Healthier carob chip cookies

Luckily my kids didn't notice the difference, but carob chips are a better alternative to chocolate chips in baking so give it a try. Here's some benefits:

• Carob chips are made out of carob powder. They are similar in appearance and texture to chocolate chips, although the taste is distinctly different from that of chocolate. Carob is a naturally sweet substance, so there is generally no sugar added to the chips during manufacture. Carob chips also lack the stimulants caffeine and theobromine found in chocolate.

Here's the recipe:
3/4 Cup olive oil (next time I will try half apple sauce half oil)
1 Cup Light Brown Sugar
Xylitol to taste
2 Eggs
1tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
1tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Salt
2 Cups Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
1 Cup Light Spelt Flour
Carrob Chips

Mix all Dry ingredients in one bowl, and liquid in another. Add liquid ingredients to dry and mix with wooden spoon just to combine don't over mix. Add Carob Chips at the end without mixing too much.



Bake in 350 oven for about 8-10 minutes or until just beginning to brown. I prefer to under bake slightly. The longer the bake time the crispier the cookie.

Enjoy!

MacroBaby

My baby is 8 months old next week. He has never eaten anything other than vegetables, save for the crumbs that fall on the floor from his siblings that he manages to get into his mouth without us watching.

We are learning about eating clean and even experimenting with a macrobiotic diet in this house of late so I will post some success, and failure recipes, for all to view. Enjoy!

Check out some great reads here:

1. A scary look at sugar Sugar the sweetest way to die

2. And our favorite, I mean this guy knows his farmer! Dr.Axe
You will get hooked like us!

Mad World

My husband's 90 year old Grandfather was over last week. He survived the horrors of the Holocaust. He tells us stories; we sit in silence trying our best to believe such events actually happened.

"Grandpa, tell us the story of the end of the war when you got your hands on a gun." my husband asks him, as if we haven't heard the story 20 times already.

There is silence for a moment as he takes himself back to a different world.

"It was after the war, I was in Theresienstadt, there were a lot of trees, places to hide." he says with a thick accent.

"You were able to get your hands on a gun?" my husband asks again as if the story were brand new to us.

"Yeah. I saw a German soldier. I was hiding, he couldn't see me. I pointed my gun at him. I had him right in my view."

"And you couldn't do it?" asks my husband innocently?

"No." he answers quickly as if coming back to this world and away from those memories.

No matter what you believe about what is happening in the Middle East, or any part of the world for that matter, no one can justify killing innocent people to make a statement.

Grandpa always talks about how many Germans were innocent and even helped him. They weren't all evil. There were those who made bad decisions that drove them to even inhumane actions and there were those who helped save lives.

If you believe that the Palestinians are occupied and oppressed, do you justify their violence by calling it resistance? Is resistance killing a 3 month old sleeping baby? Do we celebrate the resistance by giving out candies in the streets?

Would you give Grandpa advice to have killed that German soldier? If he did it, do you think he would feel good about it? Good enough to have danced in the street and celebrated with candy?

And most of you "End the occupation" activists are Americans. Where were your voices after 9/11? Why were you not defending these 'freedom fighters' with the justification that 9/11 is resistance of a people who feel oppressed by Western and Israeli values.

None of you seem to be at all bothered with your own occupation of a land that was taken over from a people who claimed to have been there for centuries prior; Canadian company included.

Yes, the truth is that the entire world is occupied.

Today we are occupied with a different standard of madness.

End that occupation.

Over the shoulder!

I felt 16 again as I got into the driver's seat today with the woman who was going to give me my driving lesson.

That's right, I lost my license, but not because of negligent driving! Rather, due to a leave of the country for more than x number of consecutive months.

So my 'punishment' for being away too long, was the nostalgic feeling of being 16 all over again, so I wasn't complaining.

We cruised down the streets of Toronto, hands ten and two, at a whopping 50 km per hour. I think if the windows were open, I might have felt the slightest breeze through my hair...or maybe not.

"Over the shoulder" She kept saying. "Over the shoulder" for 45 minutes all I heard was "Over the shoulder."

Oh what's the big deal, I'm thinking? Like seriously, who even cares? Over my shoulder? Who's over my shoulder?

Right now we are at a very auspicious time, the night before Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year.

This is a time to recognize that God loves us and wants only what's best for us. This is the time to recognize that God is not the evil man over our shoulder ready to jump out at us!

The Jewish New Year is a time to recognize how great and awesome our creator is and how much He cares about our actions, all of our actions, even the little things, especially the little things. The judgment of Rosh Hashana is not one of an evil dictator, it is one of a loving King, so to speak.

And how do we do this? How do we start getting real with it? Just look back at the past year! Think of all the blessings, the love, the family, the friends. Even think about those 'difficult' times and how much they helped you grow, how much they helped you become more of the person you want to be.

And so we do 'look over our shoulders' now in a type of awe that says, how did I do? Am I too close? Too far? Did I bump into something? Did I hurt anyone? It's a look over our shoulder to put into context our year and our actions, for our own good, because only with this introspection can we really grow and change in the areas we all know we want to.

