Free Range Chicken Eggs, multicolored and cracked open, this is the color you want your yokes to be
My favorite way to eat a Good Egg
(a free range organic one)
A good egg is one that has a yoke bordering on orange, on strong orange. It is not a pastel yellow. A good egg has heft and weft and will make your mouth water when prepared properly. It can be from any particular fowl, but if you don’t like to feel or interact with your food, then you should just stick with chicken eggs. I only get eggs from friends, my local farm-share or I buy the ones that I know are free range and allowed to roam. This means they are more expensive, a real meal in a small container. If I cannot get good eggs, I don’t bother eating eggs in the following way. I only recommend this recipe with a GOOD egg. This recipe is for ONE person, just increase amounts of stuff if you are doing this for a friend. Slice an onion in half and cut the half into thin slices. Sauté it up in butter* until the onion is soft. Throw in a few leaves of fresh basil or parsley or tarragon and only sauté for ten seconds. Put more butter in your pan if you need to. Move the onions over to the side of your frying pa and then crack your egg or eggs over the butter. Cook them either over–easy (how I like mine) or over hard (how Kevin likes his). Sprinkle some good salt and pepper on top of your egg. Toast up a piece of really good rye bread, the dark stuff or some other favorite bread or a half a baguette.* Spread white goat cheese or cream cheese on the bread and put one chipotle chile over this and spread it all around. You can buy canned chipotle chilies in most stores if you aren’t the home chile canning kind of person. These are smoky flavored spicy peppers. If you aren’t a pepper lover, omit the chipotle. My parsley sauce or my pesto also work well if you don’t want the chipotle flavor. Place your cooked egg on the bread, put the onions and the basil over it and enjoy with your hands. This is a messy egg, a yolk spilling over the onions and bread and your fingers kind of egg. It’s an egg I engage with my whole being and I feel it in my blood and in my tummy saying yummy, yummy, yummy!
The Good Egg, with onions, goat cheese and chipotle peppers, gooey, messy and perfect!
*Dairy-free option is to omit the cream-cheese or goat cheese and instead of frying in butter use olive oil for onion and egg cooking. Gluten-free option is to omit the bread. I love this egg with fresh kale, so you can make the sloppy mess and put it over your lightly sautéed kale.
Despite my intrepid “fearless” nature in general, there’s something about being alone in a cabin in the woods at night. Surrounded by beauty, surrounded by quiet, surrounded by peace I still was unable to relax at night during my recent solitary birthday retreat. Every sound was something scary, I couldn’t get comfortable sleeping because I needed to face the curtained window that faced the gated entry, just in case that would give me warning when the headlights of some very wounded and crazy person showed up to murder me.
I wish it had been otherwise, but it wasn’t. I have all kinds of tools for navigating fear. I followed my tradition’s practice of the BedtimeShema cycle, which is extraordinary and addresses all manner of difficult things that could come and attack one, including ones fears about such things. All the prayers reassure one and surround one with the Archangels and speak of the Holy One being our rescuer. They are designed to gird you for the fears and terrors of night. I spoke all of them, felt better and fell asleep for ½ an hour, until the first bird or bat or leaf stirred outside and plunked on the roof.
I spent the nights in the bedroom of my friend’s cabin. They are a practicing Buddhist and a practicing Hindu and their space reflects that. Under the extraordinarily sunny golden Indian tapestry, with mirrors sewn into the pattern to ward of the evil eye, I was still afraid. On all sides of me there were deities of powerful protection. I had three Ganesha beings watching over me and a Buddhist one as well. I tried calling on them and even did a meditation where I imagined myself surrounded by beautiful elephants walking in a circle of protection around me. I just knew they would keep me safe.
I slept for an hour maybe until the next lizard outside scurried under a pile of dried leaves. I tried the Jewish prayers again, tried the meditation, tried getting up and having a cup of chamomile tea, tried turning all the lights on, tried lighting all the candles, tried reading, tried listening to my book on tape, tried listening to meditation music of water flowing, tried and tried and tried and was very tired. No restorative lengthy hours of sleep happened for me, despite all this trying (as in really working hard) TRYING!
I am not a taker of sleeping pills, but I’ll tell you what, I really wanted some and if I’d had any handy, I would have taken them for sure.
