See: How to Balance Life and Work if you Must Work

One of our readers emailed me about how I am able to so perfectly balance life, to manage the tension between working, having kids and a husband, keeping my skin luminous and making sure that my legs stay insurable.  I know that this is something that every woman thinks about.  I thought it would be helpful if the busiest moms I know shared what a typical day looks like in their lives.  So, Miranda Sage Pulling, a successful high-yield bond trader and mother of six (wait til you see her breakfast lottery system! ) and Plush de Vignette Saucey, architect and designer of Soho Inn’s rooftop facial bar and mother of three year old triplets share their secrets.  I was amazed by some of their ideas and learned more about how I, too, could manage, even add to my already out of control life.

Love,

Poog

Miranda Sage Pulling
on January 6, 20112

Out of control, tired, bossy and always in charge!

As a manic mother of six (ages 1-8), lusciously hot wife to my husband and full time bond trader I can tell you that life can be dicey even on the best of days.   I am a partner at Schmidt, Plotnick, Farmer, Dixson and Bates, a trading firm based in Greenwich, Connecticut.  I balance my job there with my volunteer chairing of the United Stitchers Union, a non-profit dedicated helping the less fortunate knitters of the world. I also head up my childrens’ school’s Capital Campaign and run a shelter for road kill victims that don’t quite die.  Clearly I have to manage my time and the time of the people around me carefully. For the greater good. Here are some tops:

1.     Start early: if you spend a third of your 24 hour day sleeping you will sleep away a third of your life.  I wake up at 4:47 every morning and meet my Tai Kwon Do instructor.  This way, I can learn an ancient martial art while learning to protect myself from random violence.   Because I’ve set up the monitor in our home gym to display my email, I am able to read as I kick or swipe at things.  It’s really fun because I got the great idea that if I set up a touch screen “delete” button that I can kick as part of my routine that I can shave at least 17 minutes off of my dedicated mail reading time later. If I can get a few good chops and kicks in before 6 am I am a much better mother and wife for breakfast.

2.     Breakfast: set up a lottery system. With six kids I realized early that I couldn’t please everyone or even try to meet their individual needs and food preferences. So, taking into account our second and third children’s wheat and dairy allergies, I set up a food lottery system. My housekeeper fills seven cupboards with easily prepared breakfast foods (whole grain cereal, soy milk, gluten free pastries, peelable fruit) that the whole family can make and eat (even a two year old can pour milk if you teach them early and don’t mind a bit of the mess for the housekeeper to clean up later).  We filled a jar with all of our names and each day one person’s name is picked out of the jar. That person gets to pick the cupboard and get the food.  Being able to outsource the thought process and actual preparation of breakfast is key to starting the day.

3.     Appearance: the best time saver ever is an airbrush for makeup, which ensures that my make up application is impeccable.  Although it takes 45 minutes to an hour to apply my make up, it's worth the fact that I end up not having to reapply all day and look photofinished.  Because we all know that the smarter you are or the more successful, the better you have to look so that when you are dealing with men (and I am in an industry heavily dominated by men) that they aren’t threatened.  I’m all for equality and strive to live my life as a good example for my sons and daughters, but it’s just not nice to unsettle men for no good reason.

4.     Get yourself an assistant: even if you don’t have as much as I do to do you really should consider a good assistant. I could not manage without one. She prepares my calendar (including kids stuff! THANK YOU, BARB), syncs my electronics, handles my dry cleaning, brings in the manicurist when I forget.  This could also be called delegating. 

5.     Schedule everything: if you don’t schedule it chances are it won’t happen.  Barb makes sure that special mommy time is always on the agenda.  Once in a while one of my kids will ask if I can read a book or bake something with them and I always say yes, just put it on mommy’s schedule honey. You just can’t let those moments slip by in the rush of the day.

6.     Be firm: sometimes, when things get really out of control, the kids can get a little stressed and cranky. Just know that it will all work out.  Kids don’t always know what’s good for them.

7.     Family dinner: keep some perspective.  I know what studies say about families that eat together and I say “Baloney” that’s just a reflection of some other dimension of a families values. It has nothing to do with actually sitting together and sharing a meal for some part of the day. So, every day, I prepare a series of pithy messages and lessons that get typed up on the most beautiful hand-printed paper. These precious slips of knowledge get packed into bio degradable snack bags that my children take to soccer, lacrosse, hockey, piano, violin, guitar, football, ballet, photography, oil painting, robotics and Chinese  between school and bedtime.

Things That Make My Life Truly Superior

• 1.     A house in the south of France.
• 2.     Staff
• 3.     Getting a Thai massage while I watch my favorite movie, Eat, Pray, Love.
• 4.     Regular sessions with the children’s therapist.

5.  

Plush de Vignette Saucey 
on December 12, 2010

God! Was so hung over this morning when my kids came in to snuggle! “Mommy!” screamed Bella, “I just vomited into Liam’s crib.”  So much for easing into the day. “Bettina! “ I yelled to the nanny, who showed up and dragged the kids off to school where, poor dears, they have to go. I realized though that she had no idea that my new building had gone up right next to the children’s school and so I leapt out of bed. Ow. My head just killed me.  I had to make sure though that the models I had made for the kids out of lego would get to the school. Brand building never sleeps you know.  I rushed down into the kitchen in a frightful mess, carrying an overly large bag of models for them to distribute at school. I realized immediately that their breakfast was remarkable ecru-looking and nutritious, thanks to the efforts of Cook. Thanks, Cook! Get the kids out of the door with nanster and head back up to find my husband

Macilthwaite.  But, alas, he was already downstairs on the elliptical, heavenly hunk that he is, so I was going to have to wait til lunch to say good morning.  No interrupting.  My days become so busy that this time with the family in the morning is the best and most important.  It’s especially important on weekends when the children ad Macilthawaite have outings. I would love to be able to go with them. But I can’t. For example, on Saturday, when they are going to Regent’s Park for a picnic, I have a meeting with Dior,  It’s a hard-core appearance design session were we’re going to discuss incorporating  aspects of their fall fashion line into the external lines of their new flagship store.  Opps! Clearly am saying too much. Poog readers hold your tongues!  Oh! The car is here. Damian Hirst is going with me for the session. He is such a sport.  We haven’t worked together before, but I used his formaldehyde formula when I preserved the first organic brick from the construction site for Elle MacPherson’s Harbour Island retreat. Opps. Said to much again. My bad. We are planning (Elle and I, NOT Damian and I) to create a replica of the house and install it in the Tate’s Turbine room as an exploration of consumerism and fashion in high heat contexts that defy traditional concepts of performance art. A sort of ephemeral modernist take. The drinks will be yummy.  I hate it when cocktails are bland. Don’t you. I mean, just last week, when I presented my ideas for the royal wedding barge party to Kate and William we gagged on the awful drinks they were serving. I mean, really, how hard is it to hire a good bartender.  Sir Elton, really he is like my uncle, knows this wonderful tranny, Lea, who makes a whiskey sour that would set you on fire.  I hate fires. So damaging.  Back home now, just in time to drain the little piglets’ tub and tuck them in.  We jump on the bed together and then it’s tuck time. I insist on bedtime being non-negotiable because I firmly believe that all children want their parents to be firm and not their friends. Kind of sad, really.  Quick pecks and then of to a quick dinner with Poog.  Can’t wait!

