Artistic Director and Actress Nina Schuessler on Healing Wisdom LIVE

This Thursday morning at 9am on Healing Wisdom on Cape Cod's Outermost Radio Nina Schuessler of the Harwich Junior Theatre HJT will be discussing the spiritual elements and benefits of Creative Drama as well as sharing some of her tales as an actress and Producing Artistic Director of the HJT. She received the 2012 recipient of the LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT in the ARTS AWARD from the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod. Tune into 92.1 WOMR Provincetown /91.3 WFMR Orleans or streaming at http://womr.org

Cinco De Mayo en Mi Casa

For Cinco De Mayo I made langostino tacos. I'd had some iffy experiences with shrimp from Trader Joes and when I saw the Langostinos from Chile I thought: these are expensive enough they if they taste off, I will be motivated to bring them back for a refund. Yes, this is how I shop.

They were a hit with the kid too, until I explained that langostino isn't Spanish for shrimp. They are related to lobster, but in a different order than spiny or Maine lobsters. In fact, they are more akin to a crab. They walk on a bunch of legs and look like a crawdad to me. But they taste great. I marinated them in muchas lima y limon, garlic, chiles, and then I cheated and used half a pack of taco seasoning. Oh no! But they were great anyway. Especially with sour cream, queso, guacamole, butter lechuga, and homemade (sprouted and cooked black stewed frijoles) and jasmine arroz.

See, how happy he was after his langostino tacos?

Okay, it could have been the green tea mochi, or his excellent performance at Poetry Idol at school. Or perhaps, his skit and song about being an upstanding citizen...

Shitaki Mushroom Sauce Rabbit, We've Got Something Here

My friend Dinah Mellin who hosts the Brick Hill House Concerts in Orleans has a tenant who is passionate about mycelium. Mushroom spores. Hero and I helped harvest the last of the crop. Many a tick was discovered underneath the logs, but we survived. Here's what we learned.

It should be noted that Shitaki mushrooms make any dish taste Japanese, even if you are going for a buttery French stew. Shitaki mushrooms have a pungent, nutty, woody, miso-like, and yeasty flavor that doesn't magically go away when you pretend they are portabello or cepes. They are delicious, but you are stepping into a Japanese forest, as soon as you pluck your first stem. Know your terrain. And when harvesting them, leave no stems behind in the logs, where their spores have been plugged and have blossomed. You want those holes reusable.

Do not eat the stems. They are too woody, and I like bark. I'm a tea drinker, and I'm a fiber fanatic. Dry your stems always. Even if you harvest your shitaki mushrooms when they are still whitish, and moist. When the stems are dry, you can grind them to a powder in a coffee grinder and use them as a soup base later on. Dry them on a screen or in the windowsill in the sun. If they are still moist, place them on a baking sheet in the oven on very low heat for an hour or less.

If you harvest some brown specimens which have already dried a bit on the logs, finish the job in the same way as the stems. You don't want your extra mushrooms moldy when you jar them.

To reconstitute them, Sam the mushroom man says forget water, use wine or apple juice. I like the sound of that.

Here's my attempt at French Shitaki Mushroom soup, I improvised the recipe after reading about mushrooms in my 70s cookbooks. I recall it involved a lot of butter, some white wine and shallots. I also added turkey bacon instead of ham, which was a bit too over powering, but not as bad as the time my uncle baked Thanksgiving turkey with bacon on top and threw in a cardboard box of stuffing into the poor bland carcass. The flesh was bacon greasy, yellow and crusty and the meat was stringy and dry, while the rib cage smelled like the rusty fence of a factory farm. And speaking of factory farms, malign organic all you want, butter is more delicious organic. As are most fresh foods.

My soup was pretty damn good, but better the next day. If I hadn't been lazy, I would have most definitely blended it to a creamy consistency in a blender. It would have smoothed out the flavor, and I suspect enhanced the nutty flavor. We ate it over jasmine rice, which was too strong a flavor, and also made it blander despite the whole minced garlic bulb and other herbs I used. Mushroom soup should be served with buttered bread, that's a fact. Also, I can't recommend the token cherry tomatoes I threw in there. But, I am sharing this experience despite the foibles, because it's fun to experiment with new items. When God gives you mushrooms make soup.

I don't have a photo, but I discovered the best way to make green beans. Hero eats these! Trim both ends, cut the beans lengthwise. Saute fresh minced parsley in olive oil with minced garlic. Add a bit of minced savory if you have it. Next add a pinch of thyme, oregano, and fresh black pepper. Place your beans in there. Simmer high enough that you need to stand there tossing them. Add sea salt. C'est voila. Romano or goat cheese and toasted slivered almonds would really rock it.

I've Got a Heatwave Burning in My Heart

Martha Reeves of Martha and the Vandellas will be on Healing Wisdom on Cape Cod's Outermost Radio!

Reeves is the lead singer of the Motown girl group Martha and the Vandellas whose hits include "Heatwave", "Nowhere to Run", "Jimmy Mack", and "Dancing In The Street". Reeves also served as an elected council woman for the city of Detroit, Michigan from 2005 to 2009. Thrilled to bits!

The Easter Bunny Was Extra Hip This Year

Did everyone get their scavenger hunt clues written inside egg-shaped booklets with important or artistic historical figures on both sides?

Side A: Louis Armstrong, Janis Joplin, Josephine Baker, Martin Luther King Jr., Timothy Leary, Paul McCartney, Amelia Earhart, John Lennon.

