The Dancing Gourmet: a ballerina’s healthy recipes for fitness
Author: Hymes, Linda
Title: The Dancing Gourmet: Recipes to Keep You on Your Toes!
Publisher: Lindergaff Books, 2002
ISBN: 0971978204
Linda Hymes shares a full repertory of delicious, healthy recipes that are fit for dancers and non-dancers alike. Heck, these are recipes to keep you fit. Hymes knows the secrets of preparing tantalizing dishes that won’t add to your waistline- she trained at the prestigious School of American Ballet in New York City before becoming a professional ballerina for fifteen years. After she retired, she pursued her greatest passion- food- and attended the world-renowned Le Cordon Bleu in London.
The Dancing Gourmet is a perfect marriage of gourmet food and elegant aesthetic. Anyone who loves ballet or who wishes to look like a dancer by eating right will enjoy the mouth-watering, colorful photos of food and Hymes during some of her finest dancing moments- both seem to jump right off the page. The Dancing Gourmet is flavored with humor throughout it pages: the recipes are categorized by ballet’s positions of the feet, from first position (appetizers and small plates) through fifth position(entrees). The final section involves the prerequisite visit to the Land Of the Sweets (a reference from the second act of the much-beloved Nutcracker) which no ballet career or gourmet dining experience should be without.
Eating right doesn’t have to be a punishment. In fact, it can be quite pleasurable. Choices from the third category of salads (not just rabbit food!, according to Hymes) such as the grilled chicken salad with spicy blackberry dressing, thai eggplant salad with pickled garlic, and sole and salmon twirls with maple glaze are appealing, or curried banana balls with masoor daal and cold sesame soba with tofu for the vegetarian crowd. Top it all off with a cup of fresh-brewed chai and a slice of pavlova cake. Brava!
Exercise With The Whole Family
Every Sunday morning in the Bay Area, more than one hundred people gather to dance and sweat their hearts out. What makes the event even truly unique is the eclectic mixture of the group.
Grandmas dance alongside glittery, hoola-hooping twenty-somethings, a sprinkling of enthusiastic children flit throughout the crowd and balance on their parent’s backs and shoulders, and there are even a few young babies strapped to their mothers or fathers (with proper ear protection, of course). Scanning the crowd and taking it all in suddenly gives the term “all-inclusive” an entirely different meaning. As a parent, it is a wonderful reminder that it is possible to share many of our passions and interests with our children, and while parenting does often involve a certain level of sacrifice, there are some things that we cannot and should not give up, because they hold something of value for the whole family.
In the end, the deeper message is this: while it is a given truth that being a parent means there is a whole lot less “my time”, perhaps there is a way to think a little bit more creatively and expansively, in terms of “our time”. For instance, instead of foregoing a home yoga practice in the living room because of potential interruptions from your kids, try putting the yoga mat down and letting them join in. Try working out when and if you need and want to, with your kids by your side. All too often parents have the ingrained belief that exercise needs to be something they do without kids.
However, an important opportunity is lost in the process: children miss out on the benefit of a positive example of seeing the adults in their lives make physical health a priority. By sharing that time together, everyone wins, and positive lifelong physical habits are born.
NOTE: This week I am very excited to be taking part in a blog chain that is sponsored by the National Writing for Children Center. I invite you to visit the next link in the chain, a blog written by Terri Forehand, whose many years as a nurse and teacher bring depth to her writing!
Click here to visit Terri’s blog!
Dance as Expression
When we dance, we use our bodies to express feelings and ideas. Movement is a powerful alternative to speech, and can often say much more in a shorter amount of time. Helping children learn how to use their bodies as an expressive tool can give them an entirely new emotional outlet to deal with feelings, which at times are intense or overwhelming. It is important and healing to have positive ways to deal with feelings and to move that energy out of the body, instead of squelching or repressing it.
Naming a feeling is the first step. Help the children get in touch with what they are feeling by standing still in one place, closing their eyes and focusing on their bodies. Ask the following questions to help them get in touch with their emotions. Do they feel heavy or light, hot or cold, hard, or soft? What is their face saying right now? Are they smiling or frowning?
There will probably be a range of answers, and of course, the ubiquitous, “I don’t know”. Use whatever clear answer comes first and work from there. As an example, suppose the answer is “Mad. My friend said something that I didn’t like.”
As a teacher, any feeling that arises is something to work with. Put on music and let them create a dance about how they are feeling. The response can be, “Great. That sounds like a very clear feeling. You are mad. How can you show that with your body? Can you show that feeling with movements instead of words? What does your body want to do when it is mad?”
We all need healthy ways to deal with intense emotions, and dance is a potent alternative to hitting a pillow or yelling from the peak of the nearest hillside. Humans are emotional creatures, which is both our greatest blessing and our largest challenge. Having the proper tools to ride those powerful currents can help make the ride a whole lot more fun.
