Dedication(s) & Homebrewed Kombucha

“Things have a life of their own,” the gypsy proclaimed with a harsh accent. “It’s simply a matter of waking up their souls.” – Gabriel Garcia Marquez –

1. To sit longer on the floor and listen to my heartbeat.

2. To quiet my mind listen to my friends’ voices, all of them, beautiful and strong, everyday.

3. To love with my whole body.

I find myself writing a lot of lists these days – groceries, priorities at work, cleaning duties, bills to pay, and phone calls that are overdue. I wrote the above list down yesterday afternoon while riding on the bus. I needed a list that spoke to practices of which I am dedicating myself.

The garden is birthing life right before our eyes. I caught a glimpse of a bee this morning gathering nectar from a squash flower. It amazes me that I am cultivating this vegetable garden in the city, where there are no mountains or dense forests or groves for miles. The neighbors sometimes watch me as a I drag the hose out front and tenderly check the progress of the sunflower and morning glories. They probably know I move to slow to be made of city. That my bones are crafted from tangled oak wood and sweet peas from my childhood.

I think the sun makes everything feel like a dream. Yesterday, my friends and I played soccer & had a picnic in the park. There was a long line of trees with an altar-like area at the end. I suggested to my friends that we should have a ceremony there – that we need to continue to imagine & dream of the communities in which we want to participate. I am trying to keep my imagination alive. To remind myself that somewhere in my skin is a little child dreaming of magic, climbing trees and covering myself in earth.

Last night we drove up to the lake & willfully ignored the signs for “No Swimming” – in New England there are more rules than my body is able to follow without feeling like a container of the state. We floated in the water & watched the sun go down. We talked about how in water – our bodies, as well as our thoughts, feel so much lighter and how it helps us forget the heaviness of living.

I am fixated on birth these days. Maybe it is from being a new uncle, or maybe it is how I am mesmerized with the process of birth as both a beginning, middle, and end. I think my life is full of this feeling – of always being in the three places at once, or none of them all at the same time.

As the sun went down the water was jet black & touched the tail end of the sky and stretched on for what seemed like forever. For a second, I sat in between the space where there is no beginning, middle, and end. There just is, without any question, what has always been there.

My soul, waking up to the life of its own.

— Homebrewed Kombucha: 5 Different Ways –

ingredients.
– 1 mother SCOBY (instructions on how to make one yourself below)
-1 gallon water
-1 cup sugar
– 6-8 tea bags (black, oolong, green, herbal)

material(s).
– 1 gallon glass jar OR holding vessel
– 1 large pot to boil water
– cheesecloth
– strainer
– juicer (optional)

directions.
The first thing you are going to need is a SCOBY. A couple of years ago I was a neglectful SCOBY parent and mine molded and I was forced to get rid of it. I read somewhere online that you can buy a bottle of kombucha, drink it about halfway, cover the top with cheese cloth, and leave it out for a bit of time and a SCOBY will develop. After about 2-3 weeks of waiting this worked for me! I started out with G.T.’s Kombucha and worked my way from there.

Once you have your SCOBY you are all set to get brewing! In a large pot, boil 1 gallon of water. Some people prefer using distilled water, but I just use regular old tap water and nothing has happened to me yet…Once the water has boiled place 6-8 tea bags and let steep for 5-7 minutes. While the tea is steeping, mix in 1 cup of sugar until dissolved.

Pour the tea and sugar into a one gallon container. Let cool to room temperature. If you place the SCOBY in while the water is hot it will kill your SCOBY, and then you may be sad/frustrated/confused. I suggest doing laundry, going for a run, reading, working on an art project – anything except frequently checking the temperature.

Once the mixture has cooled, add SCOBY and leftover Kombucha. You will want to always keep your SCOBY and about 1 1/2 cups of Kombucha to use as a starter liquid for every batch. Cover with cheesecloth and let stand for 2-3 weeks, until you have carbonation and a deep amber color. Bottle in sterilized glass jars and enjoy 🙂

If you prefer flavored Kombucha, such as lemon, ginger, apple, or kale…you may want to partake in a second fermentation process. Once you have poured the Kombucha into jars add the juice of a lemon, a thumb-size of ginger, an apple, or handful of kale. Seal & let sit on the counter for 2-3 days. Refrigerate once done & enjoy!!!

