It is summer, and we are showing our feet. You rather want to hide yours? Here are two, no three beauty tips:
1. Walk on your feet. Feet are beautiful when they are functional. Feet that are not used become ugly.
As a child, I had the ugliest feet you can imagine. I only learned walking when I was three. Then I had to wear orthopedic boots until I was eight. Needless to say, I never enjoyed walking. – Fast forward: I found out my problem were not my feet but gluten intolerance. I started walking – really enjoying it – and my feet have become beautiful over time.
2. Don’t wear high heels – or wear them as little as possible. High heels twist your whole body out of shape, not only your feet.
Many years ago, in Germany, I consulted a physician for headaches. He looked at me, looked slowly down at my body, fixed his stare on my feet and said: “No wonder, with those flat feet!” – If you wear high heels, it affects your hips, your knees, and your entire spine (low back pain, slumping, neck pain!).
3. Against toe nail fungus, cracked heels, calluses (except for corns, they need special treatment - perhaps by a podiatrist): Apply tea tree oil to your feet; put extra attention on your toe nails. Then rub your feet with olive oil – same stuff you cook with. It is nice to add a drop of essential oil like rosemary, thyme, myrrh to a small bottle – gives an extra nice scent. In the beginning, treat your feet twice a day; later, when they look beautiful, do it once a day.
You’ll never want to hide your feet again! Read More
Blog: On Health. On Writing. On Life. On Everything.
Freshness
July 16, 2010
We cannot eat perfectly healthy every single time we sit down to dine. But we should at least have an idea what the ideal of a meal can be.
Surrounded by friends and family, and outdoors – if possible. Even the tiniest of balconies will do; or an open window. A tablecloth would look lovely; at least a few matching plate mats, and always my best china. For whom would I keep it? My children will inherit what is not broken.
Ah, what for food? The answer is easy: vegetables. Tonight, at my home, it will be fennel – probably sautéed with onions, garlic and olive oil. And a baby cabbage, which I will steam whole with caraway. We will finish a leftover from yesterday (beet greens, cauliflower, young zucchini and green garlic). So, technically, we will have three veggies on the table – and I haven’t even mentioned meat or fish (I might do bratwurst today, in coconut oil – we still have some frozen from our May garden party, and we had fish or vegetarian for several days in a row. Served with chana dal (an Indian small garbanzo; they look like split peas, only yellow. One takes a cup of chana dal to two cups of water, brings it to a fast boil with a pinch of salt, and then simmers with a lid until all water is gone. The problem with chana dal (as with split green peas and most grains) is that they need skimming off some froth early on so that they don’t boil over.
For desert I will quick-cook rhubarb with a bit of sugar. Rhubarb is one of the few things that absolutely can’t go without sugar.
If freshness is the standard, then this is what we eat tonight: The warmed-up vegetables came from a friend’s garden– they were tender and delicious. The fennel is organic, from the supermarket; so is the cabbage. The cabbage and the rhubarb are local, the fennel came from far away. The bratwurst is organic.
Yesterday, with the fish, we had some green sauce – from the freezer. I usually make a batch for guests, and freeze the rest. I never use a microwave (not even for thawing) or use ready-made gravy or dressings, but I am not above freezing leftovers. Here is the Green Sauce recipe (you need a strong kitchen machine – a blender will not do):
Chop five cloves of garlic, a small onion and a handful of baby carrots. Add all the herbs you can put your hands on, one by one, and chop. Basil is a staple – and so are parsley, dill and cilantro. A few snippets of sage, chives, rosemary and thyme give fragrance. Add olive oil, a dab of salt and pepper. If it tastes boring (sometimes it does…), add a few teaspoons of mustard. Chop until fairly smooth. Chill and serve to fish and/or vegetables. Freeze leftover in portions.
If you live in the countryside (or if you have friends who bring you their produce) count your blessings. Otherwise make do with what you find in your supermarket. Organic is desired – but better a conventional vegetable than no vegetable at all! Local is super – but can’t always be had. I never go to the store with a recipe to follow: Number one, I am bad in following rules; number two, I go for what is fresh and what is cheap. I throw together what I think will work (olive oil and garlic rescue many of my dishes).
Brown rice or legumes (beans, peas, lentils, garbanzos) are dry. But vegetables should not be old or store-bought frozen or canned. Go for fresh, and strew on a few fresh or dried herbs. Here I say “dried” because fresh herbs can be very expansive – better dried herbs than no herbs.
No complicated cooking – just fresh produce. Enjoy! Read More
Harvesting Little Things
June 24, 2010
Fall is far away – but I did do my first harvesting yesterday: I got my peas off the vine, just in time before they would have been overripe and hard. Did I mention that this year I started vegetable gardening in pots on the terrace? Because I have crammed the garden so much with flowers and berries that not a speck of free soil was anywhere.
The pods yielded about a cup of peas – just enough for the two of us. I sautéed them very shortly with dill and a tad of ghee (butterfat). As you might have noticed, I usually shun dairy. Most dishes improve when you substitute with olive oil but occasionally a recipe calls for butter, and then I use ghee. In butter fat the proteins are skimmed off the melted butter. Since dairy proteins are the main culprits when it comes to inflammation, of all dairy products, ghee is the safest. I am not a purist – at times, I give in to an emotional need for comfort food. So it was yesterday, with the peas.
From the store, we also had dinosaur kale (also called lacinato kale, Tuscan kale) which is a swell way to introduce kids to greens. The kale has this puckered surface which really looks like dinosaur skin - just don’t tell them yet that researchers now discuss if dinosaurs had feathers. A friend had brought me a first bulb of garlic including greens from her garden, and I threw this, cut, into the kale, and added olive oil, some more garlic, pepper, salt.
Served this with red lentils with cumin, and fish with a bit of left-over green sauce from the freezer.
With it, we drank our garden tea, made from stinging nettles, dandelions, mallow, mints, rosemary, sage, chives, a bit of a young burdock leaf, and just a snippet of wormwood (it is toxic in greater amounts).
A simple, everyday meal – but oh, how sumptuous! Read More