I met Christina back when I first moved to Northampton at the beginning of the millennium, when none of us were sure wether the data driven infrastructure of civilization would survive the man-made odometer of time rolling around to zeros. Now here we are headed for the end of the Mayan calendar and once again faced with the possibility that something weird will happen to us all.

Coincidentally, Christina worked with our friend Maya and my then girlfriend Megan Shackelford (who would say there are no coincidences) at the now defunct Fire & Water Cafe in Northampton. The establishment was cash-only and ran on old-fashioned registers so we all felt we had a sfae haven from Y2K. There was enough beer and vegan cookies to keep us alive for a few weeks, and it was kind of underground in case there was a nuclear threat.

As the years went by we all scattered to the winds. I ran into Christina last year at another friend’s wedding and soon after she called me to see if I could photograph hers. I was delighted, of course, because Christina is beautiful and she hangs out with cool people, so that makes my job easy. I did not know Jeremy very well at that point, but as I got to experience his vibe on their wedding day I quickly concluded that she had made a great choice. Jeremy expressed his gratitude for the job I was doing several times during the day, and I appreciate that.

The wedding took place at the Poetry Ridge Bed & Breakfast in Greenfield, MA. It was a beautiful setting and the decorations and rituals were all thoughtful and heartfelt.

Christina & Jeremy, thanks for letting me share your special day and for being wonderful to work with. Weddings like yours remind me how lucky I am to do this for a living.

Christina & Jeremy coming up the aisle

The beautiful bride Christina in the window light

Dana takes a delicious taste of shaved watermelon at Karma.

The world spins too fast sometimes. I cover the souls of my shoes with velcro and still I can’t hang on. The hottest day seem to go the fastest, as if Sun is exciting Earth with his radiant splendor, making her molecules vibrate faster. We all benefit from Sun’s frolics with Earth. From their union we are blessed with an abundance of fresh vegetables, herbs, fruits and flowers. Bees and butterflies and little creepy crawlies chip in to help spread life all around. The farm share I split with a friend is so abundant with fresh organic food I can barely keep up with eating it all. In our backyard we pick cherry tomatoes and wrap basil leaves around them for a succulent snack. Life is good.

There is a beauty eating plants fresh from the soil. Plants hold Sun in their cells. They hold Rain. They transmit minerals and medicines from Earth into our bodies. They have enzymes and wisdom. Cooking them may not always be bad, but it can diminish the flavor, smell and nutritional splendor of fresh veggies.

A new vegan raw foods restaurant called Karma is opening today in Northampton. It is an ambitious project with a restaurant, a juice bar, a store, and eventually a yoga studio and body work offices. Karma will be serving raw vegan dishes, as well as a few cooked vegan menu options. The juice bar will serve wheatgrass shots, green drinks, smoothies, teas, various elixirs and purified charged water. I will be working there in the juice bar and in the kitchen, learning new skills and sharing old ones.

On Saturday August 7th Karma had an invite-only dinner to try out some of their recipes on guests. I was able to get some friends from the local vegan and raw foods communities on the guest list. They were all impressed with the atmosphere of the restaurant and the delectable flavors offered in the dishes.

The food was presented in a five course meal. The first course was a salad featuring organic greens with onions, carrots and an oil & vinegar dressing. Next was a “palate cleansing’ with shaved frozen watermelon juice, which was amazingly good. The third course was tomatoes layered with sliced zucchini, almond cheese, basil and olive oil. It was heavenly. The fourth course was zucchini noodles covered in tomato marinara sauce with a cashew cream mushroom alfredo tossed with carrot and butternut fettucine. And finally the raspberry coconut cashew cheesecake in an almond crust, simply divine.

Karma opens today and I will be working my first juice bar shift. I hope you will stop in to say hello and treat yourselves to some life-giving deliciousness.

Karma owners Coree and Brian with assistant chef Rin

A view of Karma dining from above

Christopher Phillips with his two daughters Sky and Sirena

Oh Sweet Mama Megan Shackelford arrives with her friend Paul

dreaming in a field of clover

I am embedding a slideshow of photos from the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary taken this June while I was visiting to photograph a vegan wedding. I just got to editing them a couple days ago, and it was like finding a little treat that I had hidden for myself.

As fate would have it I am here now, after another vegan wedding, sitting cross-legged on a bed in one of the lovely guest rooms. Some kind of allergen has caused flooding in my nasal networks, making breathing through my nose nearly impossible.

