By Joy Pierson on April 26, 2011
Each season sings its own melody that reflects the aliveness of the earth’s natural growing cycles. The first breath of spring heralds rebirth and a start to the gentle growing season: the slow unfurling of leaves, the tiny baby shoots as they push up through the ground, awakened by the sun and an inner knowing.
Just as the knowing of the plants triggers them to grow, the wisdom in our bodies awakens our senses to the healthful spring foods the land will produce. If we allow ourselves to listen, we are all in harmony, making up a vibrant symphony of sorts. The spring crops sprout and flourish just as we are ripe to experience the life-giving foods of springtime at its fullest.
Spring is a time to shed the layers of winter, to stretch our limbs and turn toward the sun. We begin to eat lighter foods: nourishing tender greens, buttery lettuces with the simplest of dressings, baby vegetables so sweet they need barely a whisper of sea salt, a breath of tarragon or thyme, a drizzle of olive oil.
Candle Cafe and Candle 79 rekindle their relationships with the local farmers who supply the delicacies of the season. It’s always a privilege to work with farmers to supply our fourth generation of clients with the best, most nutrient-dense food available. Our motto of “Food Fresh from Farm to Table” sings of spring. As the early crops unfold, the melody of fresh herbs and delicacies like fiddlehead ferns, asparagus and ramps are the chef’s inspiration. Memorable meals are made of these melodies and keep us on a path toward inspired wellness.
Spring is a wonderful time to cleanse away the old. Eating more raw vegetables and fruits or easing into a nourishing juice cleanse can be a great way to give your body the gentle nudge it needs to feel vibrant and well. I’m pleased to share Candle 79 Chef Angel Ramos’ recipe for a simple spring salad and Candle 79 Bar Chef Kyle Bullen’s recipe for a wonderfully rejuvenating elixir, aptly called “Rejuvenation.”
Cheers to your Crazy Sexy spring awakening!
Spring Salad
-8 ounces spring lettuce mix
-1 fennel bulb, cored and thinly sliced
-2 blood oranges, pith removed and sliced to ¼ inch segments
-2 teaspoons thyme, chopped
-1 teaspoon parsley, chopped
-2 tablespoons organic extra virgin oil olive
-Salt and pepper to taste
Put all ingredients in a bowl. Serve and enjoy!
Rejuvenation
-3 ounces cucumber juice
-2 ounces George’s Aloe
-¾ ounce lemon juice
-½ ounce ginger agave simple syrup (mix grated ginger and agave nectar)
-Soda water, as needed
Build first four ingredients in a 16-ounce Pilsner glass, add ice to top, fill with soda water and mix and enjoy!
Photo credit: Rubber Slippers in Italy
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By Kevin Archer on April 12, 2011
Today I pulled back the mulch in my garlic bed. I was greeted by tender green shoots, holding aloft the fulfillment of a promise.
In October, I planted about 120 garlic cloves and let them sprout. Shortly before the first frost, I gave them a good blanket of straw, and we agreed to meet again after winter. I also put on a few extra layers, and now here we are, at the threshold of spring. The garlic, I must say, has a serious case of bed-head. As for me, well, I’m sufficiently groomed for gardening, I suppose.
It’s the same routine every year, this seed-to-plant-to-harvest-to-seed cycle. And it is still miraculous – because try as we might, we still don’t understand what created the spark of life that permeates our world. So I stand amazed as the plants awaken from their nap and demand my interaction.
It’s not just Nature performing this stage show, but also her sister Metaphor. Hand in hand, they remind us that winter’s spells are temporary. Dormancy is only a phase. Darkness is never eternal. Every yin has its yang, and life has its flow. Out of every cold and somber period, I also have sprung forth with renewed vigor and purpose.
I embrace all the seasons, and marvel at the unfair share of complaints filed against winter. Yes, it is cold. But it also can be a very productive time. In winter, we gather compact energy and have an opportunity to turn our attention inward. We conserve our resources. We have time to experience great peace in meditation. While these activities can be restful, they are a far cry from dormancy.
If we get a bit down, we have a promise to help us keep going. That promise is simple: The garden bed, once overflowing with autumn’s bounty, will spring into life again.
