Thursday, December 3, 2009

A recipe for a decadent evening

Last night I came home very upset over a political upheaval here, so i decided to treat myself to a decadent night. I drove over to the nonprofit independent theater in Rhinebeck Upstate Flms and watched the Coen Brothers' new movie, A Serious Man. This gave me a lot of thoughts about being first generation, bilingual, generally confused, American-ish Jewish in rural NY - where very few people are any of the above. While I love living in rural places and daydream about moving up to Vermont or Canada, I know that a need to be able to occasionally escape to a place where "my people" are yelling and carrying on in our typical bruhaha, complete with the simple joys of loudness and sour cream, will keep me tethered to the NYC-bound or Boston-bound Amtrak line.

When I came home, musing on the woman who kept saying "Oh Jeez" through the whole move, I continued the decadence!

I drew up a lovely foot bath with a bath salts recipe from my favorite topical herbal recipe book Earthly Body, Heavenly Hair By Dinah Falcone. It was a very simple recipe - 6 Tablespoons sea salt, 15-30 drops essential oils (I used sage and lavender, though if I had it I would have thrown in some sandalwood too), and a few tablespoons of comfrey-infused olive oil (which is generally healing). I would have used Calendula oil, but I don't have enough to splurge on such frivolities. Calendula oil is strictly for salves for my soon-to-be baby mama friends. I pulled up my chair and my foot bath right next to the stove, put a teapot of evening tea (chamomile and mint) on top of the stove along with my mug (works much better than a tea cozy) and, with incredible luck, got to listen to "Selected Shorts" on NPR (which, tied with "This American Life" is my favorite evening listening program).

All in all, I had myself a lovely evening. Which means tonight I will be cleaning up. a lot.

My other favorite recipe from Dinah's book is a quick pick-me-up for dirty hair. Drop two drops of essential oil onto a comb (I use 1 drop each of lavender and tea tree) and comb it through your hair. It adds a lovely scent and dries out oily hair a little, along with making your hair look, feel, and smell cleaner if you just can't get to washing it that day. My hair is fairly dry, but it works very well. Tea Tree is antifungal and lavender is antibiotic, so it's also great for warding off smells and infections.

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