Monday, June 14, 2010

Lady Gaga's Alejandro, Kettlebells Transformation and Fresh, Local Foods

Has anyone seen Lady Gaga's video Alejandro? When she's on screen I can't look away. Check her out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niqrrmev4mA%3D As Cathy Horyn says in this week's Sunday NY Times "I like that Gaga continues to explore style whether she is backtracking through Madonna country or making more abstract connections to art and film". She's strange and I like it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUgsmsvSYow

Gaga is unusually pale and thin. Who is built this way? Certainly not the gorgeous women in Vogue Curvy that I've been reading to reinforce thickerer positivity http://www.vogue.it/en/vogue-curvy. Still I can't resist the urge to tighten things up.

Over the next eight weeks I'm adding weights to my fitness routine so that I can transform my body into my life style's version of Dara Torres;-) . Last week I began to make the best of my insomnia by getting up to take a 6:00 AM Kettle Bell class at the Roxbury YMCA (side bar: oh, how I love working out with the peoples of Roxbury-- that's what's up!).

Here's the promise: Add kettlebells to your workout, and you’ll reboot a sagging metabolism, lose weight and have a better shape—all in just a few weeks. I'll keep you posted, gentle reader

Week 2 of the Food Project CSA http://thefoodproject.org/csa-farm-share This week: garlic scapes (that I added to a white bean soup in place of garlic cloves) and spinach (that I used to make lemon garlic spinach with sauteed chickpeas) and lots of beautiful greens. I found the most lovely strawberries at the Morse Elementary School Saturday farmer's market in Central Square. I brought a quart to share with my compadres in Afro-Haitian dance (thank you for the privilege of dancing with you, dancers!) and another quart to make home-made dairy-free ice cream. There's nothing fresher than the farmer's market. There's nothing more local than my kitchen. Try this at home:

2 cups soy creamer
1 cup soy milk
2 cups strawberries
2 tablespoon arrowroot
3/4 cup sugar... See More
1 tablespoon vanilla

(1) mix 1/4 cup soy milk with 2 tbs arrowroot; set aside;
(2) puree 1 cup strawberries with soy creamer, remaining 3/4 cup soy milk, sugar;
(3) heat strawberry mixture until it boils; remove from heat;
(4) add arrowroot and creamer (mixture will noticeably thicken); add vanilla then chill for 2-3 hours
(5) add to your ice cream maker (follow manufacturer directions); fold in remaining strawberries during last minutes of freezing;
(6) eat

Feel free to embellish with sliced strawberries OR chiffonade of mint picked from your window box.
Dara Torres has good muscles
Shaped like a metal cannonball with a handle, the kettlebell, which has been used in Russia for hundreds of years, has recently become popular on the U.S. fitness scene—so popular, in fact, that kettlebells-only gyms have opened across the country.
Carrot white bean soup w/ grilled cheese toast
Lemon garlic spinach with sauteed chickpeas
Saturday at the Dance Complex from 1:30 to 3:00 PM. Off the chain!
Vegan strawberry ice cream under a little mountain of strawberries
Here's the anatomy lesson: Garlic and its relatives in the allium family, (leeks, chives, onions) grows underground, where the bulb begins its journey, soft and onion-like. As the bulb gets harder (and more like the garlic we know), a shoot pokes its way through the ground. Chlorophyll- green like a scallion (maybe even greener), the shoot is long and thin and pliable enough to curl into gorgeous tendrils.

No comments: