Here in Highland Park, New Jersey

On My Blog

Today’s Flowers: Grape Hyacinths and Creeping Phlox
Watery Wednesday at Sandy Hook
Sky Watch at Sandy Hook
Nature Notes: A Pictorial View of Sandy Hook

A Month of Modern Jewish Holidays

Delicious Pickled Radish

What is RT? (I’ll give you the answer now: it’s Re-Tweet! More on Twitter in future posts)

Upcoming in Highland Park: The Highland Park Public Library is once again having a book sale! (and my neighbors put a lot of energy into putting this together, so three cheers for them. You’ve seen their red bud, magnolia and dogwood trees on my blog). It’s the same weekend as the Annual Street Fair, which is on May 17. If you live in Central New Jersey, you can donate books from May 11 to 14.

Elsewhere on the Web

Coach Lisa on Payment vs. Exposure
From the article:

Some of you get paid to speak; others hope to get paid one day. One thing that we all face as paid speakers is the issue of payment vs. exposure. That is, we will be invited to speak pro bono, or will be offered less than our usual rate, and we’ll have to decide if it’s worth it to take less money in order to get exposure or visibility…only a few of my pro bono speaking engagements have paid off in clients or future speaking engagements. Read the rest.

How to Build Natural Immunity against Swine Flu

Rabbi Yoseph Breuer: the Rav of Frankfurt and Washington Heights (via G6)

Klara gave me this simple recipe two months ago. Since then, I have made it at least 5 times. There are only two ingredients: red radishes and umeboshi paste. Since many of you are going to say, What’s umeboshi paste? Where can I get it? I did a little research. In Highland Park, Anna’s Health Food Store sells this delicious condiment. Others in the U.S. can buy it at your local health food store. Eden makes umeboshi paste with an O-K kosher supervision. Here are some store locations in France that may sell umeboshi paste. Klara tells me there is a health food store in Ma’aleh Adumim (Israel), and the owner delivers in Jerusalem once a week. Feel free to add other locations in the comments.

Why use umeboshi paste? Not only does it taste good, it is also healing. Here’s one site on umeboshi: “Modern day diets tend to create acid conditions within the blood which is more likely to cause illnesses. The strong alkalising effect of umeboshi can help to counteract modern day excesses, including alcohol. ” More here.

Ingredients

• a bunch of radishes, nice red round ones
• 1-2 cups of water (depends on how many radishes)
• 3 Tbsp. umeboshi paste

Slice all the radishes. Bring water to boil with ume paste. Turn down flame, add radishes, simmer covered for 20 minutes or until radishes are tender.

Another version: After boiling the ume paste in water for ten minutes, pour over radishes and let sit for about an hour. (Note: this is the more “proper” version, which is the pickling method. My cooking version is OK, but not as healthful as leaving the radishes in the ume paste broth. I’ll try pickling method tomorrow).

All the radishes get nice and pink and have a lovely flavor, lose sharpness.

You may drain when pickles ready(optional). When they are room temperature, put them in the refrigerator.

The Kosher Cooking Carnival #41 is up at A Mother In Israel. Bravo to Mom on a job well-done. It’s easy to read and well-organized. And there’s lots of recipes for next year’s Pesach (a few that one can try now, like Vegetable Lasagna).

A note on the new logo: it’s by Pesky Settler. Thank you for putting in the time and energy to do the logo. Every time I see it, I will start singing the part of the song Yom Zeh Mechubad with that phrase: “Meat and fish and other delicacies…”

Unfortunately, it also reminds me that many people (probably myself included, although who knows how much is too much?) eat too much meat. If we just eat meat on Shabbat, is that a good amount of moderation? I have these growing children, two of whom (the youngest and the oldest) seem to crave meat. So we had hamburgers last night (I mostly ate a lot of chicken vegetable soup, brown rice and broccoli). For more on the topic of plants vs. animal products, read a book by Michael Pollan. Or visit the blog of Phiya Kushi. On the other hand, Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats
has a different philosophy, stating on its back cover: “Your body needs old-fashioned animal fats New-fangled polyunsaturated oils can be bad for you Modern whole grain products can cause health problems…”

Personally, I like the macrobiotic approach. In moderation. Except to follow it, one has to spend a lot of time cooking. So I cook a few macrobiotic dishes on Fridays. Radishes and umeboshi paste coming soon to this blog (next week).

