All of my dreams are still coming true, which is exciting! Our nonprofit For Every Body, Inc., is continuing to change and grow. My classes at the Rockport Senior Center are full of folks excited to move their bodies and make gains in strength, balance and endurance. The Whale’s Jaw Cafe grows busier by the day as summer approaches and I am cooking up a storm, using plant-based recipes for our dinner special every Friday night. I am motivated, constantly thinking about new ideas for our website, new music and choreography for classes, new recipes for the cafe. My mind bounces between all three with joy and passion. When all the stars are aligned and everything is going along so well, why do things have to change?
I am on my fourth round of plantar fasciitis in my left foot. Have you ever had plantar fasciitis? If not, you are fortunate. It’s painful. It’s hard to treat and heal, especially for someone who relies on their feet for work. The pain is the absolute worst first thing in the morning when the tissue has been resting during sleep. So, I hobble out of bed and begin to rotate my foot from the ankle, trying to dynamically stretch it until it’s flexible enough to walk.
Am I going to allow this setback to take away my joy? Will I slip back to that place of being stuck? Absolutely not! My goals to move forward are still intact. I add more self-care to my evenings, icing, massaging and stretching my foot. I am taking a break from running, and this weekend cycled around the whole of Cape Ann with my best friend. I teach my classes and go easy on that poor, sore left foot. I have done this before and I can do it again. More energy will go into planning. And to family time. And writing and playing music. Creating new recipes. Working with my new intern! (That’s a topic for another post so keep an eye out for it.)
I am going to keep going. I am not stuck, just hurt. I will heal, one day at a time, until I am ready to return to beautiful long runs in the forest and return to days without pain.
Here’s a pic from my bike ride. This one was taken at the Annisquam Bridge, a fun little addition on a perfect day to cycle!
I’m getting this to you right away, as my restaurant shifts start tomorrow and I will have time for nothing but cooking up a storm and teaching fitness classes for a few days. Enjoy making and eating this delicious soup recipe.
Beans and Greens Soup
1/4 c good quality cooking olive oil
3-5 cloves garlic, minced course
2 bay leaves
1 red onion, diced
2 large carrots, diced
1/2 lb Baby Bella mushrooms, washed and chopped or sliced
Generous pinch red pepper flakes
1/2 c nutritional yeast flakes
5-6 c vegetable broth (I use plant-based low sodium bouillon cubes if I don’t have stock ready)
*2 sm or 1 lg can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained (about 4 cups) OR 3/4 # bag dried cannellini beans soaked overnight, drained and cooked tender with a 2” piece of Kombu seaweed
**1 large bunch Swiss chard, washed and chopped coarse, including stems after trimming, or other greens of your choice
Black pepper
Heat oil in stock pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add diced red onion and cook until onion starts soften. Add diced carrots and mushrooms. Cook 5 minutes more, stirring frequently. Stir in minced garlic.
Add bay leaf, vegetable broth and pepper flakes and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer vigorously for 5 minutes.
Stir in nutritional yeast. Add cannellini beans and Swiss chard. Cover and simmer until chard is tender, about 5-7 minutes.
Add a generous amount of freshly ground pepper and serve.
This is amazing with raw garlic toast: Toast a nice, big crusty slice of bread. Rub the toasted bread with a clove of raw garlic, then drizzle lightly with olive oil.
*I suppose any kind of beans could be used, but for some reason, cannellini beans seem particularly well suited.
**Can substitute kale, escarole, collard greens or spinach. Because each type of greens has a different cook time. Make sure carrots are almost tender before adding spinach. Collards take much longer, so add those right after the garlic. Fresh collards are really best for this recipe. Whatever you choose, you will become as addicted as we are.
