Sabbath Time

Today, Sunday, is Pentecost. It is the time when the Christian world celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit to the realm of humanity to comfort, advocate, and accompany us in the absence of the ascended savior.

Today also happens to be the first anniversary of my marriage to the remarkable Dan Ray.

Taking a day off from the blog; thanks for watching this space, and tomorrow will have a new installment!

Blessings, all.

N.A.M.I. Yolo County Sunflower Art Competition

I am saying good-bye to my painting, "There is Room for All in the Garden" as it sold this evening at the N.A.M.I. show. This little pic is from Dan's cell phone as he had me pose next to it with the blue ribbon. I was so honored and delighted!

There were many wonderful pieces of art and highlights of the evening were a performance of her original Sunflower Song by ceramics artist and musician Heidi Bekebrede as well as interesting conversation with other artists, N.A.M.I. clients, and folks from the community.

There was a TON of delectable snacks available; I limited myself to bottled water, fresh fruit, and a couple of macadamia nuts so that I could take Dan out for dessert afterward at Bistro 33 here in town, which is where we went on our first date over four years ago. I feel like we duly celebrated!

The painting's purchaser is a woman who is well known and very respected for her work in the community and I couldn't be happier knowing it is going to a good home.

Some Like It Hot

This week I'm trying to focus on sharing those secret weapons that help us to manage our Eating Clean plans with beautiful food and delicious tastes and aroma. Today's secret weapon:

Tea.

My love affair with tea goes back, if family legend is to be believed, to the evening my mother went into labor with me in a Chinese restaurant. She and my father were out to dinner with my grandparents, and the story goes that her belly was pressed right up next to the table, and suddenly all the dishes and silverware began rattling. I was born the next day.

Since my first taste of china tea, again in a restaurant with my grandparents, I've been a fan. My family has used tea as a "panacea for all ills", as Louisa May Alcott once wrote of it. If stomach flu strikes, we make tea. If a child comes home with a bad report card, we make tea. If earthquakes, floods, or fires threaten, well, you get the picture.

In between meals, one of the toughest things for dieters or fans of Eating Clean to determine is the difference between hunger cravings and the cravings of thirst. The two feel similar and we are olften fooled into thinking we are hungry and need a snack or meal when what our body truly longs for is rehydration. Simple water, in that case, fulfills the need and is indeed the answer to most all of our bodily demands. Remember all those films in health class in which we had to learn what percentage of our bodies were composed of sea water? Yeah, me neither. Percentages have been debated since I was in 7th grade.

The thing that is true, and professed by increasing numbers of dieticians, weight loss doctors, and clinics, is that we need rehydration in quantities not thought of in past decades. The minimum we are told to consume, it appears, is 8 x 8 (ounces, that is-64) or 8 glasses of 8 ounces of water a day. The standard bottle of water is a tad over 16 ounces-so we ought to drink 4 or more of those babies each day.

A thing many of us have found hard to swallow is that we simply don't like drinking that much water. It's good to know that lemonade and other non-carbonated drinks will suffice. Another way to do it is through the venerable tradition of tea. OK, on our first day here in Davis on which the temperature exceeded 95, who wants tea?

The answer is, surprisingly, a lot of us. Brewed from natural leaves and teabags, many of the iced tea pitchers at better restaurants and friends' kitchens are filled with teas brewed fresh starting with pure water (I don't know if you can include Davis tap water. It's kind of chewy)poured over and steeped with all kinds of varieties of flavorful and healthful leaves from all over the world. Oddlyenough, there are many of us who even crave tea hot at odd times over the summer. Tea at elevenses on a weekday morning seems gentler and more civilized, somehow, than yet another Starbucks. Tea at 4:30 in the afternoon seems positively British.

All things considered, given the practicalities of our mobile family lifestyle and long commutes, we end up our days with growling stomachs in the afternoon while we attempt to stave off the snack attacks that strike while we await our late dinner hours. Tea as a coping mechanism is the single best thing, in my opinion, that the British contributed to modern clean eating.

Of course I'm not talking about tea with cookies, scones, buttered sandwiches, and so on. The lifestyle in the British Isles that birthed this eating style also included a whole different take on daily living than we experience now. I am talking about the acknowledgement that we need several small meals throughout the day, not three big meals with no in-between meal noshings.

