Another hiking date

So I guess we started this in June when we hiked 10 miles in Yosemite the day before Greg’s  38^th birthday.  My husband and I remembered, “We really enjoy hiking…we need to make a date to do this at least once a month.”  Well, that is way easier said than done and super easier said by two folks who have the summer months off and were embarking on a season of less work and more play.  But still, we’ve managed one hike a month since then.  July was a local hike on the wilderness loop at home in Claremont, 5 miles.  August was 4 miles, Kapalua to DT Fleming beach on our trip to Maui.  (Man, if I could beam myself back to Maui for a few days I swear I would try to hike the circumference that island, only to be interrupted with meals of fish tacos and the occasional Mai Tai).  Back home and back to work in September, we managed to hike a 2 mile stretch of the Thompson Creek Trail (locals are thinking this is more of a walk than a hike, but hey there is a “trail” and trees, so I say it counts).  Today, I realized we had better work in our October hike, as the end of the month is neigh my friends.  I told Greg this morning, this is the only afternoon I don’t have meetings and you don’t’ have rehearsals or gigs so we are going on our hike date, decide where you want to go. When he picked me up from work today,  I was delighted that he had a plan.  He wanted to walk over to Towne avenue and approach the Thompson Creek trail on the uphill and finish the trail at Indian Hill, walking downhill to come home.  It was a lovely afternoon for a hike.  A cool breeze, that acted as air conditioning, kept me feeling fresh but not chilled in my shorts and tank top (only in So Cal and late October, folks!).  This stroll/ hike/ long walk rang it at just under five miles.  What a lovely start to the week and so far we are keeping up with our new tradition.

We had worked up quite an appetite after walking for nearly 2 hours.  Back in the kitchen, Greg did the dishes (from last night, yes we are dirty filthy folks) while I chopped onions and garlic and softened them in a buttered skillet.  Adding some Arborio rice , I prepared to make a risotto (like the one we tasted many years ago in Paris). A splash of white wine moistened and flavored the grain, then I continually added ladleful after ladleful of veggie broth to the rice, until it was soft and creamy. Fresh asparagus from the farmers market were stirred in at the last minute to maintain their crispness.   A dollop of homemade pesto with basil from the garden and handful of toasted pine nuts finished the dish. 

A long beautiful walk and flavorful meal, life doesn’t get much better!

Barefoot and in the kitchen

Even when my garden is having a poor season, I dart out the backdoor at least once during each cooking session (sometimes through the front door as well) to snip some herbs, grab a lemon or toss the peelings into the compost pile.  Tonight I made soup from beautiful butternut squash from the farmer’s market.  As the squash baked (in my newly repaired oven, thanks handy husband!), I added the peelings and core of the onion I had diced for the soup and some leftover celery from the crisper to a pot of water with a few cloves of garlic.   This very basic broth begged for some flavor enhancement.  So out the to the garden I go, returning with a fist full of thyme and two bay leaves.  The broth now finished, pleasant chartreuse, strained and steaming, left limp celery and onion trimmings in its wake, once again out the door to visit the compost heap. 

It occurred to me with all this in and out as I cook, I would be well served with a holster of some sort for my slippers at the backdoor.  I shared this thought with Greg, “Couldn’t we have a hook, just inside this cabinet by the kitchen door that would hold my flip flops, so I wouldn’t have to go searching for shoes in the middle of creating a meal?”  “Or,” my brilliant husband offered, “You could just keep your shoes on, until you are finished cooking.”  I tried to explain, “I’m a LaLone we don’t wear shoes.  We have to be barefoot as often as possible, it’s in my blood.”  Yes, I know I sound like a crazy person.  But seriously, I can’t be the only person who likes to cook elaborate meals barefoot, then needs something from the garden and wants makeshift shoes at the ready?  It sounds like a million dollar invention to me.  I can’t figure out what you would call it though.  “Kitchen Shoes” doesn’t have much zest to it. “Garden thongs” could be misconstrued.  Perhaps I just need to stow a pair of flip-flops in my apron pocket and get over it already. 

Other than the lovely butternut squash soup, I made an autumn salad with pomegranate seeds (from our tree in the front yard, see…another reason to go outside?!), goat cheese, candied pecans and an apple cider vinaigrette.  I served some cheese, crackers and olives along with the salad, just because it seemed more delicious that way.

