Still Making Gifts

Teaching the annual holiday craft workshop series "Get Crafty" was one of my favorite projects at Community Pharmacy. I loved developing new recipes that set a scentscape for a particular year, and building a gameplan for the workshop that was equal parts skill-raising discussion and hands-on play. Here is an article in the spirit of those workshops, which was originally published in CP's newsletter, Infused, in Nov. 2014.

Get Crafty for Healthful Homemade Holidays!

With a few weeks remaining til the holiday season is in full swing, now is a perfect time to create the fresh and fragrant homemade gifts you will bring to this season's potlucks, parties, and homecomings. It's a time for gratitude and celebration – of family, food, and good health!

Holiday Party Mocktail Syrups

The complex flavors and digestive benefits of craft cocktails are also an open invitation to those of us who look for unleaded beverages. Homemade bitters and flavored sugars can take weeks to infuse, but herbal syrups can be brewed in an afternoon. Blended into sparkling water, fruit juices, hot herbal teas or coffee, they transform dull draughts into drinkable delicacies. You may want to make a double-batch – every time I bring these to holiday potlucks, I come home with empty bottles!

Rosemary Tangerine Syrup

4 tangerine's worth of zest (I carefully use a vegetable-peeler)

2 6-inch sprigs of fresh rosemary

2 C water

2 C sugar

    Add zest and sprigs to the water in a non-reactive pot over medium-high heat. When the water begins boiling, add sugar and stir until it is dissolved and the syrup begins to thicken. Remove from heat, cover, and steep 2 hours. Strain out the solids and store in a clean bottle. Makes 1 quart. Try 1-2 tablespoons in a glass of sparkling water or fruit seltzer.

Rose & Spice Syrup

¼ C cardamom pods (slightly crushed)

2 cinnamon sticks

6 cloves

½ C rose petals

2 C water

2 C sugar

    Add the spices to the water in a non-reactive pot over medium-high heat. When the water begins boiling, add sugar and stir until it is dissolved and the syrup begins to thicken. Remove from heat, cover, and steep 1 hour, then add the roses, and steep another ½ hour. Strain out the solids and store in a clean bottle. Makes 1 quart. Try 1-2 tablespoons in a cup of coffee or black tea.

Home Aromatherapy Sprays and Diffusion

Walking into a good-smelling house is always a pleasure, and especially so when the smells remind us of holiday celebrations! These essential oil (eo) blends smell beautiful, are antimicrobial to help clear the air during cold & flu season, and inspire good cheer. Each of these recipes will make 1 milliliter of aromatherapy blend, which can be used for scenting any number of formulas! For diffusion, add 10 drops of your aromatherapy blend to the water reservoir of a nebulizer and run 30-60 minutes, per room. To make a home scent spray, add 20 drops of your blend to 2 ounces of distilled water in a spray bottle made of dark (amber or cobalt) glass.

Deep Breath Aromatherapy Blend

12 drops douglas fir eo (Pseudotsuga menziesii/douglasii)

8 drops eucalyptus radiata eo (Eucalyptus radiata)

2 drops peppermint eo (Mentha piperita)

8 drops spike lavender eo (Lavendula spica)

Holiday Health Aromatherapy Blend

4 drops cinnamon leaf eo (Cinnamomum zeylanicum)

8 drops clove bud eo (Eugenia carophyllata)

6 drops oregano eo (Origanum vulgare)

10 drops sweet orange eo (Citrus sinensis)

Gifts of Glowing Skin

Homemade body care gifts are my favorites to give, they are the perfect practical luxury – fresh, useful, and custom-created for those you love. Cleansing shower scrubs are an excellent gift for our dry Midwest winters. Scrubs help keep your skin soft with nourishing oils that protect from overdrying, while detoxifying salts and exfoliants polish away dry skin. Keep your friends and family in mind while you mix!