Queer Carrot Juice.

I went home to California a few weeks ago for my sister’s birthday and to see my first (and brand new) nephew. After five years of living in Boston, going back to California was an experience. The air, the earth & the people inexplicably different. Sometimes, I amazed that this entire landmass is a country. There are cultural similarities, including language, but sometimes its hard to pick out where the differences end and the similarities start.

It had been over a year since I was home & I had a lot of stuff I wanted to bring back to Boston. At home I snagged my juicer that my sister and I bought when I was about eighteen. I cannot imagine the looks that TSA gave each other when they found a juicer in my checked bag. I also packed my favorite blanket my mom made me when I was a kid, a bunch of clothes I had left behind, some speakers so we could fill my house back in Boston with more music, and my bicycle. Yes, my bicycle.

It’s been snowing a lot these days. I think winter is more than skin deep. I think winter is not just weather, but a state of being. I have been working too much and sleeping too little. I have been quiet a lot lately, afraid that the more I speak the more winter will fall out of my mouth.

I have been forcing myself out of the house lately. I went to a workshop yesterday on abolishing the prison industrial complex and it made me think of all the important work that is left to do. All of the conversations, people, families & friends impacted by systems trying to beat winter into them.

I look at other food/vegan blogs and I wonder if their identities matter in this way to them. If they are confronting privilege & oppression via their work or if they find their food separate from this. I am looking at my own work and wondering how the politics of my identity will continue to influence what I do, if it will be something I am able to wrap my ahead around.

I want my work to not only give people access to healthy plant-based meals, but to also talk about the way in which veganism and queer culture intersect in my life. I look at many of the other vegan blogs, written (well) by heterosexual white women, and I wonder where my space is in this world.

Being queer, is not just a gender or an orientation, its a state of being.

— Carrot Juice for Liberation —

ingredients.
-8-10 carrots
-1-2 beets
– 1 orange (whatever variety)
– 1 apple (preferably Macintosh or something sweet, unless you like sour)

directions.
Peel the carrots and chop off the ends. Put into juicer.
Peel beet(s) and chop off the end(s). Put into juicer.
Peel the orange. Put into juicer.
Chop the apple up. Put into juicer.

Poetry & Kale Smoothies.

You think, the whole world will collapse if you can’t finish this, right here.

The way you started.

Simple, knowing nothing but the stretch of your own limbs.

You pick things up just put them down again.

The worn out starter on your dad’s truck is

humming somewhere over the skyline of Boston.

Make yourself into something to remember, you whisper into the air at night.

Your bones keep restitching themselves back to the earth without your permission.

You feel like an impostor, at best, when you are forced into dress clothes.

Talk like this, they show you, lips pressed into an arc of beauty you don’t know how to make on your own.

–

You can make on your own.

The way the ocean keeps spitting salt onto the coast.

Take me for what I am, it says.

Remember me this way – the endless worry that I am.

–

In California, I am stuck somewhere in a walnut tree with my sister,

barely big enough to wrap my hands around its branches.

There are silk worms on the top of the tree – spinning fast.

I envy their certainty. I wonder if I will ever know what it means to be so certain.

–

There is more doublespeak in my dreams than dreams.

I want to make myself into a sturdy boat,

but I am a bit shaky down to my feet.

I am held back by the language of my kind.

–

In Oklahoma, there is a one room school house

where my great grandmother buried her dreams.

I am digging them out from a leaky cellar in Boston.

I am wearing them like a promise.

–

In my pockets, I keep

my great grandmother’s crochet hook,

my papa’s cigarettes and

an orchid from my ole grandma’s garden.

–

I will finish this for all of them, just the way it started.

Their story is my ragged wallet,

the Oklahoma windstorm in my chest,

my love for the smell of smoked out flannel.

–

I am here now because they imagined a life beyond themselves.

I am bringing them with me.

I am daring not to let them down.

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

–Food for Good Energy: Kale Smoothie–

ingredients.

-fistful kale
-fistful romaine lettuce
-three celery stalks
-handful of broccoli
-1 apple
-1 lemon
-1/2 cup water
-1 cup almond milk
-2 tbs almond butter

Stick it all into a blender and mix it up!