Landfill Harmonic

Bozeman Thanksgiving

 dearest friends

 branch art installations

 the Winemaker

 an incredible meal, after a 21 day cleanse

 mountains, snowshoeing, and light

these four 

when we were young, oh oh, (we did enough)

"Stubborn Love" by The Lumineers from Look Sessions on Vimeo.

it's better to feel pain than nothing at all
the opposite of love's indifference
so keep your head up, keep your love
keep your head up, my love

worth watching

“This [genocide] is how we came to own these United States. This is the legacy of manifest destiny. Prisoners are still born into prisoner of war camps, long after the guards are gone.” 
-Aaron Huey

(from my journal)

The wind is blowing out the windows, the leaves are sorts of colors.  Thirteen days have passed since the fish journal--the one beginning with the Winemaker--ran out of blank spaces.  My stomach has contracted for, but my feet found no spare minutes, time to sit and write.  now it is a Saturday, local, and there is coffee of course, and in a few minutes I will head out to Castillo de Feliciana, to absorb the wind, to pick grapes and walk the rows east toward the Blues, to fend off the rain just a few hours more and hold Winter back until her time.

autumn glory: cider party

My man's been busy busy working 90, 100 hour weeks for crush this autumn.  Malbec, syrah, albariño, cabernet sauvignon, bolsa negra.   

So it was extra generous when he set me up in his Ranger (we traded cars for the weekend), carboys and growlers strapped down in the back, and sent me north to his village at the foot of the Cascades, even though he couldn't come.  What a delicious treat to help his family pick apples and join in pressing 50 gallons of cider! 

And to discuss the true story of Johnny Appleseed, the tearing out of cider orchards during prohibition, and the subsequent advent of wheat production and beer in our country, with a certain beloved hobby orchardist and father.  

Bringing back 20 gallons for the Winemaker to convert into hard cider felt small but purposeful, the way it feels to help pick or de-stem grapes.  I always knew I'd be with a farmer.  And I am so lucky.

the winter steals my songs away / in all of this i come undone

V2.

I've been a child I've been a slave
I've grown bitter and learned to pray
Packed my bags and started back
The cost was just too high to pay 

Em                         G/F#       C9          G
When you walk through the water I will be with you
Em                         G/F#        G                C9    
When you pass through the river the waves will not overtake you
Em                            G/F#       C9               G
When you walk on the fire the flames they will not touch you
Em                   G/F#                 C9 
You are mine, you are mine, you are mine

Welcome Autumn

bring your abandoned orchard plum-picking evenings, 

your canyon runs southeast to Harris Park

show us the late and lingering blackberries before they crumple and wilt,

shriveled raisins on the vines

i love the hood of his ranger, his arms around me, our eyes on the glow to the west

as i love each stranger's invitation to pick Asian pears, 

or sitting beside him in the truck, windows down, back road wind & silence

welcome autumn, bring your long runs again,

your deep shadows on the Blues in the afternoons

Peter Bradley Adams & the rain, the rains returning

pressing coffee each morning before i bike to work

helping destem grapes at crush, for merlot, syrah, malbec

take your coming slowly, stay awhile

Goodbye Summer

blueberry picking
rock climbing
driving alongside the Clearwater River
hiking Hyalite Peak
walking to Dora's for burritos
watching the sunset
lightning storms over wheat fields
chickpea harvest dust
Pike's Peak runs
iced coffee from the Patisserie
night hiking, my denim romper
picking up Kia from the airport in Pasco
suntime on the beloved Maasai blanket
driving cross-country with K
the Wind River Canyon
the Bighorns & Tetons & Black Hills
swimming in the St Croix River
cooking up a storm for my man
Friday night dinners (may they continue) and fasting
my new deck!
Eagle Cap backpack weekend
walking everywhere
time in W2 to rest & find rhythm again
being neighbors with C
salsa night at Castillo
going to Life together on Sundays
time with friends in Montana & up north
J visiting
hiking Cutthroat Pass to the PCT
kayaking
raspberry picking
huckleberry picking
trail maintence on Lick Creek Trail
hiking Umatilla Rim
reading so much
the Tiger Tri
celebrating the Solstice with C, D, & T
Farmers Market...

''Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.''
       -Helen Keller

''And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.''
       -Erica Jong

summer cooking

*chilled blackberry soup
*spicy grilled eggplant with wilted greens & balsamic
*sweet & spicy bean dip with homemade wheat tortillas
*vegan chickpea tuna
* peach crisp
*salmon-chard soufflé
*dragon lingerie string beans with tahini dressing
*zucchini bread
*portobello fajitas with chipotlé avocado vegan aioli
*morning glory muffins
*kale with cinnamon
*Portuguese kale soup

you are exactly where you need to be

bury my heart at wounded knee

i don't want to sound like a broken record 

maybe i need a more creative way to tell this story

but from wind river canyon (shoshone land) and tensleep

rocks from the cambrian, precambrian, triassic periods

from thermopolis, the famous hot springs sold to congress in 1897 by chief washakie,

with the one caveat that 1/4 of the springs be always reserved for public use

(congress had been pressuring the tribes to sell for years, you know)

from the black hills carved with those four leaders (but whose leaders?  who?) 

to that towering deviled rock, rising 1280 feet off the high plains

from the bighorns to buffalo

and keyhole to custer (are we really still naming things for this man?)

i hear faint voices in the breeze, and i join in, bewildered, ashamed

this land is my land, this land is your land

well i don't know much about forced migration, gentrification, 

measles and casinos and drug cartels 

the manifold ways in which debt is atoned for, or forgotten

after all, who owns the colorado river?

but my heart aches for the blood in the soil,

the scarlet that stains my feet seeping up from our given, good earth

road trippin' (gypsy august)

W2 to Minnesota... 

Grand Teton, Wind River Canyon to Thermopolis Hot Springs

Sundance, Buffalo, and Devil's Tower, Crazy Horse

Minneapolis and Hudson, Wisconsin

rivers till i reach you

AmeriCorps Graduation [more on goodbyes]

Be ahead of all parting, as if it had already happened
like winter, which even now is passing.
For beneath the winter is a winter so endless
that to survive it at all is a triumph of the heart.

Be forever dead in Eurydice, and climb back singing.
Climb back praising as you return to connection.
Here among the disappearing, in the realm of the transient,
be a ringing glass that shatters as it rings.

Be.  And, at the same time, know what it is not to be.
That emptiness inside you allows you to vibrate
in resonance with the world.  Use it for once.

To all that has run its course, and to the vast unsayable
numbers of beings abounding in nature,
add yourself gladly, and cancel the cost.

-Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus, part two, XIII

one more for the stars and the eyes of the walls / i saw your face, i heard you calling out

i am on my way, i am on my way
i am on my way back to where i started

california, oklahoma and all of the places i ain't ever been to but
down in the valley with whisky rivers
these are the places you will find me hiding,
these are the places i will always go
these are the places i will always go

so i wish i was a slave to an age-old trade
lord have mercy on my rough and rowdy ways

Waiilatpu

Place of the Rye Grass

Six feet tall in every direction--can you imagine?

So this is how the West was ''settled,'' as it were.  The Whitmans, Marcus and Narcissa, were killed, along with ten others, by Cayuse and Umatilla Indians.  Another 54 were taken captive.  It took a few years, but Congress created Oregon Territory in attempts to catch and hang those responsible for the deaths.

I'm uncomfortable with the word Massacre, as it seems to negate everything leading up to the incident...  the Presbyterian missionary doctor who repeatedly administered medicine for measles to Indian children who still died, while the same medicine worked for the whites.  How must that have looked?  The Cayuse doctrine that a medicine man pays for repeated deaths with his own life.

Or the way Whitman tried to convince the tribes, seasonally nomadic, to settle down on patches of land and farm, for the sake of the mission.  Couldn't have the local population moving on to salmon grounds every fall when you're trying to start a church.

There was the fake newspaper story in East Coast papers talking about tribal men asking for holy teaching, getting white missionaries excited to go West in the first place.

And the words words written by Whitman's wife, Narcissa, the first white woman to make the trek on the Oregon Trail west and a pioneer if there ever was one, in her diary and letters, that betray a certain racism in her missionary efforts.  Oh, the motives that lie within!

