Monkey Mind 1.5 - What I’m Thinking About When I Should Be Thinking About Nothing

read all the posts in the Monkey Mind series

Julie C Trubkin is a writer and a member of the 889 Yoga community. Monkey Mind is Julie’s bi-weekly contribution to 889′s blog. Look for the Monkey Mind header to follow Julie’s experiences as 889′s Resident Monkey Mind.

Some people get their best thoughts, their eureka moments, in the shower. The final resting pose in yoga is my shower equivalent. I know that shavasana, savasana or corpse pose, is a time when I should try to think of nothing, but it is when I think of everything. Focusing is a constant struggle for me, off the mat, in my day to day. This final yoga pose, often referred to as the most important pose in yoga, is no exception. True to my monkey mind self, meditation and shavasana become additional thoughts instead of states for me. Here’s where my mind went one fateful shavasana; a bit of summer for you on this winter day.

At the beginning of class one day, I heard Scott discuss his latest recipe for preserves and how he doesn’t use any sugar. I thought of the grape vines I had worked on all summer to resurrect. The mission that summer was to ensure that future generations could have the same sticky sweet summers that I did. I managed to focus on the class, immersing myself into the flow, but once the lights dimmed for shavasana , off my mind went again:

Sugar-free preserves… grapes… I should experiment in canning… Scott should write a cookbook called “Petrie’s Dishes” I wonder if tart wine grapes will work in a jam… what’s the difference between jam and jelly?

Here’s a photographic continuation of my crazy thought process. I still haven’t mentioned my book idea to Scott—Petrie, what do you think?

I have been picking and eating grapes since I could walk.

Julie C Trubkin

After many years of living away, I returned home to find that our grape vines had all but vanished. The grapes that would have made a sultan and his harem consider trading their entire empire for my backyard, had disappeared. Nostalgic and experimental gardening consumed much of my summer as I attempted to revive the “vineyard”.

The trellis that was a such an end of summer treat when I was younger, once covered with grapes that I’d pick mid a game of tag, was completely bare from neglect. I know that when you’re young everything seems bigger, but I know that my eyes couldn’t have made up that bounty, a bounty that I cringe to think we often left for the birds. What I would do with all of that today?! I returned to my childhood home and began the resurrection, determined to bring it back to its glory days. That was at the beginning of last summer. Months of cuts, guessing, untangling and re-trailing vines as if I knew what I was doing, reaped a very small but delicious harvest along with the hope that future sticky kids can also nibble mid tag.

The only ones that survived, that I could salvage from the birds and the elements were the ones high up, wrapped around a pine tree.

Julie C Trubkin

It was hard not to eat them all as I picked, but I managed to fill one basket. They were hot from the sun and so sweet. Each bite transported me to my 7-year-old-sticky-purple-y-scratched-up self.

Julie C Trubkin

Once they were removed from the stems and cleaned, it came to exactly four cups.

Julie C Trubkin

I had huge ambitions about tackling the canning process that very same day and putting Scott’s sugar-free tip to use, but I was exhausted. Off to the freezer they went.

Julie C Trubkin

Several months later, one cold February afternoon, this whole process came to fruit-ition!

All of the requisite canning equipment that I had purchased around harvest time taunted me through the winter but I put off the process, determined to find the right recipe. Scott mentioned that he substituted sugar for agave nectar and I was intrigued. But as I researched it, claims that it added a funny taste or that it might not be a good sugar alternative after all, left me a bit hesitant.

I finally decided to just do it. All of those cuts, one of which I’m fairly certain will now be a permanent scar, could not all have all been in vain.

Sugar-free was important because a very important person in my life is diabetic. I figured out how to use the grapes’ own pectin by using as much of the grape as possible; skin and all. I learned how to offset wine grapes’ tartness and the importance of blue agave nectar. It was lot of reading and I wound up pulling from several recipes and eventually creating my own.

And So I Began

I took out my frozen grapes and was genuinely surprised and grateful that they still tasted incredible. I tapped into my inner I Love Lucy and along with my entire kitchen, became a full-fledged purple mess. I separated the skins from the insides.

Julie C Trubkin

I wish I could photograph scent because the smells emerging from my kitchen were divine.

I stirred, pushed it through sieves, blended, stirred, boiled, sieved and boiled some more. It didn’t resemble anything close to a jam and all I could to was hope it would thicken. While I stirred the pot, I thought if it doesn’t thicken at least I’ll have some really tasty, elaborately prepared syrup.

The gooey end results are a cross between a jam and a jelly so I’ve hailed it a “spread”. I made a dark rich grape goo.

Julie C Trubkin

All this work for seven little jars, but somehow it feels worth it. A Summer/ Winter Grape Spread that only a select few will get. I wish I could say that I made enough for the whole studio, but maybe one day…I have a sticky feeling that future batches are to come.

Julie C Trubkin

The frugal scientist in me decided to experiment with the parts of the grape that we weren’t using. I just couldn’t toss them in the green bin. The logical thing to do was to create a face mask. Caudalie has nothing on me! I made my own at home Vinothérapie Spa. About a minute and a half after I took this photo, it started burning and I washed everything off.

Julie C Trubkin

A career in high-end beauty products may not be where I’m heading, unless the burning sensation was supposed to happen, but canning will definitely be in my culinary arsenal.

Julie C Trubkin