A star is born…and eaten!
Thank you summer4soul for my award! I am truly grateful for your recognition. I have made an about turn, for now, on my posting of awards and playing along with the “chain” of nominations. I simply can’t keep up with it and am selfish and only want to post what I want. Blah, so there you go — I said it. I have indulged my impatience for the daunting process of the awards game. I am not ungrateful, just lazy. I’d rather spend my time with quick posts or the original reason I started this blog– to showcase and discuss Food, Art and Poetry.
So for now I bow down to the blogging award gods and goddesses, and bid you farewell and happy blogging!
Yum Food!! Yum Art!!
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nutsfortreasure nominated my blog for the “Very Inspiring Blogger Award”
Here is what I had to do to accept:
1. Post the award image
2. Link to the person who nominated you. Thank you: nutsfortreasure again
3. Tell 7 Facts about yourself
My 7 Facts
1. I am an Artist and Poet; who craves interesting points of view artistically.
2. I am a HUGE dog lover, ( esp. love my Chocolate Lab, Khalil )
3. I am food crazed; cooking, eating, shopping and dining on/for unique, whole-some foods and more (ie. beer, wine and spirits)
4. I am a ghostwriter for blogs, articles and business’s.
5. I have a very LARGE extended family with lots and lots of cousins, cousins of cousins – and their kids (cousins).
6. I adore the grit, grime and maddening pace of a great city.
7. I have an amazing 16-year-old son who continues to inspire my hope and desire’s for humanity.
Nominate 15 other bloggers and tell them that you nominated them: ( Disclaimer: This is something I do not take lightly . I recognize that bloggers are a supportive, unique community, that shows great support for fellow bloggers, however, I see many, many awards out there. Maybe it is a bit saturated. I chose discriminately and had to cut a few favorites out to meet the required 15. Here is my select group of inspiring blogs that range from Writers/Poets, Foodie’s/Chefs to Artists/Art-supporters. Enjoy them all, I do.)
http://freepennypress.wordpress.com/backstory/
http://simpleprovisions.com.au/2012/06/22/homesick-toast/
http://thisfrenchfarmhouse.com/about/
http://silverpoetry.wordpress.com/
http://francocignelli.com/about/
http://veggiezest.com/about-me/
http://eatandrelish.com/photography/
http://hellisafourletterword.wordpress.com/about/
http://retconpoet.wordpress.com/
http://jeglatter.wordpress.com/about/
http://artsyforager.wordpress.com/about-2/
http://foodmadewithlove.wordpress.com/
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WOO HOO!!!!
Thanks to all my followers!
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This is a great painting from one of the great Masters of all time!
[www.frick.org] This fall The Frick Collection will present Vincent van Gogh‘s Portrait of a Peasant (Patience Escalier). The painting has not left its home institution, the Norton Simon Museum, in Pasadena, CA, in nearly forty years, making this a particularly rare and exciting viewing opportunity for East Coast audiences. This modern masterpiece will be shown in the Frick’s Oval Room from October 30, 2012, through January 20, 2013, and will be accompanied by lectures and gallery talks. The special loan is part of an ongoing exchange program with the Norton Simon Museum that began in 2009 when a group of five works from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries travelled to New York. Other loans have followed: the Frick’s Comtesse d’Haussonville by Ingres was shown at the Norton Simon in the fall of 2009, and Memling‘s Portrait of a Man is currently on view there, remaining…
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This post from Cultfit is something everyone should practice. Life is too short and sweet to race through and miss all the wonders of the world. Enjoy!
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Awesome ideas for summer dessert. I am going to try this for sure. If you try it too, send me a message!
Sorbets are here!!
Sorbet is my answer to this scorching heat and hot air this year. Pick up your favorite fruit and turn them into these icy cool, vibrant sweet treats. They are even guilt free– it does not get better than this.
You are golden if you have an ice cream maker! It basically means you can pretty much make sorbet out of any fruit you like.
For the rest of us (non ice cream maker holders) life will be easier if you pick fruits that have more pulp in it…like mangoes, strawberries, peaches, pears etc. Reason being, the pulp in the fruit helps the final product come together much…much easily and also the final result is more like the sorbet consistency. Whereas if you pick a fruit that has more juice…the final result will be more like italian ice.
I made two kinds of sorbet, pomegranate and…
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Found these very cool portrait paintings, reminiscent of Francis Bacon. Nice work!
I love to see artists who are classically trained doing something MORE. Anyone can paint a perfect still life with enough time and practice, but to truly see things differently is a great talent. Its great to see his realistic work (which, by the way, I think has amazing volume to it… another rare skill in a 2 dimensional medium), and then see how his abstract faces are eerily lifelike. Its like ghosts of ourselves, somewhere in there…
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Fellow poet
I found this and I Love this!