POOGs day on October 2, 2010

When I got up this morning at 10 it was clearly a snow day. No school for the young’uns (have retained some of my film’s accent, so fun).  They were already up and blissfully ensconced in the home gym. Pear can now do the entire routine to my Fit in Five cd from memory! She is such a precocious 4 year old and I am a proud, but busy mommy. So busy that when my egg poacher failed I almost had a nervous breakdown. This is the sort of truth that people rarely talk about when discussing work life balance: how close to the edge of madness we all are. It’s true. I’ve said it. I know that I realized this before I even had the children.  Just the thought of having them took me to a precipice and this is how I came to find Oolong Chang.  So, here is my secret: No matter how horribly busy my day gets with workouts, line readings, hair dying, workouts, food reviewing, dressing the kids properly, I make time for Oolong Chang – my personal grounder.  Three times a day I seek him out, he stares me in the eyes (we bought him a great pumice stone to stand on, and it’s so light) and he says to me “You are fine. You are fine. You are fine.”  After repeating this mantra back to him three times, I take a deep breath and am on my way. Now I know that not everyone can have their own personal grounder with pumice stone dias, but I highly recommend getting one if at all possible. 

A GOOP Spoof/A GOOP Parody

POOGS Favorite Food Blogs For Janet: See

One of my absolutely favorite pastimes is sharing with you, total strangers who might appreciate my fabulous experiences.  This list of below is the result of many grueling nights, wrapped in cashmere, sipping a warm toddy, perusing literally thousands of food blogs. Here are my favorites:

Foggy Doggy
For six years, Mike Jenson, has been blogging about cooking gourmet dog biscuits and cocktails in his well-appointed, but tiny Shoreditch studio.  Some of the recipes he features, actually all of them, are riduculously complicated and involved hard to find and expensive exotic components, like distillation of sumac.  The main ingredient that sets these doggy treats apart however, is the special brew of home made vodka that he adds to each and every biscuit (hence the eponymous Foggy Doggy). But, the results are out of this (doggy) world. Mike's shaggy dog storytelling style and heartfelt desire to share his hard work to spare us some are genuinely endearing. My favorite post, "How to turn a Bucket of Rotten Potatos in the Perfect Canine Cosmo" makes me ever to eager to find him a book publisher whose design department is good enough to create a coffeetable book of his recipes that I can feature on POOG.

Frank Bites
For starters, this is one of the most profoundly beautiful food blogs out there. Frank Abouzeidiemetelschmidt is a videographer, food stylist and tumblr who travels around the world even though you can't. His videos are fast-paced, cutting edge artistic interpretations of what food would look like if it moved on its own. His edgy filming of flash fried Vishnatha spinach is the best visual interpretation of flash fried Vishnatha spinach that I've ever seen. And, just when I thought that he's reached the acme of videotaping food production, he surprised me with his "Souffle in Slow Motion," a Muybridge-like short that makes you want to reach out and at least touch, if not taste, the screen.

Crepes and Cretins
Sometimes it's hard to remember that even people who are not too bright like good food. And Crepes and Cretins has come along just at the right time to remind the rest of us that they do.  Their blog entries are short, practical and include everday ingredients to make simple, everyday food for simpletons.  Most of the recipes are creative redos of timeless classics such as thyme scrambled eggs (add thyme), gourmet Hawaiian pizza (add pineapple), nutella and strawberry crepes (add nutella and strawberrys to your crepes) and garlic roasted chicken (add garlic). It's no surprise that their entries read like short stories taken straight from the pages of The Joy of Cooking.

Limb-Ho!
Tiny Limb's blog is not a food blog, but a blog about people who love food. It's fun because she doesn't care what they're eating but instead focuses on what they look like while they eat because, after all, who wants to look at someone unattractive scarf down dinner. She is first a foremost my favorite dining stylist (she styled my last dinner party and it was the BEST looking I've ever had).  When you are looking for someone to make your dinner party sparkle with fabulous looking guests think of Limb.

What Janet Eats
See Janet eat.  This text over action photojournal of Janet and her favorite foods is not to be missed for their unique and wonderful take on Janet and her food preferences styled circa Goodhousekeeping 1974. We forget how challenging the creation and provision of fun and yummy food for the family was women in the early 70s as they faced the rising tide of the effects of the sexual revolution and blouses that knotted into really ugly bows at the neck. What Janet Eats takes us back to that time with none of the cultural baggage, leaving us with beautiful images of food against time-treasured backdrops of avocado coloured kitches and faux wood panelled dining rooms. She uses tried-and-true 70s food to create edible historic montages.

Madagascar Spice
Blues Jennas is a food writer, fashion illustrator and writer who grew up in an English tea house in what was once Bombay. A few years ago, she began experimenting with creating delicious dairy-free, sugar-free, gluten-free, peanut-free high afternoon teas, an effort that unfortunately failed, but fortunately resulted in her marvelous blog relating her seven year trials and tribulations. Each attempt is worse than the next in terms of taste, but the photography is beautiful and the Haikus and illustrations that accompany each recipe will make you cry. I especially love her discription of the dairy-ree, sugar-free, gluten-free, peanut-free cranberry scone:

Small juicy berries
Drifting in empty bowls
Filled by nothingness

Just Like Moms
Making dinner every night has been women's work for...ever. But now, thanks to a dad that makes dinner, we get to learn about how challenging it is to work and go home to create beautiful, nutritious and fun meals for the family even when you're exhausted, don't want to,. have not ingredietns and have a husband, or wife in this case, that works out of the house. Yet somehow Amir Toff manages to do just that with grace and humor and his iPhone.  His intrepid ordering of exotic take out is chronicled in the voice and via the charming antics of his humourously renamed wife and sons: Intrepid, Explorer and Sunshine. His menu links are fabulous (all you need for dinner is a PDF reader! Acrobat's 9.0 downloadable version is free). His mantra at the close of every post, "Why should I cook?" seems pretty good to me.

Go: Barthelona Redux

Friends, Frienemies,
This just in: Barthelona ith awethome. I say this in no way to make fun of Barcelonitos, but to genuinely reflect the tension inherent in Catalan life. Since coming to Barthenona on Saturday  I have had the pleasure to see the city through the eyes of die-hard Catalans, who have been forced for centruries to speak in the false lisp of their Castillian oppressors. Despite this handicap Barcelonitos are in the avant garde of bioorganic food production. This may seem like a small victory, but it's not. The ability to create slightly tasteless but theoretically healthy food in a culture that values frighteningly tastel-but insanely bad-for-you food is a major vindictive coup.
Today's featured establishment (no, we are not getting free muffins), Barcelona Reykavic, is an all natural bakery just off of the Carrer Pintor Fortuny. It lives up to it's reputation as the city's leading Slow Food movement organic bakery.  The xocolate muffin is tough but tastey and the plantanos, despite being virtually inedible, are amazing. Nearby, local Biotherm Cafe serves the only vegetables that are not fried as tapas in a 20 mile radius. Their small plates are expensive, but you have the comfort of knowing that anything green has actually been imported from the victory garden at Eton. Just knowing that witty, weathly scions of the British aristocracy walked by these veggies makes you sigh in relief.

I would be remiss not to mention the terribly shallow art scene. MACBA is stunning and never open and local contemporary galleries elusive. This is the best way to experience cutting edge art - with longing. This longing captures the essence and effemerality of ideas. The longing itself is the point. To actually see the art, or to experience it, is SO passe. Barthelona captures this zeitgeist as no other city does.