Tomorrow at 10am I will be practicing my pranayama breathing at a Jivamukti yoga intensive. They are being held every day this month at the Wild Woodstock Jivamukti Ashram, a “76-acre forest preserve in the Catskill Mountains. It is a sanctuary for deer, black bear, raccoons, opussums, coyotes, birds, fish, frogs, snakes, insects, trees, flowers and numerous species of fairies and elemental beings.”

The founders of Jivamukti, Sharon Gannon and David Life, are scheduled to be there. They are supporters of Woodstock Sanctuary and Sharon even rides her bike here sometimes. Sharon also wrote the book Yoga and Vegetarianism: The Path to Greater Health and Happiness. I have photographed them at events but this will be my first class studying with them, so I should really be in bed right now. I studied Jivamukti in New Orleans and did a Vegan Radio podcast about the experience, which resonated with a lot of our listeners.

I could wax poetic for hours about how amazing Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary is, but I have pillows to drool on and dreams to dream. For now I will just say it is nirvana here and I bid you Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.

Andee with her best friend Pippi

Smlove is a decadent chocolate pie recipe that is featured in Isa Chandra Moskowits’ Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook. It features caramel peanut butter, maple candied pecans, and chocolate drizzle layered over a chocolate pie filling in a graham cracker crust. Andee had experienced the smlove pie before. She has a friend who once tried to eat the whole thing on a dare. Poor dear. Because of her smlove had achieved legendary status in our conversations so I suggested we make smlove waffles. Ms. Grrrr was thrilled by the idea, and so on the appointed date I paid her an early Sunday visit.

Andee came up with the recipe modifications. Instead of the chocolate pie filling and graham crust we made the chocolate waffle recipe from Isa’s Vegan Brunch cookbook. We altered the recipe slightly, replacing the beer it called for with more almond milk. We also made candied almonds instead of pecans. Other than that we pretty much stuck to the recipe, and in the end enjoyed some delicious dessert waffles. I share the recipe here with you in my first-ever food blog.

MAKING SMLOVE

Maple candy almonds in the frying pan

Step 1: Maple Candy Almonds (by Isa Chandra Moskowitz)

1 cup almonds
2 teaspoons canola oil
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons maple syrup

Have ready a large plate, preferably covered in parchment paper. Preheat a heavy bottomed frying pan over medium heat. Add the pecans and stir them very frequently for 3 minutes, until they start to brown. Stir constantly for 2 more minutes, until they are a few shades darker and relatively uniformly toasted. (If a few don’t look toasted don’t worry about it. That’s better than having them burn.) Add the oil and salt and stir for another minute. Add the maple syrup and stir constantly for about a minute. The maple syrup should get bubbly and dry.  Use a spatula to transfer the pecans to the plate and spread them out as much as you can, it’s best if they aren’t touching. Place in the fridge until ready to use.

heaven dripping from a spoon

Step 2: Caramel Peanut Butter (by Isa Chandra Moskowitz)

1/3 cup natural peanut butter, smooth or chunky, at room temperature
3 tablespoons pure maple syrup
2 tablespoons brown rice syrup

Stir all the ingredients together in a small sauce pan. Gently heat everything over low heat, stirring constantly with a fork, just until smooth and heated through. It should fall from your fork in ribbons. If it seems stiff, turn the heat off immediately and add a little extra brown rice syrup, until it’s fluid again. This happens because different peanut butters have different amounts of moisture.

chocolate drizzling

Step 3: Chocolate Drizzle (by Isa Chandra Moskowitz)
4 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped (or 1/4 cup chocolate chips)
1/4 cup soy or rice milk

In a small sauce pan, heat the soy milk to boil. Once boiling, add the chocolate and lower heat. Use a fork to stir it until compeletely combined. Turn the heat off and let cool for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. You will probably have to reheat this a little when you get to topping the waffles.

Chocolate waffle batter dry mix...

Step 4: Chocolate Waffles (based on a recipe in Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra Moskowitz)
Makes 6 six-inch round waffles or 8 four-inch square waffles.

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sugar
1-3/4 cup almond milk
1/4 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
cooking spray

Preheat your waffle iron. Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, and sugar into a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the center of and add almond milk, oil and vanilla extract. Mix together until combined. Spray the waffle iron with cooking spray and cook waffles according to manufacturer’s directions, usually until steam is done coming out.

waffle assembly

Step 5: Waffle Assembly

Place waffles on a plate. Pour the peanut butter over the center of them, leaving an inch or two at the edges because it spreads. Get your almonds and place them on top of the caramel, pressing them in firmly. You can either drizzle the chocolate over the waffles with a spoon, or put it in a pastry bag fitted with a wide writing tip and drizzle it that way, in stripes. Top with some good vegan whipped cream!

don't forget the rice whip!

