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Wondering what to do with all those pumpkin seeds when you get to the center of your jack-o-lantern?
Don’t throw them out! Pumpkin seeds make an awesome snack, crunchy, nutty, and full of healthful minerals, protein and fats of the favorable kind.
But first make sure you have a real pumpkin and not a genetically modified gourd bred specifically for carving and tossing. Find heirloom pumpkins at your farmers’ market and you can have your jack-o-lantern and eat it too. (more…)
Yesterday, for the first time in a long time, I got my hands into some dough. I used to bake bread from scratch every single morning at my restaurant in Banff, and whether they realized it or not, it was one of the things that kept my regulars coming back day after day for lunch. Baking is not magic, but there’s magic in baking.
For a while, I used a large mixer to knead the dough to save time, but I found that not only did the machine alter the alchemy, never getting it quite right, I actually needed the exercise of kneading. I would lock myself in, tune out the world, tune into the process, and discover the secrets of the universe in 4 daily loaves. (more…)
It was cold in Toronto yesterday, and the winds were biting. I love fall for that. The great wake-up call before the deep slumber. And fall food is the best.
I picked up one of every fall vegetable in stock at my local health food store, then came home and made a big pot of Autumn Sunshine Soup to warm myself and all the Arpixies in the house, 3 out of 6 of whom are vegetarians - that’s 50% of a downtown Toronto entertainment business. Do I sense a movement? These kids know how to stay healthy, go green, and groove with the woowoo. (more…)
Has all the bad news of late got you in a bad mood? Or is it the bad weather? Is it just me, or are we all having to fight a little harder for our happiness these days?
Couples everywhere are breaking up, people more than ever are being diagnosed with cancer, America is in the kind of trouble it won’t see its way out of for generations, 1% of the global tropical rain forests are disappearing per year (a conservative estimate) and animals are going extinct at a rate that alarms even the most cynical of scientists. (more…)
Come down to the southwest, he said, where epic summer thunderstorms roll in over the mesas with no warning, darken the sky, shake the earth and drench the sun-parched land in biblical twenty-minute downpours, with great flashes of lightning and booming thunder, then dissolve away into sweet, gentle sunshine, nearly all moisture evaporating instantly.
We’ve got pretty good soy lattes down here, he said. Only pretty good because at this altitude (7000 ft) water steams at a lower temperature. Doesn’t affect the tequila, though. (more…)
Get your green on in Toronto this weekend! The 9th annual International Environmental Film and Video Festival is on now through Sunday and the focus is on food.
Saturday afternoon has a great lineup of shorts, presented by Slow Food Toronto, starting at 1pm at the Innis Town Hall. I’m looking forward to “Alchemy”, a film about the beautiful art of baking bread, once common practise in almost every household.
Also, don’t miss “Fields of Fuel” on Friday evening at 5pm at the Innis Town Hall.
Craving a little salty-crunchy snack but don’t want all the empty calories, fake flavors and saturated fats of a bag of Doritos?
Try boiling up a bag of edamame for a protein-packed munch that’ll keep you going between meals, or serve as a great appetizer with sake martinis.
You can find edamame in the freezer section of grocery stores. Look for organic, because most soybeans that aren’t will be genetically modified frankenfood. Cascadian Farm is a reliable brand, found at Whole Foods or your local health food (more…)
This pesto recipe is a great way to use up your summer basil and get a belly full of nutrient-rich hemp seeds and a teaspoon of healing miso. My brother watched the vid, then made some and gave it to me as a delicious gift! Stay tuned for more vids! (more…)
“America is addicted to oil…it’s time for an intervention.”
We’re not drilling our way out of planetary oil depletion, so we may as well get hip and get inspired to do something different before it’s too late. Join Josh Tickell in his revolution to change your fuel, change the world.
The house was packed on Sunday afternoon at the timely L.A. premiere of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival Best Documentary Audience Award winning film, “Fuel”. Celebrities, environmentalists and the eclectic crowd that makes up the biodiesel (more…)
Here’s a shoe company with a conscience, temporarily housed in a cottage on Abbot Kinney in Venice to showcase their shoes and their story.
Founded in 2006 by Blake Mycoskie, Toms Shoes, with their One for One program, gives a pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair you purchase.
Founder, Blake Mycoskie, while on vacation in Argentina noticed impoverished children walking around with cuts and infections on their feet from walking miles every day without shoes to fetch water. He decided to start Toms, “shoes for (more…)
Recently opened, the “Village Pet Store And Charcoal Grill” in Grenwich Village in New York is the latest installation of British graffiti artist, Banksy. It’s outrageous, audacious, oddly haunting, and according to an email the BBC received from the elusive artist, was mounted in response to his experience seeing a pet chiuaua wearing a diamond necklace paraded past a homeless man.
