quejimenez

A Pocket of Peace

 

Maybe today is a pocket of peace, a yellow balloon of space right here in the center of my throat. I don't know where to begin, so I speak easy to myself, just continue. Just, continue. You are again, and again is good. I think of words and they scramble themselves along the path of my arms, trying to work out of my fingertips. And, my hands ache; they do. I feel like I have word splinters jammed up, between my wrists and elbows, deeply buried in the tendons and joints. Long words that ache me because there just isn't anymore room in me to hold them.

It's time to speak again. To whittle out a hole, if need be, in the center of my neck to breathe deep. 

I wish it was afternoon, and I was still wondering around my garden, poking my brown face into the plant face of Goldenrod, sticking my nose up towards the swimming clouds. There was a moment, while I was squatting down in one of the beds studying the newly sprouted seedlings, looking for mustard sprouts that come like clockwork, when a whiff of something sweet came down the blowing path of wind. At once it was sweetish, like vanilla and honey, feminine and earthy like something I can't explain. Not like the smell of soil after rain, or even the smell of freshly turned soil. Not at all earthy like leaves, like bark, like grass. It licked me with a humid, warm and musky scent. Right there I felt grounded and so sure of myself; nothing was moving too fast and not a thing too slow. I felt like life, like I was cocooned, dressed, and adorned in my own skin.

It blew over, and just as soon I was back on my knees, staring down the Goldenrod. I gently separated the green leaf tops, looking for any flower buds. Last year it put out bunches of flowers, yet I was too chicken to harvest them. I have this thing with saving, hoarding things I love. It was easier to stare at their heavy yellow tops flopping to the side from the garden window than to clip them, and have them be gone.  

You have to know something, I've been a neglectful gardener the past year or so, and I oscillate between feeling underserving and guilty for the faithful plants that live despite my care and keeping. And then I think me silly. What of me does nature need to get on with her business of life? We, here in California, have been living through an epic drought and years of unnatural, unseasonable warm winters. I do have a part, work to do, and I'm working on forgiving and giving myself grace for not doing it. Not because nature needs me, but because I need nature and I've set that needing part of me aside.

Eventually, I worked myself around to my fig trees, where I went about studying the Kadota fig. For a young plant it's full of fruit, and I believe it's a bit late going in the season for them to ripen. Gently, I squeezed the fruits, lifted them slightly from the stem, checking to see if they were soft, or if they were leaking any sugar, and then the sweet musk returned. 

Figs. Of course. How could I forget the smell of fresh figs? 

Our first home had a fig tree that grew wild on the side of the house, near the kitchen. It would die down to nothing in winter, and by summer's end it would be taller than our small one-story. During Yali's first summer, I remember standing at the kitchen sink, with the window open, and getting scent drunk. I didn't have the courage, Edward either, to eat the figs then, it was too exotic of a fruit for us. 

But, we've grown. Figs have become a favorite, a staple even.

And that's the thing I'm most struck with this evening. Growth. How we all need some space around us to settle down into who we are. Time, too. We all need days, many days to pass underneath our feet, to dawn over our heads for us to gather ourselves.

I believe I've finally started to settle. I find myself more frustrated when I abandon my true self than trying to fit myself into shapes I don't belong. That's what's on my mind a lot these days. Where have I left myself? Where do I need to gather my truth, and what do I need to leave?

The garden reminded me today it's okay to be a simple, domestic woman concerned with seedlings sprouting, watching Blue Diamond Lizards and Finches scramble around. I'm all too aware of the turmoil and pain engulfing our nation, but choosing resilient peace and faith is my protest, my political party; my optimism is my march.

You know, the garden is faithful and honest in her ways. She is a natural protest, a march against destruction and pessimism. She doesn't condone or uphold guilt, or even self-doubt. She hands out faith and grace, with the way she gets on with her life, making sense, each season out of what is today. What lives grows. 

I'd like to keep reminding myself of that. Live to grow. Faith and grace and forgive. I'd like to write towards that idea of what lives grows. Inch myself closer to growing out of life. It's a matter of being at ease in how I choose to grow, what shapes I allow myself to fit into.  

I choose the simple, the domestic, the garden, the work of kitchens and slow things like growing food, spinning yarn, weaving, scratch cooking, and working years to find the right words. Something always calls me home, where daydreams are safe and I have hours to pray without ceasing.

Tonight the words throb my arms, my hands, and fingers like splinters. Garden work aches my back and kitchen work fills my belly. It is the most simple of days that teach me about peace. And so I protest, and march on in joy. 

Organic Fruits & Vegetables: Tips and Tricks to Eating Healthy, Organic Produce on a Budget

You want to eat organic, but the cost makes you think twice. It happens to all of us.

We go to the grocery store with the best of intentions to buy all organic, buy tons of fruits and veggies. We remind ourselves, “it’s for our health,” and go running head and hands first into the organic bins. We grab the thin plastic bags, which are sometimes green for organic produce, and fill them up with our feel good, organic fruits and veggies. 

The colors start to affect us. The orangey oranges of carrots, grassy deep green kales, royal purples of eggplant and purple cabbage. The sight of berries—deep scarlet red strawberries, royal violet blueberries and blackberries, and blushing raspberries, intoxicates us. And before we know it, we have a cart full of the rainbow (score!) and we are walking with our head held high, floating above the cart, to the checkout.

Our first time we thought nothing of it. We were thinking about our health and eating right. But soon enough that changes.

Organic foods are expensive. That rainbow cart of yummy organics will surely cost upwards of a modest weekly food bill, and you haven’t even added the weekly staples. The grains, mock or real meats, alternative milks, juices, etc., etc., etc.

I’ve been there. I’ve done that. And, I’ve also been the dreaded customer with shopper’s remorse, asking the cashier apologetically, “Wait, can you tell me which one was most expensive? Can I put that, that, and sometimes that too, back?” I apologize and even take back my own ‘go-backs’ to show my sincerity.

There must be a better, cheaper way.

I have memories of standing next to my Granma’s hip, with my fingers on the edge of the sink, waiting for her to finish washing a piece of fruit. She’d fill the sink up with cold, soapy water, add a cap full of bleach (I know, she added it to our bathwater too.) and hand-scrub our produce. After that, she’d rinse them well, pat them dry, and then set them in a large bowl on the kitchen table for grabbing and eating.

Granma was on to something. We can never be too cautious of the food we put into our bodies. It must be clean and as close to nature as intended.

There is a better way. A cheaper way to buy organic, and eat locally grown produce without spending an entire week’s budget of food money.

We recently bought a juicer to aid our goals of eating healthier—more plant-based/vegan and raw foods. We spend roughly $700 a month on food for our family of four. That includes E’s lunch at work; me and the kid’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner because we homeschool we are always eating at home, and our family’s fun ‘housearaunt’ meals—we never eat-out. Ever. Not even when we travel.

Juicing surely means eating more fruits and veggies, which also means buying more, and buying organic for juicing. Our food budget can’t stretch more, so I have put together our own action plan to eat healthy and organic for fairly cheap.

Here’s my plan:

1. Buy organic, but buy smart.
2. Grow the most expensive fruits and vegetables we eat, and those we eat the most of.
3. Planning ahead, and setting realistic goals.

 Let’s break it down.

Buy organic, but buy smart!

First things first? Know what to buy organic, and what you can buy conventionally.

Here is a list of the ‘Dirty Dozen’ from EWG.org. These are fruits and vegetables their studies show have the most pesticide contaminants (even after being peeled or washed).

1. Apples
2. Celery
3. Sweet Bell Peppers
4. Peaches
5. Strawberries
6. Nectarines (Imported)
7. Grapes
8. Spinach
9. Lettuce
10. Cucumbers
11. Blueberries (Domestic)
12. Potatoes
13. * Green Beans
14. * Kale/Greens

*Note: According to EWG, these two may have pesticides of special concern, which need to be avoided.

These apples are not organic, you can tell by the shiny, waxy sheen that makes them shine beneath the supermarket lights

These sweet, red bell peppers are also not organic and are shiny with wax and other coatings.

These fruits are organic. Notice they don't shine and glisten as the other, non-organic apples and peppers? That's a good thing!

Here is a list of the ‘Clean 15’. These fruits and vegetables have the lowest occurring pesticides (peeled and washed when appropriate).

1. Onions
2. Sweet Corn
3. Pineapples
4. Avocado
5. Cabbage
6. Sweet Peas
7. Asparagus
8. Mangoes
9. Eggplant
10. Kiwi
11. Cantaloupe (Domestic)
12. Sweet Potatoes
13. Grapefruit
14. Watermelon
15. Mushrooms

The peels on bananas protect them from pesticides. Peel, and eat!

Watermelons also have thick skins/rinds that protect the fruit fruit from harmful pesticides and contaminants.

Both of these lists are in order, top down, from the dirtiest to the cleanest, and from the cleanest to the dirtiest, respectively. Use this list as a guide when you must choose between organic and non-organic.

Grow your own organic foods.

Herbs, Salad Greens, and vegetable plants for sale at a farmer's market

By far, the best and cheapest way to eat better and save money while doing it is to grow it yourself. We started our garden back in ’05 and every year it expands. Here’s why: during the summer we literally eat out of the garden. A good 60% of our meals comes from our garden in the summer, and I find we only buy pantry staples like grains, beans, alternative milks, etc. We grow the things we eat a lot of that also grows well in our area. This way nothing grown goes to waste, and we never waste our space or energy growing foods that will not grow and sustain us.

Despite what most people believe, you do not need a large acre or even a backyard to grow your own food. Strawberries, blueberries, tomatoes, peppers, herbs, salad greens, and a ton of other foods can be grown in containers on a sunny patio. You can also get a number of fruit trees as dwarfs to save space, but still produce enough produce for your family.

