A Magical Muesli Recipe

Magical Muesli

A morning favorite, I adapt my original Magical Muesli recipe with every batch.

Substitute & ration ingredients as your taste-buds beckon.

"sharing this recipe is like having breakfast together."

• 1 pound organic oats (quick or rolled)
  
• 1/2 - 1 cup chopped nuts such as almonds or pecans
• 1/8-1/4 cup brown sugar (or honey, pure maple syrup or agave nectar)
• 1/2 cup wheat germ (sometimes also add oat bran or swap it with the w. germ)
  
• 1/4-1/3 cup ground flax seeds
  
• 1/4-1/2 cup organic unsweetened shredded coconut
• 1 cup bite-size chopped dried fruit combo like apricots & cranberries, raisins & apples
• Optional: sesame or sunflower seeds, wheat bran, cinnamon, etc.

To Prepare: Place oats & nuts into a large stove-top pot on low to medium heat and stir until nearly golden. Add the shredded coconut, the wheat germ (or oat bran), ground flax seeds & stir for another 8-10 minutes. Add any seeds (sesame or sunflower; listen to the sesame seeds pop). Add brown sugar (or sweetener of choice). Lower heat & continue to stir. Add chopped fruit & stir for another minute. Off the heat, remove pot from stove top & allow mixture to cool. Store in the fridge, in sealed containers, for up to 3 weeks (if it lasts that long). Serve at room temperature with milk or soy, yogurt and fresh fruit. Serving suggestions pictured above.

YakTrax Trial Trail Run

Today I ran through Ward Reservation to try out my new YakTrax. (Thank you, Santa P!) Stretching them over the soles of my trail shoes, while sitting behind the steering wheel, proved both challenging and humorous; they shot-off my sneaker like a rubber band before I could correctly align them. When I arrived the parking area was nearly empty but by the end of my run— an hour later—the lot was full. As this reservation is quite large (and safe), I only saw one woman being walked by her yellow lab.

Ward Reservation encompasses about 700 acres with a variety of fire roads and single track trails that meander through forests, across fields, over hills and by Solstice Stones. The reservation map reflects merely a portion of the existing trail network. It is beautiful in every season—even warmer deer-tick season. I love becoming purposefully lost in these woods. No matter where I am—by the bog or the beavers or Boston Hill—I am present.

This morning I didn't visit Elephant Rock as I usually do because the consistency of the snowy trails resembled room-temperature cookie dough. Instead I chose the Sanborn Trail, which offered flat to rolling terrain on semi-packed surfaces. Actually, snowshoes would have been a wiser choice for the trail and weather conditions today but I was eager to follow my "Trax." This little tuft of animal hair was waiting for me along the way.

At the beginning of the Bog Trail looms a short steep hill that when covered in deep mushy snow and run at a "cabin-feverish" pace proves to raise my heart rate four thousand times beyond resting. Here's a video of the flat trail leading towards that hill.

Trail Pixie Review of YakTrax: terrifix!
These rubber-baby-buggy-bumpers are wrapped with a mortal coil that grips ice and packed snow with a ferocious bite. Be sure not to cinch the Velcro straps around your instep too tightly or your tootsies might tingle.

Art Faculty Exhibit at Phillips Academy

The Phillips Academy Art Faculty Exhibit is on display until the second of February, 2009. Pictured here are a few of my pieces that are in the exhibition.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT
ON WORK

The mixed-media prints in this exhibit at Phillips Academy are from a series in which I unpack my experiences of clearing out my uncle’s house after he passed away.

Over two years time, I helped my father empty this same home where he grew up as a child in the 1930’s. His family resided in the four-apartment house for over a century and they amassed many treasures.


Depression-era saving practices filled crannies and corners and I harvested them—in closets, the attic, under beds and in the basement. The home pulsed with material tokens. Alters for a cousin’s young death, signifiers of an aunt’s Alzheimer’s, and my uncle’s inventions, waited besides boxes of Wright’s rickrack and purple pompoms.

I paused—along the collar of a dress my uncle pinned a wrinkled note to remind his wife to “wear the long slip with this one.” In the attic I wondered why the Singer was set up, needle and thread through broadcloth still. History emerged from closets and beneath tired peeled wallpaper.
These things are charged.

Disentangling findings and feelings in the prints, I compiled text and images from letters, photographs and books I unearthed while cleaning house. Digging more deeply, I now know these relatives more intimately after touching their belongings—their lives. In this series, I breathe new life into the potentially discarded.

(All art work is property of the artist and may not be reproduced without her consent. Thank you.)

Busy Busy Squirrel

Animals inspire me. Domestic, wild, woolly, free and flying animals also teach and entertain me. Those who know me vouch that I am apt to talk to animals and bestow them with anthropomorphic characteristics and personalities. This, paired with a creative visual bend and a love of metaphors, conjures source material for my art and entertainment on runs.

Meet Roxanne, a squirrel in search of her nut. She embodies the search for things and/or people misplaced or lost along the way.
Roxanne is also a relief print that I hand carved and printed today using a rubber plate and water-based inks. To learn more about relief printing click on this link: http://www.artoftheprint.info/relief.html.
To meet more animals, stay tuned.

No Hibernating in Wayne, Maine

This past weekend I headed down east to Wayne, ME, which is about 2 1/2 hours from home, to visit some family friends to "re-TREAT" and renew. I packed my Atlas Elektra snow shoes, Vasque Velocities, and my cross-country skis but ended up going for a hilly power walk instead in the negative 4 degree morning! The hike up Morrison Heights granted amazing views of frozen lakes drawn upon by snow mobile tracks, ice-fishing huts and deer tracks.

A Sunday snow storm delivered about 14 inches of the white fluffy stuff and I was gladly snowed in—a happy camper— in the only red house in town! Other highlights, in addition to warm company (S & Z), were the Wayne General Store's white ricotta pizza, friendly waving locals and pets, Stella & Nicholas.
(My sketch of Stella is to the left.)