So, I have finally cleared some space to start photographing some of the recipes for my next cookbook: The Mother’s Kitchen. I hope you enjoy them. Love, Veronika x
Lemon-Honey Baked Tofu
Leek-stuffed mushrooms
Raspberry and Elderflower Muffins
Butternut and chickpea curry with lemon-infused polenta
Butterbean and Spicy Spinach Stew
Happy New Moon in Cancer! This is the time for nourishing home and family, and taking care of ‘the nest’. You can download your FREE copy of Starflower Living now.
http://starflowerpress.com/living/
Invitation for Submissions, 2014
Starflower Living (digital magazine) is now seeking submissions for issue 2, publishing July 26th. Due date for articles, photographs or art, July 10th. Please send to: office (at) starflowerpress (dot) com or veronika (no space) robinson (at) hotmail (dot) com
Themes sought for our New Moon in Leo issue include: the heart, courage, pride, fierce determination, fire, passion, love and romance, playfulness, creativity and celebration. (Health-related topics: back and spine, heart, exhaustion, inflammations.)
We seek articles that are original, and haven’t been published (or submitted) elsewhere in print or digitally. Please ensure the work is your own, and is of a professional standard. If submitting art or photographs, please make sure you have written permission from the owner.
Issue 3 themes for the New Moon in Virgo (due date August 8th): healing, healers, helpfulness, service, mentoring, diet/exercise, perfectionism, discrimination, efficiency, weight management, mind/body/soul, alternative health care. Health: solar plexus, bowels and intestines, digestion.
Issue 4 themes for the New Moon in Libra (due date, September 6th): Love, partnership, marriage, kindness, balance, fairness, co-dependency, harmony, beauty, counselling, peace, décor, diplomacy, companionship, grace, luxury and elegance. Health: kidneys, adrenals, sugar imbalance.
Issue 5 themes for the New Moon in Scorpio (due date, October 4th): soul mates, sexuality, transformation, empowerment, letting go, old baggage, psychology, secrets, depth of character, compulsions, deep emotional connections, debt, inheritance, jealousy, abandonment. Health: sexual organs, organs of elimination, menstrual cycle, sexual diseases.
Issue 6 themes for the New Moon in Sagittarius (due date, November 2nd): optimism, faith, adventure, freedom, truth, travel, publishing, horses, expansion, higher learning, Nature, conscience, friendliness, universities, philosophy. Health: thighs, sciatica, liver, hips.
Issue 7 themes for the New Moon in Capricorn (due date, December 1st): self-discipline, commitment, public image, aging, success, reaching goals, financial security, ambition, respect, fathers, and tradition. Health: knees, skin, bones, joints, gall bladder/stones, arthritis.
Starflower is also known as borage. Borage comes from the Celtic word borrach which means courage. Starflower Living is a publication dedicated to holistic and courageous living. www.starflowerpress.com
By Veronika Sophia Robinson
April 16th, 1995 This day will forever remain the anniversary of my heart. It was the day you first kissed me. The day you held me close, looked into my eyes, and found me. In that moment, you held me as if I was the most precious thing in the Universe. You’ve done so every day since. I can still feel that first hug, your soft breath against the curve of my neck, and the sense of knowing that I’d come home.
April 16th was when I touched my Happily Ever After.
Funny, just a few weeks before you turned up and made me laugh, I’d written a list of my ‘ideal man’ requirements. Near the top of the list was ‘someone who’d sing to me’. The Universe must have smiled that day, knowing that you were a professional singer and that it would be just the blink of an eye until we found each other again. Even now, all these years later, hearing your voice in the shower has me whispering ‘thank you.’
The first song you ever sang to me was “If tomorrow never comes, would she know how much I loved her…” As the years have ticked on by, this has remained ‘our song’.
I knew you were unlike the fifty or so men I had dated in the previous ten years. I simply knew. You felt different, both to the touch, and to my heart. You smelled different, too. You smelt like a man I wanted to breathe in night and day: a sexy combination of the earthy spice cumin and kind, loving man. Your voice soothed me to sleep, and your love woke me up. Through empathy, kindness, awareness and tenderness, you found ways to help me blossom into the woman I am today. Quite simply, my love, you healed me.
