The Gaia Health Blog Finding Health, Balance, and the "Fountain of Youth" through food and lifestyle choices

Some Healthy Food Fun:   The Wanderlust Food Diaries (of a chronic daydreamer)
Hawaiian Zen

On the menu  Pineapple Fried Rice
Music  Zen medley by Hiroshima
Video How to make Pineapple fried Rice

“One fine day, we can have everything”
--Hiroshima

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For me, when it comes to what I call "The Great Escape", that is, when I can afford to live where I want, I am about 99% a "Caribbean Man". However, there is a neighborhood on the north shore of  Kauai, Hawaii, that is making a bid in my mind to trim down those high Caribbean odds.

The funny thing is that as much as I have always envisioned a house on the beach, or a house overlooking the Caribbean sea high up in the breezy hills, the house I fell in love with in Hawaii is almost the opposite. Meaning that, other than a small lake, there is no dramatic water view at all.

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Why move to the tropics and you can't even see, nor have immediate access to the crashing waves of the ocean?

Basically, the reason is, the neighborhood overlooks this incredible green rain forest, with 40 square miles of uninterrupted visibility, with not another house in sight.

It strikes me as looking at the world before man even set foot here and screwed up everything. Kauai has several what they call "micro climates", so you can see the desert, the rainforest, and everything in between within a few miles of each other.

The house, nestled in a Zen-like tranquility, simply provokes peace, calmness, and a sense of being in tune with nature and spirit. As I always do when "Wanderlusting" after a dwelling,  I immediately contemplate how to build an outdoor kitchen for those chic, healthy, delicious, cooking creations that I could put together in that never ending warm weather.

Therefore, this entry in "The Wanderlust Food Diaries", requires a foray to a Hawaiian style meal, fit for the integration between my need "to eat delicious", and at the same time "eat healthy". Thus I will be preparing, in that newly crafted outdoor kitchen, overlooking the Hawaiian rain forest, Pineapple Fried Rice.

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Pineapple Fried Rice

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• --Optional 1 cup cooked shrimp, deveined
• --2 organic ripe pineapples
• --1/2 carrot
• --1 red bell pepper
• --1/2 yellow onion, chopped
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• --1 green onion, white and green sections
• --1 – 2 tablespoons organic Jalapeno peppers,
• --2 tablespoons organic coconut oil
• --1 cup diced organic celery
• --1 teaspoon minced organic garlic
• --1 teaspoon minced organic ginger
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• --2 cups cold cooked rice, scented jasmine or basmati if possible
• --1 to 2 tbsp naturally fermented soy sauce
• --1 teaspoon curry powder
• --1 tsp Ultimate Sweetener Burch Tree Xylitol
• --Garnish as desired
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• ingredients will vary depending on recipe and personal taste. Be careful with this recipe because many recipes I've seen have very poor ingredients, which defeats the whole purpose. For example, canned pineapple in heavy syrup is not recommended. Nor is using any oil to fry except organic coconut oil, most standard oils are toxic and very bad for your health.
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• see video for instructions

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I have always said that if I had it my way, I would do anything and everything out of doors. Dining outside under the Tiki torches, now that's what I'm talking about. Here is one of my gazillion playlists from a "smooth jazz" band called Hiroshima that I got into back in my twenties. Something to listen to when dining out doors under the light of the tiki torches, and starting that second bottle of wine, in the zone.

Anyhoo, it would definitely be an experience that my guests have never seen before. I am so "out if the box". Everything is so green and alive in Kauai. And besides, Hawaiian soil is much more suited for starting an organic orchard than Caribbean soil, due to the richness of the volcanic Hawaiian earth.

As I told someone many years back, it would take me a thousand lifetimes and a thousand houses to fulfill all my aspirations and visions, but at least I know now that home is where the heart is. Also, that "Zen Peace" that we seek has to be within us wherever we are, long before you get to the external place of your dreams. Hawaii or the Caribbean?? In the end it's all geography, as long as I can live true to that beautiful view from that neighborhood in North Kauai, Hawaii, that is, "wild and free".~dw~

To thee, old Cause!
Thou peerless, passionate, good cause!
Thou stern, remorseless, sweet Idea!
Deathless throughout the ages, races, lands!
After a strange, sad war—great war for thee,
(I think all war through time was really fought, and ever will be really fought, for thee;)
These chants for thee—the eternal march of thee.
--Walt Whitman

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