Monthly Archives: November 2013
Gryka / Buckwheat Crape with Pear Petals
Gryka – buckwheat is very energizing and nutritious. Contrary to its name, this fruit seed is not in any way related to wheat.
Buckwheat is a gluten free power food.
Best source of high-quality, easily digestible proteins. Buckwheat is a warming food. It is classified by macrobiotics as a yang food. It is great for eating in the cold winter months.
Buckwheat is popular in Poland by the name gryka meaning Greek due to its introduction in the 7th century by Byzantine Greeks.
Buckwheat seeds with their nutty flavor perfectly match the fresh and delicate taste of a pear. In Greek and Roman mythology, pears are sacred to three goddesses: Hera – Juno, Aphrodite – Venus, and Pomona, an Italian goddess of gardens and harvests. The ancient Chinese believed that the pear was a symbol of immortality. (Pear trees live for a long time.) Pears are loaded with dietary fiber, are good sources of potassium. Classical Greek poet, Homer, refers to them as “Gifts of the Gods.”
Buckwheat contains the eight essential amino acids, as well as high proportions of manganese, magnesium and fiber. It also contains two flavanoids. One that is thought to support healing in the body. And a rutin which is an antioxidant, and therefore may inhibit cancer. Rutin also strengthens the capillaries and circulation, thereby reducing painful varicose veins.
Polish meadows, culture and tradition were painted in Adam Mickiewicz`s epic poem “Pan Tadeusz”. Mickiewicz was Polish poet, writer and philosopher. Poland in XIX century didn’t exist on the maps but was pulsing in hearts of Polish people who were always ready to stand up for Her freedom. The book was published in 1834 and it is considered by many to be the last great epic poem in European literature.
Meadows of gryka and a single flower:
“I raised my dead eyelids, and could straightway walk to the threshold of thy shrine to thank God for the life returned me—so by miracle thou wilt return us
to the bosom of our country. Meanwhile bear my grief-stricken soul
to those wooded hills, to those green meadows stretched far
and wide along the blue Niemen; to those fields painted with
various grain, gilded with wheat, silvered with rye; where grows
the amber mustard, the buckwheat white as snow, where the
clover glows with a maiden’s blush, where all is girdled
as with a ribbon by a strip of green turf on which here and there rest quiet pear-trees.”
Adam Mickiewicz “Pan Tadeusz”
Arugula n spaghetti pear salad
Arugula, spaghetti pear and pomegranate salad with a splash of blackberry ginger balsamic vinegar and a touch of extra virgin oil.
Fasol-soup
White kidney beans — so named due to their convex shape that resembles the kidney — are among the best foods for helping you lose weight due to their high fiber content, which leaves you feeling full for longer and keeps food cravings at bay. Native to Central and South America, they are well known for their texture and their ability to absorb flavors. Rich in fiber, white kidney beans also contain essential nutrients such as minerals, vitamins and proteins.
Once upon a time, a good but unfortunate man decided to sell his soul to the devil to get himself out of his troubles. He invoked Kizin and when he had him there, face to face, he told him what he wanted. Kizin liked the idea of taking away the soul of a good man.
In exchange for his soul the man asked for seven things: one for each day of the week. For the first day he asked for money, and straight away his pockets were filled with gold. On the second day he wanted good health, and it was granted. On the third day he was hungry and asked for food, and ate until busting. On the fourth day he asked for women and was surrounded by the most beautiful women imaginable. On the fifth day he wanted power and lived like a local ruler. On the sixth day he wanted to travel and in a jiffy he visited a thousand places.
Kizin then said: “Now, what do you want? Think! it`s the last day.”
The man said, “Now I just want to satisfy one whim.”
“Tell me and I will grant it.”
“I want you to wash these black beans until they turn white.”
“That`s easy”, said Kizin.
And he began to wash them, but as s they did not whiten, he thought, “This man has deceived me, and I lost a soul. So that this does not happen to me again, from now on there will be black beans, white beans, yellow beans, and red beans.”
White kidney beans and other legumes are rich in antioxidants, which are known to have anticancer properties. When cells in your body metabolize, they produce compounds known as free radicals. Such compounds bind to your cells, causing aging, cancer and chronic diseases. Antioxidants destroy free radicals, countering their harmful effects.
