Television can be scary. Every five minutes or so, the current episode is interrupted with an amazing drug ad touting the healing powers of that drug that will alleviate your high cholesterol, bad mood, low t, indigestion, gas, incontinence, impatience, shaky legs, spartan patches of hair, scratchy throat, red eyes, allergies and pain. Then comes the long list of possible side effects that mimic the very conditions listed above with the big one trailing at the end-a few cases of death have been reported. They keep that one for the end because it trumps all the others.

In spite of the fact that no one gets out of this life alive, there are lots of  “fruits”  to be had from living healthily while here on this earth, which brings us to that subject -fruits-and vegetables, those things our mothers hid in the middle of casseroles topped with gleaming with cheese back in the 50s and 60s and later.

So what’s it going to be? Drugs to alleviate problems often brought on by poor American eating habits or food that will rejuvenate and heal those parts of us because the body does just that when inundated with healthy nutrients.

Going Raw-Everything You Need to Start Your Own Raw Food Diet & Lifestyle Revolution at Home by Judita Wignall is a superb cookbook and how to book on getting to that lifestyle. Judita suggests aiming at a 50 percent raw food diet. She doesn’t advocate going “cold turkey” but adding and eliminating foods one by one and not giving up all that things that have satisfied that need for comfort food.

She does a fine job of telling us how to get on track by going raw which means uncooked, not messed with, except to clean the dirt and
preservatives off those fresh fruits and veggies. Or maybe chop it up with some other things for a very colorful and more balanced cornucopia of delectables. By the way, we’re not talking raw meat here.

It’s a well known fact that there are many big factories or “farms”that produce great quantities of beef and chicken using pens and crates that pack the animals so closely that some never even turn around in a whole lifetime. Some of these farms even remove chicken beak’s so that they will not peck each other to death through the stress of such close quarters. They suffer. If we are compassionate, we are undone by needless suffering. To eat meat, by the way, we must cook it and that which is overcooked can create carcinogens as well as cause a too acidic body. What we need are fruits, veggies, whole grains and unprocessed food.

Judita says we just need about four good tools. A great knife, a blender, a food processor and a dehydrator. Then we can concoct things like ruby red ginger and honey sun tea, the iron man/iron woman smoothie, garden of Eden pesto wrap. The book offers all kinds of tips for substitutions, i.e., different milks not produced by cows and yet still chock full of calcium and protein. And hemp is one of her favorite proteins. Highly recommended for those interested in learning to live a more healthy life.

Last year, I was introduced to Harriet Westerman and Gabriel Crowther in the historical mystery, Instruments of Darkness.  Harriet convinces Gabriel to help her solve the murder of the body that she found on her property.  The investigation leads them to uncover the mysteries of Thornleigh Hall and discover the lost heirs to the Earl of Sussex.  After solving the mystery, Crowther and Harriet become minor celebrities and are continually asked to speak about their adventures.  In Anatomy of Murder, they find themselves in London for different reasons.  Harriet’s husband, a captain in the Royal Navy, has returned from his last voyage injured and is convalescing in a London hospital but Crowther has joined the family in town.  He has been summoned to investigate the body of a man who was recently pulled from the Thames.  The government is interested in this dead man, Nathan Fitzraven because he has been tied to a spy ring passing information to the French about the English navy.  Of course, curious Harriet just cannot help but get involved.

The mystery travels along the streets of London to Jocosta Bligh, a well known tarot card reader.  Jocosta has read the fortune of a young lady who refuses to accept what she has learned.  So Jocosta, her dog Boyo, and a young street ‘urchin’ Sam, set out on their own investigation and soon the two inquiring groups will meet and well you will just have to read it to find out what happens.

I will say that Anatomy of Murder was a little slow to get into but once it starts you will not want to put it down but it is worth the wait.  I know that lovers of mystery and historical fiction will enjoy this new series as much as I do.

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do and How to Change It

by Charles Duhigg

Random House (March 6, 2012)

As you get over 60 you begin to see your earned self in the mirror. Gradually, you begin feeling the results of your behavior. You may have consciously chosen earlier to build habits that have now become automation in your lifestyle.

Your habits may have changed you into something that now might not feel right or intended. You begin to understand how, as an old guy, you’ve gotten to where you are. The option of rebuilding reconstructive patterns is a choice you can make.

It’s obviously difficult to find and practice new helpful routines whenever you recognize the habits that got you worn out. I’ve found that breaking down old unconscious habits to be difficult, but it seems even harder to stick with new ones even though they add to life’s pleasures.

The Power of Habit has come along to help those like me to chisel away at a father time’s work. It’s about creating new patterns (constructive and conscious) so that they become automatic as any other routine.

