Nourishing Spoon

When I woke up yesterday to water my plants in my little patio garden, I kept searching for baby pepper plants since I saw it had started to flower.  I kept looking up and down for a tiny baby pepper. To my astonishment and delight, there in the midst of the chives and parsley lay a full-size pepper!  Where did this come from?  I was totally taken, here I was hunting for some tiny little thing and all of sudden I was the proud parent of a real pepper. What a thrill!  I gave a shout of joy and surprise when I first saw it - I couldn't believe my eyes.  This is the first time I have grown a pepper.  Gardening is new to me - started a mini garden last year and was afraid to go on vacation in case the tomatoes would die. You can relate to that can't you?  Yes?  I get my gardening tips from my friends Lydia and Perla and also from Trina, of Silver Heights Farms, who is at the Union Square Farmers Market on Wednesdays. Gardening is...

The holiday season is a time of meeting and greeting, feasting and drinking, buying and spending!  We stress over purchasing that perfect gift, decisions between pink or green, small or medium, merino wool or cashmere, UGGs or Hunter!  Decisions, decisions...more decisions.   Our inbox is blasted with emails - "Final Day for 40% off," "Buy one, get second half off," "Take an extra 30% off and Free Shipping."  Such temptations!  Amex and MasterCard must be doing a happy dance. I was surprised to see After-Christmas sales emails on Christmas Day which enabled you to purchase online on Christmas Day for the new low, discounted price!   Shopaholics must love what technology/Internet has done to feed their passion. Christmas and the holidays have become so commercialized. We get all worked up with trying to give the best gift that will please those close to us, that we forget that the gift is just a token.  It is the feelings that...

Laughter Yoga is a unique total workout which has become a worldwide phenomenon with more than 6,000 social laughter clubs in 65 countries. In Laughter Yoga one can laugh for no reason at all.  It starts out with simulated laughter, with a little childlike playfulness, which turns into a genuine and contagious laughter. The concept of Laughter Yoga is based on a scientific fact that the body cannot differentiate between fake and real laughter. One gets the same physiological and psychological benefits. Laughter Yoga has become a "hot" topic of discussion in the media.  There was a segment on the Oprah Winfrey Show; couple of weeks ago Dr. Oz did some laughter yoga on his show; and today CNN released a feature on Laughter Yoga! Please click on the link below: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2010/05/03/nat.world.laughter.day.cnn Laughter Yoga: * Relieves Stress * Reduces Pain * Aids Digestion * Improves Sleep * Lowers Blood Pressure * Improv...