Because of the bickering and quarreling among missionaries, the Presbyterian leadership back East voted to close the Mission, but in an astonishing journey, Marcus Whitman left in October 1942 for New York City and Washington, DC, riding through the winter Rockies and down through Taos, New Mexico, to plead his case.  He arrived in March, and the board agreed to let Whitman Mission remain open.

Anyway, a few years after the Massacre, with the tribe on the lam and in the hills, five Cayuse men consented to turn themselves in.  They were tried and hanged in Oregon City.  It's not clear whether these men were guilty; two of them were tribal leaders; perhaps they were just trying to protect their people.

But the entire Cayuse paid.  The Cayuse War that followed the Whitmans' murders left most of the tribe wiped out by settlers, remaining members joined with the Nez Perce.

Now I believe there is never an excuse for murder, though there may be a story found in spilled blood.  I know the hearts of Marcus and Narcissa were probably as troubled and pained and grey as those of Tiloukaikt and Tomahas.  But I stand on these grounds, rye grass hills, wheat grass lining the Oregon Trail, and I wonder if things might have gone differently...

If the Black Hills and Cayuse, Appalacia and so many other parts of this land might not have come to their current government through dislocation.  Through genocide.

Most days I push it down deep, don't want to sound extremist, don't want to offend, am more white myself than Cherokee, but this isn't about racial allegiance:

the truth is, it hurts to live on stolen land.

happy solstice

The Umatilla,

from Lake Creek Trail into North Fork Wilderness.
We found the wreck of a downed plane: deep indent in the ground,
rusting metal everywhere, eerie and overgrown.
The crash took place in the 40s--a World War II training exercise
took a turn for the worse.

This morning, we heard an elk bugling, loud and distant,
recalling the howler monkeys of Costa Rica,
the way you'd hear them hundreds of yards off, moving from tree to tree,
coming closer.

Well, yesterday was a year since I left Honduras,
and as for the south,
I both long for and release it.

In the Umatilla, I lose count of the firs I see tipping 30 inches in diameter,
the Western Larch and Blue Spruce (Engelmann's), and White and Lodgepole Pine.

I revel in the Indian Paintbrush and yellow alpine lupines
(I've only seen purple lupines before).
I lay in my ocean blue tent and easily shut my eyes at 8'o'clock.

My left forearm swells and my hamstrings ache,
but I praise the G-d of all these trees and ridges,
of wide silent spaces and wildflowers.

Yes, may the Prince and Maker of this greenness live near me forever.

the layers / stanley kunitz

There is more to say about Blue Ridge, harder stories, but it might take a while for me to say it.  For now, this poem:

I have walked through many lives, 
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind, 
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will in tact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
''Live in the layers,
not on the litter.''
Though I lack the art 
to decipher it
no doubt the next chapter 
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

Especially this little guy, him of the Timbaland boots and scratchy voice and ''half-Indian'' origins, who ''doesn't speak Spanish'' and laughs at the reindeer he thinks look Chinese (so bad, I know....), but who is smart and tender at times and interesting and very aware.  Who sucks his nostrils into slits like a snake and makes outrageous faces and is one of the smallest in the class, dressed like a gangsta, who misses his mom all the time, and who I constantly have to remind, ''Teacher Cari, not just Cari.''

Yeah, this one basically represents how I feel about that entire out-of-control and sweet and off-the-wall first grade class.  And that is always the hardest thing about leaving...

end of the year comedy

Seth, learning how to manage and express his emotions, is shaking his back like a wet dog, crying out in a whiny voice, ''Ooooouuucccchhh!  My sunburn!!  Teacher, my sunburn huuurrrts!''  Mr. Garcia and I look at each other.

''Why don't you go run your hands under some cold water?''  I say, ever the expert on pseudo-cures for six-year-olds.

''Yeah Seth, try that,'' Mr. Garcia adds.  ''You'll need to keep them there.''

''Can you feel that?  Does that help?''  Seth has been making mewing sounds, and now nods sadly.  Sunburn solved!
                                   

In my phonics group, I scrawl down these awfully ridiculous example sentences:

''Grafton's fondness for lavishly frosted snacks evidently impacts his trimness.''

''Astonishingly, when what my dad called 'that shifty bunch of vagabonds' disbanded, they left the encampment spotless and well-stocked.''

before asking my first-language-Spanish kiddos, ''Do you know what these sentences mean?''
''No,'' they tell me flatly.  Well, frankly, probably the first-language-English students wouldn't either.
                                   

