Recently I was sent some pictures from home showing some of the fruits and veggies harvested, plus a cute little visitor who was hanging out on the sweet peas!

This past month yielded kale, celery, sungold tomatoes, strawberries, borage, and sweet peas. After taking pictures of the caterpillar, he was put on the ivy so he wouldn't eat all the goodies!

These pictures make me a tad homesick, but so happy too. I don't mind sharing some of my garden treats with the caterpillars!

My wonderful friend and mom of three Alex Keeling Thompson, who previously blogged about organic sheets and her son Maxime’s experience with getting off dairy, recently told me about the amazing children’s book author and artist Tiana Krahn. Tiana’s books are about peace, love, and diversity and the books themselves are manufactured using recycled paper and veggie-based inks. Take a look at what Alex has to say:

Tiana Krahn’s Beautiful Children’s Books
By Alex Keeling Thompson 

Tiana Krahn is sending the most beautiful message of LOVE and PEACE to the children of the world through her books. Her publishing company is called Honeymoon Press and produces environmentally and socially responsible children's books. These books seek to gently introduce the universal concepts of peace, love,
diversity, and unity to the young reader.
 
LOVE takes children on a magical journey of how good it feels when you love others and yourself. PEACE reminds us that there are people all around the world who live their lives in peace - people who are happy because they live in harmony. These messages are simple, powerful reminders for children to connect with and feel good about themselves and others around them.
 
Honeymoon Press is committed to making ecologically sound choices in the manufacturing of the books. They only use 100% post consumer waste paper and veggie based inks for the printed material.
 
The illustrations in Tiana’s books are amazing and help the reader to connect to all the different parts of the world. It is great to know that this amazing vegetarian, mother, artist and author is making such a positive impact in our world spreading messages of love and peace. Keep up the good work and please keep making new ones!!!!!

These books can be found at Honeymoonpress.com or the following stores:

New York

Little Marc Jacobs
382 Bleecker st
NY, NY 10014

Southern California

The Little Seed
219 N Larchmont
LA, CA 90004

Lost & Found
6320 Yucca St
LA, CA 90028

Sparrow
3266 W Cahuenga Blvd
LA, CA 90068

Yolk
11626 Silver Lake Blvd
LA, CA 90026

Lisa Kline Kids
123 S Robertson Blvd
LA, CA 90048

Northern California

Copperfields Books
140 Kentucky st.
Petaluma CA 94952
&
2316 Montgomery Dr
Santa Rosa CA 95405

Mr Moon’s
316 Center st
Healdsburg CA 95448
&
1365 Lincoln Ave
Calistoga CA 94515

Diesel
5433 College Ave
Berkley CA 94618

Mariposa Market
600 S Main St
Willits CA 95490

I hope you had a great long weekend!

Leisha’s birthday came before I left for Detroit to shoot Vamps, so we had some nice quality time before I took off! Six of us went to Elf Cafe for dinner, which was so good . We had such a nice dinner at one of our favorite places in LA.

Yum Elf!

Waitress at Elf

Waiter at Elf

 Waiter and Chef at Elf - the staff all own the restaurant together!

Elf is run and owned by the nicest, grooviest people....so sweet and beautiful with such kind energy. It has the best vibe in LA! You can bring your own booze, and the food is delicious. My favorites that night were the pickles, the oyster mushrooms, the kale salad, the cabbage salad, the flatbreads with dip on the table, the olives infused with orange, the water that is cucumber-infused, the fennel, and the beet carpaccio.....oh, it's all soooo good!

More food from Elf

We went there for my birthday almost 2 years ago now, and it was so nice to go for Leisha's birthday. Leisha, Nina, Christopher and I all had our first date there too...after we first met. You must run to Elf, it's such a sexy, great place, and so comfy.

Frankie

We often run into friends there, as we did that night - our friend Frankie, whose daughter Sonny we were playing with at Laura and Woody's just that morning! I also met a Kind Lifer from Texas, Nicole Stewart, with her husband - what a nice young woman! It was so great to meet them.

After Elf, we went to the Observatory, sat at picnic benches and ate ice cream that Nina and Leisha brought from Kind Kreme. We tried 5 flavors: the Salted Caramel, the Superfoods and the Mint Chip were all faves, but the biggest winner was the Salted Caramel.

What a great night! It was so sweet to see my friends and celebrate Leisha's birthday. I left a week after that for Detroit, which is where I am until the end of September - so it was nice to spend sweet time together before I left. Happy birthday, Leisha!

I'm sharing our last few social dates with you because they all included guess what? Food!

