Fire on the Bayou

The influence of food is as strong in the culture of the Delta as the accents around here. It's all about cooking. 

Do you cook? What's your newest recipe? Who gave it to you? How did you cook this? What did they serve there? Who cooked this? Tell me about your dish. What are you going to order? And I'm usually like, Hey, that looks really pretty, I like the colors. 

And here, it is an attraction, something you must do on your trail. So naturally, we had a night dedicated to watching friends cook for us at a place called Wister Gardens, in nearby Belzoni (pronounced Bell-zona). Friends, Sha (pronounced Shay) and Jack engineered the whole deal with some smoke involved.

Until the lamb caught fire--

My lovely friend, Elinor is a fabulous cook herself. Stay tuned for her contribution. 

Open up the window, let some air into this room...

Um yes. I happen to be one of the luckiest people in the world who got to eat this number. Chocolate Molten Cakes with Ice Cream. Elinor's Signature Beauty. My Lord, I had tears in my eyes this desert was so good.

Beginning of the night--messing you up on purpose. Chrono order is for sissies.

I'm having a little dinner party tonight. Stuffed mushrooms, crawfish fettucine, salad and red velvet cake. Me? No. It was Elinor. All Elinor. She is my guardian of cuisine angel. I shall have a good time tonight because I am not stressed about making good food. And she loves it. And for me, the fun is eating the food and not so much cooking it. Different strokes for different folks. 

It's respecting where someone is, even if it's yourself. 

Hungrily,

Liza Jane

Vogue

There are some really beautiful things out there in the universe of couture. 

I love the length. J. Mendel. Anything that invokes the 20s even just a little bit is heavenly to me. I would have been in my 20s during the 20s if I had  my choice. I like my hair in a bob.

Wow. Marchesa you genius. This is my favorite. 

Marchesa. Just picture yourself winning some kind of award in this vestige.

Bravo Marchesa. (all photos courtesy of Vogue.com)

I'm still kicking myself for not going to that Marchesa fashion show in Nashville a few years back. I don't know what was going on at the time, but whatever it was, it is no excuse.

So let's go ahead and do the things we want to do today. No regrets later.

Is this a city-girl-turned-farm-girl blog, a wellness blog, a spiritual blog, a fashion blog?

Hell, I don't know. I really don't. Just go with it. 

Fashionably,

Liza Jane

Fresh Feeling

Let's see. We got spinach, ginger, carrots, lemon, pear, apple, radishes.
Not pictured here: the kale, which I had already thrown in the
machine before thinking to take a picture for y'all. 

 My passion for wellness. It's led me many different places and into all kinds of fads.

This fad is it though. The benchmark by which you test a truly awesome wellness practice is how good it makes you feel deep down inside. Yoga, prayer, cutting out meat, and meditation have so far been the leaders of this feeling contest for me.

For the last 2 days, I've been juicing in the mornings. I asked for the juicer for Christmas and have just now had the extra time to crack open the box and do this thing I've been wanting to do for a year.

Juicing that kale. Look at her go. 

The finished product looked like a watermelon sorbet. 

And I'm so mad at myself for just now starting! I feel like money. I feel like sunshine. I feel like I can fly.

But seriously...

Here's what juicing does:

When we cook vegetables, a lot of the essential nutrients are lost in the heat, and sometimes, depending on the method of cooking, it causes free radicals. Which are not good for you.




Enter the raw food diet. A revolutionary way of consuming produce (please not meat, unless it's sushi, and in that case, it's delicious and wonderful and I'm sorry I just can't quit that yet).

At any rate, juicing makes eating raw food a delectable experience. And for someone who can be good at cooking but just does not enjoy it as much as she has seen others enjoy it, and really has to be in the mood to cook, this is a great way to consume vegetables. Especially if vegetables lose some of the good stuff when they are cooked! I mean think about it, do I have a choice here?

Ladies and gentlemen, it's all about feeling good. By way of Newton's 3rd law of motion, when you feel good, good things come to you. Happiness begets happiness. What goes around comes around. So let's start feeling good. Maybe we can try to make others feel good too.

I confess to juicing. My skin looks better; my body feels better; I am being cleansed. I'm loving it and highly recommend it.

Hope you have a fresh week, full of energy and brightness.

Juicily,

Liza Jane 

Blue Sky

"You're my blue sky,

You're my sunny day,

 Lord, you know it makes me high when you turn your love my way,

Turn your love my way..."