A bold statement to point out our strange relationships with animals - how we spoil some and turn others into hot dogs. (more…)
Meet me in Big Sur on the ledge of the earth on the edge of the razor on the verge of crazy in the pillow clouds where time means nothing and Sea Foam Green is a swirling reality not a Ralph Lauren paint color.
Meet me in Big Sur where ragged rocks threaten like menacing bladed soldiers and protect like a sharp barnacled cliff wall billions of tides strong; where California condors soar over ancient redwood spears on the spicy eucalyptus wind that comes cold and furious like a sea-chilled gale, then suddenly bows soft on your face with a scented kiss of sunwarmth peeled from a thermal layer ridden by a solitary (more…)
Yes, it’s happened to me as it’s happened to many who’ve dared stray from their urban comforts to venture this far north. I’ve been struck by the Spell of the Yukon. It doesn’t hurt, but it does nag at you once you’re back in the car-honking, people-elbowing, lung-congesting city. And each year, when the days grow long and I think of the midnight sun, low on the endless Yukon horizon, casting purple-hued shadows across the silent land…well, I get itchy feet. You know the feeling.
Three seasons in a row, I’ve ridden solo up the Alaska Highway on my trusty Buell, (more…)
George Van Tassel built this in the 50’s and 60’s as a chamber of “rejuvenation and time travel,” describing it as “a machine, a high-voltage electrostatic generator that would supply a broad range of frequencies to recharge the cell structure.”
Now, at this local landmark near Joshua Tree, you can relax in the Integratron with a “Sound Bath” administered by one of three sisters who bought the building fulfilling a dream to live in the desert. Joanne Karl, a former nurse and cardiac researcher from the Hamptons, says “there’s more space between the molecules out here.” (more…)
If you’re vegetarian and you’re looking for a Caribbean vacation, look no further than The Lodge in Grenada. My partner, Ron and I had the incredible privilege of being Mary and Mark’s very first honored Canadian guests back in the winter of 2004 shortly after they had opened for business, and ever since, we’ve been looking for an excuse to return. For the short time we were there, I thought I’d died and gone to vegan heaven.
The Lodge in Grenada is the only exclusively vegetarian accommodation in the Caribbean. It’s also one of the most magnificent places I’ve ever been in my life. (more…)
You can’t get much further off the grid than the Dawson City River Hostel.
Dieter Reinmuth, an avid outdoorsman, photographer, guide book author and world traveller who settled in the Yukon 20 years ago to make his living panning for gold, built this funky off-the-grid retreat as an ode to fellow explorers who arrive from all over the globe seeking adventure and a genuine Klondike experience.
This place of rustic luxury is one of my favourite secret getaways in the far north. The bath house, pictured above, is a not-to-be-missed ritual. I make a point of (more…)
My dear friends Nicola and Andy built their dream home off the grid near Rice Lake about 2 hours out of Toronto. They now hold meditation workshops and teach people how to walk lightly on the planet. Their body work studio has floor-to-ceiling windows so while you practise your qigong, you can see the passing deer and occasional wolves playing in the rolling hills.
The cuisine is out of this world, and you can even spend a weekend learning how to create fabulous organic foods. Both Nicola and Andy are authors - all their books are (more…)
Some places are blissfully far enough away to keep the masses away, although from May to September hundreds of people per day pass through Liard Hotsprings, 495 miles up the Alaska Highway.
For some, this is a stopover, a resting spot en route to Alaska or the Yukon from southern BC and elsewhere. For me, it’s a destination unto itself worthy of a road trip from L.A. or Toronto. I could (and have) soaked for days in the 45-degree mineral waters of Alpha pool getting warm to the bone after a long cold ride up the remote Alaska Highway. (more…)
Easy to forget you’re soaking in history while soaking up the Rocky Mountain views and the curative mineral waters of the Banff Hotsprings. Canada’s native people first discovered the natural hot springs at Banff and considered them to be sacred waters - a place to cure illness and enhance health. Abundant in sulphur, the waters are said to help heal dermatological problems such as psoriasis, as well as aid in the treatment of rheumatism, arthritis and other diseases.
The healing effects were not lost on me while I lived in Banff over ten years. At the (more…)
This place is not for everyone, but if everyone went just once, we’d probably have peace on earth. Harbin Hot Springs is a clothing optional retreat north of San Francisco, beyond the Napa Valley wine region in nature’s embrace. It’s a garden of Eden where deer and wild turkeys wander through your campsite by the babbling brook, the air is champagne bubbly and the scent of eucalyptus everywhere transports you to a place of deep healing. You’ll find yourself wishing you could stay forever - and some people do. (more…)