So, I napped during the day, here and there, and I kept trying for each of the four nights I spent alone to sleep more than a few hours. The first night of my retreat I had my husband with me and we were able to sleep several hours straight, until the mouse made noises like the apocalypse in the kitchen. Since my mate went and investigated and saw the mouse, he was able to return to sleep and I was as well. I was also next to him and in his arms. But, he wasn’t there the other four nights. So, I had to address my fears.
Or at least be honest about it. What does it mean when I trust the Divine and believe that my time to leave this earth is in the Holy One’s hands? If I really feel that to be true, why would I be afraid at night or ever? Fear is not rational though, it has nothing to do with what you believe or even know, it has a flow and power all its own and it is a VERY deep and core current.
Most of us, myself included, just do everything we can to avoid it. Some folks like dipping into the horror story narratives because it is just enough fear to make them feel stimulated, but then it is all pretend. Real fear, which isn’t about Hollywood zombie take-overs, is another thing entirely. Part of why I am going away on retreat is to look at my fear, so why should I be surprised when it comes to visit me? I just wanted to look at it, not be in it! Darn, it doesn’t work that way.
This territory is well-known to spiritual practitioners or all stripes. There are tools, stories, prayers, guidelines and every manner of helpful teachings to support ones navigating these waters. Clearly, I will need to call on more of them, then I had handy with me for this virgin voyage out alone.
By the final night of my stay, I was pretty sick of my own situation and determined to face this fear head on. I chose to set up a chair outside facing the valley and the front gate. I brought my loud bear horn with me and my small can of pepper spray. I wrapped myself in a shawl and was determined, not to even bother trying to sleep but to face the night and the dark. I had forgone going outside at night, too afraid the other evenings, to appreciate the wonder of stars and half-moon rising and setting. I went outside around 4:00 am, so I knew the dawn was about two hours away and this made me feel safer.
I sang some prayers, I was afraid and I cried and I looked out at the billions of stars shining light years away, who all were singing to me. I remembered that I am their kin and despite the small noises in the night, I stayed put to hear their night song and their long, long history song. I remembered that I am a tiny speck on a tiny speck in a vast Ocean on an expanding Universe journey. My life and its certain end, just are not that big a deal when you put yourself on the deck at night and face the starlight.
So, that’s what I did my final night, and I was still afraid, but I managed it. I didn’t sleep, but at least I spent time enthralled by the beauty of night and wow, I survived to write about it! As this month of Elulunfolds, we face all kinds of fears, consciously, like the fear of having hurt others, the planet, and the Divine. Not facing those fears, will not make them go away, they just loom larger. I think I will have to do a lot more sitting outside in the dark before I can comfortably sleep alone in the woods, but I will do it.
Just like I will face the truth of who I am and what I do that is harmful to others, to myself, to the planet. The Jewish New Year is not just about getting a new start, it’s about fixing and aligning oneself with what is right and true. This means looking deeply and cracking open our hearts. Wednesday, September 24th, the Jewish New Year/Rosh Hashanah will be ushered in right before the sun sets with the sounding of the ram’s horn which we call a Shofar. This sound pierces the soul and cracks through all our hardened shells (we call klippot). I invite you to be exposed and vulnerable and to let in something strange, wondrous and transformative and in doing so, I hope you find what is sweet and true in you and in all those around you. L’Shana Tova u’Metuka (To a Sweet New Year)!
~~~~~~ *Nicole unwinds, unwraps and unfurls her thoughts for you from her home in Bayside and she does so sometimes with twinges of fear, but mostly with great gobs of joy and wonder!
*Originally published in the Mad River Union on Wednesday, September 24, 2014
The air is thick with smoke from the large fire at Happy Camp. I am several valleys away from this fire, but it is still impacting the skies here. It is smoky in the mornings here where I am on retreat for my Jubilee (50th birthday). Nevertheless, it is extraordinarily perfect. It is quiet, except for bird song, squirrel chatter and lizard movements among the dry leaves. The smoke clears by mid to late afternoon, which is when the wind seems to pick up. My days have taken on a dreamy quality of time moving extremely slowly with no sense of urgency. This is absolutely what I wanted and needed. There is a profound restorative quality to this time. I was just about at the very end of my tank, even my reserves had been used up.
“The skin of the earth
covers its imperfections
Just as my face conceals
my vast uncertainty.