Take survey of your available space, do some research, and start growing your own. You don’t have to start big. We didn’t. But start somewhere. Start growing something you can eat.

A variety of salad greens growing in my winter garden.

Garden Salad: A variety of lettuces, parsley (curled and flat leaf), chives, and cilantro. Picked fresh, washed, and eaten within a couple of hours.

Tip: Grow foods from the dirty list, if you can. Those foods that you should eat organic, but have a hard time affording or finding—try to grow them yourself. Strawberries are a perfect container plant and are easy to grow! So are peppers, which in some locations can grow year round. (I still have sweet pepper plants in my garden that were planted last spring!)

When you grow your food, it is similar to cooking your own food—you are in control. It is cheaper to raise an organic vegetable garden then one filled with hormones, pesticides, and the likes. Instead of buying Mircle Gro, Round-up, and other non-organic things for my garden, I implement cheaper (and sometimes free) practices to ensure our garden grows well. I spend more money on plants, making our soil healthy, and buying quality, organic fertilizers that nourish our plants.

Here’s a quick tip: If your soil and plants are stronger and healthier, they are less likely to fall prey to pests and disease. That doesn’t mean you won’t have to deal with pests and diseases, just maybe fewer. So invest in your soil and plant/seed quality.

Plan ahead and keep it real.

Here comes the real work. The best way to shave money off of your grocery bill, in general, is to plan ahead and be honest with yourself. Often times I have thought of a thousand meals I want to make in the upcoming week, bought all the stuff, gotten it all home only to realize 1) I don’t have room to store it all, 2) Now I have to cook/use it all, and 3) There are only seven days in a week.

This is where being honest and practical helps. If you know you have a busy week ahead, then don’t plan elaborate meals that take a lot of work, prep, and time. Also, think about the real number of meals you need to cook for the week (or want to cook), and leave some room for fun, quick meals. We don’t eat out or order-in, but a few nights out of the week the kids and us want pizza, burgers, quesadillas, or something fun. Leave budget space and time in your planning to have these fun meals so that no one feels deprived. 

Also, do not go food-shopping hungry, when you are in a rush, or when you have no clue what you will make for the upcoming week. It’ll just end in food budget disaster. Trust me on this one. Make a list, even if it’s in your mind, and have some idea of what you want/need to buy for the upcoming week. Plan and prioritize your meals and shopping, so that you can make the most of your money, and get your shopping down quickly, and painlessly.

Confession: I love grocery shopping. I look forward to it. We do it as a family and often have lots of fun, though by the third store the kids are asking every five minutes, “How many more stores?” Even if there is none, or it is late at night, E and me always tell them 2-3. Just to hear them sigh. Of course if they know Target is on our list, they perk right up.

In addition to knowing what to buy organic or conventional, here are six tips to buy your produce more economically.

Six Tips on Buying Produce Cheaply

Tip #1: Shop the farmer’s market and/or join your local food co-op. I know farmer’s markets are the cool, hipster, sexy foodie trend. But there is a good reason—when you shop the farmer’s market a few things happen:

1. You eat seasonally, which is better for your health.
2. Your food travels less distance, so it is fresher, your carbon footprint is smaller, it needs less waxing and other things to ‘preserve’ it since it isn’t traveling to another country, and it is cheaper—for everybody!
3. You can talk to the grower about the produce and ask questions. When was it picked, is it organic, how to store it, what does it taste like (they love to give away samples—trust me), best ways of preparing it, how long will it keep, is it ripe or when will it ripen. The list of valuable things you can ask and learn about your food is long. And isn’t there something magical about speaking to the person who grew your food? I think so.
4. You support your local farmer and local community. Mom & Pop businesses are the backbone of our countries’ financial system, and so investing in and supporting our local growers does wonders for our own community and country’s financial health.
5. You feel better about what you’re eating, how much you’re spending, and who you’re giving your money to.

Tip #2: When you shop the grocery stores, buy local-grown (often there will be signs up or ask your produce guy/gal), and buy what’s in season. I know strawberries in the middle of December sounds amazing, but unless you’re in South America, those berries had to travel quite a few thousand miles to reach you. Why not try local-grown apples? Seasonal fruits and veggies are often better quality and cheaper.

Berries at our local farmer's market, grown in California.

Tip #3: Plan ahead and shop what’s on sale. Grab the ads of a few different stores, compare your options, and then choose accordingly.

Tip #4: Shop around. I never shop at one place. We eat a lot of alternative, vegan foods, which means everything cannot often be found beneath one roof. Sure, our Sundays are filled with grocery store hopping, but we often find better deals this way. I buy produce from our local farmer’s markets, the health food store, Sprouts (our Whole Foods), Trader Joes, and our local Ralph’s, Fresh N’ Easy, Win-Co, Target, Costco or Food 4 Less. Yeap, we get around.

Tip #5: Costco, Target, Wal-Mart—they all have their place in your grocery shopping. Do a little research and/or window shopping to see what your local big box shops have to offer. We shop a lot at Costco. From printing paper to pineapples. We also have a Super Target and Super Wal-Mart near us that we shop at often. They have great food prices on pantry staples (even good, vegan stuff) that we often buy during the month and will often have great deals on produce too.

Tip #6: Don’t be afraid to buy frozen. I rarely buy canned foods (except for tomato paste, sauce, or stewed tomatoes), but we do buy frozen, organic vegetables and fruits. So you want strawberries and it’s the middle of winter? Buy them organic and frozen. The great thing about buying frozen fruits and vegetables are that they are frozen at the peak of freshness, just hours after harvest. Sure, some vitamins and minerals are lost, but eating them is better than not eating them and if frozen helps, then go for it. We keep a Costco pack of organic, mixed vegetables in the freezer so that no matter what, we can put vegetables on the dinner table every night. We also keep frozen fruits for smoothies and baking.

Citrus grown a couple miles from our home. We live in a citrus growing belt!

So let’s sum it up:

1. Buy organic, but be smart about it: 1. Choose your organic battles wisely, 2. Grow what you can, and, 3. Plan ahead when shopping.
2. When in doubt, either ask the produce guy/gal, or buy organic.
3. Wash your fruits and vegetables well. Get some veggie wash, a scrub brush, and a salad spinner to make sure you wash all things you consume fresh.
4. Never decide eating no vegetables is better than eating conventionally grown produce. If you cannot buy organic, or it is not available to you—don’t fret, do what you can, wash everything well, shop the clean list, and promise yourself that you’ll do better as soon as you can. Eat your fruits and veggies no matter what.
5. Buy what you know you’ll eat in a few days/week. I know it all looks amazing, but one way to save money (which happens to ensure you are always eating fresh produce) is to buy your produce often. Don’t try to stock up, unless it is something known to store well. Instead, pace yourself, plan ahead, and buy what you know you and your family can consume.
6. Consider buying other foods organically. I don’t buy everything organic, but there are other things that should be eaten organically, such as: milk (dairy or alternative), eggs, meats, and mock meats, grains. Do your research and make sure you are equally informed about what goes into your other foods. Especially if you eat animal products (milk, eggs, cheese, meat).
7. Have fun and experiment. Eat to live, do not live to eat. But most of all make sure that eating and shopping for your food is something you enjoy. You are nurturing and caring for your body and those you love. Do it with love and good intentions in your heart. Health is wealth!

It is my hope that I have armed you with some great tips and tricks to eat a clean, organic, healthy diet on a budget. It will surely take work, but it is most worth it. We do not have control over what genes we have inherited, and some of the health ills we have or will be dealt during our lifetime. But, we do have the power to control what we eat and that may be the biggest, most revolutionary thing we can do for our own health and wellness.

Take control of your body—it is yours for this lifetime. Treat it well and it will thank you with a wonderful life. Your wonderful life.

Your wonderful life begins and ends with everything you eat.

Peace, love & blessings! 

Ki

Waiting for Spring? A Few Vegetable Gardening Tips to Try While Waiting

Foreground: Blooming Rosemary. Surrounded by Marjoram and Lavender. Background: Bay (laurel) directly behind, and Dwarf Meyer lemon on the left, mostly out of the frame.

I hope I am not the only one longing for spring. Here in California’s Inland Empire the hills have started to green, birds are out and about chirping, grasshoppers are hoping and chomping on everything green, and flower buds are starting to swell and burst through brown, twiggy branches.

We have so much gardening work to do. Spring-cleaning kind of work. Our backyard is modest, but fairly large and square. The sun walks across it every day, making it easy for us to work with nature and grow our own food.

With all the budding of life comes pollen, though. If you’re like me then you know that means hay fever, allergy flares, and sometimes a general feeling of malaise. Sunday we worked the full day, fighting Santa Ana winds and all. By the end of the day, my nose was sore, red, and cracked from the constant running. Come Monday, I had a full blown allergy attack: sinus headache, ear pain, post nasal drip and sore throat, and of course, itchy eyes. I’m better today, but still not feeling full of energy.

Instead of sulking, I’m going to take the time to do a little mental spring-cleaning. I have a few books on my nightstand to read, homework deadlines approaching, and an application to finish and send off. I find that sometimes taking the time to nap, do nothing, and laze around catching up on work cleans space out of your mind. Space needed to do the other shiny, fancy things like bake, write, garden, paint, and quilt.

Curly leaf Parsley and Sugar Snap Peas.

Lots of Salad greens, rainbow chard, basil, cabbage (purple and Chinese), and beets in the far background.

Lettuce variety (iceberg?) and Red Romaine Lettuce.

In the back of my mind, I will be thinking and planning some great bread and salad meals to take advantage of all the greens and herbs growing in our garden. With all of the gardening work ahead of us this weekend, I’m guessing that spring-cleaning my mind, getting some much needed rest, and catching up on homework will be good.