Adios, mi amigos.
POOG

Be: The Karma Doctor

Hello friends,
Many of you have recently written with excellent ideas indoor wintery fun.  I thought I would compile some of these and add my own personal favorites to share with you here.
Snow ho!
Poog

A Visit From the Karma Doctor
Lots of busy women I talk to make good use of their trapped inside time by making doctor's appointments for the year. Everything from dentists and dermotologists to allergists and personal trainers. However, few make time for a regular visit to the Karma Doctor.  My Karma Doctor makes house calls and can always anticipate when a full-family snow day visit is necessary. It has nothing at all to do with my crying, but rather with his innate sense of when all of us need a better sense of where we came from, where we are and where we are going. Some people thing that it's impossible to minister to one's karma, but they're haters.  Marylebone's own Dr. Ben Gideon Smalley comes with everything he needs - a sharp brain, nicely trimmed finger nails, a melifluous voice and a karmic wisdom of the ages.  The first thing he does is make everyone in the family wear nude colored body suits, sit, breathe, hold hands and kiss. That small act enables all of us to calm down and smell the roses. I always make sure before a snow storm to buy several dozen roses and you should, too. The second thing he does is make everyone say something true in the karma circle of love. He draws the circle on the rug using lotus petals. Anything you say in the karma circle loses it's ability to be hurtful outside of the circle.  You can use the circle to purge your karma of negativity generated by being inside for long periods of time with people you are related to.  For example, once in the circle you can say how much you hate animated movies or how your son's habit of singing to you at bed time makes you want to leap out of your skin with panic.  I cannot tell you how good I felt when I left the circle of love after saying that I was disappointed that no one noticed my week long attempt to walk like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's. It meant a lot to me to be able to do that and when no one noticed I was hurt. I mentioned that I felt that everyone was really self-centered and not very observant then I felt better. Dr. Gideon Smalley is available for certain people if you call 0-11-44-67-32-32.


Poem in a Jar
In these days of virtual media madness I find that it is always good to remind my children (and myself) of what books and words mean.  All too often we forget that books represent perhaps the greatest technological leap ever taken by humans ever and should be treated with respect and veneration. Words, too. They are symbolic of meaning. One of my favorite stuck-in-the-house snow day activities is to have the kids go through the books we have and cut out words that they like the sounds of.  Then, we paste the words to the insides of glass jars using a mix of powdered gelatin mixed with coconut water. Once each jar has been completely covered (from the inside) we take turns reading them out loud in a giant fun-filled family poetry slam.  If you can, have everyone read from behind the backlight curtain in your shadow theatre for great dramatic effect.  The jar makes a great flower vase if you shellac the inside when you are done.  Here is one of my favorites (from my own jar, which I shellaced myself with a mixture of linseed and eggwhite). My clever daughter named this one Mommy has Aphasia and I laughed so hard I almost peed in my pants, but they are hand sewn ultrasuede so I didn't:

Doll silk carrots cellar door azure
Anyway sandals Emin soak
Sex prayerful bean curd
Real pan Warrior erstatz fiddle
Lo waters a of or and gritty
Question love.

The first line rhyme was a throw away bonus and the last two words just ended up next to each other in an instance of poetic fate. Our family collection will be published in July by the Urban Poetry Collective. Proceed will be donated to SOOCCS (Sisters of Owners of Canine Cancer Survivors).

Faux Jello
Everyone remembers Jello and as a special treat we have one day a year when we make it.  I like to reserve this treat for snow days when the kids won't actually want to eat the jello but rather can be convinced to mix it with snow and play texture games with it. That way I get the Mommy points for allowing them to make Jello and a mess while making sure that they don't actually eat it.  If they insist on eating it however, a good substitute if you do want to eat it is Dandelion Aspic with Agave Syrup, which, if you add dried and pulverized berries to can be dyed to look like Jello. I won't tell if you don't!

Make Designer Skirts
I would never have come up with this one by myself, but my good friend, SM is a whiz with the needle and after the launch of her kids' clothing line in major store to be unnamed she came up with a do-it-yourself bedskirt skirt that is just to die for. Here's what you need:

100% 200 Count Egyptian Cotton Long Drop Bedskirt in color of your choice
100% 200 Count White Egyptian Cotton King Size Sheet
Needle
Thread
Sewing Maching (optional, you can get someone to sew by hand for you)

Cut one side of the bedskirt off keeping about four inches of the liner fabric above the skirt seam. Cut the sheet into three foot by one inch strips. Lay the strip on the liner fabric of the bedskirt section, fold over the liner fabric, sew it into place (there by creating a drawstring of Eygptian Cotton).  Once sewn into place wrap it around you as many times as desired, tie, et voila!  You might have to practice a few times before your stitching comes out right, but the seamstress I had come to show us how to stitch made it seem so easy.  The skirts we made last week will be available at the La Femme online auction during fashion week. If you don't have 200 count Egyptian Cotton sheets you can use a slightly lower thread count.

MAKE: And BE at the Same Time

This morning, as I sat and read my NYT, I was thrilled to see the yoga foodie movement featured in the Food section.  I say, it's about time. Anyone who has eaten a delicious vegan entree while doing the downward facing dog will tell you that virtually nothing can give you the same high as sweating and swallowing simultaneously.  I thought I would add to the article's wonderful coverage with a series of easy-to-make and easy-to-do vegan/yoga combos with a meditative soy wax facial twist.  Hope you can BE, in the existential sense, as happy as I am when I'm stretching AND indulging at the same time.

Love,

POOG

Tree Pose

Trunk Bark Hot Mocha Pattie
Essence of You Soy Candle Facial

Someone once told me that if the Tree Pose is your favorite one then you are well grounded, stable, earthy. So, what better to nibble on while in position than my own Trunk Bark Mocha Pattie. This nutrient filled snack  makes you truly one with the pose as  treeness infuses you from the inside.  To complete the experience however, I've added an Essence of You Soy Candle Facial.  The Essence of You Soy Candle allows you to melt the candle in it's entirety, add a few drops of your own (or that someone special's) perspiration. Once the candle is resolidified, you can burn it while you pose for a full sensory experience. I recommend using this candle during the winter months expecially since all of us can suffer from stuffy noses. As the candle melts use a small wooden paddle (I sneak mine from Harrods food court, shh) to scoop up some wax and smear it on your face. Heaven.

Warrior I (otherwise known as Virabhadrasana II)
Tai Chi Bean Salad
Ocean Air Clementine Wax Candle Facial
I love this pose! It makes me think of my first boyfriend. In 3rd grade we would pretend to be practictioners of the ancient martial arts in the playground. Everyone else thought we were weird, but now he's got a no.1 selling fashion line. He actually told me that my warrior pose was the best he'd ever seen.  In honor of first love, I 've coupled this otherwise aggressive-seeming position with a calming flavoid-filled bean salad. It's necessary when posing and eating to make sure that your choice of food balances your choice of movement.  In this instance the Tai Chi Bean Salad is ideal. As you lunge forward into full warrior mode, bring your extended arm back, with spoon, take a calming bite and exhale. The key to completing this motion for maximal harmony however, is to apply the Clemintine wax as a solid to your face PRIOR to going into warrior pose and then lighting your candle.  The BEST Ocean Air Clementine Wax Candle that I've found is from Romy and Cleo in LA (http://www.romyandcleo.la.com/).


Cobra
Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup
Bamboo Sugar Candle
Nothing looks so much like you do in this pose as a Vietnamese Egg Noodle in a bowl of warm tasty broth. You can really take your time in this pose to consider the mirror image tactile and sensual associations between you and your food. Some people say "You are what you eat," I say "You eat what you are." In this version of a facial gone wild, apply melted Bamboo Sugar Wax to your wrists and ankles for a genuine experience. Not to be believed.

A GOOP Spoof

MAKE: Ecoorgans Boulevard

As all of us dedicated toxin purgers, the new year always presents innovative ways to cleanse. I have asked Malcolm Smidge and Heather Dexter, co-founders of LA’s terrific new Ecoorgans Boulevard to sacrifice any hint of competitive advantage his business may have had by sharing their secrets with me. I discovered EB last year when a friend of mine fainted during one of their fasts and I joined her on her 4 day regime to see if I could do it without fainting. The result was truly spectacular (I didn’t even sway slightly from inedia) and the smoothies and serums were so scrumptiously yummy that I ingest them whenever I am in LA. (The Papaya Juyce smoothie with added Acai is the best I’ve ever had .) They make regular intestinal purging much less icky and can deliver your diuretics to your door if you live in LA. If you don’t, like me, here are some key advice to keep on hand if you’re in a DYI mood.

