Author: The Galavanting Gastronome

Love writing about food and travel (www.thegalavantinggastronome.com) and my conversations with God (https://gitanjali.yoga). Born and raised in India. Sailor's daughter. Travel is in my DNA. Married to a scientist, who is a chemist professionally and in every other culinary way. Food, coffee, cocktails, BBQ, smoked meats, rubs, sauces...he experiments with it all - with way more wins than misses. We love the outdoors. Hiking, kayaking and camping make us happy. We are equal opportunity foodies. We love hole-in-the-wall little mom and pop places, and multi-coursed Michelin star meals as well. And, we love talking about what we love about the food, drink, coffee and anything else we get to try.

6 Words That Rocked My World

by The Galavanting Gastronome, posted in Family, gratitude, Meditation

  My husband Jason is a scientist and someone who has a very intense filing system for a mind. His mind never shuts down. If the average person has over 20,000 thoughts a day, he probably has more like 10x! 

For 13 years that we’ve been together I’ve suggested, pleaded, begged, implored, recommended and pretty much done everything I could to ask him to develop a meditation practice. I’ve sent him articles from journals that he respects that espouse the benefits of a meditation and mindfulness practice; all to no avail. 

This past week was extraordinarily stressful. Both our kids had birthdays and instead of parties we settled on a weekend at Legoland which while a lot of fun is exhausting if you’re not under 12! The drive to Carlsbad which is usually 2.5hrs took 4+hrs on a Friday afternoon after school. The bonus there was  seeing friends we hadn’t seen in over 4 years and dinner with my best friend!! 

Later in the week, other things happened to us which threw us off kilter and by Wednesday we were not our best selves. We got into a big argument which ended in a 4 hour must-needed conversation about many unspoken things– things that got put on the back burner when kids and life happened. By now it was 11pm and my husband with the filing system of a mind the size of a museum was in overdrive. And then he said the words I’ve waited all these years to hear him say…

Will You Teach Me To Meditate?

I immediately burst into tears…relief, joy, gratitude and a feeing of closeness to him in a way that has been sadly missing between us for a while. We sat on our living room floor, across from each other, candles lit, mantra music barely discernible in the background and I led him through a Black and White breathing meditation. I emerged from meditation before him, and as I sat there in silence watching him with his head looking down, he never looked more beautiful to me. His face, usually wears the weight of our life that he’s chosen to bear, and in those few moments he looked so serene, so at peace, so reminiscent of how he looked to me when we first met. The light of the candles caused his rugged features (which I adore) to be softer, almost fluid. My eyes welled up again. I was never more in love with him than I was at that moment. I was transported to our wedding day and how I loved staring into his handsome face on Hearst State beach as we said our self-written vows to each other 10 years ago. 

It’s only been two days but he’s asked that we do this every night together as a new ritual for us. 

It’s been 13 years in the making and I never lost hope that one day we would sit in silence together and allow our energies to dance in the candlelight together. Yes indeed, dreams, even seemingly impossible ones can come true. 

Next up, couples yoga and (dare I say it) couples spa day. 

Maybe.

I’m patient.

I can hope.

Interesting how we get signs from the #U

by The Galavanting Gastronome, posted in Inspiration

Interesting how we get signs from the #Universe. I had bought a glucose monitor two weeks ago to test my kitty who was diagnosed over a month ago with Type II Diabetes. As someone who teaches humans about nutrition, I knew I could help her put the diabetes into remission, and stop her reliance on insulin 2x day. I had been putting off testing her, because I was nervous about poking her…so yesterday, I poked myself three different times doing random things…I slowed down and asked myself…what is the lesson I am supposed to learn?…and within minutes, the answer presented itself…’need to learn to poke my kitty to test her glucose levels at home.’ So, I called the vet and scheduled an appointment to take her in to learn how to do this and also to make sure that my glucose unit is calibrated correctly. The vet draws enough blood so that both his unit and mine can be tested with the same blood drop. Her levels are 115!!!! NORMAL!! He expects them to be really low because of the time of day, and how close to meal time it was…so in essence, he lowered her dose by 1/2 a unit…AND she’s lost 1/2 a pound too! Needless to say, he’s impressed and I’m SO VERY THRILLED! Yay Zoei! #happycatmom #healingkitty #happykitty #nutritionforcats #nutritionforhumans #yepigotthis http://ow.ly/i/8M2Vo