Back again, almost within my goal of posting weekly! I left you hanging a bit last time, as it was dinner time and that wins over everything else when I’m hungry…
The other thing that has helped me get unstuck is cooking. As you may have noticed if you have perused this blog, I love to cook. I’ve been focused on plant-based eating for more than 13 years now. Having studied this area of nutrition extensively, I have taught vegan cooking classes and written an as yet unpublished cookbook (although you will find many of my finest recipes right here in my past blog posts). Here’s what happened:
Our little town has lots of restaurants, most with minimal options for folks like me who want to eat out and have delicious menu choices that are plant-based. Honestly, when I see a veggie burger on the menu at a restaurant, I’m certain it’s from the freezer, purchased weeks ago and sitting waiting for the likes of me to stroll in and order one, as it’s the only choice. Sometimes those veggie burgers have eggs in them, and while I’m not morally opposed to eating eggs if they come from birds that have good lives, I’m allergic to eggs. So none of those veggie burgers, please! Also, why not create something fantastic AND plant-based for the menu? I might know what you are thinking. Seaside fishing village. It’s what all of the tourists want. Fish and chips. Baked haddock. Mashed potatoes with butter. Fried shrimp. Scallops. And of course, burgers. Cheeseburgers. More fries. Who cares about the vegetables? (Way too much to say about this topic, but I’ll move on.)
One day, I decided to try a new little place called the Whale’s Jaw Cafe. It’s a cool place that has live music every day during lunch, as well as live music on Friday nights. I strolled in and discovered there were several delicious, house-made items on the menu that met my criteria. The owner was open to working to add more of the same to their menu and I made a few suggestions.
I also booked myself to play a two hour set on a Friday night. I wrote a ton of songs—well, not exactly a ton—but about 15 or so during the pandemic and was excited to invite my family and friends to come hear my set. I gave some of my own recipes to the owner and she prepared a fabulous vegan feast for everyone who came. And…it was the first time the cafe sold out on a Friday night. Exciting, right?
Soon after that magical evening, the owners asked if I’d like to work Friday nights helping out with whatever they needed me to do. I spent some time in the front, taking orders and serving beverages. I spent some time in the kitchen, helping out in any way needed. I emptied the dishwasher, cleared tables and danced like crazy when it slowed down and there was a good band. I was happy! Then the best opportunity popped up.
Kristin, one of the owners, asked if I would like to work on a new menu and be the lead chef. I jumped up and down with excitement, right in front of her. This is my other dream—to prepare delicious, nutritious food for our community. Of course I said yes. There is no way I can open a restaurant, be there all day long and some evenings too, and still teach my fitness classes, take care of my life partner and my rapidly aging mother. This was the perfect in-between—to have the opportunity to create a new menu with lots and lots of plant-based options, to cook in there several days each week, to bring another dream to reality.
I hustle in there, zooming from the kitchen to the back’s stocked refrigerators, carrying armloads of vegetables and ingredients to open the hearts (and arteries) of our customers. Chopping, chopping, roasting, grinding, kneading, I make soup, hummus, vegetables, Joyful Bowls, and scones. I prepare every sauce we use from scratch using my own recipes. I get to listen to talented local musicians, and sometimes I take a tiny break and hop on the mic myself for a couple of tunes.
It’s a big change for some of our customers, although we still have some meat and dairy choices. And there are lots of folks coming in and raving about the new items on the menu. We are working to use as much local product as we can find. Kristin is contacting local farmers, procuring the freshest of greens and microgreens, amazing whole wheat flour, milled right on Cape Ann, local jams and honey, bread made right here in our town. It’s a process. It’s a process that has my mind scheming and humming all the time. I can’t wait to see what we find next and decide how to incorporate more local produce and products into our menu. That menu will change with the seasons, and I will have the chance to continue to create new recipes to serve up with a big smile.
Talk about passion!
Tonight’s dinner. Beans and greens with mushrooms.
I said in my last post that I’d address some of the catalysts for change and today I want to talk about passion. Maybe you are already passionate about something in your life. If you aren’t, this is something to think about if you want to get unstuck. For me, feeling passionate makes my heart sing. It gives me energy. It makes me want to take action.
