Paella

Look what arrived at the market, just in time to add to my paella dish.
When you visit the Ojai Sunday market, check out Frank's family's stand. I don't know the farm's name, but its right next to B.D.s (the herb and greens farmer). They always have the first of the summer beauties like these little gems. He even has a few strawberries right now.

To make this paella, I started with Freshtopia's inspired recipe and made a few very minor changes. No farmer could convince me their turnips were as mild as I would prefer (not a big turnip fan) so I used jicama in place of the turnip and I dehydrated the mixture for two hours to remove some of the moisture. I also added red bell pepper strips to the mushroom marinade and dehydrated both of those for a bit to concentrate the flavor. It was fabulous. Wouldn't it be fun to do a Spanish night with tapas, paella, sangria, almond ice cream? I'll probably find the time to accomplish that when Sebastian is thirty or so...

Happy Birthday to Me!

Sun Burger

E. made secret recipe sun burgers for my birthday! And I took a photo with my new camera! Yes, I am so excited!

I haven't posted in a while and I am thinking about what I would like to say about that, so I'll discuss in my next post. In the meantime, I am making raw PAELLA for the SB potluck tomorrow. That was a dish I looooved. Here is the link to freshtopia's video recipe: Enjoy.

More on Nursing

www.thegardendiet.com

Check out Jinjee's new ebook on the yoga of nursing. Sounds like she knows exactly what I am talking about regarding nourishment, comfort and our relationship to food. Her littlest, Yarrow, is two days younger than Sebastian. And if you come check out the Santa Barbara raw meetup (link) you can meet raw baby Theo. He is two days older than Sebastian. We raw mamas were having some fun in August 2006. Sorry if that was crude, but hey! That's nature.

Baby Love

Changes

Sebastian teething on celery - his favorite!

If the hints are any indication - I am getting a new digital camera (with video!) for my birthday. So needed, as you can tell by the quality of the photos on this blog. My birthday is the 17th of February. I will have done the solar loop 31 times. I have some pretty strong intentions for the next thirty years. Truthfully I hope most of them are radically different from the first thirty. There were some pretty rough years in there. Some good ones, but overall the bad outweighed the good. I know that will be different when I look back at age 6o.

Sebastian is changing so rapidly. He's now crawling. He has two teeth and a full head of hair. He has a very strong personality. He has a mesmerizing smile and an infectious laugh.

I received a wonderful email from a woman on our raw meetup group asking what I was doing regarding Sebastian's diet. She was impressed at how healthy he looks. That was gratifying. He is super healthy and I try to keep him as looking as normal as possible. Most of the other moms in my mother's groups have no idea what I am up to, I don't even advertise the fact that he has never been sick. All the other babes have at one time or another come down with myriad different types of illness. He did get a stuffy nose once, but that was due to some extenuating circumstances. Flooding in the house during a storm. I think it stirred up some nasty mold in here, the house is pretty old. We had it all cleaned up and dried out and since then - nothing! Amazing.

What I've been doing lately is breastfeeding him. He has had no solid food in over a month, with the exception of a few little tastes. When he was 6 months, we started a routine of pureed soft fruits and veggies at about noon. I had begun feeding him because he was so interested in what I was eating. But, he quickly grew tired of that. So, I just kept nursing. And he stopped showing interest in my food. And he keeps gaining weight, his coloring is good, and he is right on target for all the developmental milestones. So, that has been working well.

Then, his digestion changed this week (in regards to the amount and timing of output) so I decided that he may need to try again. I picked up some bananas and the wonderful avos that have appeared at the market -- at last. So, today he had a couple of bites. He's not all that interested, but I am going to keep offering and see where that goes.

Be Comforted

Comfort Food. Using food as comfort. If these phrases conjure up some negative associations in your mind, you are not alone, especially in the many health food and dieting circles and the raw foods movement. I've often read that food should not be used as a comfort, should not be eating to soothe the pain, that we should not eat for emotional reasons. That it is unhealthy and we need to do whatever we can to rid ourselves of the crutch of food and start eating for purely nutritional reasons. Once we can do that, we will be free of that ball and chain of FOOD and on the path to purity and paradise.

I've read that I need to wean my baby from nursing himself to sleep and from waking in the night to eat mother's milk. Because he is only doing it for comfort. For emotional reasons. He is using it as a crutch. Other moms tell tales of listening to their babes cry through the night as these mothers cover their own ears and cry themselves to sleep all in the name of yanking away that crutch of food, teaching their babes to get through the night without their comfort food.



Here I tried to find a picture that wasn't too severe in order to illustrate some thoughts that are going through my head. I hesitate to say "illustrate my point" because I don't think I hae one, just a feeling, an impression. That there is something not right about being so afraid to be comforted by food.

(This isn't Sebastian. This is an image I took from the web. )

Those of you who have ever nursed a hungry baby, you know what it means to comfort someone. It is a primal and intense feeling, and if my imprints serve me I can only imagine the depth of the comfort that the babe is feeling each time they come to the breast to eat. When I am breastfeeding my baby, I can't imagine anything more natural and normal than he fill his belly and be comforted. So then, how does this feeling get convuluted as we grow, to turn into a neurosis that we must cure ourselves from through discipline? Why are we projecting this onto our tiny little ones, those who have not even been out of the womb as long as they were in?

I say rethink comfort. Rather than try to divorce that feeling from the act of eating, which--if it is so ingrained in our very cells through all human history, as I do suspect it is--embrace it! Use food as a comfort. How can we not? How can we feel that hunger and that need and then upon satisfying it say that there is no comfort in that act? How can our core not quiver with the memory of hunger and being comforted by the mother's milk (for those of us who were so blessed)? -- crucial, life-sustaining, comforting food. Like trying to fix your relationship with water through purposeful dehydration. Impossible.

I am a fan of juice cleansing and fasting. In fact, I can't wait to do one once the babe is weaned. I mean, I am so excited I am planning it now -- years out. But, the next time, I am looking forward to approaching the experience as a mother, as a nourisher and as a comforter. In the meantime, when I do eat, I intend to give thanks to my own mother Gaia for sustaining me with her bounty of food, comfort and love.