Hello, how are you doing? I wanted to show you some delicious foods we ate lately. Cactus fruits, wild mushrooms, Halloween soup.
cactus fruits
You know nopales cactus is sacred to me. Part of the sacredness is how ordinary it is, and commonplace.
- out in the desert
- by parking lots
- in many yards
- in gardens
- by the roadside
- in vacant lots
- as bio fencing
- home for lizards, spiders, bugs
- food for animals
Ordinary but gorgeous, I love how nopales cactus pads grow from other pads. The flowers and fruits are cool, and the spines I hate yet love.
I ate the leaves, but I never ate the fruits. It was great to buy the tunas from a Latin American family at a farmer’s market in Davis, California. The worker advised me about spines and how to know when they’re ripe. So we let them ripen in the bag.
Then I cut into two and tried the fruit. It was very seedy and tasted a lot like a watermelon to me. Hmm, the joy of knowing!
wild mushrooms
We have a friend who lives in Oregon and is a mushroom expert. When we saw him in September, he gave us mushrooms, including a ziptop bag of dried oyster mushrooms.
Ming and I soaked the wild mushrooms in just-boiled water, and we used them in a rice dish and then a pasta sauce. Ming loved them.
I wish mushrooms agreed with me. They are delicious, and I’m glad Ming can eat them. Thank you to our kind friend.
Halloween soup
I made some beautiful Halloween soup. I picked greens from the garden of the friends we were housesitting for in the Bay Area. And I used a sweet potato and onion I found on their counter. Garlic was from the farm we lived on in Oregon.
Felt so nourishing, and I wanted to eat more and more. I put miso and tahini at the end, turmeric, and fresh ground pepper. Then I ate mine with some leftover rice.
I added red chile flakes in Ming’s serving and left out the tahini, as he doesn’t need creamy. Halloween is for the harvest feeling of the season, but also the beautiful orange color.
you
Are you eating delicious foods like cactus fruits, wild mushrooms, Halloween soup? What does your body most need right now? How does your body tell you what it needs?
I talk to my body a lot; I tell her sweet reassurance.
- I trust you.
- You are a good body–very good body.
- I believe in you.
- I will always be here for you.
- You matter to me.
- I love you just the way you are.
Do you talk to your body? I hope you have a good time, being embodied, and deep happiness like me. The storms of life can come and go, but you’ll always be ok because you truly love yourself and other people.
