Searching for new recipes and wonderful new, healthy cookbooks!

I'm always searching for new recipes and wonderful new, healthy cookbooks! Even with summer's heat, cooking dinner every night for my family is a ritual I love. Starting at 4:00 each afternoon, I tie my hair back, wash my hands, and start pulling out fresh ingredients. Even better, our garden is providing some of our vegetables now, currently pea pods, herbs, and lettuce lettuce lettuce! My kids are thrilled to go out and pick while dinner preparations are beginning.

I thought I'd share a couple of the new cookbooks we've been using lately. I've really been loving Super Natural Cooking by Heidi Swanson. This enticing vegetarian cookbook is by popular photographer, traveller, and blogger of 101cookbooks.com. Based on vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, this book introduces ethnic flavors that are easy to create. She inspires you to include more color into your diet, and more variety. The Seed Crusted Amaranth Biscuits are moist and satisfying, the Otsu (a Japanese noodle and tofu dish) is fresh and light, and we've really loved Agua de Jamaica with hibiscus and lime. There's so many more recipes I'd like to try... Baked Purple Hedgehog Potatoes, Lentil Crostini with Chevre, and Sprouted Garbanzo Burgers. She also encourages you to nix the white sugar in favor of more healthy replacements. Peach Nectar Iced Tea anyone?

Another new cookbook with super tasty ideas (for kids, too!) is Good to the Grain: Baking with Whole Grain Flours by Kim Boyce. Beautifully photographed, this oversize book is filled with sweet and savory recipes that include many healthy grains that are often little used: teff, amaranth, quinoa, kamut, and buckwheat flours.. along with whole wheat, corn, and oat. I love the variety of this book. Many of the rustic recipes are involved and some of the techniques particular, Kim Boyce being a trained French pastry chef. But they are also delicious! Our favorites (so far) are the Rhubarb Tarts and Muscovado Sugar Cake. There are hundreds more to try, making this book very worthy of the space it takes up on your shelf. Next we want to try the Soft Rye Pretzels.

This summer, I'm heading toward the vegan direction. Exploring vegan cookbooks is going to be my next endeavor... All this cooking has made me wonder, what are your favorite cookbooks? We'd love to hear from you!

~Sarah Newland, senior staff member of Crazy Wisdom

Stitch - Craft Night at CW

Last Tuesday, May 4th, we enjoyed another Craft Night at the Crazy Wisdom Tea Room! It was lovely sitting with these few women and talking while working on our projects (I'm still trying to figure out how to do both at once!). There were four of us: Carol was knitting another prayer shawl, Jan was piecing tiny quilt squares for the Lotus Center, Jessica was knitting a scarf she may give to her grandmother in England, and I worked on a cozy flannel healing quilt for my children when they are home from school not feeling well. I like our small group, but we could use a few more folks to join in! We welcome all crafts that are portable and not too messy. Our Craft Circle is free and open to all, and is offered the first Tuesday of each month from 6:30-8:30 p.m. The next one is June 1st.

Here are some of the books discussed during Craft Night as well as a couple that I've been loving lately:

Quilting for Peace: Make the World A Better Place One Stitch at a Time by Katherine Bell
This is a pretty hardcover with more than 25 inspiring essays and 15 charity projects, including a sleeping bag project, an emergency snuggle quilt, a 30-minute shopping bag, and an Alzheimer's art quilt. What I love about this book is that it provides how you can help/how you can donate for all of the projects, and each one is explained very clearly. $19.95 - 1-58479-804-0

The Artistic Mother: A Practical Guide for Fitting Creativity into Your Life by Shona Cole
In this lavishly illustrated book, Shona Cole (mother of five homeschooled children and mixed media artist) helps you make time and space in your everyday life to make art. It includes a 12-week course that includes instructions for making artwork inspired by your children, with photography, poetry, and mixed media elements. There are also seven featured artistic mothers that give tips on how they make their busy lives work with children, family, and art-making. Always a difficult balance for me, this book provides inspiration and real help to fit in all the projects that I'd love to do, if only I had time! $24.99 - 1-60061-348-9