LOVE*
POOG

Interview with Malcolm Smidge and Heather Dexter, founders Ecoorgans Boulevard

POOG: How did you begin your business?

Malcolm Smidge and Heather Dexter: We started Ecoorgan as the first full service detox and evacuate lifestyle company last year. The combination of easily mixed ingredients with new toilet technology from Japan really made the decision for us. Initially we were operating the HEALTHYcleanse detox program from our convertible BMW, where we also ran a raw food snack cart and served as the nexus of the LA healthy inside and out spirituality fitness raw food movement. What started as a deep inner need and a desire to cleanse, cleanse, cleanse extended outward to embrace and purify the world. The real intestipiphany however came when we first saw the Suzuki Air Fresh Barstool Toilet Model 552-0065889 and realized that bringing together our vision and their technology would enable us to create the first one stop sip and sit counter in the world. Our partnership has resulted in the world’s most dynamic, (sweetly-scented!) headquarters for a 24/7 purgative experience.

POOG: How does Ecoorgans Boulevard work?

Malcolm Smidge and Heather Dexter: People can find us on the world wide web or by calling us on our VOIP lines and call center located in Arkansas (the little-recognized capitol of the raw food cleanse movements telemarketing efforts.) If they call us, we can talk to them and tell them how to find our newest retail locations in LA when they are here. We make all of our smoothies and open all of our water bottles daily to guarantee freshness in our incredibly sparkly new kitchen. Our cutting edge rabbit water bottle openers are made by hand in Thailand and their use means that the level of carbonization in our water and intestoeco concoctions is maximized during the opening process. In addition, when we use maximally carbonized water in our smoothies we know that we are capturing the essence of each and every vitamin and element that would have gone into the mixture if it had more genuinely nutritive value. We’re pretty sure we are at least.

POOG: What sets you apart and makes you a leader in the sip-to-sit arena?

Malcolm Smidge and Heather Dexter: We are completely dedicated to making the widest possible range of water-based smoothies with immediate diuretic effects so that you leave our retail locations completely satisfied that you have met your cleansing goals in the shortest possible time. We know that time is a valuable commodity in today’s stressful world and believe that the ability to speed up the detox/purge/cleanse cycle is the main source of our competitive advantage. This would be impossible, of course, without our partnership with the Suzuki Air Fresh Barstool Toilet Company. We are also committed to an entirely recyclable, reusable model and have based our retail ecosystem on the lunar moon shuttle urine and human waste recycling program. No good fluid goes to waste in our model.

Here are some simple and easy to follow guidelines:

• Mix our Purple Sphincter Dust with two litres of highly carbonized water for maximum purge and a hint of ant-wrinkle benefits. Some say it also makes your laugh a little more…sparkley.

• After 20 magical minutes on our barstool it’s time for a quick in-place stretch. Lift your arms to the side and sway them first to the left three times and then to the right once. Repeat and then reverse. We call this the LOVEseat SWAY.

• Make sure that your BREAKFAST, LUNCH and DINNER all support your cleansing goals. The fundamental building blocks of any good program will always include a combination of powders, liquids and gels but never solids. We specialize in those that are murky and viscous so that you cannot swallow too much at once. In addition, if our greens are too bright, we tone them down with a smidgen of aged raw lamb to help with nightly evacuation.

• Remember, this program is not for everyone, but only very special people

BE: Christmas is A Birthday

As we celebrate the biggest birthday of all time I thought it would be helpful to have our resident experts weigh in on the man himself.
Happy holidays,
POOG

Question: Jesus is always interpreted through the lens of the interpreter and then shaped and reshaped to meet that interpreters own vision of the world. So, I ask, what about the REAL man? What was he like, what did he wear, what lessons can we take from him today as we approach the celebration of his birth?

Samantha Vignette answers: We know nothing about him really. Especially the so called "lost teen years" when it is believed, for absolutely no good reason, that he travelled to India to study polytheism and the Kama Sutra. It is important to know what you don't know and to use that information to inform your day to day decisions and how you treat other people. I would hazard a guess that even though little is known about him, other than he did exist and was crucified as a criminal, he was probably nice sometimes to certain people. The lesson here is that we should also be nice to certain people. I would say everyone, but that's hardly realistic. You should treat people nicely as he might have done when he could however. I call this Niceiticity. Being nice because it's the right thing to do sometimes. That much I know is true. The rest is all uncertainty and from this we grow and move forward.

Samantha Vignette is the director of the Niceiticity Institute in Lausanne, an organization dedicated to the idea that doing good deeds can benefit a person in the here and now and not just in an afterlife.

Thoprac Mishri answers: I like to think of him as a regularly guy. The one that I might meet on a bus if I rode them. Or, since the biblical record mentions carpentry, the man that I would call when I need my kitchen cabinets refaced. People don't like to think that way, but this is a key lesson because I say so. That doesn't really answer your question though. We know that the gospels are incomplete and that heurmenutics are subject to the political and cultural environment of the day, as well as the psychological predispositions of the scholar doing the interpreting. A complete reading would necessarily include the Gnostic Gospels, which shed a relentlessly mocking light on the canon. The entireity of the available literature tells us this: he lived, he spoke, he may or may not have married, he may or may not have died on the cross, he may or may not have had children, he may or may not have gone on to live as an Essene, he may or may not have risen from the dead, he may or may not have been a brunette and possibly he had head lice. Chances are good. We do know that his mother did not have a fine toothed steel comb however but that she probably would have appreciated one since she may or may not have had more children. Based on this information we have a worldwide monotheistic religion that, when merged in a syncretistic fashion with pagan Germanic tribal tradition results in an annual orgy of cutting down trees, bringing them inside and buying way too much wrapping paper. It warms the heart to know that we come together, regardless of religion ultimately, to celebrate his birth even though, given the actual dates of the Roman census of that time, it probably took place in May.

Thoprac Mishri is a leading proponet of the Christmas is More Than Christ's Birthday movement which is dedicated to the belief that anyone, anywhere can celebrate anything at all for any reason but that the support of a major organized religion sometimes helps.

David Yuan-Lee Knowles answers: Everyone likes to think of him as one of their own. In England he is white, in Africa he is black. Our tradition, ancient Confusionism, maintains that he was Asian, but just taller than the average Asian man and with more facial hair. We are pretty certain that when no one was looking he would braid his hair into a long queue and play with his beard so that it tapered on the edges of each tip. These physical attributes clearly explain his apparent rejection of formal religious structures. Random, but possibly true like so much that we know. Along the same lines, his spirituality like all spirituality, was based on acceptance, love and tolerance, especially for those who disagree with you and have power over you. See?

A GOOP Spoof

Go: Mongolia!

I’ve just returned from a very spontaneous trip to Mongolia where I was just stunned and overwhelmed by the beauty and wonder of the architecture, food and people but not really the weather or accommodations. Mongolia is literally days away virtually any way you chose to travel, but once you get there, you realize that the air is different. Cleaner, purer, more innocent. It is a place I will definitely spontaneously visit again because I’m not quite sure when anyone would actually plan in advance to go there given other available options. Through good friends I met three very lusciously charming young men who opened their yurt up to me and my entourage. They revealed parts of Mongolia that would otherwise have remained hidden. Here, we’ve put together a list of the most BEST places to GO!

You-Tang Yurght
Desolate Plain

Mongolia

+1.389.255.8663

Youtangyurght.com

I stayed at the newly renovated You-Tang Yurght, here pictured, located in the heart of the plain. The Svn Lassiter designed exterior blends seamlessly with the environment.

