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Lemongrass Tea

Growing lemongrass this past summer was one of my most successful experiments for both its medicinal benefits and culinary uses. I always enjoy the growing part of starting a plant by seed and watching its gradual development throughout the season but in October when a frost is imminent, I find myself hustling to figure out how to preserve my harvest and put it to work in my daily life. Even though lemongrass seems so exotic, it was easy to grow from seed, it was pest free and its long arching blades gave a full tropical look to the garden so I recommend growing and using its leaves in tea and roots in Thai soup.

When the season shifts to colder temperatures, I often find myself not drinking enough water in that transition. The symptoms of dehydration can show up as fatigue, dizziness or lightheadedness, dry eyes and mouth, wrinkly skin and reduced urination. This Fall, lemongrass is coming to my rescue with its subtle refreshing lemony taste. I refer to it as the universal taste donor because it blends beautifully with other herbs and roots. I especially like adding ginger, fennel seeds and honey to my tea and drinking it in a bowl so my nose has full access to all the aromas. 

As a compulsive maker, I spent many hours making little wreaths from the leaves which felt very satisfying. While the health benefits of lemongrass are numerous from both a Western and Eastern perspective, the aesthetics of having a wreath of lemongrass, a sprig of fennel and a chunk of ginger floating in a handmade tea bowl makes this cleansing calming cold chasing brew a keeper.

To make tea simply boil water and put a wreath or 1 tsp of dried lemongrass herb in a tea ball and let it steep. Add other herbs and honey, if desired. You can use the wreath multiple times.

You can buy dried lemongrass here.

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Mountain Medicine

IMG_0069_2Strong as a boulder, small as a pebble, that’s how I feel after returning from a twenty-day backpacking expedition on the John Muir Trail (JMT) in California.  My three trail companions and I hiked over 200 miles from Tuolumne meadows to Mt. Whitney, crossed seven mountain passes over 11,000 feet, and earned a total elevation gain of 46,000 feet during the course of this magnificent, everything-worked-according-to-our-plan trip.

Even though there are enormous health benefits to daily load-bearing exercise, drinking 2-3 liters of water and massive bowel elimination, it was being in the mountains that felt most therapeutic. Most of our days were spent in dry sunny high alpine zones where we walked by pristine lakes and rivers, through boulder fields, talus slopes and scattered granite outcroppings while mountains, dramatic rock cathedrals, either surrounded or beckoned us forward on our southward route.

IMG_0059_2Of course, it was physically rigorous, and consumed all my attention, to climb and then descend the switchbacks on every mountain pass.  Each step up the mountain, the rarified air, brought me closer to the dizzying cerulean blue sky and dazzling panoramic views.  It’s the kind of high one can’t get from smoking or imbibing; elevation elation comes from hard-core effort.  However, the subjective significance of all my efforts shrunk to pebble size compared to the import of the geologic forces that both built and eroded the Sierra Nevada mountain range.  It was obvious: me, my time on earth is puny; I too will erode. My insignificance in the scheme of things wasn’t a negation of my existence, just a perfectly calibrated dose of reality, and that is exactly the kind of medicine the mountains delivers.

IMG_0116_2Being in this vast sparse rocky land, I found the spaciousness and silence in myself to safely make my way without much self-commentary given how the wilderness wholly absorbed me. I spent entire days observing the shifts in light, the pecular and wonderful rock formations, the coursing of water through streams, the emerald and turquoise lakes populated by trout, and the ever changing vantage points which convinced me that I was beholding the most beautiful sight in my entire life, only to cancel that thought ten switchbacks later when I would again be forced by sheer awe to make that proclamation all over again.

Now as I re-enter my life in Seattle, I am not just noticing natural beauty in my surroundings, I am stopping more regularly, and opening up space and time in myself to really experience it. This morning as I stood in my kitchen washing dishes, I looked out to the backyard and observed water evaporating and swirling into an ethereal mist off our canvas chairs from the previous night’s rain; pausing, I engaged in this very quiet transitory moment. Allowing myself more time to concentrate on each moment as it arises requires an internal stillness. My mentors, the mountains, modeled how to hold steady and poised while in the flow of changing life conditions.

Having had the good fortune to traverse the John Muir Trail, I feel inspired to stay on the trail, continuing to take one step after the next.

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Nettle Chip Recipe

IMG_0451In my last post, I shared the benefits of using nettles for morning blended drinks and infusions.  I can attest that these drinks have successfully replaced for my morning coffee.  Because I collected more nettles than I could use in a week, I tried think of more ways to use them besides in soup, and then my brain was stung with a stunning idea: nettle chips.  It took me about 2 seconds from having the idea to getting my bag of nettles, gloving up and removing the stems from the leaves. I washed the leaves with cold water which softened the nettle’s stingers, spun dried them in the salad spinner and then set them out on a towel to air dry.  Afterwards, I made the nettle chips exactly like I make kale chips.  The nettle chips are lighter, almost flaky, a little fuzzy and more delicate than kale chips, but just as tasty and satisfying.  They’re sorta an elevated kale chip.  It definitely elevates my mood to think about how much they would cost if I bought them at Whole Foods.

Nettle Chip Recipe

(amounts vary on quantities used so just use your judgment)

Drizzle and toss enough olive oil to coat leaves. (Use a glove or metal tongs)

Add sea salt and nutritional yeast to taste

If you like spicey chips, add garlic powder and chipotle for seasoning.

Dehydrate at 145 degrees for an hour

Or, put in oven at 200 degrees on parchment paper.  Turn leaves after 20-30 minutes.