This promise is held in the tiniest of places, packed tightly into the seeds the garden gives us to save. Not only are the seeds tiny, but they are super-abundant, uncountable, even unmanageable. We gather them and keep them safely through winter. By using only a fraction of them, we’ll have more results than we can imagine.
Do we doubt it now and then? Do we sometimes wonder if the process will break down at some point? Sure we do. But behind it all, those seeds are lying in wait, as if they are secrets hidden by winter’s dim light. Then comes that mysterious and galvanizing spark …
So now the march toward aphelion awakens us, and we relive the unrestrained renewal of all living things. Energy breaks loose all around us. Spring blossoms peek in the windows as fresh tendrils turn the doorknob.
The newness in the air fills our lungs and reminds us that we can do anything. It’s time to grab a handful of seeds and step outdoors. Life demands our interaction.
Photo credit: AlyssssylA
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By Alexandra Jamieson on March 25, 2011
Some of my first memories are from my mother’s garden (that’s Mom and Me, aka “Sasha” at Eve’s Organic Garden, mid-1970s, Lake Grove, OR). When I close my eyes, I feel cool pebbles and dewy grass under my bare feet, hear buzzing bees and chirping birds and smell a cacophony of scents from roses, lilac, herbs, freshly turned earth and compost.
My mom learned gardening from her grandparents in Texas and moist, chilly Port Angeles, Washington. To me, she seemed like Snow White incarnate – mom could bring any dying house plant to life and sprout any seed, and knew where to find the birds, butterflies and interesting spiders. Her decade-long run as the radio host of Eve’s Organic Garden on KBOO in Portland, Oregon, proved that her ideas for planting and knowledge of gardening were admired by many. The local Italian family that ran Ricardo’s restaurant often stopped by looking for fresh herbs and flowers.
As a kid, I enjoyed the rambling gardens around our old farmhouse. Private tunnels of blackberries provided space to daydream, and the Rainier cherry tree offered sweetly blushed gems every spring. I found a lot of pleasure in picking seeds to grow every spring, learning the look of healthy soil and digging around for bugs and worms. It seemed like magic to discover the nasturtium seeds growing out of the stems where edible flowers of red and orange once bloomed so brilliantly.
While my brother and I grumbled about the inevitable hours of weeding, pruning, hauling and raking, today we look back on that time as peaceful, formative and a badge of honor. Now we find that gardening relieves our stress and keeps us healthy. It’s not just the organic, fresh food we can grow. We harvest something more – peace and connection.
Growing up on the west coast, we didn’t know that fireflies were real. My first sighting of these electric “lightning bugs” was actually in Central Park when I was about 21 years old. I was visiting my brother a few years before I moved to New York City. I excitedly told my brother, then almost 30, “I saw a firefly! They’re real!” He beamed back at me with joy, and it felt like we were kids again, sharing this wonderful discovery.
Now I long for spring planting and have happily settled in a ground floor Brooklyn apartment with a back yard and space to plant a few pots. Last summer’s freak tornados had the silver-lining effect of creating more sun in my previously shade-choked yard when three neighboring trees lost half of their limbs.
I’m passing on my love for digging, planting, watering, weeding and waiting to my son, Laken. When I discovered kid-sized tools at a stoop sale (we call them stoop sales here in Brooklyn, because who has yards? We have stoops!) a couple of summers ago, I scooped them up and handed them to Laken, who happily took them outside and started digging. Gardening seems to be in our DNA.
Teaching him how to dig a hole, bury a seed, water it carefully and often and look for slugs feels right. What could be more important than teaching my kid how to grow his own food? We won’t be living off of our harvest any time soon, but being able to grow our own lettuce, a few strawberries, snow peas and pretty flowers makes me feel capable, and I hope to pass that on to him.
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By Guest Blogger on April 29, 2010
By Jenny Nelson
Spring is a very traditional time for a cleanse. It’s an instinctive behavior that is deeply rooted in our bodies, as we tend to consume heavier, more acidic, and mucus forming foods in the winter months, so as the days lengthen and we transition to warmer weather, our bodies naturally want to lighten and expand. It’s a time to move toward the light, to stretch, grow, and shed our winter layers—both emotionally and physically.
It’s amazing how all of nature works to assist us in this expansion and lightening process. Everywhere we look there are new growths of bitter greens such as dandelion, nettles and purslane pushing up through the ground. Their detoxifying and liver-supporting properties make them absolutely perfect for a spring cleanse and a very simple and inexpensive addition to our salads and juices. One person’s weeds are another’s spring tonic!