Andee enjoys a belly full of smlovey bliss

Featured Cookbooks

I have been interested in low light and night time photography since I was floating in the womb, breathing amniotic fluid in and out of my lungs, a buddha soon to forget his true nature. It was so dark in there, but there was a light inside of me I wanted to share with the world. I was really pissed when the doctor pulled me out with his forceps into the tacky artificial light of the hospital, leaving indents in my temples that never popped back out (fortunately my wooly mammoth haircut covers all the imperfections of my skull). I wanted to go back in, but mom wouldn’t have it. Ever since then I have been trying to recapture the beauty of that darkness, lit only from the light of some distant star filtering through the translucence of skin and organs and closed baby eyelids.

i am crushing your head!

My Nikon D300 is the first camera I have owned since I ditched film that really captures images in low light with any reliability. I had to wait until I was four decades out of the womb to begin to realize the digital dream. Technology is advancing far too slowly. I want to download parts of my consciousness onto a small hard drive and carry myself around in my pocket. I could run all my random distracting thoughts on a different set of hardware and use my brain for something more serious, like blogging about black light photography.

When I first got to New Orleans I was reading a lot of Craig’s List postings so I could see what kind of weirdos were running around in the city. Fortunately there were lots of them, and I fit right in. I found an ad for a face painter who was looking for some web design help, and so I contacted her. She turned out to be Irina NOLA, a Russian-born artist/street performer, face-and-body painter. Although she found web help elsewhere, she recently found herself in need of a low light specialist (random thought: I think I will put that designation on my next business card) and called to ask if I would work for tofu. I of course accepted.

(random thought: maybe I should not listen to Puscifer while blogging)

It was a beautiful and auspicious night in New Orleans, like every night in New Orleans, when I walked into Irina’s studio to be greeted by the blue glowing and nearly-naked Brightonn, who you see pictured here. I think the first thing I said was “woaaahhh”, which in retrospect was not very professional. (random thought: It may be because I thought I had teleported to Pandora)

I still don’t know why they don’t call black light “purple light”. (random thought: the dude who named it was clearly afraid of his feminine side) It is close to ultraviolet light in its electromagnetic radiation, and violet is a fancy word for purple. The human eye can’t see ultraviolet, but it can see purple light to some extent. It makes fluorescent body paint glow as you see here, which is really trippy when you take enough entheogens. It does not illuminate Caucasian skin at all, apparently, which is why Brightonn looks like she is painted black.

Brightonn and I are now friends, and besides being tall and gorgeous she is also a talented photographer and artist. (random thought: she has a boyfriend who thinks vegans are crazy). She is helping me design my first tattoo. Working for tofu always pays off in the end, so let that be a lesson to you, tofu haters.

A pirate band playing a pretty shanty outside the Aaaarrr Bar

I find me another year older today, just an old sea dog countin’ up me booty. it ’twas the birthday of my life, shipwrecked down in New Orleans. I woke up not knowing there was a Pirate’s Parade going on that same day (as part of NOLA Pyrate Week), but it ’twas quite fitting a way for a scallywag such as I to spend the second half of his day, before the third half came and i ended up in a hot tub staring up at the stars wondering how the fuck i am so lucky to have this life.

Captain Jack Sparrow, savvy?

The first half of the day began quite nicely. I slept in till ten than had a birthday breakfast consisting of fresh strawberries with a raw coconut/cacao/banana/agave sauce, and a cup of irish breakfast tea.  Next I was off to my Jivamukti yoga class at Swan River with one of my favorite teachers, Keith Porteous. From there I rode my bike further uptown in the glorious sunshine to my friend Kathleen Currie’s massage studio, for an incredible hour of blissful bodywork.

I made it home an hour before the parade was starting to to piece together a costume, and thanks to my landlord Tucker I got enough bits of scraps to come up with a decent attempt at going on the account. Next I put two cubes of sugar in my coffee and set out for to pillage and allow no quarter in the French Quarter. We set sail from the Arrrrr Bar on Royal, down past Jackson Square and then past the shark bait on Bourbon St, careening about the town and somehow back to the Aaaaaarrr Bar.

I think I warmed my way into the inner circle of me mateys that night. This saucy lassy Miss Lucey pinned some booty onto me shirt (a New Orleans birthday tradition). We both agreed that the carriage horse industry is for shit, and should be abolished forever. A pirate girl after me own heart!