Side B: Marlene Dietrich, Katharine Hepburn, Gandhi, Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers, George Harrison, Jimi Hendrix, Ringo Starr

Author Marge Piercy on Healing Wisdom

Marge Piercy, author of seventeen novels including The New York Times Bestseller Gone To Soldiers; the National Bestsellers Braided Lives and The Longings of Women, and the classic Woman on the Edge of Time; will be on WOMR's Healing Wisdom Thursday April 9th at 9am. She will be discussing her lastest work: Made in Detroit. Piercy has been a key player in the women's movement and has been a active participant in resisting and shedding light on wars in the Middle East as well as in Vietnam. We'll talk poetry and where women are now.

The show will air Thursday, April 23rd at 9am ET.

Healing Wisdom in April

Singer/songwriter, Rising Star healer and teacher Alicia Mathewson is on Healing Wisdom this Thursday at 9am EST streaming on womr.org

April 16th, Marth Reeves of Motown's Martha and the Vandellas, best known for her hits "Heatwave", "Jimmy Mack", "Nowhere to Run", and "Dancin' in the Street".

April 23rd poet, novelist, and feminist Marge Piercy will be speaking with me about her lastest book, Made in Detroit and discussing where women are now.

April 30th, author Stacey Couch talks with me about her book Gracious Wild: A Shamanic Journey with Hawks.

Playwright Candyce Rusk Talks Sister Rosetta Tharpe on Healing Wisdom

Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Godmother of Rock. Original Soul Sister. Pioneer.

Thursday Morning at 9am ET on Healing Wisdom on Cape Cod's Outermost Radio I speak with playwright, intuitive, Ayurvedic practitioner and former Provincetown year rounder Candyce Rusk about the life and work of Sister Rosetta Tharpe and her play Rosetta.

Candyce Rusk’s plays and musicals have been staged throughout the US and Dublin. Plays that have received Austin FronteraFest best of awards include: Rosetta; Dice; A Shining Attribute and Riverview Ritz. Her play Little Baby Two Shoes was adapted into a short film by Paul Bright. Candyce is currently developing Rosetta into a full-length musical. It’s based on the life of the legendary American singer, songwriter, and guitarist Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Candyce Rusk is also an Autsin-based intuitive, with a post graduate degree from the International Institute of Ayurvedic Medicine and a member of the Dramatists Guild. She will be workshopping her musical Rosetta in Provincetown in early June 2015 at the Provincetown Theatre.

Pandora's Jukebox Does Spring Pledge Drive

This Sunday night between 9pm and midnight ET, the Jukebox will light up, and make the kinds of music only possessed jukeboxes can. Put in a request and see what plays.

Join us for WOMR's annual Spring Pledge Drive. Local drummer Rikki Bates and DJ Deb K will be joining us for the festivities. I'm doing short live tarot readings on our 1-800 number as well...

Join the hootenanny on 92.1 WOMR fm in Provincetown and 91.3 WFMR-fm Orleans and streaming globally at http://womr.org

Call in with your pledge!

I'm quite busy with angel readings, so I'm not quite sure what music the night will have in store. I'm bringing some boxes of vinyl records. I'm feeling my mortality, and the fragility of the human experience, so who knows what I'll play until I play it. Rikki will have a guest set after 10pm. Call in and show your support! I'll try to play your requests.

Cape Women's Coalition Breakfast For International Women's Day

These types of gatherings are so important for women to come together. It was a pleasure to speak at the event about WOMR's programming and to read Kristin Knowles poem. I love how women discuss and brainstorm together.

Ann Bookman...

Ann Bookman captivating Senator Dan Wolf and friends...

Round table discussion with moderator WAVE founder Paige Riley...

Sisterhood, Solidarity and Our Mother

It was a pleasure to speak at the Cape Women's Coalition International Women's Day breakfast in front of 200 women. I gave a presentation on WOMR's forthcoming IWD programming, photographed the event, and had the pleasure of being asked last minute to read a poem by Kristin Knowles. Here it is.

Our Mother

Our Mother,
in art and nature,
passionate burns thy flame.
Thy strength is one
with moon and sun
on Earth as up in the heavens.
Teach us the way to lightly tread
and relieve us our distress as
we receive those who would prefer our silence.
And lead us not into frustration
but deliver us from ill will.
For thine is the freedom, power and glory,
herstory,
now and forever.
Blessed Be.nowles beautiful poem "Our Mother".

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IWD tomorrow! At 10:30am, we have a gender identity discussion at 10:30am with Sarah Carpneter, LGBTQ transgender advocate, gender diversity trainer and author of “Religion, Faith and the LGBT Community, a Ground Level View From a Faithful Exile”, Erica Kay Webster, Founding Board Chair and CEO of the Foundation For International Justice, Vice President PFLAG of Cape Cod, founder and CEO of Promise Place, transgender musician Rikki Bates, and transgender advocate and spoken word artist Joi Helena. We discuss the gender binary and issues facing transgender people.


At 11:15am, Dr. Z Budapest gives us her Top Ten Heroines in History.

At 11:30am, I am accepting call-ins for live tarot readings. It may be tongue-in-cheek, or dead serious, depending on my callers. Choose your own adventure.

Streaming at http://womr.org

Greek Nymph Goddess of the Snow Chione with Anya Messina!

Great photoshoot today. Silliness, costume-making, makeup play, hot peony tea with cinnamon and honey, pratfalls in a hoop skirt, a bit of bawdy talk in fake accents, babysitting angst, The Pixies, The Pierces, and Paris Combo.