In recent years, when I am home, I tend to live in silence.
There is beauty in the near silence.
My TV isn’t on and neither is my radio.
Yet, there is the sound of the birds twittering,
the voices of children laughing,
the cicadas crooning in the evening,
and the frogs calling for mates after a good rain.
True, it isn’t a perfect silence.
There is the thrum of the neighbor’s air-conditioner.
the yipping bark of some pocket dog,
and the rumble of the occasional train that passes by.
Yet, each adds, not subtracts from the silence.
Each noise reemphasizes the beauty of the silence when it seems to reach perfection.
I live in the city, a vast collection of noise and turbulence.
And yet I find silence when I seek it.
I find solitude and peace in moments others seem to miss as they scurry to fill their…
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Community comes together
I love this idea! I hope it takes off around the world.
I grew up loving food, so much so that I fluctuated between 180 and almost 200 pounds from the time I was 18 until after marrying my hubs at 33, almost eight years ago (we joke that I was overweight and he was bleach-blond when we got married…must have been true love). Much of what I ate after leaving home as a teenager was consumed gluttonously and carelessly, without thought of origin or substance.
A few cherished food memories from my childhood lingered and nudged at me every time I looked a fast-food sausage biscuit in the face…seeing which cousin could pick the biggest, blood red tomato or neighborhood-wide admired zucchini from my “Paw Paw’s” garden, carefully tended every year; gorging on watermelon or pomegranates in summer gleefully with my Dad on our back porch; sweet summer corn slathered in butter, salt and lots of pepper, plucked from the bed…
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Foodie photo’s
Here are some beautifully composed foodie photo’s.
So, this dessert is healthy, tastes delicious, promotes local business & farmers and can be vegan as well.
Ever since I discovered fresh coconut milk (if you are a frequent visitor, you must have heard me blabbering about how I love the fresh coconut milk) I’ve been trying to develop this recipe.
I was extremely happy with the results. The mild flavor of coconut custard complimented with the tartness of fresh strawberries and the intense flavors of balsamic vinegar and dark honey.
I was very pleased with the way this dessert tasted for a few reasons:
- I did not use any sugar in it, only honey.
- I used two different kinds of honey- a mild one to sweeten the custard and a dark one for the balsamic sauce.
- The honey (both) were organic and I bought it from the local farmers at Auroville. Therefore making it a “Real” ingredient.
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Night out
Cocktails and good grub at Sarasota’s Half Shell Oyster House
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Single malt scotch on the rocks!
Blue claw crab cakes and fried green tomatoes!
Spinach artichoke dip!
And some crispy fried okra!
Great food, good company and a beautiful night out in downtown Sarasota!
Yum Food! Yum Art!
© [Jay Mora-Shihadeh] and [artistfromtheinsideout.wordpress.com], [2012]. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material, artwork, or photo’s without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to [Jay Mora-Shihadeh] and [artistfromtheinsideout.wordpress.com] with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
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Apple Crisp
We had alot of apples on hand and decided to whip up this healthier version of apple crisp! When I say healthier I mean cutting out white sugar for agave and adding oats and flax seed to our topping. Turned out yummy and we felt better about eating it, we opted for frozen vanilla soy ice cream to keep with our healthy theme too. Not too awful, we like the brand made with coconut milk better though. But this was a little cheaper on our wallet!
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Comfort food
Spinach Florentine soup with fresh basil!
Easy to make if you use a rotisserie chicken and a good quality low sodium broth.
Ingredients for my version:
I lemon pepper rotisserie chicken
2 32 oz low sodium broth/ stock
1 medium onion
3-5 garlic cloves
1 16 oz bag of frozen spinach
A bunch of fresh basil
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
Extra virgin olive oil @ 3 tablespoons
1/3 cup of grated parmesan
1/2 Lemon
1/2 box of whole wheat pasta shells
Salt/ pepper to taste
Gremolata (1/2 cup finely chopped basil or flat leaf parsley, 1 clove minced garlic and 1 tablespoon, or so, of lemon zest stir together)
In a stock pot sautee’ onion, and garlic in olive oil, season with salt and pepper, add a small handful of basil chopped.
Add nutmeg and white pepper.
To this add the broth and spinach.
Simmer a bit, add the parmesan and then squeeze in the half lemon, season more if needed. Par boil the pasta separately then drain. Add pasta to the stock pot and simmer ’til done.
After simmering a bit add the shredded chicken pulled off the rotisserie to some bowls and ladle soup over top.
Add more Parmesan and a pinch of the gremolata for a whopping punch of flavor!! Bon Appetit!
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More veg only nights
Here is another great veggie only night, put together by my lovely fiancee’.