In the dry cracks of the earth
I find that it has bled
from the injuries of man.
The earth has healed itself
through time moving across
its tortured face of skin.
But what shall heal me except
the sun which makes cracks in my face
so that I can come together with my land.”
In the afternoons up here, I walk to the river, moving very slowly, so that I can come together with my land.
When I get to the river, it is cold and has deep pools as well as shallows. I immerse and rejuvenate, alone with the trout, crayfish, birds and water bugs, so that I can come together with my land. Besides immersing myself in quiet and cold water, I came here to do some work. The process of self-examination and hard work of this month of Elul, which is the month that precedes the Jewish New Year called Rosh Hashanah, is always pressing upon me. I’ve written about this before and I wasn’t sure what new things I could say here. My process this year, is of course, WRIT LARGE, because it is not just about a single year, but the last 49 years and my very conscious choice about changing direction and focus. In order to do this, I have to snip the old frayed threads or sew the ragged patches up, so that my body and soul can move into the next part of my brief time on this planet, so that I can come together with my land.
Elul reminds us that life is cyclical. We make mistakes, we grow, we fight, we harm, we love, we fall down and we do these things over and over until we are no longer able to. This cycle is as old as human consciousness. There has always been war, there has always been ugliness. There has always been fear and pain. There has also always been love, and tenderness, hope and reaching for Holiness and Wholeness and more folks working on mending what is broken than folks breaking things.
This cycle, my Mussar teacher gave us a very specific assignment. I’m used to making lists of people in my life I need to ask forgiveness from and I have a practice that is pretty automatic at this point. My teacher asked our class to start the forgiveness work this Elul by forgiving folks who had hurt us for the first ten days. She wanted us to make notations and to do this work internally. There is a daily forgiveness process in the Jewish tradition that is part of the Bedtime Shema, where we grant blanket forgiveness to all who have wronged us and ask that they not suffer on account of any wrong they have done to us. Only religiously observant folks recite this blessing regularly. I attend to it in Elul, but it is kind of automatic and non-specific.
This homework assignment was really different. I had never actually made a list of all the people I needed to forgive. It was not that long, but there were some biggies on the list. I wrote a name down, and then listed the hurt that person had done me. After I completed this part of the process, I started to chant the name of the person and to speak to them and tell them I forgave them for the wrong and the hurt they had done to me, as I did so, tears came and a huge sense of release in my heart. I found myself blessing these folks after I forgave them. I certainly did not expect any of this and it took me by surprise.
For the men who raped me, I forgave them for the harm they did me, but asked that my forgiveness be connected to justice unfolding and for them never harming another person again. I asked the Holy One to please help them to find health and healing and awareness. I’ve done years of work on this territory, in various therapies, and most of the hurt is no longer present for me. There are tiny droplets of pain that re-surface now and then. I can go great swaths of time not thinking on it– “I find that it has bled from the injuries of man. The earth has healed itself through time moving across its tortured face of skin.”
There were two folks on my list that I put aside for later, I am not ready or able to forgive them on some level. I can forgive the men who raped me, but not these folks who betrayed my trust and hurt my family. I will have to get some help from my teachers about these two people and how to not be holding onto this hurt. Elul is not an easy month for me and yet this process is amazingly liberating, even being able to identify that I am not able to release those people, is helpful. It tells me I have work to do. I don’t believe forgiveness is a simple thing or that I have to grant it. In my tradition I do not have to forgive someone until they seek my forgiveness and make amends. My choosing to forgive them ahead of their asking is completely on me and also part of a deeper spiritual practice.
There is enough sticky goo in all of our lives, old hurts and tattered remnants of messy memories and shattered feelings. I would rather be free of these so that I can be of good cheer and good service for this moment unfolding right now. It is late, almost midnight. More musings on how to let go of fear and be more present coming in the next few weeks. For now, though, you don’t have to be Jewish to take advantage of this time, make a list of folks who have hurt you, see if you can forgive them, and see how it makes you feel. Take a chance on letting go of old stuff, so that you can come together with the land, which has no choice but to forgive all the wrongs we do. Did the sun not rise today, did the vegetables forget how to grow? Forgiveness is the nature of earth and we are made of this lovely loamy stardust stuff.
