[click to hear Clint's interview with Jeff Evans] Jeff and Erik, Everest Call it synergy, call it serendipity- on Feb 4 & 5, Telluride's Wilkinson Public Library, in conjunction with Telluride Adaptive Sports Program, presents Jeff Evans, mountaineer...
the background
The Showtime hit, "The United States of Tara," is about one woman with a multiple personality pile-up. In Tara's case, the condition is pathological. In Dr. Susanna Hoffman's case, it is merely circumstantial: her interests are as wide ranging as her achievements and talents.
Lucky for us, Susanna's gift for cooking – she has written five cookbooks – intersects with her passion for, no kidding, football.
The story is that growing up her older sister was all pink and lace and girly girl, and so she became the rampaging tomboy: "I knew all the baseball stars and football signals."
They sit glowing lime green, tawny ochre, brown gold, rusty red, in their bins at the market, thankfully almost always present, because they come twice a year, in summer and early winter. So it is rare that we undergo a dearth of pears, one sort or another always states “here I am” to the grocery list roll call.
For that reason, pears are a preferred fruit for a poached fruit dessert. Besides, their resolute flesh more than endures a hot treatment, it triumphs in it. But while pears are plentiful, there seems to be a paucity of ideas on how to poach them, almost always entailing some version of red wine. Rather, why not turn to white wine, and for a real twist flavor it with one of the herbal teas so popular now. Here the choice is chamomile tea simmered with white wine into a luxurious, silken syrup.
For fun, crunch, and color, top off the pears with a sprinkle of tasty, green chopped pistachio nuts. Green tea can also replace the chamomile, and a spoonful of a colorful fruit preserve can replace the nuts, make the dish fruit on fruit. Any way, the dish is an exceptional treat and will draw gleeful applause.
Year after year, AIDS activist and Telluride Aids Benefit board member Ron Gilmer gets up on his soapbox and argues that prevention is the name of the game to stop the spread of the pandemic. Restrictive government guidelines that politicize the issue and focus on...
This month’s focus for Jivamukti yoga is an interesting one. I am not sure exactly how the Telluride yogis are going to respond to hasahasana (laughter pose), but I am going to do my best.
One of my gurus and co-founder of Jivamukti yoga Sharon Gannon writes:
“Laughter is an ancient yogic healing technique that can rid you of deeply held negative emotions. It has profound therapeutic value in restoring wellbeing and health, leading to happiness. Laughter induces relaxation, and because of its ability to free the body and mind of pent-up emotions that are obstacles to self-reflection, it is a potent prerequisite to meditation. It is good when laughter is spontaneous, but when emotions have been buried for so long that they have become deep-seated tensions, the conscious practice of laughing can be very healing.”
Gannon then goes on to instruct students to roll around on the ground to induce laughing. Though we are not required as Jivamukti instructors to teach this exact approach to the focus, it is highly recommended. When your guru asks you to do something, a true yogi will take it upon himself to execute the request because performing a service for your teacher is one of the greatest acts of karma yoga.
Telluride local, Dr. Susanna Hoffman is an anthropologist, (Ph.D., U.C. Berkeley), and the author, co-author, or author/editor of ten books, five non-fiction, five on cooking, and two ethnographic films.
The list of her food titles includes “The Olives and the Caper: Adventures in Greek Cooking,” (Workman 2004), “The Well-filled Microwave,” (Workman, 1996), “The Well-Filled Tortilla,” (Workman, 1990), “Good and Plenty-America’s New Home Cooking,” (Harper Row, 1988), and the forthcoming “America’s Big Bold Food,” the later four all co-authored with Victoria Wise.
Susanna has written numerous papers, articles, columns, and reviews for collective volumes, food magazines, popular magazines, newspapers, and academic journals. She appears frequently on television and radio shows, such as “Good Morning America,” “Oprah,” “Discovery,” “The Food Network,” CNN, PBS, and gives numerous public addresses both nationally and internationally on disaster, food, food history, and other topics. She also gives cooking demonstrations.
by Dr. Susanna Hoffman
January is when the year’s crop of sweet, juicy oranges begin to arrive in markets. After many months from blossom, to bud, to fruit, they have now ripened on the trees of California and Florida, been plucked and crated, and delivered to stores awaiting their annual appearance. Oranges are a major crop in the United States. Spanish settlers brought them to America in the 1500s, having acquired them only a century or so earlier from the Arabs. The Arabs in turn had transported them from Southeast Asia to then disperse them on their forays about the Mediterranean. Oranges gave the farmers and cooks of Spain and elsewhere a new taste treat to play with. Soon they developed many types, the Seville and the Valencia among them, and added orange to many of their culinary delights. Following that tradition is an unusual, but stirring preparation for fish, incorporating both orange and Mediterranean-style sweet wine, with a touch of ancient, woody bay leaf.
by Dr. Susanna Hoffman
So standard are the selections in our markets, we rarely see some of the hundreds of varieties of citrus fruit that grows about the world. But every now and then, a sample of one of the ancient or very new sorts comes our way. Some are:
Kumquats - are a small citrus fruit, looking rather like orange fingerlings, that grow on a bushy shrub with dark green shiny leaves rather than a tall tree. They originated, were eaten, and admired in China and were unknown in the West until they were brought to England in 1846 by Robert Fortune, a specimen collector for The London Botanical Society. He envisioned them as a landscaping ornamental, not an edible, and that was how they first spread across Europe and to the Americas, as a garden shrub. Their bushiness is useful in creating boundaries and privacy, plus they are pretty and when blossoming, fragrant. They also taste wonderful, raw or cooked like powerful, but tart little oranges. In cooking they soften up. They are only available for short seasons once or twice a year.
Fourteen year old MacKenzie Mansour, from Lone Oak, TX, has been skiing with Telluride Adaptive Sports Program this past week. MacKenzie has a rare genetic condition known as Williams Syndrome. That has not stopped her from enjoying our mountain. I had the privilege of skiing...
[Click play button to hear interview] Regina Zwilling The first ever Telluride Yoga Festival was held last July and the crowd went wild: asana, altitude, and ahimsa proved a winning combo. The event was conceived by local Jivamukti instructor Aubrey...