Sweet Virginia writes me great spelling word sentences: 

''My life is incretabol becuse I am a soring egol.'' 

''I have seen spraut and a sow cold poppycat.''

That's, ''My life is incredible because I am a Soaring Eagle [a Blue Ridge honor],'' and ''I have seen Sprout and a show called Poppy Cat'' [both, apparently, PBS shows].  

                                  

And on a small quiz, when asked who is the president of the United States, my high group responded with, 

Araceli: mr oboma

Seth: presdnit obama 

and Sirgio: michael odama

Yep, gonna miss these kids like crazy.

I've paid admission to the places I have loved by pawning off pieces of my heart 
til I'm smeared across a globe with little hope of recovering half my parts. 
I've spent entire years behind a wheel wondering why it is I drive so hard. 
til I'm no closer to an answer, ten years later, than the day I tried to start.

I've left // When I thought leaving made things right. 
I've quit // When quitting meant I didn't start a fight. 
I've spent // Half my wrist erasing what I write 
half my days ashamed of half my nights 
half my life escaping from my life 

Sometimes I'm certain I'm a train filled with strangers 
And we're all searching for a home we've never seen 
So I'll keep whistling my song low and pretty 
And we'll keep stumbling through the night 
like tunnels searching for the light. 

well, it didn't go exactly as planned, but...

SELF-PORTRAIT (by David Whyte)

It doesn't interest me if there is one God
or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel
abandoned.
If you know despair or can see it in others.
I want to know
if you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need 
to change you.  If you can look back
with firm eyes
saying this is where I stand.  I want to know
if you know
how to melt into that fierce heat of living
falling toward
the center of your longing.  I want to know
if you are willing 
to live, day by day, with the consequence of love
and the bitter
unwanted passion of your sure defeat.


I have heard, in that fierce embrace, even
the gods speak of God.

give me shelter, or show me heart (come on love, come on love) watch me fall apart / watch me fall apart

resurrection days

first poppies of the year, stark orange against the lilac
violet, white, and lavender, crowding all the streets you run
some bloom already fallen, other trees only beginning to bear any trace of green

spring's shed, a million leaves of norway maple (the ones that look like helicopters)
dancing in the windlight, tiny fragments tossed into your squinting eyes
other springs recalled

of daily sojourns in golden gate park, riding the #9 bus down potrero from market
the jesusita fire and east mountain sunsets (with or without you) of santa barbara
in london, borough market, the tate modern,
the british museum & its stolen rosetta stone
just blocks from your own life
monmouth coffee and fragment jasmine in a city of car exhaust and trash
the wetlands and birdsong on cedar street in the house with hardwood floors
oh, how many miles these feet have walked!

and finally, baleadas and thunderstorms, corina's desayunos deliciosos
(buen provecho),
giovanni driving us into the city para la ocifina de inmigración
singing worship songs with Nuevo in the morning,
teaching those 27 precious & adored ones the anthems of another tribe
oh the turmoil and suffering, the beauty and passion of that other land!

yes, spring hurts
as K. expressed on the miles of another tread
and yet these are Resurrection Days
and One continues to call us out of death and into life
to move from orphanhood and into daughterhood, sonship, in every stream and river

so leave that foul grave, that empty tomb
put to death your own bitter heart, hopelessness, and vanity
be made new
filled with the breath of the air of the country of heaven
which, as we know,
is colonizing earth.

Agatha still thinks fondly of her legless doll, Anna.*

*A sentence from one of my phonics group's curriculum.  
Here's one more good one: ''The wickedness of the repellently lipless frogmen who had hatched in the rank dankness of the vast dismal bogs on this godless planet left us despondent.''
I should start counting the references I see to ''dismal bogs'' in those books. Numberless, really.