Miss Lucey pinning booty onto me shirt

Another Saucy wench decided I was the one to take a group photo of all the pirates once we got back to the Aaaarrrrr Bar, and that is the legend of how I became the official Pirate Parade photographer, of sorts…

My photo assistant rallying the scallywags

A band of pirates stretched out across Royal outside the Aaaarrrrr Bar

One of my favorites, following the pirate band and the tubas down Decatur St

Another sweet shot, this cute little girl giving a flower to Captain Jack Sparrow

My friend Dan Piraro is a syndicated comic and has a book of his Pirate cartoons, highly recommended!

You can see all of my Pirate Parade photos on flickr, or just watch the slideshow below from the comfort of this here web site you are already at… and as always me loves comments so leave ‘em or be prepared kiss the gunner’s daughter!

108 sun salutations under a sacred oak tree in City Park, New Orleans

At City Park in New Orleans there is a giant oak tree with oversize wind chimes hanging from its branches. The sun shone on the tree this morning, with strong winds blowing the chimes into a cacophony of sound. A group of yogis and yoginis gathered beneath the sun and the tree, their mats forming a loose circle facing inward. I rode my bike up to join them, feeling a reverence for the life so vibrant all around me.

In this circle we were joining a community of yoga practitioners all around the world who were taking a stand against human trafficking in India by offering up monetary donations and 108 sun salutations. The money will go to an Indian-based  organization called Odanadi, which means ‘soul mate’. The Odanandi web site Yoga Stops Traffic claims that “over the past 20 years Odanadi Seva Trust has rescued and rehabilitated more than 1850 children, carried out 57 brothel raids and brought 137 traffickers to justice.”

The New Orleans event was organized by Jessica Blanchard, who feels that India has given the west so much, and this is a way for us to give back. I came by way of my yoga school, Swan River. Several of my teachers were there, taking turns with teachers from other schools leading us in the sequence of asanas that make up the standard sun salutation.

The number 108 is sacred in many traditions and mythologies. For instance, the chakras are intersections of energy lines, and the heart chakra has 108 energy lines converging into it. I have been living from my heart lately, or at least striving to. This morning my heart was full, nourished by the sun, the wind, the beautiful people gathered around in the circle, and by the sound of the chimes mingling with the voices of the teachers.

I reached my hands up to the sky over and over again, and each time the sun had risen a little closer to being in my palms. There was a dog sitting in the grass behind me, and each time I bent down into downward dog and looked out between my legs I saw her sitting there enjoying the day. To my left was a new friend, who later went out to tea with me at Fair Grinds Coffeehouse, where we shared little pieces of our lives.

I am in love. In love with this city, with this life. I felt tears welling up inside me thinking about the people sold into slavery as I practiced my asanas. Are we all just manifestations of the same spiritual matter? Could I be them, could they be me, could any one of us be anyone else? What is the veil of ignorance that makes us forget such an obvious truth, exponentiating the suffering in the world? Every day I spend trying to understand and to weave the understanding into the fabric of my being so I won’t forget.

Namaste. Ahimsa. May all be free from suffering. May all feel the sunshine of a perfect spring day in New Orleans, shining upon them as they raise their hands up in prayer, and lower their faces to the ground to honor the earth. We are one.

Swan River Yoga teacher Michelle Baker leads us in a sun salutation

Me, Jaimie Lynn and Aviva pose with hoops before Eris

Mardi Gras in New Orleans was a strange and wonderful time. Mardi Gras means Fat Tuesday, but the celebrations leading up to the actual day last for about two weeks. Besides the celebrations around the Super Bowl, the peak of Mardi Gras for me was marching in the Krewe d’Eris Parade on Sunday the 14th of February.

Eris is an unauthorized parade, as described on NOLA.com

“As Sunday night slithered out and Lundi Gras scuttled in, The Vieux Carre was swarmed by the filthy vermin of the Krewe of Eris, a wild and phantasmagoric walking (and bicycling and wheelchairing and shopping-carting) krewe dedicated not to misrule but to no rule at all. Unorganized, unauthorized, un-permitted, and unconcerned, the Krewe of Eris is an open-membership tribe honoring Eris, the goddess of discord and strife. In the mythology of the Greeks it was Eris who threw the golden apple that sparked a feud between vain deities, revealing the pettiness and weaknesses of the powerful, and thus the Krewe of Eris gives the lie to the grandiose and flashy motorized superkrewes, mostly by being much, much more fun.”

