Body language

Open - Closed  Communication isn’t just verbal.  The body talks, too. And often says more than words do.

A person who uses expansive body language is generally communicative, outgoing and open.  Whereas a self-contained body suggests someone who is defensive, insecure, unavailable and maybe even somewhat hostile.

But, because of our mirror neurons, we tend to imitate who we’re speaking to. So is my body talking like me or just reflecting you?

Interrelating is not always easy!

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Balancing act

Political statement for today:

Up - Down

What’s been up for too long, sooner or later, should come down.

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Above it all

Kalo Mina!

Political statement for today: Top- Bottom

If you’re on top, someone has to be on the bottom.

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Sun drying veggie experiment

I have this fantasy that one day I will be able to have a container garden that will produce at least 20% of our food.  So far it’s been wishful thinking.  But instead of letting go of the idea, I’ve added on to it.  Once my garden starts mega-producing, we will have to conserve a part of it for those long winter months. And what better way than sun drying it?

Parian Roofs

from our Parian roof

Years ago while driving around Crete, I saw many many roofs covered with figs and grapes (it was September). Flat roofs and a lot of sun make sun dehydration an obvious choice. So I decided to experiment with it here on Paros.

A few days before, Mr. Wolf had constructed a “dehydrator” from some wood we found on our way to the store and from the same kind of screen utilized for the structures used for drying out octopus so common here in Greece.

To prepare the vegetables we took an eggplant, four small zucchini and a cucumber, thinly sliced them and put them in a large bowl together. We add some sea salt, cumin and olive oil (just a bit), mixed it all together then let in marinate overnight in the fridge.

The next morning I went up on the roof to lay the veggies out in our homemade dehydrator.

Sun Drying

The dehydrator with the vegetables all laid out.

Sun Drying

The vegetables covered with the screen.

Of course, we knew it would take much more time than it would have had we used a commercial dehydrator. So we left the veggies out to dry for two days. Hopefully, we can come up with an idea as to how to use aluminium foil to speed up the process.

Sun Drying

Sun dried vegetables.

Sun Drying

As you can see, the vegetables shrunk quite a bit.  But the taste is good and the chewy texture is ok, too.  However, I plan to experiment with other vegetables (I have some tomatoes and carrots marinating right now) because I think these sun dried veggies would make a great snack to go  with our aperitif when we watch the sunset.

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Stay high

Don't Let Someone Living In A Hole Bring You Down      Misery loves company. So sometimes it’s best to be alone.

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