Squeaky Clean Scrub

1 C fine sea salt

1/2 C almond oil

1/8 C unscented liquid castile soap

4 drops lemongrass eo (Cymbopogon flexuosus)

4 drops tea tree eo (Melaleuca alternafolia)

    Combine salt and oil, mix well. Then add soap and essential oils, blend gently to prevent clumping or froth. This scrub is gently antimicrobial, making it it perfect for cold & flu season. It rinses cleanly away and is very moisturizing – try it in the shower, or beside the sink as a hand-wash. Makes 12 oz.

Everything Nice Scrub

1 C fine sea salt

1 C sugar

2 T grapeseed oil

3 drops vanilla absolute (Vanilla planifolia)

7 drops lemon eo (Citrus limon)

2 drops cinnamon leaf eo (Cinnamomum zeylanicum)

1 drop ylang-ylang eo (Canaga odorata)

    Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well, store in a jar with a tight lid to preserve the scents. This is a sweetly scented, lightly moisturizing scrub that can be used in the shower or the bathtub. Makes 16 oz. Will keep 6 months in a sealed jar.

Solstice Morning Circulation Scrub

3 /4 C. oats

1/2 C. kaolin clay

1 / 2 C fine sea salt

1/4 C. almonds

1/2 C dried orange peel

1/2 C dried ginger root (or ¼ C powder)

1 T cinnamon bark (or 2 tsp powder)

    Grind the herbs and oats together and mix thoroughly with the clay. Store in a glass jar with a tight lid to preserve the fragrance of the herbs. To use, mix 1/2 cup of the scrub mixture with enough water to make a paste. Massage into your skin in the shower or bath, and rinse with warm water. This oil-free scrub leaves the skin silky soft and is perfect for those with itchy winter skin, but please be mindful of nut allergies when giving this gift. Makes 5 applications.

Seasonal Perfumes

In addition to smelling fantastic and keeping seasonal bugs at bay, the aromatherapy of essential oils can lift our emotions, boost our confidence and put a smile on our faces. Positive scent-associations help build strong happy memories, and can help us be more fully present to moments of joy and caring. Wreathe yourself in beautiful scents, and carry the holiday spirit with you!

Chocolate Box Perfume Oil

12 drops cocoa absolute (Theobroma cacao)

10 drops vanilla absolute (Vanilla planifolia)

12 drops atlas cedar wood eo (Cedrus atlantica)

12 drops rose geranium eo (Cymbopogon martinii)

6 drops sandalwood eo (Santalum spicatum)

8 drops clove eo (Eugenia carophyllata)

2 tsp jojoba oil

    This is a sensuous sugar & spice perfume for anyone with a serious sweet tooth. Combine essential oils in a 1/3 oz (10 ml) glass bottle, preferably one with a roller-ball applicator tip. Fill with jojoba oil, shake well. Let infuse for 3-7 days for the scents to mature, then apply to pulse points and enjoy!

Woodland Spirit Cologne

2 drops patchouli eo (Pogostemon cablin)

8 drops atlas cedar wood eo (Cedrus atlantica)

6 drops douglas fir eo (Pseudotsuga menziesii/douglasii)

6 drops wild scotch pine eo (Pinus sylvestris)

4 drops cinnamon leaf eo (Cinnamomum zeylanicum)

3 T (1 ½ oz) 100 proof vodka

distilled water

    This is a fresh and wild-scented spray perfume for magical creatures of all kinds; male, female and all other shades. Combine essential oils in a 2 oz (60 ml) spray bottle made of amber or dark blue glass. Add vodka, cap tightly and shake, then top off with distilled water. Let infuse 3-7 days for scent to mature. Shake well before spraying onto pulse points.

Happy Holidays – may your skin stay soft and your home always smell wonderful!

More to Share

Partly because I'm in a good place. Balanced in dynamic emotion. Eager for movement, content in my position. Full to the brim of new ideas, feelings, plans, wants. Looking forward to what will grab me, when I reach out my hands.

Partly because I don't really know what I look like these days. Content-driven, food-motivated, high-verbal, overactive imagination. Highly experienced, building new skills, stretching boundaries, embodying new comfort zones. Compassionate confrontation, emergence, sanctuary. And I'd like to see it all laid out, playing out, in front of me.

