Source: http://www.sonima.com/meditation/myth-of-the-perfect-family/

Flipping through a cooking magazine recently, I stopped to read an article about chef Nancy Fuller’s Christmastime meals and traditions. Every year, Nancy and her husband host their two dozen or so children and grandchildren in their upstate New York farmhouse, and the family “spends almost every second together,” according to the article—taking sleigh rides, playing hockey in the barn, having slumber parties and a big holiday dinner. “When I look around the table at everyone, it almost makes me cry,” Nancy is quoted as saying.

Part of me scoffs at this picture-perfect image, but another part of me longs for it. Articles like this, TV shows like Parenthood, and movies like Dan in Real Life play on our deeply rooted desires for belonging and for the lifelong security of an interdependent tribe. They’re idealized depictions of loving extended families whose members might not always agree on everything but always find their way back to each other after a conflict, and have each other’s back no matter what. It’s no wonder we’re drawn toward these scenarios, in a time when Americans spend an average of only 18 hours per month—less than an hour a day—with family members.

It’s often around the holidays when we feel the tug of what we’re missing, or imagine we’re missing. In a study of adults estranged from their parents or siblings, 90 percent reported finding the hol…

Source: http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/12/23/459240693/spaniards-snap-up-holiday-hams-even-after-cancer-warning?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=thesalt

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Morning Edition

3:20

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Display of Spanish hams in the front window of a branch of the Museo del Jamón, a chain of ham-themed bars in Madrid.

Lauren Frayer for NPR

In Madrid, Museo del Jamón, which isn’t a museum but a chain of…

Source: http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/12/24/460839331/from-beetroot-to-pineapple-homemade-wines-sweeten-christmas-in-india?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=thesalt

Across India, several Christian communities prepare sweet homemade wines for the festive season from a rich array of local fruit, roots and grain. Above, a glass of golden pineapple wine.

Courtesy Merwyn Mascarenhas

In October, Hilda Mascarenhas, who writes a popular food blog in Pune, India, began her Christmas preparations with an unusual request to her fruit seller.

After buying a pineapple, she asked the vendor to separately pack the peel and eyes that he had skillfully removed with his long knife.

Hilda’s husband, Merwyn, though accustomed to his wife’s culinary experiments, was as mystified as the fruit seller. What did the thick, thorny peel and tongue-lacerating eyes, normally discarded as waste, have to do with Christmas?

He found out a month later when presented with a delicious little glass of golden…

Source: http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/12/24/459976586/why-miami-cubans-roast-christmas-pigs-in-a-chinese-box?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=thesalt

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All Things Considered

3:55

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In Latin American cultures, Christmas Eve is Noche Buena and time for a big family celebration, often featuring a pig roast. There are lots of ways to cook a whole pig. But at Noche Buena parties in South Florida and, increasingly, around the country, the preferred method for roasting a pig involves something known as a “China box.”

The first thing you need is a pig. In the Miami area, the place where most people get their whole pigs is a ranch on the outskirts of neighboring Hialeah. It’s called Matadero Cabrera. Matadero is Spanish for slaughterhouse.

Bobby Damas drove nearly an hour from the next county to reserve his pig, a 70-pounder, butchered and dressed for Noche Buena. Like every other cus…

Source: http://greatist.com/live/netflix-bad-environment?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_http–greatistcom-

If you plan to spend the holidays curled up under the covers binge-watching Orange Is the New Black or Jessica Jones, we’ve got some bad news for you: All of that streaming uses a ton of energy. Streaming an hour of video on your smartphone weekly uses more energy over the course of the year than two refrigerators. We have data centers and their humming servers to thank for sucking up all that electricity.

But there is a silver lining to cloud computing: Many large tech companies, like Google and Facebook, use renewable energies to power their servers. So we can feel a little better when our plan of watching one episode quickly turns into eight.

(h/t The Atlantic)

…

Source: http://www.thefitbits.com/2015/07/lessons-learned-as-beginner-triathlete.html

Don’t sell yourself short
That’s the main thing I’ve realised this past couple of weeks whilst throwing myself into my non-training plan for my first tri this September. Never assume you can’t do something if you haven’t actually tried. Although I love challenging myself and learning new things, I do sometimes take the ‘easier’ route to make progress if it means not having to change and re-learn.
Like swimming. I’ve made so much more ground this past couple of sessions than I ever did last year, and that’s because I was ‘forced’ to step outside of my comfort zone. Yesterday I swam my first ever (flappy / stop-in-the-middle-to-have-a-cough-and-splutter) full length WITHOUT my nose clip. It was completely by accident too – I set off forgetting to put it on and then decided to just go for it and see what happened.

Turns out, no one died.

I did however, make the mistake of going for an evening swim on the day that schools broke up for summer. Which was no fun at all.

Lesson no.2:

Check the pool timetable

I’m really enjoying triathlon training at the moment. Or am I actually enjoying just 
not marathon training? I’m not following a training plan as I couldn’t find one that worked for me as a beginner swimmer but strong cyclist and ex…

Source: http://www.thefitbits.com/2015/07/review-brighton-yoga-festival.html

A little girl and her mum walked past the entrance to Brighton Yoga Festival this afternoon as I was leaving.
“We can get sweeties in there mummy””No darling,” the mum said, “It’s all healthy in there…”

She wasn’t wrong. 
I left the festival energised, relaxed and full of vitality and health, ready to take on the world. Luckily, I only had to meet my husband (still love saying that) for a lovely sunny lunch in town so no one else had to put up with my dreamy, zenned-out state. 
I have a feeling I wouldn’t have been the only one floating around Brighton today after a whole day of free classes and workshops put on by the city’s finest yogis. 
Currently in its second year and held at St Georges Church in Kemptown, the festival offered massages and other treatments, delicious vegetarian and vegan food, lines of stalls advertising art, crafts and the cream of Brighton’s yoga crop, and a host of indoor and outdoor classes of just about every type of yoga you could ever imagine. 
<img alt="Brighton Yoga Festival 2015 – St Georges Church Kemptown" border="0" height="480" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rU09oEdGzeg/VbQG0ChSnYI/AAAAAAAADAI/0qj6ktj3sAc/s640/Brighton-yoga-festival-2015.JPG" title="Brighton Yoga Festival 2015 – St Georges Church Kemptown" wid…

Source: http://greatist.com/live/put-yourself-first?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_http–greatistcom-

You’ve been staring at a screen all day, you didn’t take a lunch break, you’re already late for yoga class, and you have a pile of papers to read before tomorrow’s 9 a.m. meeting. Just as you’re getting in the elevator to leave, your BFF texts: Can u meet for a drink? I really need to talk.

Uh oh. You’ve turned her down a couple times this month, and you know she’s going through a tough time. Do you skip yoga because you’re a good friend? Set tomorrow’s alarm an hour earlier to skim those docs over breakfast? Or do you just tell your friend (again): Sorry. I love u. But I have a ton of work and really can’t tonight.

Balancing our own needs with those of our loved ones can be tricky. Too much people-pleasing can foster depression and anxiety (not to mention resentment!), while a complete disregard for others just makes us narcissistic jerks. Add technology to the mix, and the desires, preferences, and requests of everyone else can feel endless, muddying the already-fraught decision of when (and how) to prioritize your own agenda.

Knowing when to put your needs first—and which ones should take precedence—is a constant and ongoing process between yourself and others.

“Knowing when to put your needs first—and which ones should take precedence—is a constant and ongoing process between yourself and others,” says psychotherapist Beverly Amsel, Ph.D. Of course, this doesn’t mean demanding what you want every si…

Source: http://www.foodpolitics.com/2015/12/the-fdas-question-for-christmas-eve-what-is-natural/

The FDA is extending the comment period for the meaning of “natural” on food labels until May 10, 2016.  This, it says, is

In direct response to requests from the public…Due to the complexity of this issue, the FDA is committed to providing the public with more time to submit comments. The FDA will thoroughly review all public comments and information submitted before determining its next steps.

The “complexity of this issue?”  Isn’t it obvious what “natural” means when applied to food—minimally processed with no junk added?

Not a chance.  “Natural” is too valuable a marketing term to forbid its use on highly processed foods.  To wit:

Here, as the agency explains, is what complicates the meaning of “natural”:

The FDA is taking this action in part because it received three Citizen Petitions asking that the agency define the term “natural” for use in food labeling and one Citizen Petition asking that the agency prohibit the term “natural” on food labels.  We also note that some Federal courts, as a result of litigation between private parties, have requested administrative determinations from the FDA regarding whether food products containing ingredients produced…

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tinybuddha/~3/xIMt3iEqJ4E/

“Good relationships don’t just happen. They take time, patience, and two people who truly want to be together.” ~Unknown

We are wired to seek “the right one,” the ever-supportive partner, and the loving relationship.

If we get all three, it’s like winning the lottery of life. When we meet someone, we dream of him/her being our soul mate. When we are in a relationship, we hope they’ll love and support us unconditionally, and the relationship will be loving and everlasting.

That would be the ideal world, and, unfortunately, the ideal world isn’t the one we live in.

It took me a divorce and a few failed relationships to learn what real love is. Strong, lasting love is not being with “the right one” or being in a relationship that is effortlessly wonderful all the time. That’s a disempowering way of living, just like waiting for life to be perfect.

I came to understand that true love is a daily commitment to make the relationship great by being loving and attentive in our action and our words.

With the exception of cases whereby our partner is purposefully being physically/verbally abusive or emotionally manipulative, to love is to commit to being loving even when our partner unintentionally disappoints, frustrates, or hurt us.</p…