Everything's back--the sparkles on the water, the stupid blackbirds (they never left), the blue sky, the green grass. 

I'm blissed out by the sunshine right now. 

So here are some recent blue sky moments in my life:

On top of an ancient Mayan temple. Man we look like tourists. 

This is us at a Mayan ruin site call Xunantunich in West Belize, really close to Guatemala.  Ancient archeology

This looks like I photoshopped this one. Except for the guy in the background

The day before, Will went scuba diving while I snorkeled. I got seasick, and he got certified. Yay!

Happy Valentine's Day to all lovers of life! I hope it's beautiful for you too. Come back and see me...I'm cutting back on the cheese and the chocolate (not going to be cheesy or too dramatic).

But I do plan on uplifting you. 

Loverly,

Liza Jane

Sweet Escape

Okay I want to say this is the rainiest day I've seen in a long time. So it's driven me to the cup. 

I'm here to confess that I am drinking dark hot chocolate milk, while eating a piece of milk chocolate, and I just finished off a piece of a Hershey bar. I'm also thinking about walking across the room and getting one of those dark chocolate mint balls from that bowl I have over there. But thank goodness, I feel full. 

I've already worked out today. But I think there's an endorphin shortage because of several natural factors going on in my life. I don't know what's going on with this chocolate thing. In Yazoo City an hour ago, I almost did a dangerous U-turn on Highway 49 because I wanted a chocolate milkshake so bad. Really, Liza? It's in the 40s here.

Before the Oompa Loompas start dancing around in a chorus about a hypocritical chocolate-gluttonous yoga teacher, I'd like to look each one of them in their reddish-orangish faces and say, "You don't know what it's like to be a woman!" And then add, "At least I don't think any of you are women. It's kind of hard to tell actually. Well, no because the voices in the songs are male. So no. You don't know what it's like!"

Anyway...easy to get off on a tangent. Hey now, you had it easy. I was about to go off on a tangent about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and how I really liked the snobby girl that went down the egg shoot.

I'm thinking this rain is cozy until I have to drive in it in an hour or so to go to Jackson for a farmers' cocktail party. 

This is how I cope with non-desirable weather: Let your mind take you some other place. I just got back from a beautiful place so I think I shall return in my mind. 

View from the dive boat. Yes, there was diving. No it wasn't me. You can guess who did the diving.

Howler monkey in a tree. Belize. 

Or Paris. 

Or Rome. 

Or Fiji. 

Before you start rolling your eyes and saying this is so hokey pokey, too la-tee-dah for you, listen up, this whole world is built upon dreams. No country, family, company, career, invention or job ever happened without visualization dreaming. So where would we be without dreams? Nowhere.

Willy Wonka knows all about this. Yeah, it's his fault I'm eating all this chocolate.

So let me quote my snobby friend on the egg shoot: 

"I want the world! 

I want the whole world! 

I want to wrap it all up in my pocket!

It's my ball of chocolate! 

Give it to me now."

Sweetly,

Liza Jane

What the Water Gave Me

Time it took us
to where the water was.

Flying to Placencia (the peninsula where we stayed)

Oh goodness, that water.

Will in his element, his favorite element

Me in my element, my favorite element

What I was looking at..

Our little house..

Our chairs

Sunrise

Last day sunrise

That's what the water gave me.

Lay me down, let the only sound
be the overflow,
pockets full of stones.

(Florence + The Machine song)

More pictures and stories to come. Time to get back to work! And so thankful to return to work that I love.

Aquatically,

Liza Jane

Sweet Inspiration

Inspiration happens in different places, obviously. And there's no telling how much inspiration one can get from the ocean and sunshine. Even rain (which we have definitely had a lot of that but hey, this is the tropics). 

But to be inspired by the Super Bowl? That's unexpected. I cried 5 times. I don't want to talk about it, but yes, 5 times. And most of those were over commercials that moved me. I get moved easily. 

Yesterday, we took a boat down Monkey River. We rode through a lagoon, then down a river, then walked through the jungle (fast because the mosquitoes were incredible). We saw some howler monkeys in the trees. A little baby one swinging from limb to limb. 

Now I'm no stranger to reptiles because I live in the Delta, but on the way back down the river we saw this:

It's a freaking crocodile. We were so close. 

Anyway, inspiration. Like fresh air in my lungs. 

Breezily,

Liza Jane