While nettle season is in full swing, my dehydrator will be continuously humming with nettles inside.  They will be an excellent snack food and addition to our summer’s backpacking food, given its high amount of protein and minerals.  I learned from www.skipthepie.org that 1 cup of cooked nettles provides 43% of the recommend daily intake (RDI) of calcium, 8% of Iron, 5 % of protein, 35 % of manganese, 36 % of Vitamin A and 555% of Vitamin K.

It takes some mettle to work with nettles but they give high rewards — even more vigor.

 

 

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A Shot of Nettles

In Eastern medicine, spring is the season of the wood element, the liver meridian and liver organ.  The liver meridian is linked to eye health and the smooth flow of energy through our body. Anger, depression and irritability are the emotions associated with the wood element when it is out of balance.

Many of us start spring cleaning in our homes, gardens and craving more lightness and energy in our physical and emotional bodies.

There are many ways to activate Liver Qi like getting acupuncture, increasing exercise, eating more sour and vinegary foods, and eating lots of greens. During early spring when the garden isn’t yet producing greens there are a few common plants like dandelions and stinging nettles that pop out of the soil just in the nick of time to assist us with a Liver activating spring regimen.

Most people are aware of nettle’s intense sting but few appreciate nettle’s nutrient values, making it a fierce physiologic ally.  In fertile soils, the purple hue on the top surface of its green leaves looks almost iridescent, shimmering with potency.  That’s why I consider stinging nettles to be one of the best shots in the arm, a rich injection of vitamins and minerals.

In Chinese medicine, nettles are categorized as a blood builder, cleanser and kidney tonic. Stinging nettles are known to be high in calcium, magnesium,manganese, iron, chlorophyll, vitamin C, and contain more protein (10%)than another other vegetable. As a blood builder, greater vitality, lustrous hair and stronger nails will result. As an antidote to seasonal allergies, it is thought to reduce the amount of histamines the body produces in response to free floating allergens if one drinks an infusion three weeks before pollens are released into the air. As a kidney tonic, it purifies the blood by eliminating toxins and metabolic wastes through its diuretic properties.

In late February and early March when I still feel some sluggishness from wintering and trees are releasing pollens, I start making nettle infusions to build my energy and clear out the accumulations from heavier winter foods. It’s too early to forage for wild nettles so I rely on dried nettles to make the infusions. You can buy organic nettles at your local natural foods market or online at Amazon, Mountain Rose Herbs. I buy a pound at a time. It seems like a lot but if you are consistent in early spring with making and drinking a quart of infusion a day,  you will use it up.

Nettle Infusion

In quart mason  jar or French Press  add nettles and then pour boiling water over it. Stir.

I cup raw leaves or one ounce dried nettles (an ounce is about a cup of dried nettles)

1 quart  boiling water

Let mason jar sit on kitchen counter for at least 4 hours or overnight for maximum infusion.  Strain and drink infusion throughout the day.

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Birthday Buddies

Machelle and Ganga

I don’t understand the grand cycles, but I had an inkling that the combo effect of the end of the Mayan calendar and the winter solstice landing on the same date (December 21st) was significant.  However, on that day, I felt no great shift except that something extraordinary did in fact happen: a shopping outing with Claudia to Costco where I bought five new toothbrush heads for my Sonicare diamond clean toothbrush.  If that isn’t a defiant act of optimism on the day the world might end, I don’t know what is.  But I didn’t witness any collective transformation in consciousness as we waited in long lines to check out at Costco.

It wasn’t until the next day, December 22nd, which is the shared birthday of Machelle and Ganga that I noticed there might indeed have been some galactic gearshift going on.  The day started with twelve friends gathering at Margaret and Machelle’s for delicious homemade soups (dal and chicken noodle) and croissant sandwiches before we headed out to Cougar Mountain for a hike.  The early morning rainy skies cleared for the few hours we buoyantly bobbed along in small groupings on well-marked trails through a moist and gorgeous Northwest forest.

Later that evening that same crowd and more friends gathered at Ganga’s house for festivities: dancing, live music and non-stop laughing.    Even though December 22nd marked Machelle’s and Ganga’s birthdays, an official new year for them; it also felt like their joint celebration was somehow driving larger cogs towards a more joyful transmission as our collective New Year approaches.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihydca1stOE&feature=youtu.be

 

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Foraging For a Cure

tumblr_mdjyoa93Am1ra92m5Pacific Northwest’s Reishi – Ganaderma Orgonense

In early November, when I tromped through an old growth forest on the Olympic Peninsula in search of wild chanterelle and hedgehog mushrooms, I was delighted when my companion and guide, Liz the Griz, pointed to polypore mushrooms sitting at the base of two hemlock trees. These four to six inch kidney shaped, shiny brown, soft, fresh specimens were Pacific Northwest’s Reishi, Ganaderma Orgonense.  They were perfect for the picking so we gently tore them off and stored them away in our backpacks.

Even though the rest of that drizzly day did not yield much in the way of edible mushrooms, I was satiated by the beauty of yellow maple leaves twittering in the air against the verdant velvet backdrop of the forest.  I also was secretly glorifying in the fact that I only needed to be willing to venture out on a typically wet Northwest fall day with boots and rain jacket to find my cure, I didn’t need billions of research dollars.

In Asian traditional medicine, Reishi has long been venerated as an immunity and longetivity tonic, but research has shown that it has no side effects and many other benefits as well. It has anti-tumor and anti-viral properties, regulates blood sugar, lowers choresterol and blood pressure, and supports the cardiovascular system.  My own experiential investigation into this medicinal mushroom verified its boosting qualities as I felt invigorated by coming into contact with it in its native landscape.  Good enough for me.

When I returned home from my foraging adventure, I sliced and dehydrated my two Reishi conks, storing them in glass jars for later use.  Today, I made a tea by putting a few slices into boiling water, and let it simmer for a few hours before drinking its slightly bitter woody cure.