Kick getting sick

Recipie for feeling off tea

For that day before you get full-blown sick, when you feel just a little bit off.

I got just the thing for you.

Fresh ginger

www.precisionnutrition.com

Cut in in slices, then little tiny cubes. Like mincing it. Except take your time with it. Each time you cut ginger, it releases this wonderfully alive scent. Enjoy it.

Once you have enough minced to fill a tablespoon, put a small saucepan with cool water on the stove. Add the ginger and put in on a low heat until it starts to boil. Around this time your water should start to take on a golden brown hue.

Then take it off, let it cool, strain, and drink straight or with your preferred sweetener. Honey, Stevia, sugar, heck, even back-strap molasses. Whatever floats your boat.

Ginger has some great restorative properties, good minerals and vitamins your body needs. Especially if it's getting beaten up by germs.

Think of it like the backup when it looks like the superhero looks to be overpowered by the bad guy.

And there is something to be said for the act of making tea, or making anything for that matter. We are so bombard by stimulus. Information, entertainment, layered on more fun diversions and distractions that our physical bodies often get lost in the mix.

When I was a kid I loved to read ( I still do). I used to read when I are my breakfast cereal. Unfortunately my mind was so involved in the story, it didn't really realize that I was eating, or hungry, or full for that matter. So I'd eat and eat and eat.

Popcorn vendors at the movies make bank because of this.

On the other hand, at times in my life when I am forced to slow down and focus Like when I got my braces and for a whole month my teeth ached terribly A single bite of food can seem like a feast that could sustain me a whole day.

By cooking, or at least tossing some things in a pot and hanging around it waiting for bubbles. You are, in a way, feeding yourself twice. First you are feeding yourself with self-sufficency. There is incredible power in being able to do something for yourself. Providing for yourself.

Don't believe me? Just ask a little girls who just conquered tying her shoes. You can see it on her face. The pride is tangible.

Prepare your tea.

Put it in your favorite mug. This step is equally important.

Sit, and hold it, letting the warmth seep in.

Sip

Repeat.

Smile.

May you take care of yourself happily.

P.S. Thank you to my friend for teaching me, and healing me with this drink.

how to build a plant

So I want to try something.

I want to see how long a person (like me, for example) can survive on the food that one grows.

Growing food...

Is there an app for that?

OK, well in order for me to eat in October, I need to start preparing now. Or trying to.

You know, they say it's never too early to prepare for the zombie Apocalypse.

Or the end of the world...again.

Now to start I first must explain my qualifications for undertaking this endeavor.

What makes me the perfect candidate for undertaking this?

Nothing

I've never been too personally involved with growing things. My parents had a garden, which as a child I dutifully had to weed...when I remembered.

Around middle school I started an herb garden, because I heard that herbs didn't need too much work. They were right! And for three years after I tired of my herb garden, my Dad fought to kill the peppermint. He is not an herbalist.

I don't have much experience, but what about  natural given talent?

Well, I am the granddaughter of a farmer(That's hopeful). Who I don't recall ever meeting, God rest his soul.

I'm the child of two educators. So if genetics mean anything I stand a better chance at getting plants to know their multiplication facts than providing it what it needs for a good harvest.

But what does a plant need?

That's easy, soil, water, sun.

Case closed.

And while that is true, that is only the generic answer. The one I've always fallen back on.

But plants are no more generic than we are. The generic size of a woman's shoe is a 7, but not all women can fit comfortably in a 7. The height of a average modern American man is around 5'9”. But it doesn't mean that that all mens clothing are the same length.

How much water?

It varies from plant to plant.

A plant can't tell you when it's drowning.

How much sun? What would sizzle one plant isn't enough for another.

What kind of soil? And how much? Some plants sprawl, some plants grow up. And then some plants like alfalfa have root systems that go so deep they put miners to shame.

This requires some research on my part.

Which is difficult for me.

Not so much doing the actual research, That I'm fine with.

It's doing what it says. Taking orders from an inanimate object. 

Ooo I just can't stand being told what to do!

You see I sometimes can be a bit headstrong.

And depend a bit too much on luck.

Sometimes.

It took a while to learn to cook, because I disliked meekly following a piece of paper's dictations.

I knit and crochet mainly based on my own ideas, preferring to mess up and rip it out than to bow to the orders of a book.

I am getting better. Bit by bit.

This will be good exercise for me.

Next week I'll be including what I'm hoping to plant in my garden. And then I can start learning about the whims and needs of each one. So it can grow and produce.

Then I can eat.

I think it'd be a little easier bending my stubborn will to this. After all, a plant is living. Not inanimate. And the research I'll be doing is for it's benefit.

Wish me luck!

Hungry?

Hungry?

Yeah, me too.

What are you hungry for?

A burger?

Mac and Cheese?

Ice cream?

We, as occupants of the first world with many of us holding a job that refers to our collar, are blessed with an abundance of food. And in a way we are cursed with an extreme disconnect with where and how our food arrives in our refrigerator and on our plates.

Where does it come from?

How long does it last?

Can you make it last longer?

And the question that fascinates me the most. (Drumroll please)

How much do we need?

That is the million dollar question.

I'm not talking portion size, like super-size fast food, or those tiny bits of food you get at fancy restaurants. Don't care.

I'm not talking about the bare minimum you need to sustain life. Boring.

I'm talking about if someone gave you a bushel of potatoes, how long would you live?

http://egregores.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/peas-and-potato-soup/

A week? A month?

Six months?

And in step with that, comes another question; 

How long can I live, nutritionally on just potatoes?

During certain times in our ancestor's history we were forced to survive on meager amounts during famine, winter, traveling and other times of inconvenience.

I want to know if someone in 2013, with our brilliant technology, and computers that can do anything, with our fuel efficient cars and solar panels. Can we do that?

I don't know the answer, yet.

But I'd like to find out.

This will become an ongoing conversation (so stay tuned) and when the time favors the conversation with shift into an experiment.

What kind of experiment, you ask?

You'll see.