Wishing us all a sweet year filled with light and love, laughter and clarity, and a license to drive.

Just because I'm losing, doesn't mean I'm lost.

Perhaps one of these days I'll change the name of my blog to "All about Noam".

Today we were in the kitchen, I was preparing dinner and Noam, propped up on a chair next to me, was cracking open pistachio nuts quietly to himself. I think I added that detail in for the mothers out there looking for some insight as to how to get dinner prepared with a toddler in your midst.

"I'm a bad boy." He says breaking the silence suddenly.

"What did you say?" I asked him in shock.

"I'm a bad boy." He repeated.

Now I'm not sure where he got this from as we are very careful in our house not to ever say such things but whatever the case, he said it.

"You are not a bad boy. You are a good boy, and sometimes you do things that are not good." I explained.

Judaism says that we are in essence good. We are made up of a body and a soul. Our soul wants to do only good things. Our body on the other hand, is designed in a way that makes us move towards our more animalistic desires. Now that is not to say that the physical world is bad and only spiritual lofty pursuits are good. In fact, the complete opposite according to the Torah.

The goal of this world is to take those mundane, physical things and make them into Holy acts.

It is important for us to decipher who we are versus what we do.

I am a good person and sometimes I make wrong choices. I am not my wrong choices.

Now I definitely believe that our choices make up who we will become but in essence, deep down underneath it all, we are all sparks of Divinity and therefore we are all made up of something that is somewhat 'perfect'. We do have the free will in this world to taint that beautiful gift we were given but that's the only way we can possibly get any reward from any of our good actions. It has to go two ways.

When my father in law passed away recently, I experienced something very profound. We were at the funeral home just prior to the procession and they let the family go in and view the body. To preface, I only realized later that I'm not sure if this is a Jewish custom or not and should have asked a Rabbi first but I'm going to share with you my insights as to what happened.

I was pretty nervous and I think my perception of death has been jaded by Hollywood that I was almost expecting to see something morbid. But that's not what happened at all. I looked over from very far away and all I could see was Zaidy's (Grandpa's) face, his body wrapped until his neck in his son's (my husband's) Tallis (prayer shawl). It was his beautiful face, just like it was a few days earlier when he was living. It was as if a white light was surrounding his face and he looked very much at peace.

Isn't that just so cliche? As I was writing it I thought to myself, how lame. He probably looked so white because he was pale from all the blood draining and the peacefulness was because he looked like he was sleeping.

It was just him, lying there with his eyes closed. There was no white light, no halo, no violin, no angels dancing around his face. It was almost as if he was going to open his eyes and say hello. It didn't' seem real at all. In fact, I think it was the most surreal thing I had ever felt in my entire life. But that wasn't the profound lesson. The profound lesson was the following:

What I was looking at, experiencing, was something we speak about all the time yet have no real way of touching.

For the first time in my life, I was looking at the physical world and the spiritual world all at the same time.

You see, just a couple of days before this moment I was in, I was speaking to Zaidy, laughing with him, and connecting to him. And now I was looking at his body, but 'he' wasn't there.

WHERE IS HE?

WHERE ARE WE?

It shook me to the core and I could only remain standing on my two feet for as long as it took me to run out of the room and find a chair to sit on.

If we are really sensitive to the reality around us, it is very simple for us to find where we are. We know it inside. We don't need some guru to tell us. We need to look deep within ourselves and realize the things we already know are true.

We know we are more than just this body. We know we are something much greater. And we know that just because we can't make huge steps towards moving in that direction, we can still make small steps and they are probably much more real and long lasting anyway.

Just because I'm losing, doesn't mean I'm lost.

Ouch

Whenever I accidentally hurt Noam, the most unusual thing happens. He comes rushing over to me, hugs me and doesn't want me to let him go.

I've often thought about this bizarre occurrence because really, if you think about it, it's the opposite of what adults do isn't it?

When someone hurts us, intentionally or not, we run away from them! We get angry at them, assume the worst and run the other way drowning ourselves in our own self pity.

What if we could learn from our children that the secret to healthy communication, with our friends, spouse even with God, is not to run away. What if we could learn from this that the reality is the people in our lives don't really want to hurt us they want what's best for us and we should embrace it. Even if it means swallowing up our own ego and running towards them with open, vulnerable arms.

The embrace is enough to leave us realizing and really feeling that the best remedy for our pain is to run towards the ones we love, and allow them to love us.

Perhaps along the way adults learn to stop trusting each other?

The guy trusts me because my track record with him is perfect so he knows he can always trust me. He may still come to me with a confused look like why did that happen but the bottom line is, he comes to me instead of running away.

Perhaps we need to figure out how to learn to trust again?

We don't have tomorrow

He was right in front of me. At least I thought. I turned the corner of the long corridor from the laundry room in the building towards the elevator hearing his voice and then a second later nothing. Silence. Noam was gone.