Mostly because I want to connect, and this is one way I know how to open.

Thermae #2: Friedrichsbad

As soon as I began planning this adventure, Friedrichsbad stood out as the pinnacle of my pilgrimage. Actually, it inspired the notion of this being a pilgrimage, rather than 'just' a theme-vacation or business-plan-inspiring-research. Someone out there still calling their bathhouse a Bathing Temple. I have visited many lovely bathhouses, and sat in many powerful places of worship. I didn't know if anywhere in our modern world would truly be able to merge the two, but I knew I needed to be there.

As you've probably heard me enthuse, a supplicant to the Bathing Temple follows 17 steps of ablution and relaxation, for a total of 4 ritual hours, including the attentions of 3 varieties of masseuse. Upon leaving, one is guaranteed not only to win any contest of cleanliness, but also to be at least 1 fathom closer to enlightenment. According to autogenic legend, one's skin will take on a pearlescent sheen, one's gaze will remain clear and softly focused for 72 hours, and one's feet will not actually touch firmament for at least 24. All of this is true.

The ceremony unfolds thusly:

Step 1. Shower. (3min) (And right from the get-go, allow me to assure you that ALL the water, beginning with the showers and including the bubblers, flows from the famed local healing mineral springs.)

Step 2. Warm-air Bath. (54 ° C, 15min) Every surface in this room glows with gentle convection warmth, from the floors to the wooden lounge chairs.

Step 3. Hot-air Bath. (68 °, 5min) From a glow to a steady toast in a smaller oven.

Step 4. Shower. (1min)

Step 5. Soap and Brush Massages. (8min) Taken in turn, the vigorous soft bristles and creamy soap bubbles shed the last bits of whatever you were doing before you entered Friedrichsbad.

Step 6. Shower. (1min)

Step 7. Thermal Steam Bath. (45 °, 10 min) In a marble filled with clouds of soft mineral-scented steam, a square pyramid of steps faces two golden hives of calcinated fountains rolling with raw hotspring.

Step 8. Thermal Steam Bath. (69 °, 5 min) On the top step of the marble pyramid, closer to the sweet heat.

Step 9. Thermal Full Bath. (36 °, 10min) A long cool pool to stretch warmed muscles and open skin.

Step 10. Thermal Whirlpool Bath. (34 °, 15min) Smaller, bubblier, cooler, a massage by tiny naiads.

Step 11. Thermal Kinotherapeutic Bath. (28 °, 5min) At the center of the bath, like a crown glowing 17 meters above the pool, is a golden frescoed dome that draws your eyes up marble columns and gilded alcoves, tucking the last of your words away, while you float in mineral broth.

Step 12. Shower. (3min)

Step 13. Cold-water Bath. (18 °) A quick (breath-stealingly quick) submersion in cold (breath-stealingly cold) water. Toes numb and skin very awake after.

(Clever mathematicians will have noticed that this does not yet fill the quota of devotional hours. At this point, the supplicant is allowed, in a near-sleeping-kitten-like quiecience, to roam freely through the Temple revisiting her favorite rooms at leisure for several REM cycles.)

Step 14. Drying Off. (with warm towels). (4min) Bed-sheet-sized warmed towels.

Step 15. Application of Moisturizing Cream. (8min) Expertly applied in handfuls til you are evenly frosted with a dense fragrant cream; it's not meant to soak in yet.

Step 16. Resting Room. (30min) In which you are rolled into warm blankets and tucked into one of maybe 3 dozen beds filling a huge, dim, rose-colored dome of a room, to nap.

Step 17. Reading Room (30min) In which the lounging continues in a more sentient vein, with time to more fully comprehend the miles one's life has just traveled towards true happiness, and have tea.

