Making bread and other tranquil things

I got one of those ideas in my head a couple weeks ago. I wanted to make bread. 

I could see myself quietly kneading the dough, rolling in the yeast, slowly, methodically, rhythmically. Connecting with an ancient tradition. It seemed so lovely.

Josh told me we had yeast, which I didn't think we had. It stressed me out a little to know that because that meant I really had no obstacles between me and the bread-making fantasy. 

Then I realized we had no flour because the weevils got to it. Which made me feel better.

Something about making things from scratch turns this girl a little nervous. I'm so afraid to mess it up. I'm afraid the moments in my head will turn into flour-covered disaster, with John careening through the house covered in white powder. And suddenly the walls and the furniture need to be cleaned. And the bread would be forgotten.

A moment made more tragic less by mess and more by disappointment.

So I went to the store and I bought more yeast. I told myself the old yeast might have gone bad. And I bought wheat flour since I believe that I am into that sort of thing, even though I drink Coke and eat candy bars. 

I put the molasses and the oil on the counter with the measuring cups. And then I waited some more. Bread-making required the perfect moment. I just needed to wait for it. 

Tonight my friends are coming for dinner. My friend who cooks with a Julia Child's cookbook, who knows how to poach an egg.

It's a good thing she is not judgmental. 

In my internet searchings, I found this short film from Kinfolk, the hipster crowd you secretly want to hang out with. They make everyday life look extravagantly beautiful with their aged film treatment and typography, the nearly-sedating music. It's nearly impossible to be stressed while watching this film. I realize the unidentified star of this film doesn't have a two year-old in the background who just lobbed his toothbrush into the toilet. 

But still, it's so peaceful, so slow. You can't rush, can't hyperventilate. Please enjoy this beautiful film and reconnect with slowness. 

the art of making bread from tiger in a jar on Vimeo.

After viewing this, I did make my own bread. How could I not? John was down for a nap, and the house went quiet. I tuned in to the Album Leaf station on Pandora, lit a candle, and gave myself the hours. Here is the recipe I used, which is a video from All Recipes. It's pretty tranquil as well.

Here is the result of my process. I was proud. Not bad for a first-timer.

The recipe did make three loaves. I gave one way and gobbled up the rest with help from the boys. It's something I will certainly do again soon.

Why we need all five

I've been craving curry lately. Spicy things: salsa...that's all I can think of.

It's one of those times I wonder if I'm pregnant.  Oh, wait. I always do. 

As I sat finishing my Thai yellow curry this afternoon, skin sweating just a little, nose on the runny side, I thought about what this biological urge for spicy might mean. And it reminded me the Chinese already figured it out. 

Our bodies need five flavors to function, to maintain life flow and balance. I'm not sure what to make of their theory of qi and all that, but they're onto something with their approach to diet and health.

According to this article from PingMing Health, each of the five flavors in food impact a specific essential organ. I find this so fascinating. 

Heart – Bitter
Liver – Sour

Spleen – Sweet

Lung – Spicy

Kidney – Salty

The functions of each flavor are relatively vague, but the article goes into more detail for each element. I recommend you read it.

Sour flavour can calm the body.

Bitter flavour can clear heat.

Sweet flavour can tonify the body.

Spicy flavour can expel wind and cold from the body.

Salty flavour can help the body to dissolve stagnation.

[photo cred: landsofwisdom.com]

The article describes the path of each food and how cravings aid in diagnosis: 

"The famous ancient traditional Chinese medical text, Huangdi Neiing, records that after eating, sour flavoured foods goes to the liver first, bitter flavour goes to the heart first, sweet flavour go to the spleen first, spicy flavour goes to the lung first, and salty flavour goes to the kidney first. 

The organs try to balance themselves through your diet. When an organ is sick, the body can tell you what organ may be impaired through cravings for a particular taste.In the clinic, we consider the flavours as part of the traditional Chinese medicine diagnosis, to discover what organs may be in disorder. 

For example, my clients often complain of cravings for sweets, which usually indicates spleen deficiency, because the spleen organ likes sweets."

And of course, floaty philosopher that I am, I wonder what this tells us about our souls. How we stay in balanced in life. 

And maybe how sometimes, the adventures or relationships we crave reveal the imbalances and lacks in our "soul diet". 

Sometimes life offers us the flavor. A death of a loved one, the ending of a relationship, a hope or goal that fizzles on impact: these can send us reeling. And suddenly we're in a new flavored season, one of sour or bitter. 

Primal beings that we are, we seek pleasure and avoid pain. We nearly always want sweet, or at least, we aim to avoid the bitter and the sour. But sometimes they come to us, and there is a balancing that happens. 