Now for a few more great quotes from two of mis favoritos, Seth and Sirgio.
Seth: ''I'm a little sick right now, so you might not want to touch me.''
Seth again: ''Man, that's an old life.''  -Comment regarding Amos McGee's propensity to wake up early, quickly trade his pajamas for a freshly pressed uniform, measure three spoonfuls of sugar into his oatmeal, and put on the kettle for tea in the story A Sick Day for Amos McGee


Sirgio (el gansta pequeño): ''Is it hot in here, or is it just me?'' (Mr. Garcia and I made eye contact at this, trying not to laugh, but Sirgio maintained a straight face, so perhaps he actually was feeling warm).
Sirgio again: ''What's on your eyes?'' (regarding my turquoise eyeliner) 
me: ''Oh, just my eyeliner.  I thought I'd try something different.''
Sirgio: ''Why?''
Me, explaining to Sirgio that his birthday on June 21 is not just the first day of summer, but has a name.  ''It's called Summer Solstice.  It's very special because it's the longest day of the year.''
Sirgio, in his gravelly little voice: ''Oh yeah!  My birthday's the coolest day of the year!''  


Now a writing sample, Seth again, summarizing A Sick Day for Amos McGee: ''Amos Mcgiy wuc uq rliy.  he gits sick.  thay hav a sliqovr.''

(that's, ''Amos McGee woke up early.  He gets sick.  They have a sleepover.'')

dos semanas mas

Conversation today between first graders over my feet: 

Seth: ''Uh, teacher, what is that white thing on your toe?''

Me: ''It's called a callous.  I have them because I've been running a lot lately.''

Avarie (in whiny voice): ''Cool, I never had one of those.  I wish I had one of those.''

Leo: ''Dude?  I don't think you want one of those.''

So my feet are a little bit up at the moment, but en'sh'Allah I will be ready May 19th.  :) And I will take all the prayers you have!  

table bounty

Kia and I made spinach soup Tuesday, with fresh leaves from the garden where I'm housesitting.  They already have arugula, spinach, and lettuce!  Lots and lots of good salads lately, with this awesome cilantro lime vinaigrette.  Last night I made Hungarian Mushroom Soup.  Both soups thanks to the Moosewood Cookbook, which I finally bought in Denver last week.  I'm penciling in the details for each recipe I try--changes I made, how it turned out, what it was served with, and who was there.  So fun!

colorado love

hot sand on toes, cold sand in sleeping bags, 

i've come to know that memories

are the best things you ever had

the summer shone down on bony backs

so far from home where the ocean stood

down dust and pine cone tracks

we slept like dogs down by the fireside

awoke to the fog all around us, the boom of summertime

we stood, steady as the stars in the woods

so happy-hearted, and the warmth rang true inside these bones

as the old pine fell we sang, just to bless the morning

hot sand on toes, cold sand in sleeping bags,

i've come to know the friends around you

are all you'll always have

smoke in my lungs, or the echoed stone

careless and young, free as the birds that fly

with weightless souls now

we grow, grow steady as the morning

we grow, grow happy as a new dawn

we grow, grow steady as the flowers

we grow, grow older still.

coming May 15th (get excited)

Ten Stories / mewithoutYou

Preview February, 1878 here.  

dia del resurrección

Palouse Falls picnic

elk herd

mule deer

roasted beets & zucchini with feta

bread and wine

warm spring weather

making matzo balls for Passover

good friends

viernes santo

He grew up like a sapling before him: who would have thought more of his destiny?

Crucificalo!

(para esos los que no te conozcan)

Mira, mira, el arbol de la cruz, nuestro Salvador

(para los que no han conocido)

y no es mi cultura, este besiendo de tu cruz

todo la gente adorandote en este modo

not cerebral at all, but bodily, tactile

estoy incomoda, pero yo participo

(este no es un momento para abstenerse)

Y esas palabras yo eschucho de mis lecturas de la pascua:

''Remember what I did--remember that I did this for you,

in real time, in real history.''

Pues, yo he recordado

yo lo recuerdo

and, instrument for death inseparable,

I gingerly place my lips on your cross.

currently reading: Henri Nouwen

''Knowing G-d's heart as it has become flesh--a heart of flesh in Jesus--means consistently, radically, and very concretely to announce and reveal that G-d is love and only love, and that every time fear, isolation, or despair begins to invade the human soul, this is not something that comes from G-d. This sounds very simple and maybe even trite, but very few people know they are loved without conditions or limits.''

