One day I walked into class and noticed that since I had seen my teacher last, like two days ago, he’d changed. Good-bye robust athletic yogi, hello rock star. Not the junkie kind either. The thin, trim, spry, stage roaming, glowing kind.

After class, when I asked him what his secret was, he revealed he was on day four of the Master Cleanse. To open his hips. Really? Yes, supposedly the strict regimen of lemon, cayenne and water was, along with its other healing properties, supposed to help open up stubborn hips.

I’m going to do it too, I said. I wasn’t thinking of the hip opening, my hips were already more open than even my big mouth. They were so open that colds, flus and hormones settled eagerly into them, like fans before a show. I definitely didn’t need to open my hips. But I definitely did need to look like a rock star!

I’d always been put off by the Master Cleanse.

I posted a recipe for persimmon pudding and someone misread it for permission pudding! An idea which everyone seems to be ga ga about. A big heaping bowl of yummy permission.

Q: Why are we all waiting for permission?

A: Permission comes from: per- "through" + mittere "let go, send." And letting go? Is sooooo hard.

What are we letting go of? For one thing, the idea that someone else needs to give us permission!

In fact when we want permission, whatever it is we want permission for, it is to change. Permits are given to marry, build, drive, travel. Change always requires a letting go of the old. Thus permission.

It's like we're in school waiting for the bathroom pass.

When you think red & green food, you've got to think beet quinoa toss-up, right?

Quinoa, of course, isn't even a grain, it's a seed. Which explains the super-concentrated happiness that bursts forth when you cook it (2 cups of water to 1 cup of q, like a grain). These proportions will serve 2-4:

1 cup of Q. I like to toast it lightly in the pot before adding water
2 cups of water, high heat
Cut up 2-3 beets and throw those in

Boil until water is gone - beets should be cooked but still frisky. You might want to start cooking them before the quinoa. When it's done, fluff it and let it cool a little. Cut up scallions and/or cucumbers and/or parsley and/or other greens and mix them in for a red and green toss up.

Served here with green & red: red chard sauteed with an onion.

An important, and time sensitive petition that was forwarded to me by a health lover. Read, sign, send, resume your positions. Apparently we have to fight off a last-minute Bush-Cheney play to make USDA regulations even more hideous. Why have any oversight on biotech companies, right? These regulations which would make it illegal to ship herbal supplements across state lines! And I'm not being euphemistic. But that's not all. See below or click: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26267&t=

We've been soaking our nuts and not just because it's so much fun to say. In fact we've been making almond milk* with the soaked nuts and soaking our seeds too.

It turns out soaking nuts (or seeds or grains) releases something called an acidic defensive enzyme inhibitor, making the nuts/seeds/grain easier to digest. And let's face it, doesn't your body have enough to do without having to work so hard to digest nuts?