These moments of pain and sorrow are the ones that make us human. We stop doubting Jesus' humanity when we see his loneliness and fear in the garden of Eden, his compassion at the lost hearts of people  who had no one to care for them, his grief when his friends, Lazarus and John, died. 

His humanity is vibrantly on display maybe not as much in his laughter or statements of irony, but most in his aching. 

Pain makes us raw; reveals who we are. We stop propping up facades, and painful as it is, it's nice to let the fake go for a while. Maybe forever.

Then sometimes, we go in search of the missing flavors. We can feel our lives are missing the spicy, the adventures, the unexpected. Or the sweetness of companionship or feeling rightly fitted somewhere. 

And I think that says something about where we are and what we need. In other words, the experiences we seek reveal what is missing. Seems obvious, right? 

The problem arises when we try to forge the adventure ourselves, when we stop trusting in Someone who loves us more and out of fear of getting left out or being alone forever, we try to create the missing thing.

But it often feels empty when we do it ourselves. 

I don't know what else to say but this: He made you this way, made me this way. He wants me to taste all the flavors. Wants his life flow active in my veins and mind and spirit. He wants me to taste the sweet, to have the spicy of adventure and the alive of the sour and the bitter. It's all part of being human. 

And Jesus is there to remember with us in vivid color what it feels like to be fully alive, fully human, fully here. And he is fully with us. Always. 

Eating like a horse and other healthy habits

So it turns out I'm not the health fiend I fancied myself to be.  I have high cholesterol.  Perhaps what's worse, I had to ask, "What is cholesterol exactly?" after the news broke.  Still not sure I know.  Something about fat in your blood, which seems odd.  This is why I am not a doctor.

I made this alarming self-discovery about 10 days ago at my work's fitness program weigh-in.  As if it wasn't bad enough that they measured body fat and weight, which I was only somewhat comfortable with, they also measured cholesterol.  No problem, I thought, glancing around at all the other poor blokes whose numbers would surely be in the danger zone.  I've got this one.  Ah, but I was mistaken.  Mine measured high, 272 to be exact.  (For reference, 200 and below is considered the safe, healthy, responsible citizen zone.)  Granted the number doesn't break down good and bad cholesterol, LDLs and HDLs, but 272 is high anyway.  For a relatively thin (I think), 29 year old female.  Seriously.

Call me judgmental, but when I think of high cholesterol, I think of a heavyset man, t-shirt barely rounding his midsection, chowing down on two or three McGreaseburgers.  For the value, of course.  That guy's food pyramid is upside down.  Of course he has high cholesterol.  But me?  Little old me?  Well, I guess I did get a little carried away in the sugar aisle at the in-laws Christmas celebrations.  Drat.  But still.

Now before you or I jump to conclusions about my lifestyle or start blaming dead family members for my genetics, let's not forget that we don't actually know if my outrageously high number is in fact bad.  I might have high good cholesterol.  Obviously that means that the fat in my blood is not blobby fat hanging out of its t-shirts, but well-proportioned, "curvy" fat that knows how to dress for its size.

All this is to say, I'm not panicking.  Not at all.  Since I'm not making plans to visit to the doctor - yes, I'm a social worker; I can recognize denial even in myself, thank you - I'll be taking up a new kind of diet.  This time it's not about eating horse-like quantities; instead, I'm focusing on one primary equine diet ingredient: oats.  To start my day off with a cholesterol-killing bang, I'll be alternating between a breakfast of oatmeal and Cheerios.   I'll also be throwing in an oatmeal raisin cookie after every meal for good measure.  And if I have my way, I'll live in denial for a few more weeks, until they measure my cholesterol again, at which point they will suggest I find out that good fat/bad fat breakdown.  I will politely thank them for the suggestion and resume eating my Cheerios, but twice as many this time, because after all, I am a responsible procrastinator.

And speaking of habits, I'm trying to make a habit of writing more.  And I'd like it to be profitable, in more than one way.  So in the effort to get the word out, I've nominated myself - I'm shameless, it's true - as one of Babble.com's roll of talented mom bloggers.  And if you don't mind, I'm trying to get a little more traffic through here.  So I'm boldly asking for your quick-click vote of support.  It'll keep me accountable to write more often, and if I achieve my dream of being a world famous blogger, maybe I can quit my job and stay home and snuggle my kid.  So click HERE to vote for me, if you'd be so kind.  (You can search for me alphabetically.)  Muchas thanks.

Part of this gal's complete (cholesterol-reducing) breakfast.