Today, when the weather reached 95, I was happy to pour and enjoy a couple of tall glasses of cold green tea over ice. The prize in the Cracker jack box is that, in addition to perking us up on either a cold and dreary or a hot and energy-wrenching day is that green tea may actually assist weight loss. At least that is what I'm reading.

It's nice to know you can pick up a gallon bottle of tea at the supermarket, but a less pricey way is ever so easy. Here are the two favorite ways we do it at our house:

Old Hippie Sun Tea

6 regular size tea bags, any flavor*

Pure water

A 2-quart jar (such as a large pickle jar or sun-tea jar with valve) EXTREMELY clean

Plenty of time

A back patio or porch

Fill the jar with water, add the tea bags, affix the lid securely, and set out on the patio in the morning, the earlier the better. Does not require direct sun; ready in about 4 hours. NOTE: If the teabags are left in too long, the tea will be bitter. *My favorite is Good Earth Original, followed by Stash Chai Spice. Another good combo is regular black tea with 3 or 4 whole cinnamon sticks added at the beginning of the brew time.

Short - Cut Ice Tea

4 tea bags or 2 heaping Tbls. loose tea in tea ball

Kettle full of pure water

Heat-resistant pitcher

Boil the kettle on high heat until it whistles or, if using a pan, until it reaches a full, roiling boil. (The British swear that the tea's best flavor can only develop at full heat.) Pour the hot water over the tea bags in the heatproof pitcher, and let steep for about half an hour. Add ice to fill pitcher. Chill. Note: Spice combinations can be added before the water is poured in. Combine spices in a tea ball or cheesecloth bundle, or tea sacks available through such retail outlets as Peet's Coffee and Tea. Another flavoring possibility is herb or floral bundles steeped in with the tea. Mint or lavender are good.

Hot or cold, steaming or shivering, tea is beautiful and adds so much grace to a daily clean eating plan that it can never be called a diet beverage.

Real Snacks, Real Age, Real Beauty

It seems Dr. Oz is everywhere throughout the media, the internet, and now I've even found some of his advice to include in my blog. From his site, www.realage.com, here are the good doctor's suggestions for 8 healthy snacks which can help blood sugar and a number of other issues. Check out the beautifully prepared and photographed low-calorie, heart-healthy noshes - I may have to set up a pear and apple combo like the one shown just so I can paint it -find it here. Be aware that there are ads on the site but you can skip if you just want to see the slide show. The food wranglers have really produced some tremendous little food still lifes. Wouldn't you want to eat healthy with choices like these?

Throughout the time that I've been writing, I have been duty-bound to record my calories and assemble beautiful little smidgens of food to satisfy the eye as well as the appetite. These are some of them. Hope you enjoy and that they'll fuel your imagination to get creative with the snackage in your own life!!!

Out of Sight, Out of My Mind

Dan and I are 3 days shy of celebrating our first wedding anniversary and we couldn't be happier (oh, all right maybe if we won the lottery) but there have been some major adjustments for both of us over the last year. Most of them are due to just the normal differences in the way two different people are used to doing various things.

For example, he has a very different style of making the bed than I have. We found out a long time ago that we do very well ignoring the fact that he pulls the sheets down for a deep border beneath the pillows while I tend to pull the hem of the sheet way up close to the headboard. But that's OK because we reached a compromise months ago. Whoever gets out of bed last is the one to make the bed, and the other one doesn't criticize how it's done.

Buying and storing food is a lot different for us. I have a very organized system for the pantry and the refrigerator and freezer based upon years of homemaking. The spices are alphabetized and the fridge shelves are dedicated to their contents: dairy and deli items, condiments, breads, etc. Produce in the produce drawers, please, and leftovers on the top shelf. Laugh if you must. It's not that I'm rigid or some kind of control freak that I insist on the fridge staying organized. It's so I can FIND things when I'm cooking. Even more importantly, I need to be able to FIND things when I'm SNACKING. Do I sound strident? It's because...

One of the biggest reasons people fail at weight loss or diet control is being unprepared for the snack attack that comes from nowhere. You know what I mean. There you are, minding your own business, when WHAM!!! Suddenly you have visions of Hershey bars dancing in your head

and you need a snack NOW. At times like this, your clean food can't be stuck up on the top shelf behind the Oreo's.