But, the outside is nothing compared with the inside. The beauty of the design is the way that it changes the weather around the actual tent by generating a field of harmony that lowers the temperature in the immediate area, like in a fairy tale. The Yurght (pronounced YURT) has several organic restaurants featuring cuisine from other desolate regions of world – a first in my experience. The food and drink at any of these venues would please the most difficult foodie and, believe me, I know some difficult foodies. Speaking of which, I could not resist a daily cashmere skin facial and buttocks massage. The uniqueness of the goat actually still being attached to its skin during the process is very special. Everyone should try it at least once in this very short life. Absurdly luxurious!!

Blue House
Moron, Mongolia
+1.389.256.8995

Bluehousemongolia.com

If You Tang is not quite your cup of tea, I recommend staying at the more contemporary Blue House. This restored palatial residence only welcomes guests who wear shades of blue, the color of eternal peace and inner sanctity. So hip it hurts, but not so much that it will kill you. Definitely a bargain if you have been on a spiritual quest and having no luck. The quick fix aesthetic is not just on the surface, but ends up being a fully immersive saturative experience. After a week of wearing blue, eating blue (yes! Only blue foods) and seeing blue you realize how overrated the rest of the spectrum is and how very little we all really need to be happy. Blue house is located in Moron (yes, a real place, really) and is a quick chartered camel ride from the capitol. You can also rent a Segway to get around the tent complex.

Mongolian Berry

This is not a place, but a gift. This small yellow berry is my new miracle food. It has the amazing quality of tasting like nothing. Which is different from having no taste, which we all know is a sad thing. I had never seen or eaten the Mongolian Berry before my Mongolian BFFs introduced me to it at breakfast on my first day there. We at it muddled into our water with a soupcon of honey. Divine. At lunch, I sprinkled the berries onto my salad and ended up just picking them out and only eating them (but I made sure that the remainder of my salad went to someone who really needed greens, which are sometimes very hard to find here). By dinner I was hooked. Dried Mongolian Berrys were powdered and used as the primary spice in our Hot Pot. If you can’t make it to Moron you can order them directly from Matt and Galinda, two New Zealand expats who’ve built a life around the berries that is enviable. At $20.00 a quarter pound (plus shipping, sorry) you can supply yourself well for a Berry-filled feast.

A GOOP Spoof

Get: Regifting with Elan

Let's be honest: everybody, at some point, has regifted. As those of you who always agree with me know, I think regifting was originally conceived by native Americans. Ramon A. Gutierrez, associate professor of history and ethnic studies at the University of California, San Diego, writes about the social aspects and inequalities of gift giving. Regifting isn't the central thesis of his book When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: 1500-1846 (Stanford University Press, 1991) but can be inferred to include regifting, if you have an open enough mind body dialog. In a conversation that I imaged having with him during an inner peace stretch session early yesterday morning it occurred to me that we could all benefit from a return to Native American giving habits and their uncanny reliance on what are now recognised to be sound ecological recycling practices. But, their gifts were so not stylish.

Hence today's letter: regift with elan. Here are some great ideas:

Personalize It: every object can be personalized - if you are artistic enough you can do it yourself with an etching knife or, for those of us more challenged in that arena, by taking it to Tiffanys. Even if the gift didn't start there if you use this code: POOGrocks when you take the gift in, they'll do it for just $150.00. Far cheaper than the cost of a new gift.

Daisy Chain It: With every regift include a "regifting chain." This is the list of people you'd like to see this gift go to over the course of the next year. It's really special if you write the list on embossed paper in a Renaissance script, to capture the holiday spirit. It's really a nice gesture when you are regifting to a particularly busy person. Takes their having to think about who to give it to next right out of the process. For those among us that love things, this document can take on a life of its own and in this sterile digital age who doesn't love a hand-written progressive regifting geneology at the end of the year? Pas moi!

Give it Star Power: Think of your most illustrious friend and have them autograph the object. This is always fun and can make for years of cocktail party patter. One of my favorites! One of my most treasured possessions is a paper weight carved from the petrified skin of pig carcass suspended in translucent oleo. M. thought a signature from Damien Hirst was just the right thing and I have to agree.

Location! Location! Location!: Last but now least, half of the gift is its packaging. Colorful, drawstring silk bags hand painted in Nepal can make any gift memorable. Don't underestimate the power of cashmere, either. Cut up any old blanket or throw to make delightful gift saris. Tie with a starched satin ribbon and your good to go!

I hope you like these as much as I do and that they help to make your seasonal regifting a little more fun! Send us your ideas!

POOG

A GOOP Spoof

BE: Parents and Love

I am dedicating today's missive on parental conflict to my parents who are together today, but in another country. Even though I am not with them and they don't celebrate Thanksgiving or really understand it, I know they are thinking of me and turkeys and mashed things. My parents are the greatest remote parents on earth. This is me, giving thanks, while I talk about the anxiety and conflict that their mercurial love and poor judgement cause me every day. Having said that, my parents are the best parents anyone in the world could ask for. Not just parents, but my best friends, my karma doctors, my essence. Below is a conversation I had with Sanjay Witherspoon, who teaches ancient parental conflict resolution philosophy in his awesomely decorated yurt in Shoreditch.

Question: SW, why is it that our parents can bother us so much, even as adults, by just being there for us?

SW: This is the wrong way to ask this very important question. The correct way to ask it is, why, as a pre-born spirit, you choose parents whose very existence would drive you crazy. This is the question. Any other way of asking it shifts the blame to someone else. And, it is important as a child, to stay true to the idea that you are the center, the core and all things start with you. If they drive you crazy it is, in the end, your fault. Or your mother's.

Question: If all things start and end with me, the child, why do they result in withering exchanges when all I want is world peace?

SW: Do you? Do you really want world peace? Or, is your quest one of holistic unification with the womb? Something you can achieve only through systematic vedic annihilation of the parent as other. In a peaceful way, of course. If you can recognize that your parents are on the same quest in a never ending infinite path of parental conflict and irresolution then you can come closer than they have to achieving your goal.

Question: What?

SW: If you can recognize that your parents are on the same quest in a never ending infinite path of parental conflict and irresolution then you can come closer...

Question: Nevermind. But, where does it end? Do I exist in a penumbra, consigned to always labor as a child to understand how my parent's ineptitude will affect my diet and my skin?

SW: Diet and skin are the most important facets of your relationships with your parents. These things are not negotiable. Emotional instability, episodic depression. These you can live with. If you cannot maintain healthy diet and skin the right course of action is to walk away.

Question: Walk away. This is one of the core tenets of your philosophy, but it is easier said then done. I tried to walk away last night but after my parents yelled at me and then at each other I had to stop in my tracks. The shift from their yelling at each other to yelling at me was startling. I realized that who they were yelling at made a huge difference. I mean, I really don't like it when they team up and yell at me. Where does it end?

SW: In the fetal position.

Question: Is that a yoga position?

SW: No, it's the actual fetal position: a tightly wound ball of infantile immobility and insecurity.

Question: Could we make it a yoga position? Because then I could wear my friend Stella M's new line of not-too-pricey-if-price-is-no-object line of yoga clothes sold at the Gap.

SW: I suppose so.

Question: If my parents wear the same clothes will it make us feel better?

SW: Maybe, but it's doubtful.

Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom. Kayahaleh.

SW: Kayahaleh.

Go: Mobile Munchies

I worked on September 5th, 6th and 7th this year and had the great fortune of finding super yummy lunches on all three days . As we all know, finding a mid-day meal that is healthy and incredible and has its roots in poverty can be really difficult. However, tucked away on the side streets of exclusive or safely edgy major metropolitan neighborhoods are a new generation of mobile, high-end peasant food purveyors! The city food scene has taken to les rues! In Prii, of course!