Black bean hummus with assorted veggies fruit and crackers with of course some bubbly spirits to accompany it!
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Curried potatoes and peas
Curried potatoes with peas. A veggie night for dinner? Spice it up to keep it unique and fresh. Experiment with your spice rack to come up with different flavor profiles. This quick dish was a hearty and tasty bite! Yum food! Yum art!
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Christmas dinner
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Christmas dinner
We had a nice relaxing Christmas holiday this year. The tree was trimmed, lit and looking great.
I made filet mignon for our dinner, with whole roasted sweet onions and rosemary.
My version of a bloomin’ onion:
I Split one sweet Vidalia onion in half, doused it with extra virgin olive oil, some salt and pepper, and lots of fresh chopped rosemary.
Then I roasted it for an hour at 375 degrees until it got all carmelized and soft, a wonderful side to a perfectly cooked medium rare filet mignon.
For dessert, a Cranberry Blueberry pie baked from scratch , the perfect Christmas pie!
Ta da, baked to perfection, golden , hot, bubbly, and rustic!
Just the way I like my pie’s.
Topped with some vanilla bean ice cream and I’m in a pie state of mind!
Yum Pie!!
We also had some fresh baked Christmas cookies dropped at our door by our neighbor Joan.
After we had our fill of food everybody chilled on the sofa watching a movie.
The doggie was in heaven this day!!
All in all it was great food, great people, and great times.
On to 2012, Happy New Year everybody!!
Yum food!! Yum Art!!
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The dark side of diet soda
Here is a great article I found on why diet soda is and soda in general is (in my opinion) so bad for human consumption!
Read on…
Let’s face it, we all feel that we need to cut calories at some point in our lives. And, we look for any avenue we can to make that cut. As you may know, the beverages that we drink each day – juice, sodas, lattes and energy drinks – contain a good amount of sugar. So, why not opt for the “diet” option of these drinks that contain no (or less) calories.
Whether you are a Coke or Pepsi person, you have no doubt heard all of the hype about the risks of drinking diet soda. Does it, in fact make you gain weight? Are artificial sweetners safe? Weighing the risks of drinking these no-calorie beverages can get you a little confused. They tell you to watch your calories, so you opt for a no calorie drink, right? But are the risks associated with drinking this care-free beverage worth it?
Stacey Kuhns, MD, a family medicine physician with Whiteland Medical Associates for Progressive Health, explains that although diet sodas contain no calories, there have been studies that show that drinking diet soda can cause weight gain – which may sound a bit like an oxymoron, right?
“Weight gain caused by diet sodas is speculated to occur through two mechanisms. First, it stimulates the appetite. When a person consumes diet soda it tastes sweet. Therefore, the body starts to make insulin in anticipation of the glucose (sugar) that is coming. However, since there is no true sugar in diet soda, the blood sugar level starts to drop which stimulates the appetite. Hence, we eat more when we drink diet soda.”
“The second way diet soda can cause weight gain is through the increased toxic burden it puts on our bodies,” adds Kuhns. “There are no ‘whole foods’ found in diet soda. This means that it is essentially made up of all chemicals that are not ‘natural’ for us to consume. Your body recognizes artificial sweeteners as a toxin and moves to store it to the safest place in the body which is fat tissue. Your body then attempts to dilute the chemical with water, causing added water weight in the body.”
So, should we cut soda out of our diet all together?
“Soda should be drank in moderation and only a couple times per week,” warns Kimberly Knipe, registered dietitian at The Chester County Hospital. “A can of regular soda can contain the equivalent of 10 teaspoons of sugar. So, if you drink regular soda, I would prefer you drink diet instead. Artifical sweatners are safe in moderation and contain less calories. However, the ideal beverage for anyone, whether they are on a diet or not, is water.”
“Water is alkalizing and anti-inflammatory to the body,” explains Kuhns, “unlike soda – diet or regular – which is acidifying and inflammatory to the body. To someone who is an avid soda drinker, water may sound boring. Spice up your water with a sprig of mint or a slice of lemon or lime. For a more subtle flavor, try a slice or two of cucumber or a frozen strawberry.”
“Just like any habit, it is best to reduce the consumption of soda slowly,” says Knipe. “I suggest a four step program. First, you have to commit to the goal of cutting back on your soda consumption. Then, if you are drinking regular soda, gradually switch to diet soda. Ultimately, begin drinking caffeine-free soda. Caffeine, in fact, is mildly addictive which makes soda such a hard habit to break. Decrease the number of caffeinated drinks you have each day as you work toward kicking the soda habit completely. Finally, take the step to become a ‘non-soda drinker’ by choosing healthy alternatives as your beverage of choice.”
This message brought to you by The Chester County Hospital and Health System.
The Artist From The Inside Out 