I am passionate about running, fitness and cooking. I am still running, teaching fitness as a senior fitness specialist, balance specialist and senior fitness consultant. There’s nothing missing in my life, yet the day-to-day of it has left me missing the third area of passion for me, and that is cooking. I cook at home all the time, developing new recipes at an almost frantic pace, seldom taking the time to write down the recipes I create. Mostly it’s because there is not enough time in the day to squeeze everything in. And, of course, something magical happened during the pandemic that fed my passion for sharing fitness and wellness with others. I let go of worrying about writing my recipes and jumped into something new with two feet.
My friend Steve presented me with a fantastic idea about my Zoom fitness classes. He brought forth the idea of starting an online wellness community for older adults that addresses all eight aspects of the Wellness Wheel. (I’ll share more details about the Wellness Wheel later.) As we talked, my heart leaped at the idea of this project. So may folks had joined my class during the pandemic and we had great feedback about how it helped them all survive the isolation of the pandemic, as well as improved their all-around fitness: cardio, strength, endurance, flexibility, and balance, too. How exciting to use my Zoom classes as a springboard for this nonprofit called For Every Body, Inc.! You can check out our website if you like: http://www.foreverybody.life
Steve is a lawyer, a researcher, someone who helps companies grow by using surveys to determine the deepest needs of clients. He is passionate about fitness and wellness just like me. He’s a perfect match for this endeavor, as well as a gentle, loving person with a good sense of humor. He is compassionate and honest, committed to his wife and family. And so about two years ago, we began our journey together to bring wellness to “geri-optimists” in an online format.
We are still working to bring this idea to fruition, although it will be ever-changing. We have a website, we have a starting community, a new partner to help us, a list of potential interns to work with and much more. I am definitely passionate about this, although I would like to move at lightning speed, and that is just not the way these things work. I continue to curate excellent playlists for our classes, (we use licensed music, rare for fitness classes!) as well as creative, easy to follow choreography for our live-on-Zoom classes. Each class is recorded and many are now available to take on our local cable TV station here on Cape Ann.
For Every Body, Inc., rekindled my passion for fitness in a new way and was the beginning of becoming unstuck. There’s more, of course, but I need to save that for next time. Supper is ready, we are hungry, so I’ll be back soon to share more.
Love and Namaste,
Elizabeth
Figuring out the picture piece still. Here’s a sweet shot from this morning’s time in the woods. Signs of spring!
Hey there. How’s it going? It’s been quite a while.
Have you ever been stuck? Well I sure have and just now am feeling particularly unstuck. So much of my life has changed in the past ten years that I can barely keep up with it myself, let alone take time to share it with you. Today I have decided it’s time to come back here. I’m ready. I can squeeze it in. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It can be what it is, just like life.
I had been feeling stuck mostly because my days were the same for so long. They oozed into each other like oil puddles in the rain. I’ve been teaching fitness classes, running, writing a cookbook, then my life partner had a massive health crisis and with all that has entailed, care giving for my partner and my mom—I could go on, but I trust that you get the picture. The pandemic certainly mixed things up, although I did enjoy the isolation, being at home (I wrote 17 songs!) and some superb time with the my tiny bubble of six, including us. We definitely all grew closer in a good way.
The pandemic also changed my fitness classes. I had to learn how to use Zoom and prepare all new release forms so that I could continue to service the fitness community I had created through our local Council On Aging. As that evolved, my list of participants grew extensively. Husbands, cousins, sisters, friends, parents all joined and came to classes even beyond the U.S. Shortly after that, my dear friend Steve presented me with the idea to co-found a nonprofit online wellness community called For Every Body, Inc. Steve and I share the almost insane goal of leaving a legacy of wellness through this online community. It is inclusive, focused on older adults, addressing all eight aspects of the Wellness Wheel. We are ambitious dreamers!
Well. There’s a good start. I have so much more to share and envision several short posts each week, sharing more details of how I became unstuck and the catalysts that were successful for me, as well as share some details of the journey along the way. I will give you a broad hint: All of my dreams are coming true.
Love + Namaste,
Elizabeth
P.S.
I’ve been into making photo cards lately, and have some great shots to share—as soon as I have time to figure out how WordPress works again..or get my wizard offspring to help me. xo
Elizabeth Runs 