Christopher and I spent the 4th of July with Leisha and Nina. We saw a movie and brought our own popcorn! We had a mellow day, and it was very nice. To be honest, I don't like the 4th of July very much - the fireworks bum me out (they’re noisy, I worry for the animals, and they don’t seem very Earth conscious...seems wasteful and silly to me and not very pretty...I guess I'm a scrooge!). So we had fun our own way, minus fireworks! Leisha's popcorn was delicious - here is her recipe:

Leisha's Popcorn

Ingredients

• organic popcorn kernels
• your favorite kind of oil
• soy butter (optional)
• salt
• used paper bag

Here's what Leisha says about her popcorn:

"This is how my Dad made popcorn when we were kids. Put a layer of popcorn kernels so it just covers the bottom of the pot - don't pile them, just a thin layer. Then take your oil and pour enough so it covers the bottom half of the kernels. Put a lid on your pot and turn your burner on high, and keep shaking the pan back and forth slowly over the fire. Soon you'll hear it popping. Keep shaking! Then the lid will start lifting. Have a used paper grocery bag ready (it's a fun way to reuse one!) and dump the popcorn in it. Turn the stove off. The pan will still be very hot. Take your favorite soy butter or olive oil and put it in the pan until it melts - roll it around so it doesn't burn. Then slowly pour it over the popcorn and salt at the same time. Close the bag and shake it up, then repeat! Roll the bag up so it stays warm and head to the movies. When you're in your seat, roll the sides of the bag down till it's in the shape of a bowl and go to town!"

Leisha and Nina also had a whole spread of farmer’s market treats for us – it looked so pretty and was so good!

The following Saturday my husband and I went to one of our favorite places in LA, Inaka. It's awesome! You must go. I had a half miso/half kabocha squash soup that was sooo good. Then we had deep-fried mochi with grated daikon, (I know, deep-fried! The horror! When it is cooked correctly it isn't bad for you. And the daikon cuts it...I find it very nourishing, delicious, and energizing). After that I had stewed daikon and stewed kabocha, along with some pickled cabbage. Christopher had udon noodle and vegetable soup. It was all so good! Then we went to see a film called I Am Love. We brought our own popcorn with us, but my batch wasn't as good as Leisha's! I used my air popper....lame compared to Leisha's! I'm doing hers from now on!

This is the bag of popcorn we snuck into the theater

That Sunday we went to watch the World Cup final at our friends Woody and Laura's house. It was so sweet to see them and their whole family, all 3 beautiful girls. They are like family, we love them! There was such great food at their house. Justin Boa brought "cheese" from a new raw place called Mooi, and Laura made a great noodle dish with lotus root, burdock, and some amazing kale that she got from Mollie's garden. Mollie is the gal who makes the raw vegan ice cream at Kind Kreme in Studio City. All the food was delicious! After the soccer match, I went home and did some work and took a 15 minute nap. Then it was time for Leisha’s birthday - I'll post my blog about those festivities tomorrow!

Kind Lifer Tara recently shared her success story about overcoming UC (ulcerative colitis), and how she has almost eliminated her need for medication. Real food  is the medicine that our bodies need! Check out Tara’s story:
 
“I have had UC (ulcerative colitis) for 6-7 years. My last flare up just happened to coincide with going vegetarian. At the time a lot of people thought that the two were related although I felt it was all stress related. My doctor agreed that the stress was probably the culprit and adjusted the medicine I was on increasing one dosage and adding two other medications. After about four months I felt better and would continue to have minor flare ups and symptoms on and off for over a year and a half.

In January I decided to try becoming vegan and it was a little harder than I thought it would be. I have been 80-90% vegan and have felt much better. My last check up was two weeks ago and much to my doctor's surprise (and mine too!) there are no signs of UC at all! I am now only on one medicine and the dosage has been reduced.
 
Not only do I feel that diet is the main reason that I have no signs of UC but family members that thought that being vegetarian was causing my illness to flare up are now telling people that the diet is what has helped me to get better. I now feel much more motivated to go cut dairy out entirely.”
 
Way to go Tara! Keep us posted on your progress!
 
If anyone has a great success story to share, post it in the forum and “like” it. I’ll be sure to check it out, and your story may get featured on the blog!

June 6th was my mom’s birthday, so Christopher and I drove to see her for a surprise visit and birthday meal! I did all of the cooking and we had a great time hanging out with my parents and their dogs.

My cheesecake from The Kind Diet...yum! My mom loves cheesecake and she actually loved this one too! She is a tough critic when it comes to tea and dessert

My mom had made the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups from my book and had a huge stash in her fridge that she makes without the chocolate  

Christopher dancing with mom's new rescue dog

Here’s the meal I made:

Lunch

• Quinoa with Basil and Pine Nuts (p. 224 in The Kind Diet)
• Warm Potato, Soybean, and Cucumber Salad (p. 178 in The Kind Diet)
• Sugar Snap Peas, Radishes, and Edamame with Lemon Butter (p. 167 in The Kind Diet)
• Arame Turnovers (p.260 in The Kind Diet)

Sugar snap peas, radishes, and edamame

This is a picture of me soaking the beats to get the dirt off...instead of running water, which is wasteful

Beet salad

Dinner

• Watercress, Beet, and Heirloom Tomato Salad (p. 173 in The Kind Diet)
  *For this salad, we soaked the beets in water to clean them. This is a great way to wash them and save water!
• Radicchio Pizza with Truffle Oil (p. 144 in The Kind Diet)
• Mixed Berry Cheesecake (pictured above; p. 192 in The Kind Diet)

The radicchio pizza

Me with my dad

Mom and Christopher picking lemons

My mom's birthday was really sweet and nice!