I had my phone with me while watering the plants this afternoon, and I thought I’d take a few quick shots to share here and include some quick, beginning vegetable gardening tips.

Starting a vegetable garden is not that hard, but I know it can be a bit daunting as you try to learn what to do. You may not believe me, but I had quite a brown thumb. I didn’t find my growing “zen” until I started vegetable gardening. I find that vegetable plants are a bit hardier, patient, and willing to grow while you learn. Perhaps it is a part of their DNA; they are meant to grow, seed, fruit, and give their lives up for the next generation. Quite noble of them, if you ask me.

If you’re thinking about planting your own garden this year, here are some quick and easy vegetable gardening planting tips to get you started. 

Buttercrunch Lettuce.

Vegetable Gardening Tips: A few tips for beginners planning a vegetable garden

• Preparation: Now’s the time to get your soil ready for growing. Unless you are my mother-in-law and are blessed with rich, fertile soil in your backyard, you will need to prepare your soil to nurture your plants. This is often where beginner gardeners make their first mistake—they don’t prepare their soil. It helps if you know your soil’s ph, but don’t let that stop you. Go down to your local nursery, get some bagged compost, manure, whatever you like, and add it to your bed. When we start our beds we dig down at least two feet, carefully breaking up the soil and aerating it. (We have clay soil.) Once we have dug far enough, we level the soil, add in compost and dried leaves from our garden waste, and work it into the top 12-18 inches of the soil. Most vegetable plants have shallow roots, which is why we work the good stuff into the first foot only. The rest of the soil work is to ensure good drainage and promote a healthy root environment full of earthworms. Those earthworms do all the heavy lifting.
• Location: The second mistake beginner gardeners make is failing to locate their vegetable beds in the right location. Sun is the vegetable plant’s best friend. These yummy guys and gals need lots of sun to carryout photosynthesis and produce the seeds, leaves, and fruit you’ll be eating. We are lucky; our house faces west, which means our backyard faces east. “The sun rises in the east, but sets in the west.” This means our backyard is full of light as the sun dances across the sky. If you don’t have an east or west-facing yard, spend some time taking note of the sun’s position throughout your yard on a sunny day. Most vegetable plants need a minimum of 6 hours and ideally 8 hours of full sun to grow and fruit properly. Another hint? Plant taller plants, like corn, facing north. This way, they won’t cast shadows on your sun loving plants.
• Selection: Here’s a secret—the best gardening advice you’ll receive is from three people/places: 1) neighbors who have been gardening a few seasons, 2) your own gardening journal, which you will start (right?), and 3) nursery and seed catalogs. I can tell you what grows well in our backyard, but unless you live on the other side of the fence, street, or avenue, it may not do you any good. Get out and talk to your gardening neighbors, visit your local nursery and ask questions. When they answer, ask some more. Repeat until they refuse to answer anymore. Add to that plant information from seed and nursery catalogs. All the growing information you need to know is there. What zone the plant thrives in, water and sun requirements, growing habits, planting tips, and even what the fruit tastes like. This is a wealth of information and can serve as your gardening book. To this add your own experiences. Start paying attention and taking note of how different plants behave in your garden. Sure, if you’re just starting you don’t have anything, but next year you’ll have a book of hints and tricks tailored to your backyard.
• Design: The beauty is in the details. To some this is the fun part, and to others, not so much. But, it is wise to start planning out your beds. You don’t have to get fancy. A simple sheet of notebook paper and a pencil will do. The goal is to think about which plants you are going to group together, and how you are going to best utilize your space. Certain plants perform well together, like tomato and basil, and others, like super-sweet corn and regular corn, should not be grown together. Also, if you plan to garden annually, you’ll want to rotate your crops so that pests are kept at bay and your soil is not routinely zapped of the same nutrients. It is also important to know that plants of the same ‘family’ or that share the same nutrient needs should not be grown together, or follow each other. It goes back to keeping the soil full of necessary nutrients, and confusing the hungry pests.
• Water and Food: Finally, perhaps the most obvious, but most overlooked is considering your plants water and food needs. You should decide if you will garden organically, or not, and learn what foods are available within your decisions. We garden organically, so we say no thank you to Miracle Gro and the likes, but we've found that fish fertilizers, and other natural fertilizers work just as well, if not better. It is helpful to plant plants with similar water and fertilizing needs together so that you don’t give a water loving plant all it needs, but drown a dry soil loving plant nearby accidentally.

Blooming Lavender, rosemary, and sweet broom.

Peach buds.

I hope these few tips show how easy vegetable gardening is. A little time, effort, proper planning, and you can have a small plot of plants growing and feeding you and yours this summer. Sure, we can get complicated and go deep into vegetable gardening science, but the truth is it starts with these five things: soil, location, plant selection, design, water & food. Each season, we spend a little time doing all of these, and I am rarely disappointed at our garden’s ability to feed us through the summer months.

Above all, take some time to nourish yourself as the seasons begin to change. I am a believer in sunlight…find a little time to soak some up today!

Peace and blessings! 

Ki 

P.s. Vegetable gardening questions, problems—drop me a line. I don’t know everything, but in my 8+ years of growing I've learned something. I also know where to find answers I don't have. If you’d like me to address a topic in a post, let me know that too. I’ll do my best to share knowledge.

Vegan Veggie Pita Tacos

Let’s talk good food. 

You and I both know that certain things are just good. Certain foods go together and like complimentary colors, they make each other sing out loud. I’m thinking peanut butter and grape jelly, peanut butter and chocolate, almond milk and chocolate chip cookies, macaroni and vegan cheese, and of course, sweet grits and hot ‘buttered’ toast.

Let me add another—avocado and lime. I know, it’s not that surprising; in fact, it is painfully common. But, we can’t deny the greatness of avocados covered in lime juice. At least I can’t.

That is where tonight’s dinner recipe started. Well, sort of. Yes, I have a short, mini story/anecdote. But let’s start at the beginning, or end, depending how you read it.

I have taken to trying to find any opportunity to eat avocados drenched in lime juice, since…forever. I simply cannot get enough. The kids cannot get enough of homemade pita bread. The little lady talks about them with goo-goo eyes and her hands clasped together in prayer beneath her chin. No, I’m not kidding. And the little guy, the eight-year-old foodie, he takes pictures of them, Instagrams them, and then stares at them, salivating and all.

So, when I begun to think about a good dinner recipe, I knew that it needed to include avocados, limes, and pita bread.

Now we are going to back up. When I had to adapt and change my eating, the first thing I learned to make over is tacos. E is Mexican and we love our authentic, Mexican tacos. Two of the first, most painful foods to leave my diet were onions and garlic. I know, depressing. There were many nights I cried, “what’s the point of eating” to E as I tried to relearn and reeducate my taste buds.

The first month I made a decided change was February (2005), my birthday month. I remember the night of my birthday I walked the aisles of Ralphs for what seemed like forever. Surely, there was something low fat, dairy-free, egg-free, that was sweet, tasty and resembled cake. I came home with a half an angel food cake.

Let me be honest. I took one bite, broke into tears, and went to bed. I was 27 and unable to eat a decent cake on my birthday. I begin to hate eating. Everything my doctor put me on was bland, tasteless, boring, dry, and quite frankly, sad. Eating depressed me.

One meal changed everything.

I got a pint of mushrooms, three different varieties of squash, a tomato, and some corn tortillas. No onions, no garlic, no Adobo seasoning, but I had a hunch I could still make something good. I had to. I looked at the ingredients in my favorite Mexican seasoning blends and identified the key spices I could eat (cumin, coriander, and oregano).

Well, a few hours later, we had the best tacos, ever. I knocked it out of the box and E kept going back for seconds and thirds. If memory serves me correctly, I had to stop him from hurting himself.

But most importantly, I loved it and so did my tummy.

Sunday afternoon, E and I were sitting in the kitchen eating a quick snack before heading back out to the backyard to prepare the garden for spring planting, when he mentioned the tacos in passing.

“Remember those mushroom and squash tacos,” he said while eating snap pea crisps. “Those things were good; we use to eat those every week.”

Just the mention of them, I swore I could smell them. The sautéed mushrooms, the warm, toasty smell of cumin and coriander. I was instantly taken back.

“You even made your own sauce, remember?” He was hinting, and I knew what would come next. “We should make those again.”

I wasn’t eating avocados or limes then. I was fairly afraid of anything remotely ‘exotic’ or basically not bland. The high fat in the avocados, the acid in the limes—I wasn’t sure my stomach could handle any of it. But now, with eight years of healthy eating and healing, I devour avocados and limes (but still no onions or garlic.)

“I can do that,” I replied.

And there you have it. My original intention was to make our corn tortillas and make them like traditional tacos, minus the frying. But, the kids begun to talk about pitas, and quickly they began to say they could and wanted to eat pitas with every meal, including breakfast. Peanut butter and jelly pita sandwiches, anyone?

So vegan veggie tacos became vegan veggie pita tacos with smoked black beans, jasmine rice, fresh salsa, guacamole, and vegan sour cream.

Eating just doesn’t get any tastier or healthier. And for the record, I love eating now.

Note: This meal includes three different recipes: smoky black beans, mushroom and squash filling, and a mild, fresh salsa. The pita recipe I used is from The Bread Bible, but you can purchase pitas, or try this or this recipe. (As a writer, I respect copyrights and would rather not publish Rose’s recipe as my own, or without her permission. I hope you understand.)

