Three Sisters Week

You're probably wondering about the spinach. There you are, working on last week's recipe with a 6 ounce bag of spinach in your hand and when you'd finished precisely following my instructions, you still have that spinach. It felt like a Jack Nicholson moment from "Five Easy Pieces:" You want me to just hold onto the spinach, Mark? Yeah, I want you to hold it between your knees. No, not really. I meant to say you should stir it in along with the zucchini and the parsley, but since I received no confused e-mails, I assume you figured this out. Because I can do so, I went back and corrected the version shown on the blog.

Speaking of things on the blog which come in handy, it also allows me to send you all the way back to Week Five, should you want to take the trip. Back in Week Five, I told you about the many celebrities, cities and universities which, like you, undertook an MM resolution and are now enjoying a better life because of it. One of those schools was Yale, where the students have since put together a great video describing their many good reasons for reducing their meat consumption. Take a minute and a half to check it out.

And you're back. Wasn't that worth a minute and a half? Something else which might be worth a glance is another woman's magazine getting behind the MM and posting some recipes you might like. First it was Redbook, then Real Simple, then Blisstree and now Women's Health magazine is getting on board. The momentum behind this movement just seems to keep growing, which is a very good thing.

This week's recipe is based on the Native American tradition of the Three Sisters: squash, maize (corn) and beans. This was a tradition in agriculture, in which the three crops were planted together in a system known as companion planting. But it was also a part of the Native American mythology, in which the three sisters were the daughters of the Earth Mother and each dressed in the leaves of her namesake plant. I thought another stew would be appropriate in view of all the snow we keep having in London (more today). If you live somewhere with weather you are actually enjoying right now, then please stand by until Southwestern Ontario catches up with you. Until then, I'm warming my hands on a hot bowl of stew. 


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