love – Move Well with Amy Rizzotto

June 8, 2016September 4, 2016

Rosewater Raspberry Gluten-Free Scones

I highly recommend taking a long weekend with friends, yummy food, and outdoor walks in the sunshine; and without a computer or to do list. Like highly recommend it. I recently did just this up in NYC with some of my dearest girl friends with whom (is that proper grammar??) I studied abroad nearly 10 years ago. Damn, the years are flying by! Anyways…

We had a ball! Despite bopping around a bunch like an itinerant little gypsy, the weekend wasn’t stressful at all. Leaving my computer at home certainly helped, but mostly it was my lack of an agenda – something I struggle to let go of in my daily DC grind – that created space and time to do everything I needed and wanted with flexibility and a sense of ease.

Here are some highlights…

On Saturday, I went to the Union Square Famers Market (amazing) and gawked at peonies the size of my face and farm-fresh eggs that looked like the most beautiful golden nuggets I’ve ever seen. I would have stayed there the whole day if it weren’t for the sweltering heat and sweaty mess I had quickly become.

Sunday, was a day filled with jamm, which means “peace” in Wolof, Senegal’s native tongue. The girls and I throw that word around a lot when we’re together since Dakar was our study abroad destination and jamm was our main objective while there.

All day I was surrounded by these four mighty and magnificent women who inspire, nurture and love me to no end. How lucky am I? Together, we made a version of the gluten-free scones you’ll see below as well as some delicious frittatas.

Food is always best when made with love and enjoyed in good company. All of that was abundant and then some. We gabbed for hours while dining al fresco on a Brooklyn co-op rooftop. Heaven on earth.

I rounded out the weekend spending time with one of my other very best friends from childhood, Court. Actually, let’s call her my sister. Much more appropriate for our bond. We’ve known each other since age four and no matter how long we go in between visits, it feels like we’ve never skipped a beat.

While waiting for her arrival at an amazing Jewish Deli somewhere in lower Manhattan, I decided to express my joy for a weekend well spent with a little urban hand-standing. What else is a yogi to do?

I could regal you with all the mundane details of what made that weekend so magical in my mind, but instead I’ll simply suggest you try out these Rosewater Raspberry Scones and taste for yourself some of the love and jamm I brought back with me from NYC.

Rosewater Raspberry Gluten-Free Scones

Makes ~16 2 1/2-3″ scones.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free Biscuit Mix
1/2 cup Gluten-Free Rolled Oats
3/4 cup 2% or Whole Milk (note: you can substitute 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk + 1/4 cup plain coconut milk yogurt to make this vegan)
10 Tbs butter, cold and cubed
1/4 cup Rosewater
1 large egg
1/3 cup cane sugar
Zest of one lemon
1 1/2 cups fresh raspberries
Optional: 2-3 Tbs Milk for basting
Optional: sprinkle of corse sea salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. Blend with butter cubes using a pastry cutter. You can also use your finger to pinch the butter into the flour mixture if you don’t have one.
In a separate smaller bowl, whisk together milk, egg, rosewater, zest and sugar.
Combine the wet and dry ingredients in the larger of the two bowls. Knead with your hands until dough is combined. It may be a bit chunky/flaky, but that’s good for scones.
Fold in raspberries until evenly distributed.
Shape into small round disks, approximate 2 – 2 1/2″ in diameter. Place on a lined baking sheet 1″ apart.
Baste raw biscuits with a smear of milk, then sprinkle lightly with corse sea salt.
Bake at 350 degrees for 22-26 min, or until the tops turn golden and a toothpick comes out clean.

August 26, 2014

On Love.

While working on some new recipes and new posts, I thought I’d share some thoughts on a subject near and dear to my heart – literally – love. Before I go on, let me say that love comes in many forms. For me, a big part of how I share and receive love is through food. Cooking is a soulful, heartfelt endeavor and one that’s a big component of my own self-care regimen as well as my most authentic love language. Now back to that crazy little thing called…

Love is at the core of who we are and how we relate to the world. It is our foundation, our resting state, our home base.

Often, however, we can’t feel it – for ourselves or for others. It can come and go, clouded by stress, pain or whenever we’re feeling threatened and vulnerable.

Sometimes all it takes is one critical comment from a friend, partner or colleague to be driven from this home base.

Each time we run, we harden – or at least that’s often the case. We shield ourselves from future hurt. We fear what love can do.

Scary as it may be, we need to come home to love. All of us. We need to recognize and have confidence in our own hearts. This will ground us, uplift us and protect us.

If you’re finding it hard to come home to love, think of someone you care for wholeheartedly. It’s as easy as breathing to love them.

Then, allow yourself to love you with just as much ease and, more importantly, joy. Breath in, I feel loved. Breath out, I am loving.

May 9, 2013

Taking My Seat as a Yoga Teacher

I recently taught my first beginner’s yoga class and had the honor of being two students’ very first teacher. When I surveyed the class for first-timers and their two hands meekly rose into the air, I felt an immense simultaneous reaction of joy and responsibility. Throughout my certification journey, my mentor would come back time and again to the importance of “taking your seat” as a teacher and “holding the space” for your students. As a yoga teacher, I owe it to everyone who comes to one of my classes to show up and be present. This is never more important than when you are teaching those that are new to the practice.