Vegan Veggie Pita ‘Tacos’

                                                                            8+ servings

Smoky Black beans

Ingredients:

1lb of dried black beans

1 piece of Kombu

1 can of broth

Seasonings to taste: Hickory smoke, cumin, coriander, old bay, oregano, salt, pepper, sugar

 Directions:

1. The night before you plan to cook your beans, sort them, cover with cold water, and soak over night.
2. In the morning, pour off the soaking water, rinse the beans, and cover with more cold water to continue soaking until you are ready to cook them.
3. Pour off the soaking water; rinse the beans well. In a medium to large stockpot, cover the beans with the can of broth and enough liquid to cover by about 2 inches. Add the kombu. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat.
4. Once the beans come to a boil, cover, leaving the lid slightly ajar, lower the temp to medium-low, and simmer for 1 ½ - 2 hours or until your desired tenderness.
5. Once the beans have cooked and tenderized, season to taste. Add in a few dashes of the hickory smoke, adding more to your liking. Add in the seasonings and sugar, starting with 1 tsp. of each, and adding more to taste. Add in the salt and pepper to taste. 

Mushroom & Squash Taco filling

Ingredients:

1 pint of mushrooms

1-2 zucchini, Mexican squash, or yellow squash

1-2 tomatoes, seeded and peeled (optional)

2-3 Tbl. of tomato paste (depending on your preference)

1-2 ‘dashes’ of ketchup

Seasonings to taste: cumin, coriander, oregano, old bay, salt & pepper

Directions:

1. Wash vegetables well, pat dry. Chop into bite sized half-moon slices.
2. In a large skillet, heat a couple of tablespoons of canola oil. Add in the mushrooms, and sauté until semi-tender. Add in the squash, and the seasonings (start with a tsp. of each, and increase to your liking.) Cook over medium heat, until vegetables are tender.
3. Add in the tomato paste and ketchup. Cook over medium low until sauce loosens, adding more paste or ketchup to loosen or thicken. Once the sauce is to your liking, add in the salt and pepper, taste and adjust seasonings to your preference.

Fresh Salsa:

Ingredients:

3-4 Roma tomatoes

1/3 large white onion, diced finely

Juice of one lime

1/3 bunch of cilantro, stem removed and leaves chopped roughly

Salt and pepper to taste

Dash of cumin and coriander to taste (optional)

Directions:

1. Wash and dry vegetables. Cut the tomatoes in half, width-wise, and deseed. Chop roughly, set aside. (Alternative: if you like a looser salsa, add 2/3 of the tomatoes to a blender or food processor and process until tomatoes release their juice and are finely chopped. Add this to the bowl. Then roughly chop the rest of the tomatoes and add.)
2. Peel the onion, chop off a third, and mince finely. Add to the tomatoes.
3. Remove the cilantro leaves from the stems, gather them into a pile, and roughly chop.
4. Squeeze in the juice of the lime, and stir. Add in the salt, pepper, and seasonings to taste.

How to Assemble:

You need:

Smoky Black beans

Jasmine Rice

Mushroom & Squash filling

Pita Bread

 

Toppings:

Fresh Salsa

Vegan Sour Cream

Quick Guacamole: One avocado mashed with salt, pepper, and the juice of half a lime. You can stir in some vegan sour cream if you like yours creamy. You can also add a chopped tomato, a small handful of onions, and a couple of springs of cilantro if you really want to fancy it up.

1. Cut the pita in half, or alternatively, cut off the top 1/3. Open up the pocket.
2. Add in a spoonful of beans, layer rice on top of the beans, and top with the mushroom and squash filling.
3. Serve with toppings inside, on the top, on the side, or all three! Enjoy!

 Recipe Notes:

• You probably noticed that I am a bit dodgy on giving precise measurements for seasoning. There are two good reasons for this: 1) I don’t measure when I cook and I simply add till it smells, looks, and tastes right. I cook with my senses. 2) Everybody’s taste buds differs, and I respect that. I’d rather give guide points, and allow you to adjust and season to your liking. That way you are as satisfied as possible.
• Beans, beans, good for your heart, the more you eat them, the more you…? This is why I add kombu, a sea green that flavors and tenderizes the beans as they cook. It also makes the broth very tasty. This is also the reason why I soak them overnight, and continue to rinse and soak into the second day. Finally, sharp readers will notice I don’t have you add the salt to the beans till they are done. There is a reason for that. Salt toughens cooking beans, so don’t add them until the beans are cooked through.
• In the past I have added corn to the mushroom and squash filling and it only made it better. This is a personal choice; either way you can’t go wrong.
• Finally, there is little onion, and no garlic or chilies in these recipes. That doesn’t mean you can’t add them. If I could, I would add onions to the beans, filling, and more to the salsa, along with a clove or two of garlic here and there. But, I can’t. I also can’t add chilies because my children’s taste buds are not strong and/or mature enough to handle them. Neither is my tummy. So go ahead and spice this up, I promise it will be just as good.

 Flavor Profile:

The flavor of these 'tacos' are Mexican, though a bit untraditional. The cumin, coriander, oregano are quintessential Mexican flavors that pair well with the earthy flavors of mushroom and squash. But, what really makes this dish sing is the addition of the lime, fresh avocado and salsa. It adds brightness and depth, with the acid in the lime and buttery richness of the avocado doing a lot of flavor lifting. You could swap the lime with lemon, but limes have a more pronounced flowery undertone that I find compliments the other flavors well.

I know what you’re thinking; this recipe sounds so very complicated. Trust me, it is not. Sure, you have to soak your beans the night before, and they take a couple of hours to ‘stew’, but that is all hands-off time. If you prefer instant gratification, or hate planning meals ahead of time, use canned beans. I surely won’t mind. But, be sure to rinse them well, and season them. If there are two things I know about canned beans it’s this: they can be gassy if not rinsed well, and they don’t come seasoned. Neither of these bode well with me and mines.

In the many years that I have been making these tacos I have served them to omnivores who’ve loved them. In fact, I usually serve these alongside ground turkey tacos, and you guessed it, these are gone before. There is something about the combination of the vegetables that makes the dish sing out loud. I shouldn’t tell you this, but when E wants authentic Mexican tacos, like his mother makes, he fries these and man, lets talk heavenly foods. Those deserve a post all to themselves, so I’ll convince him to fry us up some soon!

Until then, I hope you’ll make these, enjoy them, and serve them to people you love.

Peace and love.

Ki

Vegan Chewy Coconut Craisin Oatmeal Cookies

I was about ten, home sick at Granma’s house, when I realize I was one of those people. Those oatmeal people. Those people who love oatmeal, flaws and all. My older cousin, who was about 18 at the time, had come over. We were in Granma’s kitchen, a nice sized country eat-in, when he caught me face shoveling my bowl of oatmeal.

“What ‘chu eating Kiki,” he asked.

Before I could dip my buttered toast into my bowl and answer him, he leaned over, looked in my bowl, and then immediately scrunched his face up into the ugly, funky food face. That look people make when they catch someone eating pickled pigs feet, liver, chitlins, or apparently, oatmeal.

“Ugh,” he laughed and gagged. “Aunt Georgia got ‘chu eating oatmeal. I bet if I took a spoonful and threw it up, it’d stick to the ceiling.”

As Granma would say, I wasn’t stuttin’ him. I kept right on dipping my buttered toast into the thick, warm bowl of gelatinous grains. I think I savored it more, knowing there wasn’t a chance he was going to ask me for some. He didn’t get it. He wasn’t ready. Not for oatmeal.

There wasn’t one solitary thing I didn’t like about oatmeal. Texture, taste, smell, you name it—I was satisfied. Not the quick cooking, flavored with peaches ‘n cream oatmeal you make in the microwave. Um-un, I loved old fashioned, thick oatmeal that could rival chili with its stiffness. The stuff that makes your spoon stand up at attention.

Me and oatmeal go back. But our relationship has evolved. You see, a few years ago, I birthed a great big boy with big feet that pushed, separated, and bruised my ribs and every other vital organ in my abdominal cavity. His life inside my belly was nurturing to him, yet stressful for my viscera. So much so that after his ten-month stay, my body changed. I couldn’t eat the same things or the same way anymore. In fact, I had to learn a new way of eating because somehow, the birth of him left my stomach ‘sensitive’.

There are so many things I flat out cannot eat now. Ever. Oatmeal is kinda, sort of, one of them. It is a borderline food for me, one that I know I can’t over indulge in, but I don’t have to completely avoid.

For a few months now, E has been asking me to make him oatmeal raisin cookies. There are not many foods that I will not cook for him, in fact only a few. I don’t cook pork, and red meat. But oatmeal? I’m a healthatarian, right? Of course I could bake him oatmeal cookies, right?

Unless I was being a bit sensitive and selfish. I didn’t tell him, but I didn’t want to make something I wanted to eat, but couldn’t. So I put it off. And off. Until finally, he bought a Costco five pound box of old fashioned oats, and told me over the basket, right there in Costco, “I’m going to make me some oatmeal raisin cookies when I get home.”

Busted.

There was no way around it. I was going to have to find some room in my kitchen, and life for oatmeal. The stuff that I love that doesn’t always unconditionally love me back. It’s funny; I thought that buying him some Uncle Eddie’s Oatmeal Raisin cookies the last time we went to Whole Foods would satisfy him. But no, it backfired because I found myself hoarding the bag, eating them for breakfast, one small broken off piece after another, until I was clutching my abdomen.

If you’ve tasted them, then you know why I would eat them despite the subtle ways my body tells me no, not today, tomorrow, or next week.

So there I was, in line at Costco thinking about oatmeal raisin cookies. How would I make them? What could I do to make them fit me, the way I eat, and how can I make them taste as good as Uncle Eddie’s.

Of course I had to go home and eat a piece of Uncle Eddie’s, for recipe development and all.

There were two things that I noticed right away: they were chewy and the oat grains were not overly big or dry.