Who would have thought that seaweed, the salty plants that grow underwater, could alleviate so many ailments?

According to Valerie Gennari Cooksley, RN, author of Seaweed: Natures Secret to Balancing Your Metabolism, Fighting Disease, and Revitalizing Body and Soul,sea vegetables can help with these ailments:


anemia diabetes cancer kidney problems fibroid tumors gastric ulcers

yeast infections chronic fatigue syndrome gingivitis meningitis peritonitis allergies

And that’s only a partial list. In her book she talks of three types of seaweed: reds (such as nori, which is used to wrap sushi), browns (such as wakame, hijiki or kombu) and greens (like sea lettuce). Just as one should eat a variety of vegetable colors, so can one eat a variety of seaweed colors, with each color aiding in a specific way.

The book gives some recipes for seaweed, so one can get started. However, if you are looking for a seaweed recipe book, you might want to try a different book, as she only devotes one chapter to recipes. She also teaches how to use seaweed for skin and facial treatments. There is a whole chapter devoted to harvesting your own seaweed, but I think I would only attempt combing the Jersey Shore with a seaweed expert helping me sort out which one is which.

The simplest way to enjoy seaweed is pour some hot water over a piece of wakame or kombu, let it steep for a minute, and sip it like tea.

If you have already introduced seaweed into your kitchen, how have you used seaweed in your meals?

It’s National Link to Jack Day. So, here’s a link to Jack.

And while I’m linking, Haveil Havalim, the weekly blog carnival (that Jack manages) of the Jewish blogosphere, is on the Israel Situation.

Not really related, but TwitterMoms is offering a prize if you blog 5 Tips to Get Your Kids to Eat Healthy. Wondering what you think of the prize.

Have a great day!

Have you ever eaten a sea vegetable? If you’ve had sushi, then you have. The nori wrapper on the outside of the sushi is seaweed; it comes from the sea. Recently, I’ve been working at adding some seaweed into my diet. I bought some Eden© Mekabu, a wakame sea vegetable sporophyll, and every now and then I sprinkle it into soup or rice or noodles. Seaweed takes a while to get used to, but I am beginning to enjoy its distinct flavor.

Because I ask Klara so many questions about macrobiotics, she suggested I subscribe to the Macrobiotic Guide. Here’s how they answered a question of mine:

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Q: Why is it so important to add sea vegetables to one’s diet? Leora

A: Sea vegetables are nutrient-rich, unlike any other food I have discovered. They provide essential vitamins and minerals I cannot find in other foods I choose to incorporate into my diet. I think of them as the nerve center for my body. Without them, I feel lacking. I can fill my belly with volumes of food but without incorporating sea vegetables into my diet, my hunger will continue unabated until I provide it with those essential nutrients found in sea vegetables. (That is the purpose of “hunger.” It is the natural impulse that drives us; when rightly understood, it guides us toward the right foods, in the right quantity, at the right time.)

Without sea vegetables, I grope for foods that fill but do not satisfy. Organic foods are wonderful and vitally important – for many reasons – but even organic foods might be grown in deficient soil, yielding deficient plants.

Denudation is the natural process where minerals are carried off by wind and water from land into the sea. As a result, over millions of years of this geological process, we find a rich depository of nutrients in our oceans. For this reason, sea vegetables have become nutrient-rich unlike all other foods.

This is how sea vegetables affect me personally. This is not to say people cannot live well without them. Historically, traditional diets around the globe have provided healthful foods without the incorporation of sea vegetables. But looking around me today, traditional diets have all but vanished, and soil quality has become impoverished through poor soil/farming practices, making sea vegetables all the more important. There are medicinal values to them as well. Jeffrey Reel

Find out more about sea vegetables at http://macrobiotics.co.uk/seavegetables.htm.

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So, do you think you might try some sea vegetables? More on seaweed soon.