I stood in the humid hallway holding a pile of wet shirts and some change in absolute shock. The whistling and thumping noises of the machines in the background faded into the screams of my helpless 2.5 year old little guy who had stepped into the elevator too early without his mommy.

My body became numb, I could not figure out what to do first. I wanted to jump through the walls. The poor guy is not even tall enough to reach the buttons, let alone old enough to understand how an elevator works. I could hear the elevator chain working, I ran upstairs.

I reached the third floor and could hear him more clearly now. If I tell you that at this moment I would do anything to get my son back in my arms I'm not exaggerating. I can somewhat understand now temporary insanity, perhaps. I began to scream. He was screaming. We were screaming together. In the final moments before I had completely lost it, the door opened as if in slow motion and a helpless little guy, pacifier in face, tears streaming down his red cheeks stood there in utter despair.

And then the embrace.

He ran into my arms and we sat on the floor crying together for what seemed like hours. We were both so happy to be holding each other, as if we doubted for a moment that it might not have turned out this way. In reality the entire event took place in about 3.5 minutes.

"You cannot run away from your mommy, when you are not with your mommy you get lost. You are not a big boy that can go on his own, you are little. You need to stay with me. You will get lost without me."

To which his reply was, "I'm big."

God tells us, stay close to me. Let me guide you. I am your Abba (Father) your Imma (Mother), you will get lost without me.

But we think, "I'm Big. I can do this on my own."

It has been quite some time since I have sat down to write. Just over a month ago my beloved father in law, John Yonah Krongold a'h (peace be upon him) passed away suddenly. It is a tragic loss for our family.

John was the most healthy and active 56 year old man I've met. A vegetarian, he managed a local band, ran triathlons, took spinning classes, swam and that was all leisurely. My husband and I moved back from Israel last summer, after living there for 5 years. We had our hesitations about moving back. Since coming home John aka Zaida (grandpa in Yiddish) spent a lot of quality time with his grandchildren. He made sure to only work in order to live and not live in order to work. He planned his days in a way that ensured time for himself, exercise, and of course family time. We don't have any hesitations now about our move. This past year was a year we will treasure for the rest of our lives.

This is not a eulogy for Zaida. If you want to hear my husband's eulogy for his father I'd be happy to send it to you through email if you haven't heard it already. It is inspiring to say the least. This is just my way of finally being able to sit and write and not break down at the thought of writing about Zaida's passing. It's very hard.

I'm not sure why the elevator incident finally prompted me to sit down and write but there was something so real and deep about the experience that it brought me to the computer. Through this entire mourning experience I can honestly say that it has felt like God has been telling us (I'm speaking only about my husband and I) you need to stay with me, you will get lost without me.

Many people have asked me how the Abba is able to be so strong. How is he so positive? People left the shiva (house of mourning) feeling consoled by him rather than the opposite. In truth it seems very simple in his eyes as he tells me. Death is a very real part of life. It is not an abstract concept that we don't know about. We have very clear and real details about exactly what happens to the soul after it leaves this world. What happens in the first moments, the first days, months, first year and after that. The Torah is very specific in its details and we learn from this that death is not a morbid and gloomy thing that we should try not to think about. Rather, quite the opposite. It is something we should be real about every moment that we are alive.

In Judaism, a Torah home and the rituals and customs of everyday life are set up in a way not to allow us to forget that one day we will die. We wake up in the morning and the first words on our lips are "Thank you for another day!" We begin our day with many blessings regarding the life we were given, "thank you for giving me clarity, for making me a woman, for giving me wisdom to choose, free will, the breath of life."

Our week is set up in a way that we are always focused on the end goal which is Shabbat. Shabbat is not a day of "rest" in the sense of turning off. It's a reminder. One day, you will no longer be here. Think about your week, reflect and plan better the following week.

The Abba said in his eulogy and speaks often about it now, that it seems we all think there is this 'club' of people who die, and we know we're not in that club. It is as if we actually have made ourselves beleive that we will somehow be here forever. It is the only way to explain the way we live. We know we should or could do more in certain areas of our lives, relationships etc., yet we keep pushing it off until tomorrow, certain that there is a tomorrow.

We don't have tomorrow.

It is not just a nice line that you read on a postcard from India, it's reality. The past is gone and tomorrow is not certain. All we have is today and if we don't grab a hold of today we missed it.

If there was some way of knowing how long you had left to live, and you had a clock on your wall counting down the years, days, minutes and seconds, would you let a second go by without living in total reality, or at least strive to know what reality is?

Would you be more awake?

Who would you call to tell them you love them?

What mark would you leave on the world?

What would you put on your "not doing today" list?

How would you speak to a stranger you met on the street?

What would you plan to leave in this world after you were gone?

I tried to read this post over and don't have the emotional energy to do it so I hope I've made some sense of the thoughts in my head. And hopefully, this will be the post that helps me begin to write again. I kept thinking tomorrow I'll write. We don't have tomorrow. Zaida was one of my biggest fans, and now I know, I cannot let him down.