A Culinary Uprising: The Story of Bloodroot

 

Join me for a screening of A Culinary Uprising: The Story of Bloodroot as a part of the 25th Santa Cruz Film Festival. I will be emceeing the event, reading from my book, Laphrodite's Guide to Mindful Menopause, and moderating a Q and A with the film's director, Annie Laurie Medonis!

In the 1970s and '80s, there were over 230 feminist restaurants, cafés, and coffeehouses across the United States and Canada. Bloodroot, located in Bridgeport, Connecticut, is now the oldest and longest-running of these spaces, operating continuously for over 46 years. 'A Culinary Uprising: The Story of Bloodroot' is a short documentary that explores this feminist, queer, vegan restaurant and bookstore, highlighting the legacy of its pioneering proprietors, Selma Miriam and Noel Furie. The film offers an intimate look at their 46-year working partnership and how they navigate sexism, homophobia, and the realities of aging. Despite challenges, Bloodroot has endured as a beloved space for generations of feminists, vegans, and queer people who continue to return. Please Join Us After for a Q&A with Director Annie Laurie Medonis!

12:00 PM - 1:36 PM, Colligan Theater at the Tannery Arts Center.

Click here for tickets!

Ode to Soup

Ever since I was a little kid, I have associated soup with being sick. I remember having Campbell's Chicken Dumpling soup, those golden globs of goodness swimming in their pool of healing broth. Or slurping up Chicken and Noodle soup, the tiny specks of carrot and celery were hardly worth counting as vegetables. 

We moved to Europe when I was seven, and my aunt Silvana once took us to a dark restaurant in Milan late at night, where I was entranced by their chicken soup with stars. The white porcelain bowl was so inviting, as I dipped and redipped the silver spoon in the flickering candlelight.

I love a good French onion soup - gruyere cheese caramelizing on the sides of an ovenproof crock, crusty bread now mushy with dark brown ambrosia, the contrast of salt and thyme to the sweetness of onions. I confess I tend to only eat it in restaurants, as there’s a lot of clean-up.

Lentil soup is comfort food. The Saturn Cafe used to have the best lentil soup with vegetarian chili and brown rice, served with a sprouted, whole wheat bread smothered in butter. It was a rainy winter during my sophomore year at UCSC, and I spent many an afternoon curled up in one of their booths, with my book and brown bowl of comfort.

Butternut squash has taken my fancy lately, in its homogenized box from Trader Joe's, the orange liquid pouring out into the saucepan in serious gulps. I'll add black pepper and sage, often a dash of nutmeg, a trick I learned from my daughter’s spouse, Morgan. It’s the perfect mug soup, warming hands and belly.

I've never been fond of clam chowder, either red or white. They smell too fishy. I am also turned off by beef tongue and oxtail, from the days of going to the butcher with my Mom when we lived in Luxembourg, the slabs of organs neatly lined up in the steel chill. 

Mom used to make green soup. She would throw pretty much whatever was in the fridge into the Cuisineart - not quite sure what, could be lettuce, could be parsley - along with some chicken or beef bullion, garnished with a swirl of ubiquitous Parmesan cheese. We would sit at the white Formica kitchen table in Bethesda when I was in High School, watching the cardinals on the feeders outside the window.

Miso soup is a perennial favorite, but I stopped going to Mobo sushi because theirs tasted like dishwater the last few years. When I went out to the Nevada desert in my twenties to protest the atomic testing site at Mercury, I learned the benefits of miso and of studies in Japan of healing rates for those who drank miso after surviving Hiroshima or Nagasaki. I love chasing after the little white tofu cubes with my wooden chopsticks, the way the salty green seaweed clings to the side of the plastic red and black lacquer bowl, which always has a satisfying clink against my teeth.

Now I associate soup both with healing and enjoying staying healthy. Ever since COVID, we've been making bone broth from the rotisserie chickens from Costco, slow-cooking in the Crock-Pot for a good 24 hours, adding apple cider vinegar to leach the goodness from the marrow.  Then skimming out the fat and filtering out the bones, looking for the wishbone, of course. Last, adding potatoes, green onions, carrots, ginger, turmeric, paprika, and a full head of chopped garlic (for those medicinal benefits) and cooking until all is tender. This I will freeze in Chip’s favorite little Pyrex containers, for those stuffy winter nights to keep the colds away. 

Plant Meditation

Astrology Lessons

 

Astrology Lessons

 • Basic Astrology: 

90 minute session  devoted to the natal astrology chart with emphasis on Sun, Moon, and Rising Signs

• Beginners Astrology: 

10-session course is an introduction to learning how to read the birth chart. Topics include:
• The 12 signs of the Zodiac
• The Planet and Asteroids, Myths and  Meaning
• The Houses and their importance
• Understanding Aspects

• Advanced Astrology:

10-session course designed to delve further into the birth chart, as well as cover
• Transits and Forecasts
• Major Life Cycles
• Relationship and Synastry Charts

The Buddy System Works!

Bring a friend for FREE to any Astrology Lesson!

"It is without hesitation that I recommend Kayla Rose in any of her professional capacities and with complete confidence that she is an asset to all of her clients... that seek her expertise.”- Andrea Duncan, Santa Cruz

Grandma's Got Tattoos

 

Grandma's Got Tattoos

Written and Illustrated by Nona Kayla

Ernesto has been bullied for having a large birthmark on his face. He goes to Grandma for some comfort and words of calm advice. Grandma tells him a story of her own adventures about being different. She sets off on an adventure one day, with her faithful companion, June E. Purr. They overcome storms, blockages, and unusual encounters. Along the way, she meets a helpful pant, a special animal, and a personal guide who all help to build feelings of confidence, resourcefulness, and self-esteem.

Wonderful absolutely wonderful. Historically time and patterns repeat like the ancient art of storytelling, sitting around the campfire or the evening fireplace with full bellies and listening to the storyteller ( the elders), it’s a love message of I believe in you and I unconditionally love you too... The receding pandemic has highlighted these truths of connection. This delightful book should be read to not only children, teens, and young adults but also middle-aged adults too who want to remember dear loved ones or want to find a heart grandmother or grandfather, remember to seek and you shall receive ... Mother Earth is plentiful.. thank you Kayla Nona - Janice Carr

This is a wonderful book for young and old alike. I thoroughly loved the message and the uplifting storyline. Great book. - Justice

What Punctuation Mark are You Today?

Today I am an ellipsis… Continuation, a curiosity, an invitation to go further… Those three little dots have always fascinated me, have peppered my poetry and filled spaces whenever my mind or my pen had trialed off, or simply as an invitation to the reader to invoke their own imagination, to insert their personal imagery into the verse or paragraph…

Sometimes I am more of a dash–connecting, condensing–before going off on yet another tangent, a way to make a long story longer.

Sometimes I am the slash, cutting along boundaries, creating new meanings, awareness - wo/man, fe/male, his/story…

Often, I find it difficult to add punctuation to my poetry. They are an afterthought, scanning backwards from the end of the poem, inserting the stops and pauses, wondering about the appropriateness of an apostrophe and the correct use of a contraction.

I used to live my life like a parenthesis, almost a second thought, a side note ( not quite the star like the asterisks or accountable like the footnotes) lost in the back pages, but easily searchable with an index or table of contents.

For a long time. I was a question mark, doubting everything. Was I doing enough? Was I enough? When is enough, enough?

Now I'm more at peace, more patient, more willing to take my time to discover what is around the next bend…

Path Meditation