I was part of the Hula Hooping corps, coordinating with our friends in the flag corps. We marched at the front of the parade along with a luminous dragon and a marching band. The theme of the parade was “light and pleasure” and along that vein my friend Aviva and I both got LED hula hoops, and our third hooper Jamie Lynn marched between us to catch some of our light. We all decided to dress in costumes of white and gold. I had a fun marching band hat with gold horns made by a talented woman named Jade. The rest of my costume I got from second hand shops.

Marching for about three hours with a hula hoop was both exhilarating and tiring. I had so much fun tossing it as high as I could and catching it, watching the swirls of light making pretty patterns in the sky. The crowd loved us, and was us. People seemed to wander in and out of the parade, adding to the chaos and beauty of it. We had rehearsed a routine but found it impossible to carry out. It was all just fun and celebration.

Since I was hooping I could not photograph the parade itself but I found some cool photos online on the Wandering Dreamers blog and also on l*ght//motion’s flickr page. The slideshow below is of the photos I took before the parade…

A float full of Saints

On Tuesday I biked out to the famous Louisiana Superdome to watch the New Orleans Saints Parade take off. I propped my bike up against a palm tree and stood on the seat to get myself above the crowd to take these shots. I started daydreaming about building a bike with a photo stand or maybe just a really tall tricycle. But for me it always comes back to stilts. Gotta get me some.

I have been here about a month and have enjoyed watching the Saints mania build to a ever pitch, explode during their Super Bowl victory, and leave us with an electricity in the atmosphere around New Orleans that is palpable. I am normally not one to wax poetic about sporting events but this team has brought hope and renewal to this city in a way I couldn’t understand had I been living anywhere else during this time. I am grateful to the universe for arranging my visit.

Double Dutching in Jackson Square before the Super Bowl

In looking back upon my life, I have noticed a strange pattern. I have lived in the geographical fan base of successful football franchises much of my adult life. The first time it happened was kind of heartbreaking, living in Syracuse and Rochester (NY) while the Buffalo Bills played in and lost 4 consecutive Super Bowls in the early nineties. At the turn of the century I moved to New England in time to witness the Patriots go to 3 Super Bowls, winning two of them. Now here I am – a new decade, a New Orleans, and at the epicenter of the wildest football scene in the history of the universe. And yes, the Saints victory over the Colts in Super Bowl XLIV has beaten the shit out of every other football experience I have ever had. WHO DAT!!

Aviva hooping it up!

It is really funny because I am not a football fan, per se. I have watched a handful of Super Bowls and playoff games over the years, but here in the Big Easy there is no way to avoid the Saints mania. This is a city only five years out from being nearly destroyed by Katrina and the Saints seem to represent something beyond sports. They are the Phoenix rising up from the flames, with all the aura and legend of that mythical creature. Even my yoga teacher waxes poetic during class, prophesizing that the Saints’ victory is going to end the Hindu Kali Yuga and usher in the Dvapara Yuga. She tells us that we are all about to become beings made of light, and if my quantum calculations are correct she just might be right.

I spent the day out with my new friends who love to Double Dutch and hula hoop. We rode our bikes through traffic jams and dog parades (Barkus) to get to Jackson Square in the early afternoon, where we set up shop and drew a huge crowd around us. The Saints fans (aka all of New Orleans) were all out in their black and gold, some wearing more elaborate costumes. The sun was shining and our little boom box was playing upbeat music and it was all pretty picture perfect, as my perfectly pretty pictures hopefully convey.

For the game I went to a party, with the usual anarchists and artists you find at random parties around New Orleans when you are a freak like me. I sat inside an old warehouse building of some sort on a dingy car seat watching the game projected on a giant bed sheet. The setup would occasionally lose reception and about half way through someone put Saints Radio on instead of the CBS audio, making the famous Super Bowl commercials seem even more surreal. There was no heat and so I went out at half time to warm up by the fire while The Who played and we all secretly wondered if they regretted the lyrics in “My Generation“.

The second half of the game was epic, up to the point in the 4th quarter when the Saints made the game’s only interception and ran 70 yards to victory, and into history. After all the hugs and victory cries and high fives our posse once again rode out towards the French Quarter, busting out the jump ropes and hula hoops on the corners of Frenchmen and Royal. Once again a jubilant crowd gathered around us, while cars drove by honking and the whole city took to the streets in celebration. Everyone yelling “Who Dat!!” over and over again. All people united by one event, a celebration well deserved by this amazing city. I am blessed to be here, and to be a part of it all.

Giddy Saints fan holding my hoop

Saints Cycle

Here is a slideshow of the Daytime photos:

And here is one with the Night-time photos: