PAUL FARMER AND HAITI

For today I would like to tell you about a book  that I read some years ago called AIDS and ACCUSATION: Haiti and the Geography of Blame (1992). The book was written by a man named Dr. Paul Farmer. Farmer is a medical doctor and an anthropologist who lived and worked in Haiti for many years during the height of Haiti's AIDS pandemic. The book however is not so much about the suffering in Haiti but about the history of Haiti and the country's links to Europe and the USA and Canada. AIDS and ACCUSATION is well-written and well-researched and provides a lot of history about this Caribbean nation.

In addition to writing this book and others, Paul Farmer has founded an organization called "Partners in Health." This medical/aid organization works in various troubled parts of the world, and has been helping out in Haiti for the past 20 years. Of course, they are there now too. I have placed a link to this organization on the page, but will post it here too: http://www.standwithhaiti.org/haiti

BASIC TOOL KIT

Well, as you have probably noticed by now, this blog is rather eclectic -- the new thing I learn each day is usually motivated by circumstance and serendipity. Today a flyer in the mail, offering additional discounts for tool purchases in February, prompted an internet search for the basics of what to have in a toolkit. I looked at six sites, and compiled the following list:

25' tape measure
1 flathead screwdriver
1 Philip's head screwdriver
1 hammer
1 pair needle-nose pliers
1 pair heavy grooved pliers
1 torpedo level
assortment of nails and screws etc.
pencils
blue painter's tape
1 cordless drill
metal straightedge
1 small tub spackle (large if you have lots of work to do, but it dries out quickly)
1 putty knife
1 paint can key or prying tool
1 stud finder
1 plunger
1 ladder
and a flashlight

Some other tips:
a 5-gallon bucket and an apron organizer can make a handy tool storage container
use rosin paper to protect hardword floors during the move in
felt dots will protect furniture and floors from scratches caused by moving lamps or vases

Any other ideas?

MORE ON AYURVEDA - TIPS FOR WINTER

Hi folks
My cold continues, but while that slows me down, it does not stop me. I have continued to research ayurvedic medicine, and found some tips to help get us all through the winter. The advice seems sound so today I will share these tips with you.

Adding avacado, sesame oil or olive oil to grains such as rice or to soups. These are believed to be healthy fats. Of course, moderation is key.
Start your day with a cup of warm water and lemon. This is said to help cleanse the system.
Tumeric is recommended for its healing properties and can be added to soups and stews.
Vitamin D3 may help energy levels and boost immunity. I have also read that vitamin D may help prevent seasonal affective disorder or the winter blues.
Get plenty of rest.
Exercise in the morning, just some gentle stretching (thanks to Tom for this amendment -- I am still learning)

Eat more avacado, beets, carrots, garlic, sweet potatoes, dates, figs, bananas, lemons, limes, and use ginger, cardamom, cinnamon (yummy with oatmeal), and tumeric.

Well, that all sounds quite reasonable to me, and easy enough to incorporate into a busy schedule, wish I had read up on this before I caught this cold!

AYURVEDIC MEDICINE

Well, I am still suffering with my cold, although the lemon and honey, ginger, and garlic soup seem to help a bit, the cold is hanging on. My husband says a cold will last one week if you don't treat it and seven days if you do treat it, but I am not going to give in. So tonight's soup was laced with both garlic and garam masala, a mixture of Indian-inspired spices that gave the soup some heat. And today's task is to explore Ayurvedic principles for treating a cold. Ayurveda is an ancient healing system with its origins in India that uses herbs, massage and yoga.

The system is based on the idea that we all have three major characteristics, but on will be dominant. The three types or doshas are vatha, pitta, and kapha (air fire and water). A cold is caused by an imbalance of the vatha and kapha doshas. The recommended remedies are ginger and honey, lemon and honey, and some herbal remedies.

Sigh.

Guess I will have a cup of neo-citran and get some rest!

CREAMY GARLIC SOUP

Lucky we are not in the same room at the moment, because I surely smell of garlic! I searched the internet and found several recipes for garlic soup. The soup I made was a combination of these recipes with my own twists and it was delicious! Here is the basic recipe:

4 cups water
18 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped
Sprinkling of rosemary, sea salt and pepper
olive oil to coat bottom of sauce pan

Heat the olive oil slightly, add salt, pepper and rosemary. Peel and chop the garlic. Add the 4 cups of water. Bring to a boil and then simmer for about 30 minutes.

Whisk 1 egg and 2 egg yolks with 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese and some more cracked pepper until creamy.
Add one cup of the hot broth, gradually, into the egg mixture whisking constantly. This will thicken the mixture and begin to cook the eggs.

Add this mixture to the remaining broth in the pot and simmer on medium heat for about 7 minutes, the broth will thicken.

Break up some hard crusty bread and place in the bottom of the serving bowls. Ladle soup over the bread. Sprinkle with some more parmesan cheese and enjoy!

Here is a variation of the same recipe: http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/293/Creamy_Garlic_Soup11615.shtml

There were several other recipes that looked quite good, some called for butter and cream. There are also versions with meat, such as ham, and versions with tomato. Of course, you must be a garlic lover, as garlic is the predominant flavour of this savory soup.

Bon Appetit!

ACHOOO!

Yup, you guessed it. I woke up this morning with a cold and that made today's "new thing" easy enough to pick. I did a google search for home cures for the common cold and will be trying the ones that use things I already have in the pantry and in the fridge. Since I intend to try all of them, this won't be  a proper experiment as such, but here are the remedies:

1. Lemon with honey in hot water using 1/2 lemon and a spoonful of honey for each cup of hot water. This is said to soothe the throat, to provide vitamin C and to help detox the system. Will it work? I don't know but it will be yummy.

2. Garlic soup. The home remedy stated that this would be made by simply mashing up a few cloves of garlic and boiling them in water, but I intend to search for a more hearty garlic soup recipe and will share the recipe with you after I try it.

3. Ginger tea. Similar to the lemon with honey, this remedy calls for steeping some mashed ginger in a cup of boiling water. Ginger has antiseptic and anti-inflammatory properties and will also, I think, be quite yummy.

And for an additional bit of soothing, I bought some Ombra eucalyptus bubble bath. Eucalyptus will clear the sinuses and is often found in bath products for babies and in things like Buckley's and Vick's rubs. So today is about pampering, resting, and reading under the covers. Since I love garlic, I am really looking forward to finding a good garlic soup recipe too.

Signing off for now, ACHOOO!

DRY ROT

Well it has been a few days since I have had a chance to post here, as you may have noticed. Things have been hectic and wonderful and involved much learning since we are in the process of purchasing a new home! So, the "new thing" for today is to learn about dry rot, a kind of fungus that can harm wooden fences and wooden beams in a home. It is apparently rather common and spreads fast, so a contractor needs to come in and give an estimate on what it will cost to do the repairs, so fingers crossed everybody!

DR

Exploring Canadian Art

This weekend I went to Toronto to visit with friends and family. On Saturday I went to an art exhibit commemorating the work of the late Gerald Ferguson, a well-known conceptual artist who had been based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The show and tribute was outstanding. We heard from students who had studied art with Ferguson at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. He was most noted for his idea of the "dematerialization of the art object." The paintings on display were a series of images of tire chain tracks, some in spirals, some in zig zags, in enamel on canvas. The black of the enamel was suggestive of tire grease and the works were stunning. The tributes were touching and it was clear that this man made a deep impression on the landscape of Canadian art and on his students. Over the next few months, I intend to make a further exploration of the Canadian art scene, something about which I know very little. The show was in a shared space and the gallery was next door to a place called the "musiceum" which was filled with instruments of all sorts and exploring the displays proved to be an adventure of its own -- and a place with great potential for gifts for people who "have everything". Today work obligations crowd my agenda leaving no room for the further exploration of Canadian art, but plenty of room for exploring documentary materials on indigenous peoples of Canada -- I will fill you in on that subject tomorrow.

Still welcoming suggestions as well!
D

New Search Tool Added

Well, very busy still, so I added a new search engine to this blog, not sure why but we will see whether this adds to the interest in this blog. Really looking to find something more exciting for my "new thing" each day. Seems to me that this is the most difficult part of the challenge. Perhaps I need some imagination enhancing process like meditation or a group of differently minded people to open up my horizons!

SIGNING UP FOR CLASSES

Today has been a very hectic day, but I did manage to sign up for two classes - a weekly drawing class and a "oriental brush stroke" painting workshop. Might sign up for an origami workshop too because so far, I have not been able to successfully create one origami crane.

Tomorrow I will be viewing a house that was built in 1898 and researching the history of the property. I will not be online for a few days, so have a great weekend!

SWISS CHARD PASTA

Yummy, on Sunday I bought some Swiss Chard (my new thing) and today I found a couple of recipes that included pasta (carb craving). There were three basic choices:

1. with chicken broth, onions and cheese (marscapone in the recipe that I found, but I used mozzerella)
2. with cream and red onions (will try next time)
3. with bacon (next, next time).

I cooked it with chicken broth, onions, garlic and some mozzerella cheese, then put some parmesan on when serving. Delicious!

Ciao,
D

Fixing the blog

Simple tasks might not seem as exciting as my more adventurous plans for this year -- rock climbing, learning to tango, and visiting a new place will make for more interesting reading than today's entry. But a new thing is a new thing, no matter how mundane. To try to zip up my blog, I have added youtube, but yesterday the videos featured stuff about cars and, well, unless you happen to be in the market for a used car, a video clip about an old roadster is not too stimulating (unless perhaps said vehicle is being driven by the ghost of Elvis or James Dean). Today I learned how to specify the videos proffered on this site. I have requested Dominica, a beautiful country in the Caribbean; how to make an origami crane -- a work in progress for me, not "learned" yet; and excerpts from the documentary "Life and Debt". More zip? I hope so.

Have a good day.

GREENS AND GRAINS

Today is grocery day, so it seems a simple idea to seek out new and interesting foods in the produce and grain sections of the grocery store and then find recipes that use them. Over the past few years I have added new foods to our diet and often with good results. Leeks make an excellent addition to a veggie barley soup, and are good with arugula, mozzerella and chicken or veggie stock and pasta. Barley is a wonder food, lots of nutrition, economical and easy to make into a soup with or without meat. And fresh herbs (I grow my own) zip up any dish. So today I will be looking for new foods and buying oatmeal and honey to try another homemade face mask. The avacado mask from yesterday was effective, and had my hubby hooting when I was walking around, green in the face, singing my version of "It's not easy being green."

Finally, for my new thing today, I will start reading Simone de Beauvoir's memoirs -- exploring a new genre, autobiographical writing.

Still waiting for people to join in this quest....

D

EGG ON MY FACE

Well, if you have been following my blog, you will know that today's challenge was to make and use a facial. So I did it. Twice. First, I discovered that we are out of oatmeal, so I simply whipped an egg and smeared it on my face. It had a tightening and drying effect, not what I was after. So I mashed a piece of avocado and mixed in the contents of a vitamin E capsule. Moisturizing and pleasant, but very green. And after about twenty minutes, my face began to feel dry again, so I smeared on my usual face cream. The homemade facial project will continue. Now it is time to make some Guacamole!

This morning I realize that my simple challenge to myself might not be so simple. The problem is that coming up with something new to try everyday takes planning. Some of the more fun things I intend to try like rock climbing -- require equipment and bookings; others will require materials. And then there is the question of coming up with ideas at all. So today's new thing will be rather simple. I am going to find a recipe for a homemade facial and apply it to my face. Will keep you posted.

January 1 2010

New Year's resolutions rarely work for me, so this year I have decided instead to give myself a challenge. The idea is simple really, I am challenging myself to try something new every day for the next 365 days. Part of the challenge is that the new "thing" for each day must involve making, doing, or learning. Setting up a blog is today's project and in a moment I will find out whether or not I have succeeded in this simple task! The blog will also help me monitor my progress and stick to the challenge. If you have any suggestions for me, I welcome them, and if you want to join in the challenge, you are welcome to!

Happy New Year.

Dee