Operation Frontline's Mobile Classroom Kitchen

We met Catherine Luu of Operation Frontline at our recent Hidden Kitchens event at the California Endowment in Los Angeles, "Who Glues Your Community Together through Food?" We thought we'd share the information Catherine sent us about what she and Operation Frontline are up to in the Los Angeles area:

Operation Frontline (OFL) is a national, volunteer-based program of Share Our Strength, which provides hands-on healthy cooking and nutrition education classes to low-income families. OFL trains and mobilizes local culinary and nutrition professionals to volunteer their time to lead these courses.
Our class kitchen is “mobile” and travels to various cities throughout Lost Angeles—Glendale, Hollywood and Long Beach—offering courses to low-income adults, teens and children. This means that every week, I pack my car with groceries and several crates of cooking supplies and head to various agencies, churches, and clinics to get cooking! It has been a fascinating experience to gather participants from many different cultures and traditions into the same kitchen.


Since our official program launch in May, we have graduated six Operation Frontline classes, four for adults, and two for children ages 8-12. With the help of our team of volunteers, we have directly impacted over 75 families with our hands-on healthy cooking and nutrition classes. Our wonderful volunteers are the heart of our program, and our healthy cooking classes would not be possible without them.

We are always looking for new volunteers! Cooking supplies, groceries and monetary contributions also help in our efforts to reach more families throughout Los Angeles County.

For information, you can visit our website www.ccafs.org/operationfrontline or email Catherine.luu@ccafs.org.

Deepawali Sweets - Paramannam - Sacred Sweet Rice

Deepawali Sweets - Paramannam
Jaggery Sweetened Rice

PARAMANNAM is surely param(the best) annam(rice)! It is a dish prepared with rice and jaggery on all auspicious days. It is offered to God with the greatest devotion and then savoured as prasadam (food thats considered God's Blessings). The words PANCHA BAKSHIAM – meaning five sweet dishes, and PARAMANNAM are included in the age old Sanskrit verses which are chanted during the offering of neivedyam (devotional offering) to the Lord.

After posting five Deepavali sweet recipes, we felt that the festival would be incomplete with out the PARAMANNAM recipe.

So here is wishing you all a

VERY VERY HAPPY, HEALTHY AND PROSPEROUS DEEPAVALI

with

PANCHA BAKSHIAM AND PARAMANNAM!
INGREDIENTS:
Rice – 1 cup
Milk – 1cup
Jaggery – 1 cup
Ghee – 1 tbsp
Cashew nuts – a few
Raisins – a few
Cardamom – 2
Edible camphor* (Pacche karpoora)- a tiny piece the size of a pin head

*Note: 'Edible Camphor' is very different from what you use for other purposes. If you use camphor make sure you use the edible variety only! This should be available in any Indian Grocery Stores. METHOD:
1. Wash and cook rice with 2 cups of water and one cup of milk in the pressure cooker.
2. It can also be cooked in vessel with a heavy bottom, until the rice becomes very soft but not mushy.
3. In another vessel boil jaggery with 3 cups of water and filter to remove any impurities.
4. Boil the jaggery water and add the cooked rice.
5. Cook until the rice blends well with the jaggery syrup.
6. Keep stirring till the Paramannam reaches porridge like consistency.
7. It should not be liquidy like payasam nor should it harden up too much.
8. Remove from heat when the consistency is right as shown in the picture.
9. Heat ghee and roast cashew nuts and raisins and add it to the Paramannam.
10. Powder cardamom and edible camphor together and mix into the Paramannam.

Offer it to Goddess Lakshmi at dawn on Deepavali Day and relish the prasadam with Her blessings.

Designing Kitchens with Essential Tremor

October is National Movement Disorders Awareness Month.

October is also National Kitchen & Bath Month!

I am going to combine these two themes into one post, because that's the way I live my life every day.

Obviously I am a kitchen and bath designer. Not so obviously, I have been dealing with a movement disorder, Essential Tremor, since childhood.

"Well known people with tremor include: Samuel Adams, Magnus Berg, Oliver Cromwell, Katharine Hepburn, and Eugene O'Neill.

Recognized for centuries, essential tremor and tremor related neurological movement disorders afflict millions of children, adults, and next generations, yet little is known about the etiology."

I remember being a small child and watching my mother tie my shoes. Her hands always shook when doing such tasks. She was in her early thirties at the time. Essential tremor is often "familial". It runs in families. My Mom had it; I and both of my brothers have it; my oldest daughter has it; my younger daughter has escaped...So far.

My first inklings that I might have a problem occurred when I had to get up on stage as a child. I would shake uncontrollably, with my heart pounding; and soon was avoiding those days at school with "sore throats" or "headaches".

I was an artistic child, always doing some sort of art or craft project. I was so good with my hands that I took up sculpture and painting as I progressed through school. I dreamed of becoming an artist, and spent most of my free time improving my work.

Unfortunately I never found a way to make money at my artistic endeavors. So I became a surgical nurse (also hand-eye intensive work) to pay the bills, but I still continued my art for my own enjoyment.

As I went through my twenties and thirties I noticed more and more occasions that would cause my hands to shake. Stress exacerbated the problem.

I married, had children, and left the work world to care for them.

I began remodeling our home and building and installing cabinetry (handy me). Eventually I returned to work and became a kitchen and bath designer. Finally, I had found a way to make a living drawing!

In 1991 we were in a terrible recession, very much like today. I had no work and talked my employer into sending me to CAD training because the State would pay for it.

I purchased a computer and AutoCAD software and went through a six month training program. Thank YOU California!

Ever since 1991 I have done all of my drawing and drafting on the computer in AutoCAD. It's a good thing too, because I would have been out of commission as a kitchen designer by the mid-nineties because my tremor got worse.

I learned about Essential Tremor and was diagnosed by a movement disorder specialist. I take quite a bit of medication to keep my tremor under control.

It doesn't work any longer. I can no longer conceal my tremor from my clients. But I still want to continue with my work.

The tremor doesn't affect my mind; just my hands and head.

So, if you don't mind working with a shaky kitchen and bath designer...Give me a call. Just remember: When I shake my head, it may not really mean "no".

Peggy

Addendum: Essential Tremor is often confused with Parkinson's Disease. Here is an explanation of the differences between the two maladies by a cogent neurologist, Dr. Kieran.