For dessert, I am trying to recreate something we ate in France near the Eiffel Tower at a restaurant called FL (which is funny if you are French and that is how you pronounce the tower.  The FL tower.  Get it?)  I had one of my favorite desserts of all time there.  Rice pudding with salted caramel ice cream topped with caramel corn.  I made this way simpler by getting the rice pudding at Trader Joe’s and discovering that they currently have a salted caramel gelato.  One scoop of rice pudding with a touch of vanilla stirred into it, a tiny drizzle of caramel sauce, followed by a scoop of the gelato and a few kernels of the popcorn on top for crunch = close enough to relive a Parisian night. 

Yoga and dessert

Many of my readers have asked for some details on the yoga teacher training program that I started last week.  So here is the low down.  I will have teacher training classes once a month through May on a Saturday and Sunday from 9-6pm.  During our off-weeks I am expected to attend at least one class at the studio, teach a lesson to a family member or a friend, and read about yoga from selected texts.  The first weekend fell on my birthday weekend and it was the perfect way to usher in a new year of life.  On Saturday, we did introductions with our fellow yoga students, enjoyed a challenging class on standing poses, dissected the standing poses and taught them to our classmates.  We did teach in front of the group of 19 other students on our very first day and while it was a little nerve wracking it was good to know we already had enough knowledge at the end of day one to pull it off.  Sunday was more of a workshop where we learned how to do modifications for each of the standing poses we practiced on Saturday and the afternoon was an intensive but fascinating anatomy class focusing on bones, joints and introducing muscles.  I enjoyed both days very much and yes, I was quite sore on Monday!  I had a chance to teach Greg a series of stretches for joint health and I taught my elementary school class a lesson called “The anatomy of yoga” where we used yoga poses to learn the names of bones and muscles as the human body is our focus in science right now. 

I returned to the studio this weekend to take a restorative class, which was just what the doctor ordered after my 7 mile run on Saturday.  Any week that results in the majority of laundry being work out clothes, is a good week!  

All of this physical work makes me hungry.  Sometimes I forget to eat more when I’m working harder. So anticipating the morning runs and yoga practice that this week has in store for me, I decided to premake dessert for the week.  The only problem is our oven broke.  The range still works as does our outdoor bbq and Greg has ordered the part and is confident he can fix it, so we are in no danger of starving.  Just no baking for the next few days. That said, I experimented with a no bake dessert that came out de-li-cious! 

Pumpkin cheesecake parfaits

Pumpkin cheesecake filling

15 oz can pumpkin puree

16 oz cream cheese (whipped) 

tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground ginger

¼ tsp ground cloves and allspice

a sprinkle of freshly grated nutmeg

6 tbsp brown sugar

2 tbsp milk

½ tsp vanilla

Using a hand mixer blend together all ingredients until smooth and creamy

Whipped Cream

1 cup heavy cream

1 tbsp granulated sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

Using a hand mixer whip the cream to soft peaks and then mix in the vanilla and sugar until dissolved. 

Ginger snap Crumbs

About 20 of any crunchy ginger snap type cookies (I used TJs gluten free)

(Place between 2 sheets of plastic wrap and crush with a rolling pin to make crumbs)

\

Assembly

Choose mason jars or wine glasses.  Layer cookie crumbles, pumpkin filling, more crumbles, whip cream, more crumbles, pumpkin filling more crumbles, whip cream and a tiny sprinkle of crumbles on top. 

Still running

So, just because I've recommitted to my yoga practice doesn’t mean I’ve lost my love for running.  Here is how you know you are hooked on running.  Your husband gives you new running shoes for your birthday and you are so desperate to try them out that you wake up at 5am to beat the heat and squeeze in a run on a weekday.  

Actually this running before dawn thing has become quite a habit.  Our early autumn weather is mimicking late summer and it seems these 90 degree days are not likely to stop soon.  While I long for winter running where I could sleep in on a weekend day and manage a run after 10 am and the effort would warm me, I know those days are far off in the distance. 

For now, I’m enjoying the peace (if not the visual challenges) of running in the dark.  On the fortunate occasion that I get to run with a running buddy or when Greg meets me for my last mile, I get to create a dream like memory of my breaking dawn run that hovers in an unreal memory in my mind all day.  Most mornings as I run alone, I make up  elaborate spooky tales of  coyote clans and haunting stories to occupy my mind as this Halloween month advances.  Someday I hope to have the time to write down these fictional pieces that unwind in my mind as I pound out the miles on the pavement in the dark.  But for now, running in my new shoes is enough to keep me happy. 