Locanda Tokyo
New York, NY
Locandatokyo@twitter for daily locations

As some of you many know, even though I’ve chosen to live in a MUCH older city, I’m a born-and-bred New Yorker. I think, if I could have when I was younger and in NY all the time, I would have eaten lunch at this mobile seaweed salad truck every day. This is the best seaweed salad I’ve ever eaten and, believe me, I’ve eaten A LOT of seaweed salad. Don’t forget to ask for the wholeness and wellness side order of bread. Did I mention, it’s got an old-school vibe?

God and Mammon
Los Angeles, CA
Godandmammon@twitter for daily locations

If you can imagine an imaginary place decorated to look like a real place meant to look imaginary, you could easily be thinking of this fantastic restaurant. The best gumatoma clams are served with a stunning cornucopia of fresh ersatz Maori side dishes. But, the homemade thin crust, organic, lactose free, free-range chicken pot pie, my fave, is the coup de culinary grace. The simple slightly-pricey entrees and the freshly-made elderberry extract make this a worthy local favorite. Book in advance on the days you know you have to work.

Cybelline
London, UK
Talk to someone in the know to find location

My heart fluttered the first time I took my best celebrity chef friend to this bodega-cafe on wheels. This ceviche taco restaurant in a discreetly unmarked white van, serves the best and most brilliantly scrumptious ceviche tacos outside of Las Alamandas. (I just learned that Las Alamandas is named after the lovely yellow alamandas flower indiginous to that part of Mexico and the source of a relaxing, all-natural anti-menstrual migraine serum? Who knew?) My friend LOVED it (Cybelline, not Las Alamandas, although who doesn’t love that, too?). Nouvelle Mexican by way of Shoreditch.

More mobile hotspots to come next work work!
A GOOP Spoof

Do: A Better Playdate

Every woman with children knows the pain of finding the perfect play date. It's often the case that the kids get along, but the nannies or mothers don't. Or, just the opposite. Don't you remember having to play with children you couldn't stand, but had to play with because your moms were friends?

Well, those days are mercifully over! A new service, e-Playdate, has revolutionized my life and will yours, too. For someone like me, who everyone wants to either be or be friends with this service is invaluable. The idea was brought to fruition by Samantha Plummer and Juliette Knopes who were fed up with play dates from hell. Here they are to explain their awesome contribution to mom life:

Samantha and Juliette:
Samantha - The idea came to me one day, when Anjou, my 9 year old, said to me (after I'd spent hours arranging logistics) that she just hated her play date because the other child (who shall go unnamed) had her hair in her face the whole time, even though she was wearing a headband. It was distracting and aggravating to my daughter, whose personal aesthetic is very refined. What a drag! I thought. Wouldn't it be great if I could find friends that she loved looking at while she played? Voila!

Juliette - My epiphany was a bit different. It's all about me. I love accompanying my kids on their play dates. It's an opportunity for both them and me to build life-long friendships. But, that only works if I like the other moms, and recently that hasn't happened. Take the last non e-play date play date that I went on: The kids got along fine, but the other mother and I barely tolerated each other. She droned on and on about something she was reading. Of course, we set a good example, and were unfailingly polite, but I'm sure she felt just like I did and was thinking "Oh My God, I'm frittering away my life talking to this idiot!" I mean, her shoes were scuffed in places, up near the toes especially. I told S about it and she shared Anjou's experience and we were off to the e-playdate races.

Samantha - It works pretty much like a dating service. You sign up and create three profiles: yours, your nanny (ies) and one for each child that you want to arrange playdates for. The profile is broken up into some basic areas of interest: fashion, skin care, residential square footage, types of exercise and sports, vacation preferences, ashram preferences, charitable causes, allergies, working experience, if any. Of course, the standard demographics like race, ethnicity and household income and weath are there, too. Geography is available if transportation is relevant (no airplane, for example, or horses).

Juliette - The results are amazing because of the granularlity of your selection options. You can specify whether you or your nanny is going to be the primary play date adult and whether you will go on play dates where the other mother isn't present but the nanny is. In a situation like that, it's really nice to know if the nanny speaks English or has a doctorate (of course, from another country, so it doesn't really count, but it's nice to know.)

You can sign up for e-Play date at http://www.myeplaydate.com/.

A GOOP Spoof

Make: Tasteless Treats

This week we bring you the delightful Meredith Ethrington and recipes from her mecca of taste-free, texture-full cuisine: The Sandpaper Puffpastry Bakery! Time to sing a vegan ode to these clue-free treats and get down, or something like that. Spoof Gwyneth Paltrow GOOP.

POOG: Meredith, how long have you been making tasteless, gravelly but beautifully decorated and (mostly but not entirely) sugar and dairy-free baked good? What inspired you to take up the mantle of this worthy culinary cause?

Meredith Ethrington: You know, I didn't pick this route. It picked me. It was a kind of intestinal destiny. In 2003 I had six months of just DREADFUL diarrhea (which is SO hard to spell, but SO easy to get) and unbelievable gassiness. My doctor broke the news: stop eating. I explained that I LOVE eating and she conceded that if I ate cardboard-like foods I would improve significantly. It was a sad moment because I LIVE for food that tastes at all. But, I decided to embrace the necessary changes. The first time I went to the food store was disorienting. Usually someone else does it for me. But, once I got used to being there it was just, well, it was annihilating. If something was white, it was probably tasty. If it was green, it was filled with air and chloroform or something like that. If it was red, it either once lived or maybe grew on something. And, if it was packaged in plastic, well, you just can't do that anymore. I thought - why can't I find something scratchy and buff-hued with textural hints of mocha that was wrapped in a stiff, pleated ivory recycled thingy! It is really that hard? So...I did it and I thought I should share my Gastric Epiphany with the world. It took 6 weeks, but The Sandpaper Puffpastry Bakery was born in those six weeks.

POOG: What has the result been? What positive outcomes have come out?

Meredith Ethrington: Well, I've always been rail-thin and now I'm positively skeletal. It's been a great side effect of taking everything out of my food. You really don't have to diet when you take this approach. It's a lifestyle and if you follow the one rule, eat dirt, then you don't have to remember a bunch of silly little ones or count calories. And, since you're generally too weak to exercise you never have to do that either. I am just exceedingly cautious about letting any color creep into my food at all.

POOG: What are your to-die-for ingredients?

Meredith Ethrington: Well, my top ingredients would be berrit oil extract (it's really high in florid acid, stimulates the amygdala minor and can create almost the same taste as butter without the taste), guava skin (I prefer guavas from Costa Rica because it's nicer there then some other places) and Ray's Gluten/Sugar/Dairy/Chlorophyll/Salt-Free Powdery Filler (my whole Bakery would cease to exist without this miraculous substance). You can get all of these at a local health store or online.


POOG: How did you make your recipes? I mean, no one's done this before, right?

Meredith Ethrington: You know, many people have tried this at home, but haven't really capitalized on the availability of these ingredients in the way I am. My recipes were hard to come up with because people like things that taste good. It's a downside of evolution and there aren't many of those, so that's hard to grapple with on a daily basis. Because, I believe heart and soul in evolution. Especially in a spiritual mind/food/body way, from an Asian perspective, via Brooklyn and Brixton in the late 90s. But, I put myself on the mad culinary steeple chase and I had to move forward.

POOG: Is frack sugar-free? I know EVERYONE thinks that and are wrong. Maybe you can clear that up.

Meredith Ethrington: Frack is not glucose free. It's a genetic antecedant to cane. Sometimes people can digest frack however, but still not eat sugar. It's white. Even when it's brown.

POOG: Are there any especially thrilling recipes you're working on? Variations on old classics. As you know, I love El Soya Marzipanito Preservados faux Little Debbie Raisin Cakes, do you think we'll ever have a taste-free version of the real fake one?