We don’t have to necessarily jump into a full blown fast or detoxification program to experience the healing and re-energizing benefits of beginning to simplify. As we naturally begin to eat lighter foods, and probably even naturally lessen the amount of foods taken in, we can begin incorporating some simple steps into our daily routines for these same benefits.
1. Let go of salty, heavy foods, especially red meat.
Foods to avoid as they are acid (and mucus) forming: nuts and seeds (unless soaked and sprouted and always organic!), dairy products, alcohol, refined sugars and flours, red meat, and caffeine. This will be the most beneficial thing you can do as the weather begins to warm. And it should actually be the easiest since when we begin to really listen to our bodies, we might realize that the foods we crave in the spring are lighter and fresher—tending towards the new salad ingredients that have been absent all winter and feeling drawn to bright, vibrant, fresh foods to create changes in our internal environment that correspond to the changes in the outside world.
2. Incorporate all the green plants you can—especially local, organic, young, and fresh ones.
You can grow your own sprouts (for eating) and wheatgrass (for juicing). Add cleansing foods to your daily diet as much as possible, such as herbal tea, fresh lemon juice in water (warm or room temperature), fresh vegetable juices, raw fruits and vegetables (with the exception of bananas as they can be a bit more mucus forming and high in sugar), steamed vegetables (leafy and root), sprouts, sea vegetables (nori, wakame, dulse, hijiki, arame, kelp, irish moss) and wild blue green and micro algaes (spirulina, chlorella, crystal manna), filtered or spring water, vegetable broth, and cooked non-gluten grains (quinoa, amaranth, millet, brown rice).
All of these foods are nourishing and satiating while cleansing and alkalizing in our bodies. Raw onions and garlic have wonderful anti-microbial and anti-parasitic properties and can easily be added to any of your daily meals. Support the liver and gallbladder, which are the organs that are activated in the spring when winter fat and mucus begin to clear out of the system, with pungent herbs like mint, basil, fennel, marjoram, rosemary, caraway, dill and bay.
3. Incorporate a daily probiotic
Taking probiotics daily creates healthy intestinal flora and boosts our overall immune system and serotonin production since 80% of our immune system resides in our gut and most of the serotonin production occurs there as well. To stay healthier and feel happier, a probiotic of at least 16 billion live organisms per serving will be incredibly beneficial.
4. Add in at least 30 minutes of some form of movement every day.
Walking, yoga or some form of stretching, jumping on a rebounder, doing somersaults or cartwheels in the new grass, climbing a tree, hiking a hill or a mountain, running, gathering dandelion greens, digging up new garden beds. . . the list goes on and on and doesn’t have to include an expensive gym membership or special equipment. Our bodies are the most effective cleansing tools we have. How we move them and get them to sweat creates space for toxins to move out of our system, we lose that extra winter weight, we feel lighter and looser, and our overall health improves immediately.
5. Lighten up your thoughts.
This is a simple one, but extremely important and often overlooked. As the winter darkness fades and everything begins to sprout, blossom and become new again, it doesn’t take a lot of effort to push our thoughts through the dark as well where they’ve been gathering strength and roots. This provides an inner detox with amazing benefits!
Five minutes of meditation in the morning when you wake up and again at night before going to sleep easily fits into our daily lives and can become one of the most life-changing habits. Take a moment to close your eyes and really be grateful for your meals—breakfast, lunch and dinner, no matter where you are. I was recently at a restaurant with friends and we joined hands and thanked the farmers, the chef, the servers, and each other for the food and energy that culminated in that meal. These things are simple but have enormous ripple effects. Laugh, be curious, learn something new whenever you can, teach someone else something new, put yourself in someone else’s shoes and give five different people a compliment every day. Remember that each of us is a unique, strong, compassionate and beautiful being, and we can make the biggest difference in the world by being authentic, hopeful, and kind (especially to ourselves). Creating vibrant health and peaceful thoughts become the greatest gift we can give to the world.
Happy Spring!
Jenny Nelson is a Wellness Specialist & Coach for Dr. Alejandro Junger’s Clean Program.
