples I had, which were not organic but well-scrubbed (I know, that's not good enough). Yesterday I picked up some organic apples: gala and granny smith. Obviously these will be nutritionally superior. I'll let you know about any flavor difference I detect.

Here's our Christmas Dinner table -- just for the four of us this time. Our extended family lives around the Washington D.C. area, except for my brother and his family in China and my husband's brother and sisters in Florida, so it was only us this time. I prepared a turkey breast for the omnis, but the rest was vegan: Mashed potatoes with tofutti sour cream, earth balance and fresh Italian parsley, Wynne's favorite pasta salad with sundried tomatoes and chick peas in a balsamic veganaise sauce and freshly sauteed leeks, collard greens and cabbage with a splash of tamari and plenty of earth balance. I love pairing cabbage with collards. Somehow the cabbage holds the flavor of the "butter" better than the other veggies, so it is a perfect foil to the more bitter collards. This was all delicious and we have plenty of leftovers.

Now for some juice!!

An Abundance of Beauty

These are only a few of the lovely items I purchased at the Holiday Bazaar at the home of my wonderful friend and next-door-neighbor, Sherri. Besides being Supergirl, my friend, Sherri, is an amazingly talented jewelry designer and creator. Her pieces are unique and coveted in this part of the world, and she comes up with new collections all the time. This year, because of growing demand for her pieces, she enlisted the help of a few "elves" for her workshop (more wonderful neighbor-friends). I love to see Sherri's business grow from year to year. Check out her page on Facebook: InspiredDesigns. I cannot show you all of what I purchased from Sherri and other wonderful, creative vendors she hosted in her home for the Bazaar, since some of you may become the recipients of this bounty come Christmastime.

Besides Sherri's jewelry, several other talented ladies presented their wares, many hand-crafted. The creative energy of the place was inspiring and really was a wonderful way to get blasted into the holiday spirit, which I am normally pretty bah-humbug about this time of year.

I enjoyed meeting some new talented people and also seeing again a couple of beautiful people who are not in my usual circle. These ladies, kindred spirits, were such a joy to see, and it seemed like we easily resumed the conversation we had started last year. They asked me why I'm not posting as often here and I explained how and why I'm in more of a "mom" chapter of life to my two teenagers. Of course this topic led back to a discussion we started last year about healthy lifestyles and how crucial good nutrition is. Dawn Corner is one of these ladies. She created the beautiful painting of the owl in the photo. All of her pieces utilize similar saturated, energy-drenched colors and are mesmerizing. I love them!

This year I made the acquaintance of a lovely lady named Peggy whose husband makes amazing hummus. Peggy and I got into a discussion about nutrition also, and this one evolved into a head and neck massage for me. Chakras momentarily aligned, I happily purchased one of each of Peggy's husband's hummus varieties: plain, roasted red pepper and sundried tomato. This is some seriously good stuff! I've been eating it for breakfast on an Eziekiel english muffin -- mmmm. Peggy gave me her business card, but it has somehow left my purse -- probably as I kept taking my checkbook out. Thank goodness her contact info is on the hummus label. I will be ordering more of this.

About an hour after closing time for day one of the Bazaar, clients and artists alike meandered out of Sherri's home, giving her a few hours of rest before it all was to begin again the next day. As I walked in my front door, I realized I hadn't paid for Sherri's jewelry, "shoplifting" all of it, so to speak. I quickly sent my friend a text fessing up and told her I'd bring it all back the next day, since she couldn't remember which pieces I had chosen. Then I remembered I had done exactly the same thing last year! Sherri provides a relaxed, festive shopping experience at her Bazaar, replete with wine, food and happy people, so when I absconded with the goods I felt like I was doing nothing more than leaving a party. Good thing she knows where I live!

When I showed up again the next morning, Dawn Corner, the artist, told me she had made me a juice! She had juiced fresh spinach, celery, carrot, lemon and one or two other veggies I cannot remember. She brought it in this nice cup:

and had put it in Sherri's 'fridge just for me. The juice didn't make it to the photo. I drank it and it was amazing, light and energizing. I thought this kind gesture from someone I see only once a year was so thoughtful.

The Bazaar, and all the amazing, talented, wise personalities it drew was a balm in troubled times. Being surrounded for a little while by folks who operate congruently with their spirits, creating and sharing, restores my faith in humanity.  When I speak of an abundance of beauty, the people are as much a part of that as the art they produce. I'm grateful and inspired!