Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy: Behold the glory of the lemon

Like most millennial women, I love Liz Lemon. But she's not the only lemon I'm loving these days. In fact, there are more lemons than kale leaves in my fridge these days and not just because it's hot. Although I do love a good sweat and squeeze (You're welcome Arrested Development fans).

They are a super sustainable and versatile citrus with a myriad of healing properties.  Here are 3 reasons they're topping my charts these days:

1. Hangover cure

The BEST thing about lemons is their detoxifying properties.  The lemon helps to clean the liver and according to one of my IIN teachers, it can cure a headache. If you drank too much tequila or even over indulged in Burger King, a lemon can fix you up real nice . I like to add the juice of 1/2 lemon to boiling water and add a little honey.

2. On the spot acne treatment.

If you grew up in the 90s, you got all your skin care advice from Jenifer Love Hewitt and Neutrogena. so,when it comes to skin care products, you want that " tingly feeling clean." Well, rub a little lemon juice on your face and it will do more than tingle. The lemon actually functions as an antibacterial agent which is great when you get the urge to pick. I guess some people also take advantage of this to make homemade cleaning products but that's really just a guess and c'mon, who do I look like? Martha Stewart?

3. Um, cooking, hello?

Lemons are super versatile in the kitchen overall. You can zest it. You can use the juice. Look up a recipe, lazy. My lemon pasta wasn't good enough to make the cut. You can slice it up and put it in your water. You could eat it but I don't really recommend that.

So, go buy a bag. I promise it won't be, "difficult difficult lemon difficult."(You're also welcome, In the Loop fans).

Composting is Easy

As a former Whole Foods employee, I  always struggle when I walk up to just a trash can.  I find myself in a nauseating ethical dilemma about how long I should carry around my plastic salad container with leftover broccoli slaw that I didn't eat. Truthfully, planet earth doesn't always win in this dilemma but I digress.

Any good sustainable household should really have 3 different "trash" receptacles. The first two obvious options are trash and recycling.  The third receptacle should be for composting. If you live in New York City, you can drop off your compost weekly at your local farmer's market.

I keep my compost receptacle in my freezer. What's great about this especially in the intense heat of summer is that my trash doesn't smell and the local mice/roaches/ pigeons can't access your food scraps. And... you've got a great excuse to get your ass out of bed on Saturday morning, go for a walk, and buy some fresh produce.

So, there you have it. Composting=easy. For other guidelines and tips on what to compost, visit:http://www.grownyc.org/compost.

If you're the type of person that thinks throwing out kale stems is wasteful, I highly recommend  http://www.purplekale.com/. The woman that runs these cooking classes will teach you how to use every single inch of your produce.

Kale: A Love Affair

Kale. The first time my brother mentioned it to me, I thought to myself: “What the hell kind of green thing grows in the middle of winter?” It must be disgusting.

Chuck is into really out-there things (this is the first blog post. I’ll tell you more about this later. It’s mostly a good thing). Then, one day, I had a miso soup with Kale in it during an illness at what I would later learn was the infamous “Sun in Bloom” café in South Brooklyn. Miraculously, I was healed. I felt intrigued by this new discovery.

Like any nervous and sweet young lady, I didn’t want to be too aggressive with this mysteriously handsome new vegetable but I found myself titillated. Once the summer came, I looked up a recipe for kale chips and since then, our love affair has “bloomed.”  On sunny weekends, we would meet at afternoon  farmer's markets and walk back to my place imagining our lives together in between the covers of a fresh baked loaf of bread. Later that summer, we moved in together in Brooklyn.

Below is my simple recipe that does the trick every time:

A bunch of kale

2 cloves of garlic (minced)

Olive oil (2-3 capfuls)

Salt and pepper to taste

Making kale is a sensuous experience. Start by rinsing your kale first.  Cleaning your vegetables before you chop them helps to retain a certain supple nutritional quality.  Then, tear the leaves right off your kale. Put into a bowl and pour the oil all over your leaves. Add salt and pepper as you feel is appropriate and massage the oil and garlic into the kale until you feel it is sufficiently moist. Then, put on a cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes at 400 degrees.

*Any resemblance to 50 Shades of Kale is completely coincidental.