Hmm. Okay, chewy doesn’t make them more digestible, but it sure makes them more irresistible and worth the gut pain. But, the smaller grains got me to thinking. What if I made oat flour and took some of the gut work away? Surely the oat flavor would still be there, but maybe they would be smoother. Less dry and scratchy in the back of your throat.

So I started looking at recipes. And of course, I read and re-read (a million times) the ingredient list on the back of Uncle Eddie’s. I also started to reconsider raisins. I don’t hate them, but they surely aren’t my favorite dried fruit. I prefer craisins. And then I thought about coconut and how much I’ve grown to love its flavor, especially in baked goods. It also happens to be that a few of my favorite commercial cookies have coconut in the batter, though you can’t taste it.

Oatmeal, coconut, and craisins. Sounds like a winner.

After studying a few different chewy cookie recipes, a little baking cookbook research (that taught me chewy cookies need more fat to stay chewy and keep well), I began to realize that coconut oil could add flavor and (good) fat to keep the cookies chewy and moist.

And from there I was off. Looking at every ingredient and thinking, how can I make this work for the cookie and for me.

I figured it out.

According to E these cookies are the best he’s ever had. Better than chocolate chip. Better than raspberry thumbprints. Better than molasses sugar. Just plain better. And they are.

I hope you have come here for oatmeal cookies. I hope you will make these and they will knock your hat off, along with your socks. But even more, I hope they will turn you into one of those people. Those oatmeal people. And if you have not already done so at some point in your life, you will face shovel oatmeal. Whether it is these cookies or a warm, thick bowl of oatmeal spooned up with buttered toast. Go face shovel some oatmeal.

Let me know if you do.

Vegan Chewy Coconut Craisin Oatmeal Cookies

  24-36 servings (depending on cookie size)             

Ingredients:

1 ½  sticks of Vegan Margarine

¼ C. coconut oil (measured solid)

 

1 ¼ C. packed light brown sugar

½ C. white sugar

 

2 C. old fashioned, rolled oats

¾ C. sweetened coconut

 

1 Tbl. vanilla extract

1 ½ tsp. coconut extract

2 Tbl. non-dairy milk (I used Blue diamond’s Almond Coconut Blend, but any will do.)

2 Ener-g ‘eggs’

 

2 C. flour (all purpose, unbleached)

1 C. old fashioned, rolled oats

½ tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

¼ tsp. freshly grated nutmeg

1 C. craisins

½ C. young coconut, chopped roughly

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
2. Melt the vegan margarine and coconut oil; stir to combine. In a separate bowl, mix the 2 eggs using very warm water, set aside to thicken while you mix the other ingredients.
3. In a large bowl, mix the sugars, than add the melted margarine and coconut. Beat until smooth and all ingredients are blended well. Once blended, add the ‘eggs’, extracts, and milk. Beat until well combined.
4. In a blender or food processor, grind the oatmeal and sweetened coconut until you get a medium, coarse flour. The goal is not to make fine flour, but to break up the grains and coconut to more closely resemble whole grain flour. I have a Blendtec, high-powered blender and it takes me about four-five one-second pulses to get the texture I like. Pour the oat/coconut flour into another large bowl.
5. Next you are going to mix the dry ingredients. First, take the cup of oats and pulse them once or twice in the blender/food processor. The goal is to get a very rough chop to the oats, as if each grain was chopped in half or maybe thirds. Add this to the oat/coconut flour mixture. Add the two cups of flour, salt, baking soda, and nutmeg.
6. Chop the young coconut into bite-sized pieces with a knife or in a blender/food processor. The goal here is to have fairly small pieces that will incorporate nicely into the dough like rough chopped nuts would. Add these to the oat/coconut flour mixture. Stir to evenly combine the ingredients.
7. Add the dry mixture to the wet ingredients and beat till the dough comes together. Fold the cranberries in, making sure that the cranberries are evenly incorporated into the dough.
8. Scoop out 1-2 inch balls of dough, roll into a ball, and place on the cookie sheet spaced 2 inches apart. Slightly flatten the bottom of the dough, but keep them mostly ball shaped, rounded, and tall.
9. Bake for 13 minutes, or just before they start to turn deep, golden brown on the edges. Cool on the cookie sheet for 2-3 minutes, and then transfer to a cooling rack. Enjoy! 

Recipe Notes:

• The key to chewy cookies is melting your fat/oil; do not be tempted to substitute softened margarine for the melted margarine. The margarine must be melted to get the chewy consistency. Also, the coconut oil adds fat that would normally be supplied from egg yolks. If you do not have it, I’m sure you could substitute with more margarine, but you would be loosing a bit of flavor and some good-for-you fat.
• I grind the oat and coconut to produce a coarse flour for two reasons: to make the fiber easier on the tummy, but also to produce a moister cookie. Personally, I don’t like raw, whole rolled oats unless its granola, it tends to irritate my throat. But, that could be me. You could surely skip this step, but I’ve not tested it this way. With that said, I do save a cup of the oats for a more coarse chop to have the visible and textural treat of oats. After all, it is an oatmeal cookie.
• Young coconut (dried) is not like the flaked kind we all are use to. The pieces are larger, they are chewy yet hard, and there is a natural sweetness. We find ours at Costco and have taken to adding it to trailmix, snacking, you name it. But, we also have found that they are easier to eat broken up into pieces (they come as large shards). This is especially true for these cookies. They soften into the dough while baking, so it is nice to get the coconut surprises in each bite. If you do not have, or cannot find the young coconut, feel free to use flaked coconut, sweetened or unsweetened.
• To get a chewy cookie, I find that it is best to leave the cookie plump on the cookie sheet. They melt down and spread in the oven, but not overly so. This way the cookies are still ‘thick’ and you get a more thick, chewy cookie, instead of a thin crisp cookie. I use an ice cream scoop to get uniform balls of dough, and trust me, they are worth every penny if you make a lot of drop cookies. Note: If you are baking right away, the cookies will spread and flatten more; however, if you bake them from the fridge they flatten and spread less.
• Finally, the other key to a chewy cookie is to not over bake them. If you let them overly brown in the oven they will come out crisp instead of chewy. Don’t get me wrong, they are still every bit full of coconut, oatmeal goodness, just not chewy goodness. My oven clocks them at 13 minutes, but yours may be closer to 12 or 14. My suggestions is to keep an eye on them once 10-11 minutes rolls around, and the minute you see brown cookie shoulders—pull them. The next batch you’ll know when to pull them. Remember, they continue to cook on the hot cookie sheet as they cool.

Serving Suggestions:

These cookies need little to make them sing as a dessert star. We eat them with almond coconut milk, and I’m sure in the summer we’ll eat them with vanilla ice cream. I think I may even try to make them into ice cream sandwiches. Any way you eat them, they’re good. E has taken to eating them for a breakfast snack. Sugar aside, they’re healthy enough for breakfast.

Other tips:

These also keep well, both in the fridge/freezer (uncooked) and on the counter (cooked). In our experience, they hold their chewiness and don’t get stale as long as they are stored in an airtight container. I can’t tell you how long they would last, because they didn’t make it past two days here.

The second batch I made I couldn’t cook right away. I kept them in the fridge and scooped and cooked the next day. I added an extra minute and they came out perfect. I also took a frozen batch to my mother. To make frozen balls for later baking: line a cookie sheet with parchment, scoop out balls and place on the sheet. Cover loosely with plastic wrap. Quick-freeze for about 30 minutes (depending on your freezer). When they are firm to the touch and easily release from the parchment, transfer them to an airtight container, stacking in single layers, and separating the layers with more parchment paper. Cook straight from the freezer, adding a few minutes, or let unthaw in the refrigerator or on the counter than cook as instructed.

Flavor profile:

These cookies are full of oat and coconut flavor. They are not overly sweet, but easily satisfy a sweet tooth with the addition of the cranberries and coconut. I find that the cranberries provide a good, tangy counterpoint to the oat flavor. The coconut rounds the flavor out, providing a natural buttery undertone that doesn’t taste artificial or overly sweet. This is not a cookie that screams healthy, vegan, or crunchy granola—not that there is anything wrong with any of those labels. With such a balanced flavor, I think these would be great to take any place cookie lovers gather, vegan, healthy, crunchy or not.

Please enjoy, and by all means, I hope these make you one of those oatmeal people! 

Peace and love. 

Ki

Vegan Cornbread, Sweet Southern Style

Granma cautioned in a kitchen off Century and Hoover,

“Never throw your hair away. Burn it.” Till yellow

Cornbread bakes and greens release pot liquor

Her garnet polished fingers unraveled each cornrow.

 “Halcyon Kitchen: A Pantoum for Granma,” First Stanza

-Kiandra Jimenez   

 

If I close my eyes tightly, wait a few seconds, and then allow myself to slip back into my childhood and sit myself in Granma’s kitchen, a number of memories will begin to wind around me. Like the morning glory vines that encircle my house and creep in through my front door when I am not careful or looking, Granma memories will wrap themselves around me, too. If I am still enough, I will feel her arms hug me. If I am quiet enough, I will hear her voice mingled amongst my cousin and brother and Uncle Romel, and Aunt Patty, and my Mama appearing at the end of a long workday as a bank teller, and perhaps, even Robert Earl, my uncle now departed, will appear. But Granma’s voice will echo through my bones if I am quiet enough. And, if I squeeze my eyes tight and long enough, I will see Papa with his Bible studying and praying to decipher words bigger than his nonexistent early education. He will sit at the kitchen table and watch The Three Stooges, Tom & Jerry, The Monsters, and even, in the evenings, The Dating Game—whatever us kids, Granma, or Mama, Patty, or Romel click the dial too. Yes, the TV will be black and white, small and adorned with coat hangers, but Papa and us all will laugh at the screen.