Perhaps it was the way you made me laugh, or your shy yet mischievous smile. One thing was for sure: I knew you were different. I knew, in that language beyond words, that you and I had known each other forever. How else would it have been possible for us to move in with each other the next day, promising that we wanted to be with each other for a long time?
On this, our nineteenth anniversary, I still know. Not once have you ever made me feel bad about myself, or inadequate as a woman or a lover. You have tilted your whole life in such a way so that I can fully live mine, not from sacrifice, but love.
A blustery day: Green Bay, Auckland, New Zealand.
I see you walk through the street in town towards me, and I realise “Oh, I know him! That lovely man is mine!” My heart pounds as if I’m 16 years old. I go weak at the knees because I know that it wasn’t a silly, spontaneous decision to spend my life with you. I know that we were simply picking up wherever we left off in a previous life. And if reincarnation isn’t real, then I simply thank my stars for such damn good luck!
Nineteen years later, our baby is off to university. Both of our daughters are a living embodiment of our knowing. Before we had even made love, I knew you’d be an amazing father. And you have been, and still are.
You have shown me that my inner knowing is the greatest tool I have in this lifetime. When you had a heart attack last year, I knew that my life would never, could never, be the same again if you left this earthly world. Who would make me laugh the way you do? Who would catch my tender heart when it aches? Who would be a role model to our daughters about what a ‘real man’ is like? And who the heck would clean up the cat vomit in such a perfect way?
I live each day grateful that you’re still here, walking side by side with me, knowing that each day is a beautiful miracle.
This, I know: if tomorrow never comes, I will know how much you loved me. You, my love, have never left me in any doubt.
Just before we met, a tarot card reader told me about a man coming into my life. A man so amazing that I would pinch myself every day. She was right. Nineteen years later, I am still pinching myself. Nineteen years later, I am still laughing dozens of times each day. You, make me do that. You, are the love of my life. You, honey. Only you.
When I’m asked how you can tell if someone is the ‘right’ person for you, my reply is always the same: you don’t have to ask, you just know.
**
I submitted the above piece to an online journal called When Women Awake. The theme was ‘knowing’. My piece was rejected for not having ‘emotional complexity’ and because it wasn’t considered interesting.
.
Today I humbly share this rejection with you, thankful for every day I have spent with my beloved. I hope you enjoyed reading it and do, indeed, find it interesting and rich with the emotion I feel for this amazing man in my life. ~ Veronika x
If you’ve ever read any of my books, you’ll know they’re published by Starflower Press. I’m pleased to announce our new digital magazine, Starflower Living, Naturally, which will be published on the New Moon each month. The launch issue, publishing June 27th New Moon in Cancer, is free! www.starflowerpress.com
This first issue features articles on the journey to becoming the wise crone; calendula; floatation therapy; sacred sexuality; letting your hair go grey naturally; gardening by the Moon; earth medicine; finding your beautiful voice; making a difference; vegetarian recipes; the new Moon in Cancer, and more.
Illustrated by Sara Simon, from The Mystic Cookfire
Goan Potato
From The Mystic Cookfire, by Veronika Sophia Robinson
www.veronikarobinson.com www.starflowerpress.com
We used to love eating this in the café of our local bookshop, but now we make our own. Gorgeous! It’s exquisite! You can thicken it a bit, if you like, and eat it as a casserole.
Olive or sunflower oil
500 ml coconut milk
2 onions, chopped
1 red chilli, seeded and chopped
2 teaspoons black mustard seeds
900 g potatoes, cut into cubes
½ teaspoon turmeric
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
4 curry leaves or two teaspoons curry powder
750 ml water
300 g baby spinach leaves
2 tablespoons sweetener
Bunch of fresh coriander leaves
Himalayan pink salt
Black pepper
Heat the mustard seeds, and when they begin to pop add the onion and chilli. Cook for five minutes, then add the spices, potato and water. Cook for twenty minutes, until the potatoes are tender. Add the spinach and cook for five minutes. Add the coconut milk and sweetener (sugar or maple syrup). Add the salt and pepper (to taste). Garnish with coriander leaves.
The Mystic Cookfire, available from www.starflowerpress.com, Amazon and good bookshops