Photo Credit: Shawn Laksmi

Tevia Celli-Recht is an amazing human being. She is also the very best spin instructor I've ever had. If you are in LA, you MUST run now and take one of her classes at Updog Cycling and Yoga on Santa Monica Blvd. in West Hollywood....and she has her own over-the-top delicious vegan baking company, The Lil' Vegan Baker That Could. Connect to the previous blogs about her here and here.

Tevia is an insane athlete who also has MS (multiple sclerosis). She manages her MS symptoms through a plant-based, vegan diet and some supplements, and this combination has literally halted her MS symptoms! Among her other pursuits, she has invented a fitness machine called the E-Ryde.  It's so groovy.  It doesn't require any electricity or power to work....so it's super enviro just like a spin bike!!  

I love taking her spin classes; she is seriously the best spin teacher I have ever found. I missed her SO much when I was in NYC for the play. Her class is great and difficult, deep and wonderful. She inspires you to keep adjusting and teaches joy and wellness.  She focuses on making sure her students keep proper alignment while they are spinning. I've found that many teachers do not do this and they look so unsafe on their bikes - it makes me cringe! Tevia keeps you safe while pushing you to be your best!! She is just such a bad-ass.  Her class is really a meditation, as you are constantly thinking of keeping your shoulders down, your back relaxed, trying to make your lats touch together (I'm probably saying that wrong but you know what I mean), keeping your tummy in, positioning your butt way over the seat and opening your heart.  She also teaches not to push down with your feet but to pull your legs up into your stomach, and to wiggle your toes and relax your hands. Tevia explains this better in the class....she is sexy up there with her passion, commitment and force! Her classes are empowering, they strengthen you and make you appreciate your life. She is truly a superhero to me!

I also recently met a young woman in Tevia's class named Amanda. She said she had read The Kind Diet and had her mom read it and they are now both on our journey. She is a Kind Lifer on our site. It makes me so happy when I meet you guys!

Tevia did the MS Ride for 4 years, as well as a spin-a-thon for them, and raised $600,000 for the organization!! She says they are a great organization as far as offering services for people with MS, such as paying medical bills and providing food for those who are too sick. They also do a lot of research that one day might find a cure for MS. She is now focusing her efforts on Dr. John McDougall's research, which uses a low-fat vegan diet for MS and has shown great success. Tevia decided Dr. McDougall could use her help, so she is no longer doing the MS ride. As she is now working with Dr. McDougall, she decided to resign from the National MS Society (Southern California) Board of Trustees, as she believed it would be a conflict of interest for her to keep her post there while raising money for a particular MS study. Her feelings are that she knows this diet has worked for her, and although it might not work for all MS patients, it could benefit many. MS has so many different degrees of the disease, so those like Tevia who do not have a progressive type strongly benefit from Dr. McDougall's research.

You can learn more about Dr. McDougall's research and donate to his efforts here.

I applaud Tevia for turning her efforts toward healing instead of research and such. The food that doctors provide to sick people with MS is likely not the food that could heal them. As far as the "one day we'll find a cure" idea goes, I believe that the cure is in prevention. So yay Tevia!

Mary Cordaro is a healthy home guru and can cure "sick building syndrome" or "sick home".

She focuses on creating a healthy, green  workplace and home using the fields of Bau-Biologie (Bau-Biologie translates as "building biology", a discipline from Germany dedicated to improving how our homes impact our lives and the living environment) and Building Science with very low consumption so that you are truly living an ecological lifestyle indoors.  

It all started in 1989 for Mary, when she was working on trying to create an eco-friendly environment in her own home. She wanted to use materials that had very little effect on all of us and the planetary health. Since then Mary has gathered a team of specialist to test and eliminate contaminants, electromagnetic fields, mold and chemicals in indoor spaces. Mary continually works with architects, contractors, designers, health practitioners, and medical doctors to find more ways to improve our indoor environment.

Mary is available for consultations and she also sells water purification systems and air cleaners which are found on her online store. The water purifiers and air cleaners offered from Mary Cordaro Inc. are sophisticated and state of the art. They are more effective than most conventional filters and will do a great job at protecting your family from awful chemicals that pollute your indoor area. You can also learn more about healthy indoors in the multi media section of her website. I finally switched my water system over to one I got through Mary.  I was stubborn, and it took me a long time to do it, but I did and I’m very happy with it!  I’ll blog soon about picking out a water filter for your home, and why I struggled so much with this decision.