There are many ways to deal with this but one strategy that was mentioned to me lately by my friend Gary is to keep your safest snacks available, within sight, and make sure they're the handiest ones around. Plan how you are going to eat them, what dish you will serve them on, and where you will sit instead of giving in to half the bag of potato chips standing at the kitchen sink or a fistful of cookies as you're charging out the door! Make it as easy or even easier to access beautiful food. Keep the celery sticks, pre-cut and pre-cleaned, right in plain sight so you spot them the minute you open the fridge. Display that beautiful ceramic dish your best friend made for you on the kitchen counter; fill it with cherries. My personal favorite vegetable for snacking is the sugar snap pea, available in local Farmers Markets but also pre-packaged in the produce section of all supermarkets.

Another way to deal with snacking is to just accept that it can be a healthy way to eat. More and more doctors and dietitians are recommending five mini-meals a day instead of three hearty ones. It helps stabilize blood sugar throughout the day and keeps up our energy level. The way to make it work for you is to determine the number of calories you want to consume over the course of the day, and allocate 100 - 150 of them to midmorning and midafternoon snack times. It also helps us control those impulses when we're tempted to reach for something we don't really want to eat. We can say to ourselves, "No, I don't want that donut at the meeting this morning - I'm going to hold out for my sweet, juicy apricots instead."

Finally, keep plenty of ammunition on hand. Things I always have in the house include reduced fat string cheese, almonds and pistachios, fresh vegetables, and nonfat cottage cheese. An indulgence I've discovered recently is wine marinated herring. I know that may sound weird, but for 50 calories it's kept me out of the cookie jar more than once. Some people swear by sugar-free Jell-o or pudding, but my sweet secret weapon is Trader Joe's No Sugar Added Milk Chocolate bar. At 120 calories per serving, I can include some a few times a week and feel great too. What are YOUR favorites to keep up your sleeve?

If you have any tried-and-true strategies to defeat a snack attack, I invite you to leave a comment to share with other readers.

Presentation: The "Ta-Dah!" on the Table

Food as the primary subject for still life has been known to artists since the first cave painter recorded the first successful hunt, and has come right down through history through every era. The form, line, color, shape, and texture of food has been a source of fascination and an outlet for creativity for all humans. Wall paintings such as this one from a villa in Pompeii show that the beautiful presentation of food has long been considered one of the characteristics of fine living. Pick up any magazine like Sunset, Martha Stewart Living, or Bon Appetit and you'll be barraged with professionally staged food settings, photographed for maximum appeal.

Much goes into merchandising the table in these mags. We, however, can make our table at home beautiful, appetizing, and meaningful without benefit of professional food wranglers. In an age when most families don't sit down at the same time (mine included) due to all our commitments we can, if we are intentional about it, make the meal a beautiful sight and a touchstone for our own family culture. The familiar objects tucked away from older generations or a few slightly lost objects from childhood evoke connections among diners and shouldn't be left solely for Thanksgiving or Christmas use. Creating an inviting still life only takes a few minutes and isn't a matter of ordering costly floral arrangements or new dishes.

First, consider the contents of your china cabinet. Is there a funny old kiddie dish your grandma used to serve you when you were little? Are there three or four chipped crystal goblets you wouldn't actually want anyone to drink from? Is there a silver teapot you'd use if you didn't have to polish it? What about those odd color napkins that don't match any tablecloth in the house? Although we may not realize it, these objects represent our own unique family story. Pull them out of the china cabinet and dream up ways to use them beautifully to present beautiful food.

For example, how about sunny cherry tomatoes piled in that little Beatrix Potter china bowl? Or melon cubes stacked in those crystal goblets, topped with vanilla yogurt, as a focal point at each person's place? Or the silver teapot, tarnish and all, as a "vase" to hold whole-grain breadsticks?* And things don't really need to all match perfectly any longer, unless the Queen's

expected for dinner. So why not set a basket on the table filled with all different colors of fabric napkins?

One of the most delightful social events we've been to was my brother Ken's wedding to his longtime ladylove, Val. For the reception, they spent weeks transforming their garden and yard into a magical place, where flea-market chandeliers hung from the trees and yards of tulle wound around and through the shrubbery. The total Alice-in-Wonderland effect was perfectly captured in the table settings. Flea market finds of china teacups and saucers were stacked on plates and wrapped in tulle at each place. Tucked into each cup was a touching note and a monogrammed packet of flower seeds for each guest to take home-along with your teacup and saucer, each of which was absolutely unique! Here at home, I relive the joy of that day every time I take out my teacup and saucer for my breakfast coffee.