I will admit; I remember the practicals, but after step 5, my sense of analytical self, and a goodly portion of my vocabulary, washed down the drain with the suds. (They were good practicals, though: soft cotton sheets to wind in while lounging and traversing, traded for clean sitting pads before the steam room; a dozen pairs of bath sandals in different sizes, and disinfectant-dunk, before the hot rooms; clocks without numbers to help you keep the time without worrying you about time...) The further I wandered into the bathing temple, the deeper I sank into pure corporeal awareness, and solid visceral bliss. The light was always muted and murmuring, the air a burned-velvet pattern of steam and refraction. Every room was decorated with unique painted tiles and mosaics of art nouveau flora, aquatic fauna, or abstract color. The giggle of falling, splashing, running water echoed everywhere. The air never warm and never still, the other bathers never close or stiff, and the staff singularly kind and cognizant of the beautiful healing collapse prompted by the place.

There is a Mark Twain quote cited in every single description anywhere of Baden-Baden's historic Irish-Roman Bathing Temple, and I would probably have my travelog licence revoked if I didn't repeat it for you here, “At Friedrichsbad, you lose track of time within 10 minutes and track of the world within 20…” And as much as I hate to ride even the wittiest of coattails, I agree – if you are someone who pays a lot of attention to your watch, I expect Friedrichsbad is very much like that. For me, though, I'll say Friedrichsbad glows at the sunny crossroads between the Brigadoon of my bones and the Oz of my bliss, and leave it at that.

Friedrichsbad: Historic Bathing Temple 

So Bath They Named It Twice

Baden-Baden is built on magic, has celebrated several millenia of birthdays spinning, winding and handing out this magic, and is completely conscious of it. You can be sure, though I have found no mention in our post-Imperial literature, that people of all fur, feathers, and feet have been bathing in the springs of this valley since the beginning of the world. It's too beautiful, too protected, altogether too perfect to have not threaded its magic into all organic history. The Romans made it official with stone, however, and Baden-Baden has been in the business of bathing ever since. I wandered over some of its 54 sq. miles of Black Forest river valley, through falling snows and along the river Oos, in a kind of steamy trance. An Entire City Devoted to Bathing.  

And casinos. 

But who cares about casinos?

I don't know if I've ever shared this with you, but I'm a sucker for bathhouse t-shirts. I don't really understand it either, and it's not like most bathhouses sell t-shirts (but the ones that do are awesome!) It might be some bath-geek equivalent of sport team support. Or maybe it's just poorly translated enthusiasm. I don't usually wear clothes with logos, or words. I don't often wear band t-shirts. They make me feel shy and unprepared for coolness. But somehow I'm totally charmed by the thought of someone designing a t-shirt to talk up a place filled with hot water and naked people. I think it's fabulous. And wearing them makes me feel like an underground superhero.

So I keep my eye out for bathhouse paraphernalia. And on my last day in Baden-Baden I found myself in a situation I had never encountered before – desirous of a "I ♥ Baden-Baden" t-shirt. You know exactly the one I'm thinking of, it's the same shirt hanging in every eye-rollingly touristy souvenir shop on the planet. (My only defense is that I do have an awful lot of enthusiasm, even if it is poorly translated.) I looked high and low, everywhere from the shops where they sell postcards to the train station newsstand to the Christmas market to the supermarket. I found silver-plated Baden-Baden spoons, and enamel-painted Baden-Baden plates, and even swarovski-crystal-bedazzled Baden-Baden totebags. After going through a dozen bewildered shopkeepers in a dozen different shops, I am forced to concede that Baden-Baden, city of historically relevant baths and big old money, is simply not mundane enough to make tacky tourist t-shirts. 

And, for the life of me, I don't know whether to be annoyed or relieved.

Wasa: We're Doing It Wrong!

My friends, I've made a discovery. I have realized the errors of my ways and am humbled before Foodstuffs. It was an honest mistake, though possibly shameful that I have persisted in it for 3 decades. I was misguided, or perhaps unguided.. Left to my own devices in pantries and grocery coop aisles, I admit, I thought they were simply Bad Crackers.