It is such a rush to guide someone through their first Sun As and Bs, or watch them as they begin to understand how the power of their breath is all they need to go deeper into a posture. As I watched these two students throughout the class, I was elated and inspired to see the movement begin to make sense in their bodies. With my subtle hands-on adjustments and carefully chosen words, they quickly made the practice their own. The true reward was when one of my first-timers came up and gave me a huge hug at the end of class, thanking me for her introduction to the practice. I’m a complete sap so I nearly cried, but kept it together (holding the space) and simply radiated gratitude for her kind words.

While teaching new students definitely evokes an uplifting, I-love-what-I-do feeling, it can also be very intimidating. Yoga has been such a huge part of my life for the past decade that I want to ensure I do everything in my power to make it approachable for people. The last thing I would want is for someone to walk out of my class saying, “yoga was not for me.” I truly believe that yoga – in its many forms – is good for everybody and I want people to keep coming back and see how it can help them.

It is this simultaneous joy and responsibility that drives me to be better every day for my students. After all, they are trusting me with their bodies and, to a certain degree, overall well-being. I take this trust very seriously and feel oh-so lucky that I get to share something that incomparably nourishes me physically, mentally and emotionally with others.

Below are a few of the beautiful photos that my dear friend Leo Matsuo recently snapped of me on the National Mall, featuring hand-painted clothes by the lovely and talented Ashley Ann Bennett. At the time, I was so focused on my Fallen Angel that I didn’t notice the little girl watching me. I love these images because they serve as a reminder that being a teacher means…

…it is my job to challenge and inspire people to find their edge…

…it is my job to encourage people to find opening in places where walls are holding them back from their full potential, both as a yogi and a human being…

…and it is my job to remember that students are trusting in you as their teacher to serve as an example and leader for how to practice yoga with personal integrity, self-kindness (aka listening to your body) and a sense of adventure!

February 14, 2013

Strong Beats Skinny Any Day

On this Valentine’s Day, I wish for everyone out there to feel loved. Romantic love is wonderful–and I hope you all have or find that kind of love–but the love I am referring to is the love you have for yourself. I wish everyone the feeling of self-love because it is from that place where all else grows. It may sound cliché, but I truly believe that we must first love ourselves in order to love (and be good to/for) anyone else.

For me, loving my whole self is a work in progress. I’m not 100% there but for the first time in a very long time I can say whole-heartedly, I love my body, and mean it. Contrary to our societal ideal of being thin or skinny, I love my body for its strength. For all those out there that make the goal of your fitness and diet efforts losing weight and dropping sizes, it is so much healthier and more powerful to change your focus and strive to arrive at a place where you can honestly say (and believe) the words, I feel strong.

Physical strength is absolutely one part of achieving this feeling. I practice yoga daily and have watched my muscles lengthen and grow. I’ve experienced elation as certain asanas have improved and other challenge postures I never thought possible have found expression through my body. While this kind of strength is empowering in its own right, it is an intangible strength that I first learned about when I traveled to Senegal five years ago that I wish all women could feel. This ineffable, life-changing concept boils down to one word: fayda. Fayda (figh-da) is a distinctly female trait meaning courage, pride, and attitude in Wolof (Senegal’s official local language).

What it meant to me then and still does now is strength–beautiful, unabashed inner resolve that you are, and have always been, who you were meant to be.

Like many women (and men too, though we ashamedly don’t talk about their perspective as much) I have struggled with body image issues. I’ve always been a bit of a peanut but once those teenage hormones kick in, all of our bodies change in one form or another. That change can be really hard to cope with. Couple that with the way our media and society praise and promote the thinnest of the thin and no wonder so many young people have an unhealthy relationship with food and exercise.

Let me tell you a little story. In college, I discovered a love for rock climbing. I made great friends while doing it but at a certain point started to dislike the way my body looked. Vanity told me that the muscles I was developing were detracting from my femininity and a nagging little voice in my head whispered, what guy is going to like a girl with muscles like that? While that’s not the only reason I stopped climbing–time, travel, and transitions also played a role–I shudder to think that even one iota of why I backed away from something I loved that much was for aesthetic reasons, and ultimately the manifestation of a lack of self-confidence.

No one should ever be made to feel that in order to be beautiful you have to fit into a certain size or look like a stick-figure celebrity. A beautiful body is one that is strong and functional, not one that is so frail that a strong gust of wind could take you out.

You know what I think is beautiful? A mom who can hold her five- and two-year-old sons on her hips and still muster the power to grab a couple grocery bags out of the trunk. That’s functional fitness. That’s beauty. That’s strength.

Resistance training–which is bound to build your muscles–is an important part of maintaining overall wellness. Muscles help reinforce and protect our skeletal structure, guarding us against injury and inability as we age. Whether you decide that weight lifting or isometric bodyweight training (like yoga) is the way to go for your body, do something and don’t be afraid to be strong.

I am strong is a great mantra to find love and honor for your body and being. Be your own Valentine today and make it your own.