You don't have to break the bank for a beautiful table, either. Think color! Everyday tablecloths, placemats, and napkins can be changed out frequently depending on what you're serving. Look for them at yard sales, flea markets, and thrift stores. (Check for stains and tears) Retro looks from the fifties and Mad Men '60s can be fun, Asian is always good, and nothing beats old linen or lace. Try a fifties print tablecloth with pink dishes or a bright red cloth with black Asian bamboo placemats and white porcelain dishes. Combinations are limited only by imagination, and low-calorie food will taste a lot more satisfying if our eyes are happy.

Speaking of being HeARTistic, I love doing things with flowers and enjoy the unconventional. For instance, with the cracked crystal goblets-Line three of them up in the middle of the table, fill halfway with water, and float a camellia or open rose in each. No flowers in bloom? Slip a twig of shrubbery, herbs, or berries into the napkin at each place setting. Need color? A fresh monster strawberry on the side of the plate perks up the whole tablescape.

I wish you many happy "Ta-Dah's" at your HeART healthy table. Enjoy! It will be a different day tomorrow, so make the most of the "today" you have today!

*If the inside of the old teapot is yucky, stick a clean glass down inside it to hold the breadsticks if you really don't have the time to polish.

Seriously, Take This to HeART

We are one week into this series on HeART-healthy "Eating Clean". On a personal note, I've noticed a couple of things over the course of the week, and I hope you'll share what you've noticed for yourself as the time has gone by.

One: Paying attention to the presentation of my meals and my family's meals has been fun and has given me another outlet for my creativity. It's also helped me notice and put to use some of the dishes and glassware we don't use very often, BUT an even better thing it has done is help us connect with our culture and family history. We have learned a great deal about each other's

relatives, influences, and context eating on the placemats from Aunt Jean or sipping from the teacups we got at Ken and Val's wedding.

Two: The writing discipline keeps me accountable to all my own best habits and tips. I have been keeping my food diary, recording what I eat and my calorie counts, and paying close attention to the tools I've learned from doctors, friends, and some of my favorite wisdom such as Julia Cameron's "The Writing Diet". For instance, as I write this, I am using one of my doctor's favorite tools, the "more" timer. ("More" on that later) One of my joys is that I've lost 2 pounds this week!

Three: Eating Clean has very rapid results. In the first three days of eliminating processed flour and refined sugar, your tastes change and your cravings fade away. A piece of fruit tastes much more yummy than before, when its sweetness was overshadowed by that of refined sugar. Also, I experience unpleasant reactions to foods I don't want to be eating. For example, on Sunday we ate brunch at church and I had half a bagel. Having been sugar-free and gluten-free for quite a while now, I shouldn't have been surprised that I spent the whole afternoon sleeping it off like a hangover.

Okay, the "more" timer just went off, so I'll take the opportunity to share this tip from my doc. She advised me to serve myself half of what I would previously have considered a normal plateful. When I first started doing this as a means of portion control, I actually dished up a "normal" plateful and then removed half the food, back to the pot. That made for a messy, unartistic presentation, so I have learned to measure and switched to smaller plates. The next step is to eat slowly, enjoying the aroma, taste, and textures of the food. Once finished, I set my kitchen timer for 30 minutes. When it goes off, I check in with how I'm feeling. If I'm still legitimately hungry, I eat a little more, guilt free.

The power in this tool comes from the fact that I can indeed eat more if I'm hungry later. I'm not limited if I am truly hungry, but it has to be "clean" food, that provides real nutrition. It's not "If I'm still hungry I can have a bowl of ice cream". So try the "more" timer. You might be surprised that, usually, by the time 30 minutes has passed, your tummy has told your brain that it's not hungry for more!

Next week I start summer school every morning and teaching a weekly art and writing workshop for N.A.M.I. clients. I will still be busy painting, decorating the church every week, homemaking, and being wife, mother, and grandmother. It strikes me that planning ahead for Eating Clean will be more critical than ever! Next blog: How to plan ahead to keep the diet healthy. Be sure to share your comments and tips.