Crackers the culinary equivalent of particleboard; too fibrous for fun, too dry to be interesting, and always (I thought) subtly threatening to leave splinters in my soft palate. Overpowering in their sheer granular density to all but the sharpest of cheddars, insufferably hard even with soup, and requiring way, way too much chewing . No matter which flavor I tried – from the burnt sienna rye to that weird wafer stuff, the multigrain rainbow in between – I just couldn't like them. Maybe, if you were “raised by hippies,” like I was (that's not a slight, Mom & Dad, it's just a cultural signifier – you were feeding us tofu and dressing us in veleur for too long to deny it, and I love you for it), or if you've ever (like me) grocery shopped with only change in your pockets, or (like me) have more sense of adventure than good sense, you've had similar collisions with Wasa. And lived with the regret.

But friends, as I stand before you today (sit on a hostel bed typing from several thousand miles away), I can assure you; We Just Got It All Wrong. Wasa isn't the enemy. We weren't even making bad choices, we just weren't operating the cracker correctly! I have seen the true and benevolent face of Wasa, and I can share with you the secret: They're For Breakfast!

Listen, this changes everything. Wasa is quite possibly the road to morning-eating success for anyone (like me) who simply cannot deal with waking up to clingy, doughy, sweet food. Wasa is a clean, near-neutral canvas upon which to paint your most delicious breakfast dreams (near-neutrality is key, there's truly no point in eating beige). Particularly well-suited to the savory breakfast (as all reasonable and benevolent foodstuffs ought to be), Wasa's deep grain flavors provide the kinds of bass notes often missing in early-morning meals. These are the foundation for fantasy open-faced sandwiches, for breakfast! They are made Hard On Purpose, so they can be piled high with any/all your favorite cheeses/meats/vegetables/dairy-based semi-solids, becoming a veritable Edible Plate. (Which is good, because for those of us with morning-impaired manual dexterity, forks and knives are an unnecessary danger.) (Also, seriously, Pile Up. One swipe of cream cheese means nothing to Wasa. These things can still taste like performance-art food if you don't show some ambition.) They are made Indefatigably Crunchy a) so even if you do apply a solid inch of semi-solid dairy-things, you still get to chew something and b) because contrasting food texture is neat. Texture wakes up your mouth. And those splinters, they aren't endangering your gums, they're optimizing your dental hygiene routine like the little cleaner-fish that hang out in the mouths of resting sharks.

Breakfast revolution and shark similes. Let the healing begin!

Some Baths That Aren't Yet

Most of the baths I've visited have had historic precident, gracing their cities as original facilities if they were not actual founding reasons for putting a bit of civilization a particular where. When new baths come along, they are made from equal parts inspiration and obsession. Some borrow from history and culture, some forge ahead, but all are intentionally reinvesting in bathing.

Berlin's once-and-future Stadtbad Oderberger  thrives during renovation as a venue for concerts, conferences and locally-made craft markets.

Kultuurisauna is being built as part of Helsinki's year of recognition as a World Design Capitol, with goals of sustainable design and materials-use, and intentional revitalization of sauna culture.

Some Baths That Aren't Anymore

Searching out venerable thermae, traditional neighbohood saunas, and the brand-new soaking spots, the word for Bath is the first I'm learning when I enter a new country. My eyes and ears are constantly casually scanning for signs of bathing. Probably I imagine baths more often than they exist (though honestly, what else is going on in a backyard shed with a chimney?), but I've been impressed that almost every Scandinavian town has a Sauna-something Street, and at how many Germanic placenames end with -Bad.

So there are many places I come across where I don't bathe, where nobody bathes anymore; but maybe there's a commemorative plaque, or an epithet in stone, or a bit of historical mention in a travel book.

The People's Bathhouse on Oderberger Strasse, in Berlin. A once-and-future-bathhouse, long neglected but being restored...

In Tallinn's Old Town there is still a Sauna St, and a historical stop in their self-guided walking tour.

One of the original spring sites in a cliff embedded in Baden-Baden.

Under the Friedrichsbad Bathing Temple in Baden-Baden is the ruins of a Roman soldier's bathhouse, locked safely away all winter long.