Now, if I wait long enough, through the stillness, the quietness, the eye squeezing, I will begin to taste what love is like on an ordinary day—a pan of cornbread on top of the stove, cooling, waiting to be eaten with dinner. Granma made cornbread in cast iron skillets she bought at flea markets and yard sales, and though I know only nostalgia tells me this, it seems like there was a pan with every evening meal. When I was a young mother and wife still learning to feed my family, she’d remind me over and over that I needed a good skillet for cooking. 

“Let Mama tell you what to do,” she’d start off. “Go on down to an old flea market or yard sale and get you a good, sturdy cast iron skillet.”

“Um-hmm,” I said, letting her know I was paying attention.

“Don’t matter how old and rusty it looks, Mama’ll tell you how to bring it back.”

“Okay,” I’d switch the baby boy from one hip to the other, “But I ain’t seen none; I’ve been looking since the last time you told me.” 

“Tell you what,” she said once, “Mama’ll go and find you one and get it seasoned and ready for you next time you come down.” 

Truth is, she had gotten too sick to go flea marketing and yard sale hopping to find me a skillet. But it didn’t stop her from reminding me that it was necessary. When I complained about feeling tired and run down she’d say, “Get your pan, the cast iron one, and boil some water in it. When the water get to boiling get a fork and bang the edges. That’ll release the iron into the water. Drink that water and it’ll build your blood up.

I listened intently, but in my mid twenties I didn’t quite know what to make of Granma’s iron building advice. WebMD suggested iron-rich foods and supplements and made no mention of fork banging cast iron skillets with boiling water—and drinking the water. 

“That’s what Big Mama and my grandmama use to do for us.” She told me, adding that those were the old ways back home.

Granma’s cornbread tasted like love. Don’t get me wrong, all her food did, but the cornbread, baked in a cast iron skillet till golden and crunchy on the outside, the cornbread felt like all of her was concentrated into a slice of crumbly yellow. She didn’t make it sweet, no, no. Granma’s cornbread was southern from the skillet to the slice. Salty with a slight hint of sweetness, crunchy around the edges and delicately crumbed in the middle. The broken top was always covered with a thin film of butter, melted on soon as the pan emerged from the oven.

I didn’t like meat much then, we’d have liver and onions, fried chicken, fried pork chops, duck, Cornish game hens, or ribs on holidays. In fact, I hated the meat. With every bite my brother would remind me I was eating the leg, side, or rib of an animal causing me to stare at it and then pass it to him when Granma, Mama, or Aunt Patty wasn’t looking.

A pan of cornbread on top the stove, cooling in a cast iron skillet waiting to be eaten with dinner—this is what love tastes like on an ordinary day in my kitchen. It has been handed down from Big Mama to Granma to Me, and like me, my kids get slices they never feel is big enough with dinner.

 I can’t stop making cornbread. Ever. It is a part of our Family Food Fingerprint, a food E and the kids know and have come to expect. But beyond that, I taste generations of womenfolk, my women kinfolk in cornbread. Granma was raised on cornbread like my Mama, me, and now my daughter. We are women who eat cornbread and feed our family cornbread full of iron absorbed through cast iron skillets. Our blood is strong, thick and rich.

Below is my recipe for a southern, skillet corn bread recipe that is vegan and also sweetened. Please try it and share it with those you love!

Vegan Sweet Southern Cornbread

8 Servings

Ingredients:

1 c. cornmeal

1 c. all purpose flour

3/4 c. granulated sugar

3/4 tsp. kosher salt

1 Tbl. baking soda

1 c. vegan milk (sweetened is fine)

1/3 c. canola oil

1 Ener-g “egg”

1-2 Tbl. orange blossom honey

2-3 Tbl. of Earth Balance, plus more for buttering the top

 Directions:

1. Preheat oven and cast iron skillet to 400 degrees. When pan is hot, add butter to melt, than place back into the oven.
2. While butter is melting prepare batter. First, mix “egg” and set aside to thicken while you mix the other ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together corn meal, flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda. Set aside. In a separate smaller bowl, combine milk, oil, honey, and egg. Mix to incorporate all ingredients.
3. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, pour the wet ingredients into the well. Stir until just combined, making sure to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl. This is a fairly thin batter so it should not need a lot of mixing. Once all ingredients are fully incorporated stop mixing.
4. In this next step you are going to work quickly to get the batter into the hot skillet and then back into the hot oven making sure to minimize heat loss in the pan and oven. Carefully take the hot pan out of the oven and quickly pour the batter into the pan. It should sizzle and a crust should begin to form around the edges immediately. Quickly return the pan to the hot oven.
5. Cook for 20-23 minutes. When a toothpick comes out clean in the center, take the cornbread out of the oven and immediately put 2-3 small ‘pats’ of the Earth Balance on the top to melt. Serve and Enjoy.

Recipe Notes:

The key to authentic southern cornbread (minus the debate of sweet or not) is in the crust. To get the crunchy crust and soft inner crumb, the key is to use a cast iron skillet that has been properly seasoned and is well heated. The oven and the pan must be very hot. You want the batter to start cooking as soon as it hits the skillet, and you want to get it back into a hot oven as soon as possible.

 Over the years of making this, I have learned how to best achieve the crust:

• Preheat the oven and pan well in advance. I often will turn my oven on and place the skillet in the oven about an hour or so before I start to mix my batter. When I know I am making cornbread to accompany a meal, I start preheating soon as I walk into the kitchen if I know my recipe prep is only an hour or so.
• Do not mix the batter too far in advance. Whenever I have a recipe that is leavened solely by baking soda (make sure it is fresh!), I do not mix too far in advance. The exception to that is pancakes, but that is another post. I mix this batter only when I know my pan and oven is hot and ready.
• Do not let the heat out. Open the oven and take the pan out of the oven as little as possible. Once my pan goes in, it stays in till I am ready to pour the batter into it.
• Do not open the oven more than you need to. Again, back to letting the heat escape. When you take the pan out of the oven to pour the batter in, close the oven up. The hot oven and pan is what produces the crunchy crust.
• Get it in and leave it alone. Once you get the cornbread in the oven, set your timer and forget about it. Let it cook, undisturbed until the 20 minutes is up. You will most likely be able to smell it when it is ready.

Serving Suggestions: 

We eat cornbread with everything. Stews, soups, casseroles, spaghetti, you name it. This is also the recipe I use for corn muffins, cornbread stuffing for Thanksgiving, and any other fancy cornbread recipe I might decide to use. 

The bread sweetened, makes for a great mid day or morning snack, and can be eaten with warm cereal, eggs, rice for lunch, or just as a snack alone.

Other tips:

I keep this in a tightly covered plastic container on the counter, but if you like your cornbread cold you can store it in the fridge. It keeps well either way, and is usually gone in my house before a day or two is up. 

This recipe can be double, though I would not double the sugar. I think 1 c to 1 1/3 c would be fine for a double batch, but hey, if you want to add 1 1/2 c of sugar I won’t stop you, I might even join you. 

Flavor Profile:

My version is sweet and homey. The corn flavor is well balanced and does not over power, yet it does taste decidedly like cornbread. The addition of honey gives it a sweetness, sometimes a stickiness that we tend to like. The more honey you add, the more sticky the top crust and crumb. Overall, although this version is sweet, it isn’t overly so. It compliments savory dishes well and gives a nice balance to a meal. I make this often when we have family over and they can never stop grabbing slices. 

Now, you’ll notice that my corn bread recipe is no different, but also full of differences from the box recipe. Granma’s cornbread was not sweet, but Mama’s was. The recipe on the box, when carried out correctly is the southern way, the way my Granma made it, but it isn’t very sweet. I have veganized and sweetened it, so that it is suitable for my family. But make no mistake, you can still taste Granma in the crumb. Taste like love on an ordinary day.

Peace and love.

Ki

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Vegan Apple Pot Roast

Vegan Apple Pot Roast

Yesterday was full of February, cold and rainy with low-lying grey clouds. You know the feeling that spring is on every day’s coattail, yet that sharp chill in the air that lets you know winter is not quite done. The days are longer and my fall/winter habits are a bit unbalanced as daylight still lingers at five. Cook now or wait, I ask myself around four everyday, and soon enough E is trekking through the door or my mother is calling me on her drive home, both of them asking me what’s for dinner.

I love it when my mother calls, 60 miles away, interested in what I have cooking in the kitchen. As if she’s dropping by for dinner. It reminds me of my conversations with Granma, and how she’d routinely call me and ask, “Ki, what’s for dinner.” She’d soon enough tell me, “Let Mama tell you what to do,” and give me the home cook’s version of pulling together dinner. They weren’t really recipes. They were those pull together, time-perfected meals that we learn to cook for our families. You know, the family favorites, the go-to meals, the comfort meals that are as unique to our families as our own fingerprints. In a sense, that is what they are. Family food fingerprints. Recipes that we have invented, shaped, and perfected for our family—picky eaters, foodies, and all.

I miss Granma something terrible, but when I cook for my family, as she cooked for us and other families, for she was a maid, I am reminded of her gene pool that I share. It urges me to put so much love and passion into my food that my mother can taste it driving home sixty miles away, and it drives my son and husband to lick and spoon scrap their bowls, respectively. (The little lady is to prim and proper for that.) I know they can taste my love for them, and they are trying to soak up and drown themselves in every last bit.

Anyway, days like yesterday I welcome the rain. The kids and me are usually cozied up under blankets homechooling. Midday I begin to look forward to the evening downtime with E, eating something warm, soothing, and hearty. For E, that translates to beef. Though, I am not vegan or vegetarian, I have not eaten red meat or pork in almost a decade. And I don’t plan on eating or cooking it anytime soon. In fact, I find that as a family, we are naturally moving towards a vegan diet more than anything else. Our meals involving meat and eggs, we’ve been dairy free for almost a decade too, can be counted on one hand any given week. 