''Knowing the heart of Jesus and loving him are the same thing. The knowledge of Jesus' heart is a knowledge of the heart. And when we live in the world with that knowledge, we cannot do other than bring healing, reconciliation, new life, and hope wherever we go. The desire to be relevant and successful will gradually disappear, and our only desire will be to say with our whole being to our brothers and sisters of the human race, 'You are loved. There is no reason to be afraid.' ''

''Contemplative prayer deepens in us the knowledge that we are already free, that we have already found a place to dwell, that we already belong to G-d, even though everything and everyone around us keep suggesting the opposite.''

popcorn mutiny

''My grandma, she is rich.''

''How many money does she have?''

''199.''

''My grandma is rich too. She has 420.''

-conversation overheard between Alejandro and Dominic, on the way to first grade small group

For a school fundraiser in January, Blue Ridge decided to sell popcorn for $0.25 a bag. Not realizing how many kids would be excited about this, the popcorn ran out before K-2 got a chance to buy. ''Where is the popcorn truck?'' a tall black kindergartner asked me at recess, concern furrowing his brow. ''We're about to have a popcorn mutiny on our hands,'' the principal joked.

Recess means I'm pushing kids on swings, counting to sixty in Spanish until it's time to switch, holding one end of the jump rope while tiny kindergarten Alice jumps carefully, tongue sticking out in concentration. I'm trying to convince kids to keep jackets on--most of them have variations of the same jacket, thanks to Wal-Mart and similar stores.

We play Apples to Apples Junior with my third grade phonics group (the Spanish-speaking ones). I wonder about how it will go and get a clear idea when, in the first round, the adjective ''famous'' receives the subjects ''science experiment,'' ''mustard,'' and ''Pinocchio.'' (And if Pinocchio is indeed famous, it's because I helped that student choose that word--her English is the lowest of the four). Another example: someone enters the word ''crown'' for ''enjoyable.'' The good thing? They seem to be enjoying themselves, and it gives us a nice break from the sometimes painful work of reading and practicing pronunciation correctly and spelling.

Dylan likes to go by Dilly B. Slippy (the B is for Beatrice, he tells me). Kimberly's sister's birthday party has a tie-dye, zebra stripes, and peace sign theme. We talk about the meaning of the word ''ache,'' and Virginia tells me, ''Like I get really sore arms from using the mouse.''

''We gonna get a medal and a picture of you when we graduate?'' Dominic asks me, referring to our first grade poetry group. He is all about incentives--prizes, stickers, rewards of any sort. Even a photograph of me, I guess. Heh.

When we work on sentence building with our vocab words, Alejandro, who gets really into it, writes, ''I have a drone house with three windowe.'' ''A dream house?'' I ask, clarifying. ''No, brown,'' he tells me.

Oh, what would life be without these little guys?

more currently cooking

K. and I recently completed a 21-day detox. Together we quit coffee/caffeine, gluten, sugar, dairy, animal products, processed foods, and alcohol. The first week we ate mostly produce but also got to have olive oil, avocado, and nuts. The second week we added in some fish and tofu, and the final week we got to enjoy a couple of eggs.

All in all I felt great and lost eight pounds (not the reason I was doing it, but not a bad thing either, eh? :) ). The best part, though, was preparing diverse meals together and taking turns cooking with Kia, eating different nutrients every day, and relating to food in a very communal, healthy way. Sharing meals more regularly is something I've long wanted to do more of, and this finally seems to be a year when that is happening. Housesitting at an incredible house this past three weeks has certainly helped--a big long wooden table where we've had I think at least ten shared meals and six dinner parties.

Meyers-Briggs J that I am, I can't resist listing out some of the good food we've been having:

*Grilled salmon, with grilled bok choy and orange-avocado salsa

*Avocado-vanilla smoothie (one avo, one cup pear nectar, one teaspoon vanilla= incredible)

*Red lentil soup

*Baked sweet potato with nutmeg, orange, toasted nuts, and cinnamon for breakfast

*Quinoa with poached egg (yes, I've learned to poach eggs, which preserves the most nutrients), wilted spinach, carrot, cucumber, and chive

*Vegetable-miso soup with chickpeas

*Crispy roasted cauliflower

*Tofu scramble with collard greens and tumeric

*Rice noodles with brocolli-almond pesto

*Toasted coconut muesli

*Baked tilapia with sweet-potato fries

*Spicy black bean salad

*Homemade chickpea burgers