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By Alejandro Junger, MD on April 6, 2010
As a doctor, some of the most powerful tools that I have found are detoxing and cleansing. By ‘detoxing’ I mean this: a program that will create optimal conditions for the recirculation of toxins that have been trapped in our body’s mucus, as well as support for the liver in its work of neutralizing and preparing those toxins to be eliminated via sweat, feces and urine.
Cleansing is a method of enhancing the elimination of these toxins, as well as the mucus, that the body has generated to defend itself from the irritation caused by toxin accumulation. Cleansing encourages and assists the channels of elimination, through skin, kidneys and intestines.
Quantum physicists have clearly shown that “The Universe is made of Light,” and light behaves both as a particle and a wave, depending on what instrument is used to measure it. Waves uplift, resonate with and attract each other. The stronger the wave, the more other waves will begin to imitate it.
All of these waves are ultimately interconnected with each other; our emotions and our bodies are waves within waves and are continuously affecting each other, and all of us in turn are subject to the effects caused by larger and more powerful ones. We can see these effects in the winter when it seems everyone is a bit more sad and struggling with depression, and the trees and plants mirror that empty and bare feeling as they lose their flowers and leaves.
However, with the arrival of spring, when nature seems to be having a seizure of awakening, everything explodes with waves of life, and all animals, plants and even our own bodies become influenced by this activity. Winter’s depression is swept away by joy and plants bursting with life. Whatever you can do to align yourself with this force will enable you to ride the wave to the other side of the cold and dark remnants of winter.
Here are 5 simple things you can do to enhance these cleansing and expanding waves, and the reasons behind them:
1) Give your digestive system a break. Digestion takes work and slows down other functions, the detox functions in particular. As digestion work eases, there is a point at which the body receives a signal to enter detox mode intensely and releases trapped toxins and mucus.
Be safe and choose your program intelligently. Stopping digestive work completely, as in a water fast, can be dangerous and even deadly. Jesus did it for 40 days, but he didn’t have the chemicals in his food, soil and water that we do now.
Juicing is an effective way to detox and cleanse, but still too intense for most Americans, especially if they are living in the city, working, taking care of children, and socializing. This schedule is too demanding to subsist on juice alone as it does not deliver the amount and variety of nutrients needed to safely and effectively complete this work. Toxin recirculation overwhelms the ability of our liver to detox effectively While juice provides many antioxidants, this is the half of the work of detoxing. People that cleanse regularly and have a clean diet the rest of the time do really well with juicing programs, but juicing fails for so many of my patients because it really needs to be done in the right way.
What I do, myself, is have a liquid breakfast, a solid meal and a liquid dinner. In my book, “CLEAN,” there are recipes enough to never repeat a meal in 3 weeks, providing plenty of nutritional support and variety.
2) Give your immune system a spring break. 80% of our immune system lives in our intestines, and because of the damage caused by modern toxicity, it is constantly in a state of alert and in attack mode. There is a list of foods that really stir things up for the immune system and create a damaged intestine. Dairy, sugar, coffee, and gluten are the obvious culprits, but there are fruits and vegetables that do the same, even if organic. The list of foods to avoid to calm allergies and even autoimmune waves is called “The Elimination Diet.” Following this food plan alone will enable a detox to happen seamlessly and powerfully.
3) Cleanse your kitchen. Nature knows what it is doing. Any time of year, animals all over the planet are eating whatever is in grown locally and in season, and we’d be wise to do the same. Go to the farmer’s market, learn what is in season, and eat whole foods when they’re fresh and abundant.
4) Drink lots of water. Filtered water is best. Not distilled, unless you know what you are doing. Water with lemon is great for cleansing, as lemon is nature’s magic cleaner. In the spring, the ice melts and the rivers run strong. Imitate spring in your body with fresh water flowing through it constantly. Be careful not to overhydrate and wash out your body’s natural minerals with distilled or less than optimal water. Still, if there is a time to drink lots of water, it is during a cleanse—and especially during the spring.
5) Spring has its distinct qualities but shares qualities with all seasons. Day and night happen regardless of season or weather. To sleep at sundown and wake up at sunrise is one sure way to sync with all of nature, the planets and beyond. When was the last time you did that?
These are simple and effective ways to cleanse your body and prepare for the warm weather and necessary expansion of the next season.
Wishing you all a Clean and healthy spring,
Dr. Junger and the Clean Team
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