Dozens of Ways to Repurpose a Tea Towel by Nathalie Mornu
I just purchased this fun, whimsical book and can't wait to use some of my vintage tea towel stash to make a couple of the projects. Unlike any fabric you can buy, tea towels are a wonderful source of retro style and happy, graphic prints. There are 28 projects in this book, with many great photographs to illustrate the how-to, to make aprons, grocery bags, skirts, and toys. $19.95 - 1-60059-508-0

--Sarah Newland, organizer of the Crazy Wisdom Craft Night

Craft Night

During our last craft night at the Tea Room, I was asked why I decided to organize a craft circle at our store. My quick response was, "Crafting has become so popular again, and I love to make things! And I thought our cozy Tea Room would be a lovely place to sit in a comfy chair and knit with other people who like crafting, too." Although true, I left feeling that my response was inadequate somehow. With two children, I have very little time for myself during the day. Luckily, bedtime for the kids is 7 p.m. After that, if I don't have household tasks to finish, the time can be for me. And during the past year, I've reawakened my love of making things with my hands. Some fabric, needle, and thread - and quiet - and I'm content to craft something. Most of all, I love to make things for my family to use - a shower curtain out of a vintage sheet, a quilt out of old drapes, a bag from leftover fabric from my stash. Often, my little boy will request something with great enthusiasm, "Mama! Knit me a blue horsey!" Or my daughter will need help making her own lunch bag. There are always many things to make, and I love it. It's satisfying on some level that running to the store - even if it's a resale shop - can't fulfill. It also involves remembering my mother and grandmothers and how they could make anything, how they could knit and crochet and embroider and quilt with such skill. Nowadays, we're lucky if we can master one craft. This making things with one's hands, without a sewing machine, calls forth the long line of women who made things for their families because they wanted to, and also because they had to. This making things with one's hands is reskilling at its most basic. And these items are full of our energy, surrounding our loved ones with the warmth and love with which they were made. Why a crafting circle at Crazy Wisdom? For me, it's hard enough to EVER get out of the house without my children. But when I look around the circle of women who come once per month - some regulars and some new each time - it's so gratifying to be part of it.  ~Sarah Newland, senior staff member

Tea with the Fairies at CW Tea Room, February 25th

Post by Ash - Tea Room Manager

Graceful and beautiful fairies blessed the Crazy Wisdom Fairie Tea in February!  Both big and small fairies ate cookies, sang songs, read stories and even saw a magician turn out some fantastic tricks! It was a delight to have everyone stop in for a warm cup of tea or hot chocolate (with extra whip cream, of course) and get a sprinkle of fairie dust on the way to their next adventure.  The next Fairie Tea will be a special one for Mother's Day held on May 9th at 2PM. If you would like to come, tickets cost $10.50 for each attendant (we ask that at least one adult accompany their party) and   We always have a great turn out for our Fairie Teas so be sure to purchase a ticket before they sell out!



Crazy Wisdom Craft Night in the Tea Room

Post by Sarah Newland

Our Crazy Wisdom Craft Night in the Tea Room last Tuesday was very fun!

Six women attended, working on projects ranging from knitting, sewing, cross stitch, and an amazing Japanese scarf project made from pieces of old kimonos. Although it was a smaller group than in February, the conversation was lively, friendly, and easy. I had a great time working on a blue hat my little boy wanted me to make for him, requested right as I was gathering materials to leave the house. It seems there are new women attending each month, as well as a few regulars.

I love these two hours when I'm able to devote time to making something, without household interruptions, while talking with other women who think handwork is valuable and fulfilling. For me, this was the best Craft Night so far! Join us every month, on the first Tuesday evening from 6:30-8:30 p.m.