Habit change is grounded in two basic rules. First, find the oblivious cue and second, clearly define the reward. Studies have found that people who have successfully started new exercise routines stick with their workouts better if they find a specific cue. My cue for exercise right now is 7:15 a.m. Research on dieting that predetermines cues (i.e., planning meals in advance) helps define rewards and more consciousness of behavior results.

The Power of Habit is divided into three sections.

Part One: The Habits of Individuals

Individuals are explained by using loops: cue, routine, reward.

These loops can become instilled in our behavior, then become unconscious and lead to cravings and addictions. Habits can be changed by changing the loop, keeping the cue and the reward the same but changing the routine.

Through consciously changing the routine, you can build new and more constructive habits yielding a similarly rewarding experience.

Part Two: The Habits of Successful Organizations

I found this section to be the most interesting. I think anyone interested in doing better work should read this section. Work is so constant that bad habits can seem almost acceptable to the individual. Unconsciously, bad habits unfairly affect coworkers which bring down the whole group work ego, individually and collectively.

Example: The powerful effects of cell phone in our social media age feed the desire to be distracted from your work efforts. Constant interruptions leading to non-productivity in your work day. An unconscious phone habit (or addiction) is a poor routine for maximizing rewards from effort.

Our work habits are so important because the product is also reflected in our ability to have a positive lifestyle outside of work.

Part Three: The Habits of Society

Duhigg uses Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus project to explain his point on group habits. For us Southerners, this example is insightful and easy to relate to. This fine book concludes by addressing our free will and the responsibility we have for ourselves. We choose for ourselves the amount of awareness we have about our habitual behaviors.

I think anyone interested in self improvement would benefit from reading The Power of Habit. I feel we all could use more habit awareness, increasing the ability to have more good habits and a happier, more actualized life.

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg (Random House, March 2012)

Consider the term magic.  More specifically, good magic when good trumps the bad, when someone with powers beyond our understanding does or says something that turns despair into hope and healing.  In The Healing, there is a lot of this kind of magic.  Three black women—Gran Gran, Polly Shine and Violet—possess this power but note that they are not possessed by it.  What makes the magic in this book magically real is applied wisdom and knowledge of herbs and human nature with large doses of heart and soul.  Of course, some of the magically real is timing—there is a right time to do, to know, to heal, and to be patient.

Like the book,  The Help by Kathryn Stockett, the protagonists are black women.  Like The Help, the victims are a whole community of black people at the mercy of money and the white folks that own it all.  And like The Help the black women are there to maintain the living quarters and raise the children.

As in many good books dealing with change and resistance to it and in the transformation inherent in change, The Healing follows a certain pattern of creation, fall, consequences, forgiveness, redemption (but not for all).  What makes this book one of my favorites is that a man wrote this book with such depth of understanding and power of storytelling that you would almost believe he was Gran Gran himself.  And to get right down to what makes it so readable is it is sheer entertainment, meaning this reader was completely immersed in the story, never wanted to put it down, and was always pulled through the story, as though, to use a phrase earlier in this blog, possessed by it.

Anna recently made a display of some very enticing baking cookbooks. I’d like to buy all of them. The one that caught my eye is titled One Girl Cookies.  The recipes all sound delicious. The one that I am dying to make is Chocolate Chip Pistachio Pound Cake. The best (or perhaps worst) part is that I have all ingredients at home to bake this. I’ve got plans for the weekend….baking!

One Girl Cookies, the bakery, first opened in Brooklyn in an area of town known as Cobble Hill. Shortly after another location opened in an area known as Dumbo. After flipping through the cookbook, I can see why a second location was in demand.

Cookies, among other treats, are popular at One Girl Cookies. Their cookies have names such as: Lucia, Jane, Florence and Evelyn. These bit sized cookies are displayed in the cases with these pretty names attached. Which would you order?

Lucia: Espresso Caramel Squares with White and Dark Chocolate Swirl

Jane: Cream Cheese Shortbread with Toasted Walnuts

Florence: Winter Spice Cookie Sandwiches with Orange Cream

Evelyn: Almond Spirals

Cookies are a small part of this cookbook. Other sections include: cakes, whoopie pies, cupcakes, pies/tarts, breakfast pastries and a section with family recipes. The recipes all call for few ingredients and are fairly easy to make. This would be a great cookbook to pull from your bookshelf to bake something for your last minute guests.

The above pound cake is what I’m going to make first!  It is the chocolate chip pistachio pound cake I mentioned earlier.

Come pick up a copy of One Girl Cookies and satisfy your sweet tooth!  -Quinn