Nicole comes together with her land and your land and any land she can by engaging with it, and then writing about it. This column was written high in the hills as Nicole turned 50 and is now officially “over the hill.” It appeared originally in the Mad River Union on Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Jewish folks have two birthdays; our Hebrew one, linked to the sun and moon cycles as well as in alignment with our Holy Days and then the Gregorian calendar one. I was born in Paris, France fifty years ago on September 4, 1964, this is my Gregorian birthday. My Hebrew Birthday is always the 27th of Elul, two days, before the Jewish New Year. My birthday is always connected to Rosh Hashanah(Jewish New Year). The piece of Torah being read the week of my birth, which is MY piece of Torah is Parshat Nitzavim(Deuteronomy 29:9-30:20)
This September 4th, as I turned fifty, I was alone in a cabin that belongs to some friends. I cannot take off yet for my extended solitary Jubilee retreat. I still have one more bird to launch out of this nest of mine. I do still want and need to set the tone though for space and time by myself. On August 31st, I am getting away and spending several days by myself with the river, the solitude, the creatures and whatever prayers, practices and angels are present with me.
The front view of my Retreat Space
Several folks have asked about what I am doing or if there will be some big bash. Many folks want to celebrate my fiftieth. I appreciate all of the love and care, and the only thing I really want is time alone. This makes it very hard for others to gift wrap. I am not trying to be difficult on purpose. What I want and need right now is just not the “usual.”
In order to navigate the territory of others wanting a celebration and my own desire to gift others, I will provide a luncheon for those who attend Rosh Hashanah/Jewish New Year services at Temple Beth El, this year. It will be the only “party” I intend to have. My friend Lauren Sarabia from Comfort of Home catering will make my birthday luncheon. The menu is Salade Nicoise, chocolate mousse and Key-Lime mousse. I will make the dressing and provide the champagne. This luncheon is sort of my final big hurrah for others. A very obvious and clear offering when and where I can announce my intentions for time off, time-out and time away while gifting folks with great food and bubbly.
The metaphor that I am using that works the best for me right now is of the shape of an hour-glass. My hands, body, being and energy have all been extending outwards and up, like the top half with all the sand in it, but as I draw near to this birthday, my energy, willingness and direction are all getting narrower and smaller and moving into the thin corridor at the exact middle point of the hour-glass. This is a hundred year “hour” glass. I hope I live to be one hundred, and there is good precedent for this in my family. Several ancestors have lived to be a hundred or older on both sides of my family.
I don’t know if I will be extending out or doing something completely different from what I have done on the other side of this narrow passage and time away. The next fifty years, on the other side of my Jubilee retreat, are mysterious unknowns. I have to go into this contracted physical space away from people and things first. As a woman who has given birth, and you don’t need to give birth to get this, contraction is a prerequisite for expansion.
Breathing in allows you to breathe out. My process of self-reflection, self-enclosure and self-return is an in-breath. Implicit in all these “selfies,” and underlying them is the need and desire to figure out how I am best supposed to serve the Divine and all of creation for the second half of my life.
I will no longer be actively parenting, I am no longer interested in working jobs that are not a reflection of my soul. If I can find a way to join my heart, skills, mind and ability to earn an income, that is the ideal. The terrain I will be navigating is going to be radically different. I want to consciously choose where and how I sail these sands. I do not believe that if I choose correctly or figure things out perfectly all money and goodness will flow my way. This is an overly simplistic and flawed view of how the universe works. Horrible stuff happens to great people, who are not doing anything wrong in any way and good stuff happens to jerks and cruel greedy folks. I do believe that my attitude and how I direct myself have impact on my present and future experiences and certainly they color how I experience what is happening in my life.
So, I am setting sail in a new direction. I am endeavoring to make this as easy as I can for those around me, those dependent on me and those who are used to having me around. I created a website for this purpose that really is an electronic version of me. The colors, the feel, the content are all me, it is a true Nicole zone and reflects my Open Heart, Open Hands policy. Even my sister, who was sure that this was impossible and resisted visiting my website initially, has agreed that it feels like me. So, while I am away, starting next summer, folks who really need a hit of me can go to www.ohohands.com or www.open-heart-open-hands.com and find me. You can go there now if you want as well. If you are reading this, online, instead of in the paper, you have already found me.