So, to satisfy E’s cravings for beef, and give the little ones a taste of beef, I cooked up this homey, comfort meal. Perfect for blistery February weeknights. It is an easy vegan recipe that can be cooked and served fairly quickly. It is also perfect for those going vegan, flirting with veganism, or trying to eat healthier. I'd also go out on a limb and say that this is a great company dinner, or pot luck meal. Few people can resist a hearty sweet and savory stew.

I hope you’ll try it and enjoy! And if so, drop me a line and let me know how it goes.

 

Vegan Apple Pot Roast 

8 Servings

Ingredients:

Vegan Roast Meat (I used Trader Joes meatless strips)

Carrots, 6-7 whole,

Red, Orange, and Yellow Bell Peppers

Celery Stalks, 2-3, including leaves

Honey crisp Apples, 2-3

Baby Bella Mushrooms, whole

Broth, 2 cans

Apple Juice concentrate, 1 12 oz. can

Tomato Paste, 6-8 oz.

Soy Sauce, to taste

Herbs, to taste

            -Thyme, Rosemary, Marjoram, Bay leaves, Sage

A-1 Steak Sauce 

Directions:

1. Wash, peel, and chop vegetables into 1-2 inch biased cuts. In a large Dutch oven or stockpot, heat the oil under medium high and begin to brown the carrots. While the carrots are browning, add the herbs to the pot to ‘bloom.’ When the carrots are golden brown on the edges, add the celery (saving the celery leaves to last) and bell peppers. Once the celery and peppers are softened, add the mushrooms and brown.
2. Add the tomato paste and cook with the vegetables until the paste loosens, about 2-3 minutes. Add in the ‘meat’ strips and lightly brown in the paste and vegetable mixture.
3. Add in two cans of broth, apple juice concentrate and cook on medium heat, uncovered. Add in the celery leaves you set aside in step one.
4. Season: After the sauce has had a chance to boil and concentrate down (maybe about 8-10 minutes), season with soy sauce, steak sauce, salt, pepper and herbs. This is a personal choice that is dependent on your preferred flavor profile. If you prefer a sweeter stew, add more steak sauce, beginning with two teaspoons and adding more to taste. If you prefer a more savory sauce, add in two teaspoons of soy sauce and add more to taste. If you want to skirt the middle, add a bit of both and slowly add more to adjust until you are happy. The more steak sauce and tomato paste you add the sweeter the sauce, the less and more soy sauce, the more savory.
5. While the pot is ‘stewing,’ core, peel, and chop the apples into one-inch cubes. Add to pot and simmer on medium low, covered until vegetables are cooked to your preferred tenderness. I cooked mine for about 30 minutes, and the carrots were not cooked completely through the way I prefer, which is rather soft. My family liked the al dente bite of the carrots and the rest of the vegetables were spot on.

Serving Suggestions:

I served this over a bed of Jasmine Rice with a side of Southern Skillet cornbread. It would be just as hearty and delicious alone, or over another choice of grains (brown rice, quinoa, etc.). We tend to eat cornbread with everything, but this would also be good with French bread, dinner rolls, or whatever bread you like to dip into sauce.

I found that the combination of sweet crusty cornbread complimented the hearty flavors of the stew. 

*Vegan Cornbread Recipe coming soon.

Flavor Profile:

This pot roast has a flavor profile very similar to teriyaki or sweet and sour flavored sauces. It is quite sweet and tangy, with savory hints to mellow it out. The addition of the apples heighten the sweetness and can be left out to lower the level of sweetness, but make no mistake, this is surely a roast that will satisfy those with a sweet tooth.

Peace and love.

Ki

Hello, again.

Hello, my name is Kiandra and I am the woman who use to blog here. 

Apparently, new beginnings, fresh starts, and starting anew is more difficult for me than I ever knew. For the past month, almost two, I have been looking and waiting for a space big and wide enough to open up for me to begin blogging again. 

I'm tired of waiting, and more tired of writing half posts that languish in draft mode, waiting for me to get over the first day back jitters. So I'm creating a space, why not--I'm an artist right? And walking in head first.

Let me start from the beginning, and quickly get to the present:

• I am finally a college graduate! My Bachelor of Arts Degree (English) posted December 31, 2012, and I graduated Magna Cum Laude and managed to maintain my 4.0 the entire two years it took me to complete my BA. (*Mr. E also graduated with his MBA and we walked in the ceremony together. It was wonderful to share the experience with him and we are a stronger family, team because of the experience of going back to school together.)
• I started Grad School December, 2012, and am pursuing an MFA Creative Writing with a dual emphasis in Fiction and Creative Nonfiction at Antioch University Los Angeles. It is an amazing program that I am most proud to be a part of. It was my first and last choice, and the only Grad school that I applied too. (You can read about my decision process here and here.) I now have the most supportive, intelligent, compassionate, nurturing, creative, and talented bunch of writing cohorts. 
• I wrote a 53 page paper on Black Women's Literature and Black Women's Quilting for my Senior Capstone (Undergrad) that I have high hopes of turning into a book, so you may hear/read me talk about that from time to time.

Here is where I am at now:

• I am currently writing a novel that explores sacrifices and fidelity between women in a family unit (i.e. mothers, daughters, sisters, grandmothers). It is set in the 80s, Los Angeles, and covers current urban social issues in a literary way. I have roughly 150 pages written from my earlier attempts, 2010-2011, but am starting over in a way and writing from the beginning. So far, I have about 42 (new) pages written. My goal is to write 20-25 pages a month the first half of the year, and double that the second half. Essentially, the goal is to finish writing this novel this year. I'm guessing and hoping about 300 pages should be enough.
• Within my program I am reading and reviewing a few books a month. The number fluctuates, but I am reading about 3-4 books a month and annotating (fancy word for a thorough review that focuses on writing techniques, insights that are helpful to my own writing practice) at least two. My goal is to annotate all of the books I read and share them here. So, look out for that.
• I am slowly getting back into the practice of creating/painting/quilting. I have painted a few pieces, but have yet to quilt. Sadface. With starting Grad school I have had to do a lot of readjusting of my schedule, time, priorities, but I also have more time at home and more creative free time to do some of the creative things I use to do (paint, quilt, etc.). It has been a bit difficult to find a new normal, a new balance. Slowly, I think I and we (as a family) are finding our new normal. Most important, me and E have more time to focus on home, the kids and their new creative interests (blogging, Youtubing, Etsy stores, etc.). They are quite creative and eager to start defining themselves creatively. Very exciting for this mama!
• Gratefully, I am back in the kitchen, garden, and decorating our humble nest. These three areas suffered greatly from my intense, undergrad schedule. I feel so much more centered now that I have time to cook healthy from scratch meals for us. I am also eagerly looking forward to adorning our house and garden this year. I have started very modestly on our bedroom this past month, and this past weekend we started the long journey of cleaning up and re-planning our outdoor space. We are on a very strict budget, so all that we do will need to be creative, free, or very low cost.
• For graduation, E gifted me a wonderful new camera and I plan to take lots of pictures of my life with the purpose of sharing how I/we live life fully, creatively, and as health conscious as possible. 

Finally:

• I believe I have grown into my own skin and learned to dwell amongst my own bones and heart. It is not easy learning to see and accept yourself how you are, how you have shown up in and on this planet. But, I do not believe any of us can cull from life the things we need unless we make peace with who the good Lord has created us to be. (Yes, I am now Christian, no longer "spiritual." I hope to talk more about this at sometime, but for now I am still learning what that means for me.) So, know that every word you read is authentically coming from me--a place of peace, happiness, good intentions, creativity, and of course love.

Of late my mother, brother, and others close to me have been defining me as a bohemian, artist. It has taken a long time for them (my mother and brother) to understand me. They did not initially accept the artist label. I believe they saw, expected, and maybe hoped for something else from me. I have been an overachiever/perfectionist my entire life, so naturally, my mother assumed that I would pursue law, medicine or something else "official and important" when I left for college as a teenager. I was the first in my mother's family to leave for college, so the idea of college leading to an arts career was quite frankly, absurd. Who spends four years and tens of thousands of dollars to become a nonworking "artist?" Can't you stay at home and do that, surely they thought. In my father's family, I have an uncle, whom I am very proud of, that went to Ivy League schools and became a lawyer, law school Dean, and has happily settled into a career as a noted Law Professor and scholar. 

We have no use, no time, no money for you to be an artist. Artist is not a career. These are the ideas that I have had to change for my family over the past 13-15 years.

There is some truth in those ideas. Art is not a career, it is a lifestyle. It is a way of living, thinking, and perceiving the world. I cannot tell you how or why, but I do not experience the world like my non creative friends/family. I can live like them, but it siphons energy from my heart in a way that I don't think anyone should have to experience. 

Everyday that I am not living my life as an artist I feel like I am dying, withering. I no longer choose to shrivel, but instead, choose to thrive and live fully awake in this soul I've been blessed with.

I can turn the artist me on and off. And in the past, I have done this. There was a point that I thought being fully awake to the art of life around me was exhausting. I would turn on the creative me, live fully, and then turn it off. After, I would find myself exhausted, sad, and feeling dull, lackluster. I thought, erroneously, that all the creative energy that I put into being open creatively pulled my energy out.

No. Turning myself away from my creative truth pulled the energy out of me. I felt dull and lifeless because I was. I am living and alive only when my heart is open and able to create, when the artist in me is turned on. 

If you see me, you soon notice that I love color. I have been known to wear lilac pants, turquoise shoes, and hot pink socks. When I wear black, I feel like I am dying. I feel morose in a way that is not sentimental or emo. Black does not feel natural for me. 

