The Missing Ingredient

My crave-worthy Cranberry Raisin Nut Bread

Food, glorious food. 

We're anxious to try it

Three banquets a day --

Our favorite diet!

Aspiring sommelier?

Don't come to me for wine pairing recommendations, but I will admit to being an aspiring foodie. I love to eat AND I love to cook. Cooking for others is one of my "love languages". I bake cranberry bread every Thanksgiving, even shipping some to California if my bonus daughter isn't going to be on the East Coast for the holiday. My veggie lasagna has earned a "yummy" reputation and I have a few other greatest hits that I whip out when I know I need to impress. 

Asian-style carrots

Chickpea curries, jackfruit pulled "pork", red beans and rice, tofu stir fry, risotto, the list goes on. If the dish is plant-based, I will do everything I can to make it delicious. My current obsession is shopping H-Mart for authentic Asian ingredients. If the dish I want to make isn't plant-based, I'm going to try and adapt the recipe. Our plant-based taco night at our house is - well, extra - and worth making a drive (like two of my nieces did) if you are hungry for yummy. Trust me, you won't miss the meat!

I fed them tacos then taught them yoga

Since adopting a mostly plant-based diet several years ago, I've expanded the "vocabulary" I use to help me speak more descriptively when I express my love language of cooking and feeding the folks I love. I pore through vegan blog sites looking for new recipes. My current favorites are Vegan Richa, Plant Based RD, and Eat Figs Not Pigs. That list is always expanding and open for new additions. 

Thanks to these and many other bloggers, as well as my own enthusiasm for making things tasty, my family members have come to expect that I will "throw down" with some good eats at family gatherings. This brings me joy.

What doesn't bring THEM joy is that while I consult these blogs for ideas and methods, I often "cook by the spirit". That means I rarely follow a recipe exactly (unless it is baking, which is as close to chemistry as I'll get) or write down any recipes for dishes I've created. 

Vegan Carrot Cake Bread Yes Please

Recipes call for ingredients. They provide steps and a process to create a dish. There are conditions for things to turn out as expected. 

I maintain that you can follow a recipe to the letter and still have the resulting dish turn out differently or taste differently to different people. Especially when you're making bread for example, the amount of humidity in the air can affect the way that the bread rises. 

My Aunt Grace made the best meatballs ever. Their taste is a core memory of mine. As I approach my eighth year of following a plant-based diet, I confess that if someone could hand me a plate of her meatballs right now, I would eat them because they were amazing.

That's me in peering over my sister's head, in glasses on the left

They were the ultimate comfort food, a guaranteed taste sensation on Tuesday night Spaghetti Nights at her house. Some of the best memories of my childhood are associated with those meatballs. But she never shared the recipe. Sadly, for us, she took her method and recipe to her grave. 

At the kids' table a little older, still on the left next to my brother in glasses

I was talking to a friend about this phenomenon of the meatballs that I would cross my plant-based line for. Apparently her grandmother had a similarly famous coleslaw recipe. Even though she did share this recipe - when others make it, there's something missing.

I believe we can put energy into our food. It is as much an ingredient as the olive oil, or the garlic - it just can't be measured or quantified in a recipe with numbers. 

But you sure can taste it.

Do I have a way to draw a link from the energy we use while cooking to the energy we use while practicing yoga? You betcha I do.

So much more than stretching when you factor in energy

Since beginning a regular yoga asana practice some 9 years ago or so, I have spent close to one thousand hours or more in classes - both as a student and a teacher. I'm sure there were classes that worked similar body parts, led the students to the same peak pose, featured similar dharma talks, or were led by the same teachers. Yet, no two classes produced identical results. 

I've created sequences that I teach for an entire month - no two classes are the same, though.

Yoga classes have ingredients, too. The sequence, the dharma talk, the music - there's usually a gradual build to a peak and then a slow descent for a restful savasana. 

The consistent variable in each class - is the energy in the room. Not just my energy, but that of the students. So the next time you step on your mat, consider your energy. Sit with it and see if it will enhance your practice. High energy or feeling fire-y - low energy or sluggishness - they both can have an impact.