Meredith Ethrington: I just made a version of these the other day! It was terrific, because the original was already kind of a brown/oatmeal color, I just had to find a way to get the yellow out. I LOVE El Soya Marzipanito Preservados marizipan reproductions of processed foods! It's my goal to improve on them by making foods that look like them, but have no taste at all. When I announced that I had made a fat/sugar/gluten/butter/dairy/taste free version of El Soya Marzsipanito Preservados Litte Debbie Raisin cake in the bakery every started shrieking, but in a tasteful way. One woman on 78th and 5th even slipped out of her yoga class early to try one. Luckily, everyone adores them and some people even say that it's the best thing I've ever done. "Qui sais?" as they say in Locust Valley!

GET: Fall Fashion and You

Last month, I secured the help of a new friend, Jennifer Milly, the Fashion Editor (and now Contributing Blogger) of Vain and one of the best dressed, pre-pubescent looking women I know. She helps me get dressed every day by using her discerning eye to create trends for fall that will work every fall until 2010, when she'll come up with new ones.

Jennifer Milly shares:

Here is my stylating list of Fall (pout) and Winter (double pout) trends for 2009/2010. Since I'm really already thinking about Fall and Winter of NEXT year, what I'm about to describe will smack of the passe, but to you every single stitch will feel bright and shiny new. It's coming to me now...this year's trends that speak to what you can do everyday to be fashionlicious. Just remember: Be true to yourself, but not too true.

Reptilian Intergalactic It Girl: Remember those shoulder pads that your mother still wears? Well, as they say in the fashion world, what comes around goes around. My life would not be complete without Alexander Wang ribbed leggings (just $425!) topped by my genuine anaconda-lined Z-zipped Club Monaco jacket (shoulder pads included, of course). Top it off with your retro, over-the-top headband hair bow and you're good to go this October!

Girly Girl Diva: There is no such thing as too much flounce this fall. Some fashionistas might say "Don't Do This At Home". I say, "DO!" As my father to said to me on my 11th birthday, "You're MY little girl, but now you're the world's and don't ever forget it!" When you add layers of pouf to a simple, every day skirt the whole world stops to stare. My favorite: D&G patent leather crinoline underskirt ($1225) - goes from carpool to cocktails. I wish I had a picture.

Sex Slave: We all know bondage comes and goes, at least as far as fashion is concerned and this year is no different. Boots, belts and bows are all the rage and no Fall and Winter 2009 wardrobe is complete without at least one nod to the dominatrix in all of us. Take your pick: over the knee leather boots or velvet neck collar, it doesn't matter. What matters is making carpool memorable: after all, that part of your kids' life is just a small part of yours, why not make it something they remember fashion-fondly,

Helmut, Krina, Nicholas, Brian: designers that I HAVE to mention. If you don't know them, you should. Now you know their names at least. Their designs, fitted, baggy, shaggy, tapered, it doesn't matter are elegant on any woman (not literally of course), whether she's on the red carpet or the kitchen floor.

I only buy my leather at Annbelle Bespoke Newton-Smythe's (yes, that is actually her middle name - how cool is THAT!) whose lovely little store is just off Sloane Square in London. You can't do that, but I thought I'd mention it.

A GOOP Spoof

MAKE: Bimbobop

It's irresistible. Bimbobop, which roughly translates into "silly women's food," is essentially a rice bowl that you can fill with medium grain taupe coloured rice and obscure vegetables that someone told me are good for you. It's a great way to use food that no one else particularly likes. The key is the GALO - Glutinous Asian Liquidy Oleo (GALO) that holds it all together.

Serves: 4 (if two people don't really eat)
Time: More than you have, but I'm OK with that

Ingredients
4 1/2 cups of medium grain taupe coloured rice
3 tablespoons GALO* (see above, usually I try and make this myself, but you can find it in specialty stores)
Blukoko and Celery Pinko
Roughly 16 3/4 cups worth of flummy root, blanched anise bulbs, sauteed mini squash with seeds shaved out, ginger and garlic grown in a sandy loam and, if you are able to find it, aged kimchee powder
1 firm block of firm basil-infused polenta, shaved into roughly 80 slices
2 tablespoons of tasted, husked sunflower seeds for garnish

*If you haven't used them yet, you should get the excellent measuring spoons that I use - they are ceramic and made in Monaco by a small women's cooperative.

Layer your rice bowls with the shaved polenta and rice three times (as you would a lasagna). Allow the two people eating to add the remaining ingredients in any way that makes them smile. Garnish with sunflower seeds!! Voila!


Virual video produced by Merrell Cherouny
Music would be by I'm So Fine

A GOOP Spoof

GO: Barcelona Bites

Barcelona is my favorite place to have a layover on my way to the Seychelles. I first went when I was 22 years old, with a huge wad of money, a Louis Vuitton satchel, my able assitant and not much else. I fell in love with the city’s complete committment to beauty and art. I absolutely LOVE beauty and art. Where else can you get a Tibetan massage in the morning, have a live decendant of Gaudi's give you a tour of his most awe-inspiring creation at noon and drink coffee made from coffee beans found in hidden trove of actual ancient 8th century Moorish beans dug up by underpaid archeologists? Below are a few suggestions for eating and drinking while there. Spoof Gwyneth Paltrow GOOP.

Quel merde!

Sueco Albóndigas/ Tamarite, 104+34.935.245.241
This gem of a restaurant was first recommended to me by no less than the prince of tapas, Enrique Salazar Rodrigo Juan San Sebastian El Rocito Mayabar Hendrickson (his father was Swedish - he is just to die for AND boy, can he cook). Reservations are hard to get, but if you plan three years in advance it is worth the wait.

El Cucaracha Blanco/ Margolia, 104+44.882.687.449
This exquisitely hip bar features only white drinks. The white roach motif was created by Jeff Koons, who occassionally drops in for a quick quaff. My FBBFinB swears that two swigs of the frothy Vapid Vixen will cure any ill.

Distopia/ Margolia, 104+44.375.245.241
Very old school, high fat rice dishes and full of interesting tortured types (the restaurant, not the rice). Great if you are travelling with people you don't know well, but would like not to get to know better. The food just oozes ennui.

El Soya Marizpanito Preservado/ Mercado Viejito 104+44.228.945.331
If you have to pick just one place this is it. It is, without a doubt, the best soy marzipan sculpture reproduction of preserved foods restaurant on the planet. During the two and a half months of the year that I throw myself heart and soul into work I have to be especially careful, because it is so easy when I am tired and hungry to eat real food. This in turn leads me to eat processed foods, (yes, my favorites are Ho-Hos, followed closely by Little Debbie Raisin Cakes) which is a serious no-no. It's then that I remember El Soya Marizpanito Preservado - their remarkable soy marizpan processed food reproductions are so good that I have them shipped via air to whereever I am. Faux Twinky heaven!

A GOOP Spoof

DO: In The Rooms Where Women Come and Go

As some of you may know, a mind is a terrible thing to waste. When you're a mom, whether you work full time or not, this is even more true - not for you, of course, but for everyone else. If your mind goes, everything falls apart and then kids don't get to do what they want and husbands are inconvenienced. Spoof Gwyneth Paltrow GOOP.

So, about three months ago I decided to keep my mind busy and find a topic each month that I could really become an expert on during 3 or 4 half-hour sessions. This month I studied TS Eliot with a fabulous woman named Hermione Swope whom I met in an ashram in the Bahamas in February. She recently completed her orals at Cambridge and offered to personally tutor me for the month.

Her topic, TS Eliot: Time-Travelling Transvestite Mother Unmasked, has revolutionized the study of Eliot's work. I thought I would share some of her landmark findings in the hopes that you, too, are inspired to learn something new every four or five days when you can spare the time or focus for long enough. Her conclusions are startling for their originality, but once you stop to think about what she's saying, all you can think is "Duh!"