That is what living a life void of creativity is to me. It is like asking me to wear black, from head to toe, and enjoying it. Those who know me, know this is impossible.

This year, my word is Brave, with a capitol 'B'. I was able to recognize my fear last year, embrace it, work through it, and this year I am committed to living bravely. The first step was accepting and recognizing who I am and who I am not. 

I may never be that woman who wears make-up, high heels, has a nine-to-five, and exudes professional, working woman. I am not the girlfriend you take out for cocktails and clubbing, but I am that friend who is honest, nurturing, and creative thinking. I wear colorful clothes, paint on my palms, compost beneath my nails, and have a wild sourdough starter (or two) fermenting on my counter or in my fridge at any given time. Call me quirky, that's okay too. I am a woman happy to grow and cook her own food, make her own bed, decorate it, and lay in it. I am a bohemian, as my mother calls me, and that's okay too.

If you don't believe, check out my new nose ring. 

So, there is the long and short of it. All painted and hung for prosperity. This turned out much longer than I expected, more like a mini-manifesto, but fully necessary for me to begin here again. 

In the next post I will outline the new direction I aspire for this new blogging space. 

Stay tuned, and in the meantime: Cultivate peace and love!

Bravely, Ki 

Living...

Maybe I am a poet.

Why else would I always feel like I do. Being that someone who needs to watch and record everything. Like it's the 20s and I need to horde everything from the blush of wind in my locs to the ache in my hips when I decide to make donuts at 1am. I am the girl who tries to describe the dance of flies in the air above family reunions that took 45 years to form.

Give me words and talk pretty sentences to me.

I want to see what will happen when I think about switch trees, neighborhoods of black folks, and food on top my Granma's stove. What words will appear? I know I'll see Granma peeling a young twig down and the sight and smell of the green innards beneath the brown skin will make me wonder if the tree feels the sting too. I will hear the neighborhood "running up and down the road" as Granma would say with the sound of my uncle underneath somebodies' hood clanging oil and metal tools against oil rags mixing with 99th street and Hoover conversations. And then the sound of Granma's pilot light ticking, the heavy whoosh of flames pushing out to hit pots of black eye peas, ox tail stew, or early morning grits.

That cast iron clang of Granma's fork scrambling eggs in the kitchen, with her left hand in her hip must be described by someone--me.

This past year I have put a bug in God's ear weekly, sometimes daily. And I've done so while crying patient tears too. It is often difficult for me to wait in silence. Fear looms. Insecurities creep. Doubt talks.

I have developed this insatiable love of words and sentences and story-poems and novels that slip-up, sweep in, and push you back down into life to live.

Reading the canons and writing academia for the past two years has forced me to stand in front of the mirror and see myself for who I am. Sure, I have fallen into stupid love with critically reading and analyzing Literature written before my great-great-great granma was born. And I don't mind starting a paper at 6pm and writing till 7am straight through, questioning whether eating dinner or capturing a great sentence is more important, even though the paper is 2-3 weeks early. I catch fevers over writing and dancing my fingers on this keyboard. Typing now? My eyes just rolled in my head as I thought about the pleasure of speaking out and to this 13" screen.

Like sitting at the sewing machine whirling fabric in a natural, instinctual way. Me knowing which words will pop in a sentence like knowing that I need Hansa yellow, quinocrodone reds, and purple fabric in a quilt. 

I wrestle with deciding if eating or crafting sentences is more important at some point in each of my days. It pisses E off that I would rather craft and re-craft a sentence than make myself a meal, because I need to eat and often, he says. 

But, writing fuels me and I know no other way to know I am living. I have been working on my philosphy statement for my Senior Capstone Portfolio, and this is how I have decided to start it:

Gonna don’t get you no where but down the street. Never throw your hair away, burn it. Chile, he ain’t nothing but a wooden nickel and wooden nickels don’t spend. I may be dead and gone, but you mark my words. Grandma had a mouthful of aphorisms and a pocketful of tales. She baked stories about Big Mama and sharecropping into hot water cornbread, cooked up a profound sense of heritage over pots of oxtail stew, and pressed life lessons into me at the stove straightening my hair with a hotcomb. She was our griot, and we made sense of life through family lore and legends she verbally handed down through anecdotal genealogies. She told to understand. She told to witness. She told to survive. And then there is me—I tell to preserve. I can no more remove what I have inherited, this profound presence of legacy and culture, from who I am than I can remove my love of sentences, my penchant for words, or my urge to make quilts and paint. I am the family griot of my generation and I collect things. I paint images with those objects I’ve gathered rummaging through life. Fabric scraps from Granma’s housecoats, bits and pieces of broken conversations, handed down recipes of 7-up cake, the profound flowery musk of funeral flowers. I write with art and life hanging out of my mouth.

And the next line was: But it is not enough to inherit. Because it is not. I write to preserve. I cannot preserve if I do not record, if I do not place the highest level of value on what I know my life's purpose is. 

A while back, my family and extended family drove down to San Diego to meet relatives I found on Ancestry.com. Not deep down the family-tree relatives, but siblings. It is a long, sad, beautiful, and rich story that I am still processing and mining for understanding. 

The drive down I read Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. I read slave narratives by women for my senior thesis. It was difficult to read the terrors of Linda's life, and witness the humanity denied her. I should have finished the book quickly, perhaps in the four hours we spent driving Saturday and early Sunday morning, but I found I had to stop often.

My (new) uncle and I were "chopping it up" as he calls it, a while back, and he started to tell me about his memories of his great-granma, my great-great granma. Her name was Minnie Green and she was a slave. She was in her late nineties when he was a young boy (he's in his mid 60s now) and would watch him and his brother while his parents worked. He said she'd sit making quilts and get to telling him about her life as a slave, for she was born into slavery and spent her young years in that peculiar institution of the South. 

He did not know about my current academic work, or my proximity to quilting. He was just talking. We were just chopping it up and he was taking the time to fill me in on the history, deep history of my family I need to learn. 

This year I have inherited so much. At one point, I sat with tears falling from my eyes in my mother's bedroom surrounded by beautiful cousins and stacks of pictures of family I look like, act like, and know in me--but didn't know. I remember saying, "All the pain of loosing Granma two years ago is being healed right here, right now. When God takes one away, he often will give you back hundreds." 

A few people have urged, warned, and begged me not to forsake academia for creative writing and that vanity Master of Fine Arts Degree.

"But you will surely publish. You don't need an MFA," some have told me. 

"It will limit your teaching possibilities at colleges/universities and you have to teach," said others.

"You won't find a job," one harsh one said.

This is my reply:

Maikisha with Palms the Color of Roses

Maikisha's mama got a voice hot and thick like grits gurgling with nobody stirring the lumps out. Get yo' narrow behinds over here. Maikisha with skin the color of strained bacon grease, with hammy-down white dresses she wears to a Sand Bernardino public school, whose name the teacher does not understand when she puts extra syllables between the Mai and the Kisha, Maikisha the girl with clouds for friends, who marks her walk to school with bus stops, liquor stores, and car shops.

That is the first paragraph of my 20 page writing sample.

If not me, then who will write about the Maikisha's who need a voice, an advocate, a poet to explain how beautiful she and her life is. 

Who will uncover Minnie Green's life and make sure that her hundred years of life does not float off somewhere? Who will make sure that everybody, everybody knows how loved Michael Johnson was and how my mama buried him in style, regardless of the turmultous, short life he lived? Who will explain what it feels like to split a bag of top romen for lunch, following a breakfrast of plain toast with grape jelly because that is all poverty provides? Who ever could tell you about Granma's neighborhood famous spghetti, or Papa's healing chicken gruel, or what it feels like to crack peanuts with him while Granma presses the family's clothes for the week in a small back kitchen?

I can tell you what it feels like to have an ancestor for a father, a beautiful mother for a mama, a southern grandmother for a granma, and what it was like to walk the streets of South Central Los Angeles when you could put food on a tab at the corner market or grab a burger at Quick n' Split, the original Fatburgers, or Clint's burger on 101st and Hoover.

I cannot do that in Academia. I cannot find out if I am a poet, a fiction writer, or both unless I dedicate myself to my craft.

I know nothing else besides art and my art comes through letters group into words, placed into sentences, and pushed together into stories. If I don't write them, I speak them. And I imagine that is why acquitances will ignore me if they see me at the Art's Walk this coming Thrusday. Because I talk a lot, I have a lot to say, and some people are just not ready, open, or interested to hear it.

I smile at them and keep going, because until I get it on paper, quilt it into fabric, or paint it onto wood, I have stuff in me that needs preserving.

This is who I be.

Living,

Ki

Falling forward: Introductions are always nice, right?

 

 

I am deep into reading and researching for my senior capstone paper. This week I am reading The Bondwoman's Narrative and I am flat out in love.

I am also struggling through Algebra and managing a third class on Early American Literature. My summer workload was more intense, but I find that having things be slightly less instense is harder. I have grown so accustomed to moving full speed ahead that slowing down, just ever so slightly, wrecks my focus.

There is so much news I have to share, but I am still processing.

Also, I am really wading my way through slave narratives. Again, so much I want to say, but I am still trying to process and read through them. It is very difficult reading. Emotionally and spiritually.

In the meantime, I thought it would be nice to upload this video I had to do for my Senior Capstone class. We had to introduce ourselves, tell a little bit about ourselves, what we are reading/like to read, what we would like to focus on in our capstone, something that is bothering us, and finally something that is beautiful.

If nothing else, this sums up who I am.

As fall begins, I wish you all a great leap forward in life and spirit. I hope that happiness is settling in and cultivating a place in your life.

Paz y amour...ki