Mary is expensive...so private consultations are not for everyone.  But she does have great info on her website for free, and she teaches classes.

Homes can have 50 times more contaminants than the outdoors...so if you are sick, or have any suspicion that your home has mold in it, it would be very important to call Mary ASAP. It’s so worth it.  

I’ve learned some great things over the years from Mary, and I will be sharing that info with you. But for those of you who would like to have a coach for your home – someone to make your home the healthiest and most environmentally friendly you can – and you have the dough to pay for it, she is an amazing resource.  She charges by the hour, so you can get a lot of info from her if you need it!

Mommy & Me Yoga
By Desi Bartlett

Like many traditions, Yoga is handed down from one generation to the next and is often shared within families. In my own family, my mother was a dedicated Yogini. My mother's guru (teacher) was Goswami Kriyananda, the founder of the Temple of Krya Yoga in Chicago. I can remember going to initiation as a little girl, and receiving my first mantra [sacred syllable] when I was six years old. I learned pranayama [work with the breath] and meditation when I was very young and continue to practice these techniques daily.

Now that I am a mother, I am excited to share Yoga with my son Cruz. I practiced Yoga throughout my pregnancy, and went back to the physical practice when he was six weeks old. I would lay him down on my mat, and go through my own practice while he cooed and giggled at me. After a few weeks, he started to get a little anxious because he wanted to move too! I started to pick him up and involve him more in my practice. This was the birth of our personal Mommy & Me Yoga classes, classes that provided the inspiration for a weekly class I teach that is open to mothers and babies ranging in age from four to thirteen months.

I experimented with many different Yoga postures to see what made sense to share with my son, and what was best to do on my own. Some of the postures I practiced with him happened to be postures that strengthened and toned the muscles that were over-stretched during pregnancy. My physical benefits from our practice include core strength, opening the chest (often tight from breast feeding) and toning the upper arms. The emotional benefit of connecting with my son and sharing the gift of Yoga has been amazing. Watching his joy of movement is truly inspirational.

In class settings, helping new moms rediscover their physical strength while spending quality time bonding with their baby has been a joy. Each mother has her own journey into parenthood, and every day there is a new story to share. For this reason, we begin our class with each mom sharing something that happened that week with her baby. A new tooth, sleeping through the night, and discovering solid foods are all cause for celebration. The babies delight in visiting with their friends, and dancing with mommy. I believe they are also learning about the importance of health and wellness, as their mother models this behavior for them in such a positive way.

The learning is not just a one-way street. The babies in Mommy & Me Yoga classes are natural yogis and powerful teachers. So much of what we learn in Yoga involves staying in the present moment and not getting lost in past events or anticipating the future. Babies are completely in the moment and eager to engage in movement. Also, practicing beginner's mind and attitude - including laughing when we fall can be incredibly challenging for an adult, but is second nature to the little ones. The babies teach us to have a sense of humor, go with the flow, to stay present and to embrace change. These are powerful lessons for new (and experienced) moms.

Yoga means union. The connection between the mother and baby is a beautiful example of the living tradition of Yoga. The familial bond is a form of union with the divine. We slow our breath down, stay in the moment, and fully absorb the gift of family.

Here are some ideas to get you started practicing Yoga with your little yogi:

Flying Baby: Place the baby with his torso on your shins, draw your knees towards you and then straighten your legs.

Boat Pose: Lift your legs to a 45 degree angle (you can bend your knees to modify) with your upper body leaning back and the chest rising. Feel the strength in your belly as you hold your little one.

Tree Pose: Place the baby on your hip, as you lift your foot to the inside of your standing leg and find a deep sense of inner and outer balance.

Going to a Mommy (and Daddy) & Me Class: A number of studios offer Mommy (and Daddy!) & Me classes. Check schedules (which can change often) and ask questions about the class before attending to find the right fit for you and your baby. Some classes focus more on the mother's Yoga practice while the baby is watching and lying on the mat. Other classes have a much more interactive focus on parent and child. A variety of postures can be practiced with the baby in your arms.

The class etiquette in a parent/child class is different from an adult class. Babies always come first, so if your little one is getting fussy or needs a diaper change, everyone in the room understands. Remember to take cues from your child. They will let you know if they need to move more, of if they just need a hug. In any case, it can be a fun bonding experience filled with some giggles, some breath and some sweat.

Desi Bartlett teaches Mommy & Me Yoga at the Pump Station and Revolution Fitness. She also teaches Pre & Post Natal Yoga at Exhale's Center for Sacred Movement. Her latest DVD, Prenatal Yoga, by Acacia, is available through her website along with her complete teaching schedule:
desibartlett.com