On The Wasteland:

• "April is the cruelest month" - Hermione points out that, in a genuinely poetic sense, for mothers, June is the cruelest month. This is because a woman who is a mother of children (as opposed to a mother of, say, invention) is faced with conflicting priorities that surface explicitly when her children are not in school anymore and she has to figure out what to do and how her life is altered. These questions are existential and can cause genuine and deep despair. But "June is not April," you say. Hermione Swope was the first person to prove that that in England, during the time the TS Eliot wrote, children came back from boarding school in late March. April WAS June. NO ONE had considered that before.
• " A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, And the dry stone no sound of water." As Hermione points out on page 98 of her opus, is there a better image of what it feels like for a mother today to have to sit through "Land of the Lost" on a summer afternoon. Clearly TS Eliot had seen the movie prior to writing these lines and then travelled back in time. After which he/she says " 'My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad." "Whose aren't?" I ask.
• And then, as if this isn't enough proof that TS was a time travelling transvestite, there is this stanza: 'What shall I do now? What shall I do?' 'I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street 'With my hair down, so. What shall we do to-morrow? 'What shall we ever do?' Only a mother today in week three or four of June could have written those lines. Ppphhhh! It is remarkable that no one saw this before Hermione.
• Particularly poignant is the line :"By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept... " Hermione argues convincingly that it is a simple typo and should read :"By the waters of Lehman I sat down and wept..." Who among us does not have a friend bemoaning Lehman this summer? I almost fell out of my chair during the session in which she pointed this out.

On The Lovesong of J. Alfred Proofrock

• "There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet" - I mean, BOTOX by any other stanza.
• "Do I dare Disturb the universe? (Read: Can I change my children's sleepover plans at the last minute?)In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse (No, I can't, but my children can, only to make new complicated ones that require more driving). For I have known them all already, known them all :—Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons" (and soup spoons and gelato spoons and melon ball scoopers and measuring spoons for baking and spoons that can be used in sand boxes or not)
• "And would it have been worth it, after all, After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, Would it have been worth while, To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it toward some overwhelming question" This speaks for itself. But Hermione parses it so elegantly and she can do it while doing hot yoga.
• And finally, what woman hasn't said to her husband in reference to her June ennui, as TS clearly did: "It is impossible to say just what I mean! ... “That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all.”

See what Hermione sees? You could just weep it's so clear that she's right.

BE: To Flake or To Glow?

Yesterday, I realized I no longer glow. I flake. You know, as in, I actually flake. The skin on my elbows, my legs, my head. This is often the case for women of a certain age. But what really horrified me was that I didn't really care. I mean, it would be nice to glow of course. But, flaking, that's just where I am right now.

One day, I will glow again - maybe with the help of moisturizers, luxurious bath routines, personal groomers, sea weed and vodka scrubs, good low carbon footprint lighting - but I will. My newest friend, Milicent, who lives in Mallorca, swears we just bathe too much on this side of the planet. We strip our surfaces of essential body oils and the result is, well, really bad flaking. I explained to her that flaking is just the natural order of things (buy my book - "I Wasn't Born This Way". The alternate title, which I personally voted for but my publisher didn't like, was "Not One of My Cells Was Present at Birth - The Perpetually "NEW" Me." I just think it is clearer and, for marketing reasons alone, that's really important. ) But, back to what's important, Milicent is on a disciplined regime of one bath every 9 and a 1/2 days and I have to say, the results are astounding. She virtually shimmers. The natural emoliants in her skin literally take on a life of their own. I admit to being envious and I have committed to joining her in the summer and adhering to her routine. If you, too, are interested visit us. Mallorca is lovely that time of year and not bathing keeps the hordes away.

MAKE: I Am So Lucky

My friends Val, Cynthia and Merrell are so like me! We all have children, we try and work when we can and we breathe oxygen. It's ridiculous! We decided, since we share so much and our nutrition and life ethos' are SO similar, that we should put our heads together and come up with an easy idea for how to make dinner regularly, you know, so that we can feed our families. Well, it was AMAZING. Cynthia suggested that if we bought food and took it home with us we would be a long way to our goal. I agreed. Merrell was all over the idea and even added that getting food they would like and actually eat might enhance the experience. And, Val, she had the great idea that opening a wine bar together would provide a good place for us to stop and gather ourselves before taking the food home. It's amazing what a group of clever, dynamic women can come up with if given half the chance.

DO: Staying SANE

As I write this, I am completing the fantastic two-week “SANE” mental heath programme described below. Designed by self-described specialist Dr. Bettina Ruiz, this approached allowed me to think clearly and go through my day normally, something I cannot do if I am on a medication-free equilibrium programme. I followed her steps to the letter and can report that the results were startling. I was really normal-seeming. (I did have to end my seriously fun and slightly buzzed serotonin enhancement phase about six weeks ago – oh, well, c’est la vie). I have also really enjoyed finding out the details about everyday life, etc. seen through a vague haze. This revolutionary approach is amazing. Make sure you talk to your internist or holistic guru to see if SANE is right for you.

POOG: What is “Sane”?

Dr. Ruiz: After myself facing the chronic problems of everyday life I realized that many of us are dealing with constant symptoms that overwhelm us. Basically, as a culture we aren’t paying attention to basic principles of sanity. I developed the SANE program to help treat these symptoms by addressing their actual cause: life.

When our systems are overwhelmed by life, in the famous words of Chinua Achebe, THINGS FALL APART. Sleep deprivation, dehydration, no time for mediation, eating sporadically, waxing infrequently - all ensue in a mad rush. Forget facials. Simple things, like well-filed nails and coiffed hair. The majority of these symptoms are clearly due to life.

In my new blog: SANE: A Startling Approach, I make my solution available to everyone. The three key strategies are: Spelunk, Sedate and SIP– in that order. When you SPELUNK you are able to remove the psychological barriers to sanity that build up during years of living. Spelunking enables you to dangle in the dark caves of existence, taking you out of the then and placing you firmly in the free-fall of the now. Only then can you SEDATE using a combination of natural elements that I have engineered to emulation neurotransmitters that are only usually released immediately after male orgasm. At this stage you are ready to SIP (Sleep in Place) – detailed in the blog.

POOG: How did you come up with the approach?

Dr. Ruiz: After engineering school, I moved to London to complete my degree in 18th century literature. This radical shift left me 20 pounds thinner, plagued with acne, riddled by doubt and anxiety. No amount of Xanax, yelling-therapy or hot stone massage helped. I tried acupuncture, Vadic rope walking, crushed glass inhalation. Nothing. The diagnosis: Deal with it. I couldn’t and in a creative frenzy I designed what I thought would work for me personally: a reliving of Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth. I only made it as far as the caves when I fell into a deep sleep. It happened so fast, I didn’t know what it meant. And still don’t. I regained my lost weight however, my skin cleared up and my confidence soared. I looked and felt like I was 13. Everyone wanted to know how and now Here We Are. Today the SANE program is part of several practices in London, Paris, LA and Mumbai where I am designing a new, integrated Tantric SANE methodology.

POOG: What are some practical tips for a bit of SANE in day to day life?

Dr. Ruiz: Spelunk, Sedate and Sip whenever possible. No one ever thinks about the manifold opportunities for spelunking in daily life. Just carry a small pack of ropes, hooks, carabineers, and opportunities will reveal themselves. The next time you feel sketchy, nervous, getting ticky - find a cave-like cavern. Then, just move on to SEDATE and SIP. It’s that easy.

Visit my SANE program at www.saneprogramme.com where you can join a community of former crazed people around the country and the world who are doing the SANE program in unison and harmony. There, you can share your tips and successes with them and help other get SANE too.