An imperfect practice

People often say, “ I had an intense love affair with…” then insert whatever hobby and or activity that they did for a little while and have since given up on.  That being said, my relationship with yoga has been more like a marriage than a love affair.  It began long ago when my mom took a yoga class at her college.  She was a returning student who had raised her two children and went back to school to get her degree. Eventually she would follow in my footsteps and become a teacher, but I’m getting ahead of myself. 

My mom suggested that as a dancer, I would really like yoga.  From the age of 3-13 I had taken ballet lessons, then I took ballet again when required to take a PE class in college.  As a college student herself now, my mom had been forced to take phys Ed and she was delighted that yoga was one of her choices. Following her suggestion, I found a local class and brought my friend Greg along for good measure.  Our first class was Kundalini.

Greg and I immediately adored our instructor, Nancy, whose calm nature appealed to me and whose powerful chants and musicality resonated with Greg.  We both found the poses to be challenging as neither of us led a very active lifestyle except for the occasional summertime hike or walk around the block.  As we learned to move, we learned to breath and to meditate, and learned that yoga was more than exercise; it was body, mind and soul.  Our interest in yoga led Greg to research vegetarianism and he persuaded me to give it a try.  Then Nancy had to move away and without a teacher we found that our practice slowed. We grieved when she moved to St. Louis. When Nancy left us, we tried out a few classes here and there.  But we were not drawn to attend classes regularly as we had been with Nancy.  My friend Greg and I still practiced together occasionally but our practice began to stagnate.

Greg had the opportunity to travel to Germany and finding myself without my long time companion, I decided to sign up for a yoga class at the community center.  It was here that I met my next teacher.  Steve was a very fiery and muscular young man who taught the Iyengar style with energy and calm.  Very different than Kundalini, and very different than Nancy, but Steve inspired me to develop muscle and find strength in my poses and he still harkened to the spiritual and taught new and inspiring chants.  When Greg returned from Germany and quickly transitioned from my friend to my boyfriend, I brought him to Steve’s class and he and Steve instantly gelled.  It seemed we had found a new teacher.  Steve became more than a teacher, he quickly became a friend, coming to our Halloween parties, taking us out for dim sum, joining in drum circle nights.  He was eager to teach but also eager to learn.  We followed Steve as he taught classes at the local colleges, even taking a course where we took yoga 4 x a week one summer!  Our practice was on fire.  Then Steve’s teaching schedule and locations began to shift and we could no longer line up our practice with his teaching.  Again a time of home practice set upon us and again our passion for yoga lulled. 

That is not to say we did not practice yoga at all.  We occasionally took some classes at the Claremont Club, we found teachers that we enjoyed. Yet when we were looking to trim our budget and save for travel, our membership to the club was one of the first things we trimmed.  After all, Greg had only gone there to swim a handful of times, I could only manage the yoga classes a few times a month (more during the summer), and we only rarely worked out at the weight room.  Besides my increasing running practice was keeping me fit and I had gotten more regular about lifting weights at home, it seemed like the right time to return to a home practice of yoga.  I committed to 7 sun salutations each morning, which I have maintained religiously.  However making time for a deeper practice and other poses was simply not happening.

So just this summer, I was seeking an activity to keep me busy as I counted down the days before we left for Maui.  If found that a local yoga studio was offering 2 weeks of classes for only $40 to students new to their studio.  Perfect!  I had no idea that taking 8 classes in 2 weeks would be so challenging or so life changing.  By the end of the two weeks I had found a new home at this studio and a seed had been planted. 

I decided to join the yoga teacher-training program that my studio was offering in the fall.  It has been 15 years since I began to practice yoga and now seemed the right time to take this step.  It has been a long time coming.  As I embark on this new journey, I remind myself that my practice has always been imperfect and I take comfort in this.  I don’t have to be perfect to teach.  I have learned this from 17 years as an elementary teacher.  I can learn from my students, this is part of being a life long learner.  I don’t have to do each pose flawlessly to inspire.  My loyalty, my passion, and my eagerness will compensate for my shortcomings.  Practice doesn’t have to make perfect. This isn’t a passing fancy.  I am in this for the long haul; I have a lifetime to get it right.  May as well start now.