In one week more has happened than I can document in a short post; so I won't recount what has passed except to share this one shot of the balloons ascending at last week's Festival of Ballooning where Augustin's Belgian waffles were in demand. Instead I want to share the pure pleasure I experienced harvesting kirby cucumbers from my garden. The plant itself is a vine that runs about 8 feet along the west fence. What is amazing is that picking cucumbers recalls aspects of my childhood joy. Take a look at this flowering baby cucumber that turns into those pictured above in the green plate. What a smile they brought to me so I am sharing.

Anyway, my focus is on how to make quinoa sexy enough for people to buy. This week I will try a couple of recipes and share the one that tastes THE very best with you. What do you think.... perhaps quinoa with portobello mushroom wraps. More on that later.

I am trying to identify a cooking topic specifically related to a specific medical condition such as hypertension. This led me to a website I think you will find very interesting http://www.patientsmedical.com. There I found an excellent explanation of high blood pressure. And I like the approach this organization takes in addressing patient concerns. They don't take insurance but it makes me think more about how to better approach my own health issues and how to integrate alternative and conventional medicine into my self care. This website includes an open letter to from Dr. Kokayi, who is a conventionally and alternatively trained practitioner to President Obama about ways the community can be engaged in their health practice. He states:

"Plant medicines cannot be ignored and need not be turned into pharmaceutical agents. The Kings of antiquity had their own medicinal gardens and medicinal gardens with simple and well known plant medicines with clear indications for their use. Such plant medicines can be grown locally in community based initiatives.

The community based initiatives are the crux of what I want to address because if we only focus on a delivery system for sick care this country will never improve its health in a meaningful way. In the same way that the president elect was involved at a community level in helping groups of people empower themselves, there is room for the development of community health advocates who fall somewhere in between being barefoot doctors, public health advocates, and personal coaches. "

This line of reasoning does seem to feed into a trend. There's a rise in holistic health practitioners, an increase in students at natural cooking schools, and conscious everyday folk who want to know what they are putting into their bodies. Today someone asked why is "wheatgrass" called wheatgrass. I guess it's because "Wheat is a cereal grain, which means that it is a grass whose seeds are used for food." I don't think that is a satisfactory answer. I will return

If you have a suggestion for a cooking demonstration that targets a medical concern that you have, please let me know pronto. We have an event coming up in September. Someone special may be coming to town.