I’ve uploaded most of my cookbook with more recipes going up every week, a great deal of my past writings, from The Arcata Eye and the Mad River Union, older works, newer works and ongoing works. It’s been very exciting and truly feels like a wonderful new adventure. I have no idea where any of this will lead. I really am going “over the hill” and I have no idea what the other side looks like. I’ll still be sharing about that here. The next thing on my writing agenda will be a break in this series about my Jubilee Retreat and an exploration of the Jewish New Year and its attendant qualities that can help us during this very fraught time.
In honor of my 50th birthday, which was yesterday, I dedicate this posting to my mother, Helen Redman, who taught it to me and who doesn’t think of herself as a cook, but she did make this when I was growing up. She got the recipe from her dear friend Radka Donnell, may her memory be for a Blessing. Radka was Bulgarian and an extraordinary quilt and fiber artist. This portrait of her done by my mother is from when they were both young women.
Portrait of Radka Donnell by Helen Redman
This is the perfect soup for summer and it takes fifteen minutes to prepare but has to sit overnight or all day, so you can’t make it and then just eat it. I recommend preparing it early morning, if you want it for dinner or the night before. It is better two days out and not good after four days. It’s got a perfect window and within that window, there is absolutely NOTHING like it to cool you down and refresh your palette, and there is a super plus benefit of this being one of the easiest recipes in my repertoire, so even you can make this soup!
two to three cucumbers, you can use a combination of Armenian, Mediterranean, English or just two or three thin green ones. DO NOT USE A FAT bitter cucumber for this recipe and don’t use lemon ones, either.
a cup or so of walnuts, roasted right before you chop them up
a large container of organic whole milk or low-fat plain yogurt, Greek or Bulgarian is best, but any good whole milk yogurt will do. (don’t ever use non-fat for this recipe, if you do, I’ll come haunt you in your sleep)
fresh dill
olive oil
good salt and freshly ground black or white pepper
Dump the yogurt into a large glass, porcelain or stainless steel bowl (don’t use plastic for any of my recipes, EVER! Fill the container you just emptied with exactly as much water as there was yogurt previously, put the lid on the container and shake it up, dump half of it into the bowl, then shake again, get all the yogurt out of the container. Whisk this together by hand until it is all one consistency, you do not need to use an electric mixer, this takes less than a minute by hand. Pour in at least a tablespoon of really good olive oil, I sometimes do more. Add a pinch or two of good salt and some freshly ground pepper and whisk all of that together really well. Then add the peeled and chopped cucumbers.
Directions for proper way to cut the cucumbers: peel the cucumbers, don’t argue with me about this, this soup needs peeled cucumbers. Cut them into long quarters, so in halves lengthwise and then in half again and then slice them really thin. Taste the cucumber before you put it in the soup, if it is bitter, then don’t use that cucumber.
Next, chop up into small pieces, your 1/2-cup to one cup of walnuts, you decide how much walnuts you want, I LOVE the walnuts and so I use a full cup. I roast them whole in my cast iron pan and have them on hand all the time for snacking. Please don’t use old rancid walnuts. When you are cooking something fresh, use fresh ingredients for all the parts, so prepare ahead of time by buying fresh walnuts, or if you buy nuts and aren’t eating them regularly, keep them in your freezer, not in a cabinet in your kitchen.
Then add the freshly chopped up dill. If you cannot get fresh dill, buy some dried dill from the bulk bin at your local health food store, don’t use your old crusty dill that has been sitting in your spice cabinet for three years. I will rant for a minute about this. Most DRIED spices are only good for a limited time, I buy smaller amounts of them from my bulk bins and use them up and then get new ones. Also, if I travel or have friends traveling I ask them to pick me up spices from Morocco, Turkey, Spain or Israel, because they are frankly an order of magnitude stronger and better. Americans are generally way too moderate of palette where flavor, spices and all things food is concerned.
Add the nuts last, mix it all up with a large spoon then transfer this to pint size mason jars or whatever large GLASS containers you have with lids, DO NOT USE PLASTIC. You need to be able to shake or stir the soup once or twice before serving it, so don’t fill the containers up all the way.
Refrigerate for at least six to eight hours and stir, shake it up once or twice during that time. You will want to add salt individually to this soup when you serve it and not over salt it during the making of it. I always have a variety of salts on my table available for folks to dip into and add to their individual bowls.
Open Heart Open Hands 