Added marjoram lifting the soup up to the divine sphere. Sweet marjoram was one of the Greeks’ favorite herbs. According to Greek legend, Aphrodite first cultivated the marjoram, and its sweet scent came from her gentle touch. Because of its association with Aphrodite, the ancient Greeks wore wreaths of it as wedding flowers. They also considered it an antidote for snakebite. And if it failed in that use, they planted it on the grave in the belief that it would help the dead to sleep in peace. Marjoram incense or herb is appropriate for burning in love spells, such as the Aphrodite New Moon love spell, Hecate black candle love spell, or Isis Full Moon love spell. “Sweet marjoram” is a low, bushy perennial native to Asia but naturalized in Europe, where singers learned to preserve and strengthen their voices with the honeyed tea. Traditionally it was given to those who felt unstable, physically debilitated, or irritable. Ancient Greeks planted the herb on their ancestors’ graves to ensure them a peaceful sleep. The Romans said that the goddess Venus used marjoram to cure her son Eros’ wounds and that it was scentless until she touched it. Marjoram is probably what is called “hyssop” in the Bible, where it is noted for personal cleansing and purification of the temples. Marjoram had a reputation for endowing longevity.
I added fennel thinking that my beloved GMa would accepted it instead of onion. Onion effects can be and are harmful for mind concentration and for a liver digestion. Fennel has repeatedly been shown to reduce inflammation and to help prevent the occurrence of cancer.
Beans love to be with majoram as best companions. Adding fennel to them still keeps GMa soup in original flavor and opens Sesame Door for the use of Mediterranean plants, that have been a base for Polish kitchen for centuries. Simmered fennel brings the sweetness with the level of acceptance for a serious meals. Fennel as an aphrodisiac warms up the November evenings with the touch of love.
Country dinner
parsley n melon 3pm smoothie
Persephone the goddess of underground was seen caring parsley to uphold life while in the darkness. The seeds of life are in their period of dormancy before sprouting. Melon combines both: seeds as a potential beginning of a new life and ready juice fruit. It shows a wholeness of life in one. Gods and Goddesses drunk nectars from fruits. Leaves of parsley and fruit of cantaloupe mixed together connects the power of unknown with vitality of life.
As much as parsley is rich in nutritions like vitamin A and C, fiber, potassium, magnesium, calcium, niacin, riboflavin and iron and surprisingly the leaves also contain a significant amount of protein, that much it is considered as a plant from witch`s garden. According to medieval legend, parsley seeds went to the devil nine times and back before they germinated. That belief stems from the earlier Greek belief that parsley seeds visited the underworld nine times before sprouting. The connection with unknown was based on exceedingly long period of time necessary for seed germination.
Parsley was dedicated to Persephone, the wife of Hades and Queen of the Underworld. She was also the goddess of spring growth, who was worshiped alongside with her mother Demeter in the Eleusinian Mysteries. The agricultural-based cult was connected with its initiates to a blessed afterlife. Life depends on death. And in this perspective it is logic that death does not exist. Life and “death” is in constant movement. In the process of changing. We only name black or dark as blindness, unknown as death. Life takes different forms the same as living human can wear different emotional moods. Life does the same as fruit seed. It withdraws from activity from the time of remembering into a stage of forgetting. And then it arises like Persephone who was titled Kore (the Maiden) as the goddess of spring’s bounty. Persephone was committed to spend half a year underground because she has tasted the food of Hades–a handful of pomegranate seeds. Her annual return to the earth in spring was marked by the flowering of the meadows and the sudden growth of the new grain. Her return to the underworld in winter, conversely, saw the dying down of plants and the halting of growth.
By eating parsley with the knowledge of benefits and the the stories she brings along, the body absorbs all: the aroma of beneficial mystery and awakening the mind to the eternal vitality.
Honeydew is an American name for the white antibes, a variety of melon that was cultivated in southern France and Algeria centuries ago. Honeydew and other melons are part of the cucurbitaceae (gourd) family, which is divided into fruits (melons) and vegetables (squashes, pumpkins, and cucumbers). Cavaillon, a town in Provence, France, considers itself the world capital of melons. Novelist Alexandre Dumas reportedly asked for a dozen melons per year until his death in exchange for donating his works to the town’s public library. On his second voyage in 1494, Christopher Columbus introduced this fruit to the new world, especially North America. Around the sixteenth century, melon seeds were brought from Armenia and planted in the Papal gardens in the city of Cantalupo, near Tivoli, Italy. This fruit was named after the comune Cantalupo in Sabina near Tivoli, Italy.
Facts… the yammy fact is the smooth long sip of healthy and refreshing smoothie that connects the body with nature treasures.
The spiritual fact is that as you sip the nectar the body slowly absorbs all the benefits from the plant.
3PM
arugula cashew cheese salad at 3pm neither lunch nor dinner, just a right light bite
