I've been a great yogini (female yoga practitioner) for the last five days. This morning I got up and after doing some simple stretches unrolled my yoga mat, popped in my Tandava CD, and began with surya namaskar (sun salutation). I could only do one full set today, and it felt right to do a shorter workout. I was on the mat for about 40 minutes, doing mostly stretches with a few active and flowing poses. It was good to let my body guide me.

The blogging has helped, too, as have your comments. And a big help has been the daily checking in with my friend in DC, who is also doing the daily workout thing. Yesterday we agreed that we're both the kind of people that need to be in a very regular, very solid practice for an extended period before we can take a day off. The day off sort of throws us off completely. Yoga isn't like bodybuilding - you don't need to take a day off. But it's good to vary what you're doing a bit, especially if you get bored, even if that just means increasing or decreasing the intensity.

Of course, Bikram Yoga practitioners might disagree with the idea of a change-up. Bikram Yoga is better known as "Hot Yoga," and is basically the same rigid sequence performed in a hot room at least once a day. Bikram Choudhury - the style's founder - has been the subject of controversy. Disciples of his tradition idolize him, and rightfully so. He was a master of the physical aspects of yoga like few others in the world since. He won yoga competitions (yes, there are such things, and advanced Bikram yogis often have these competitions as their goal) and astounded the world with his flexibility and grace. He describes his yoga studios as "torture chambers," to give you an idea of his approach.

He has a point - my own teachers in India say that there are no shortcuts to enlightenment. Transforming yourself is difficult. Meditation is uncomfortable, for the mind and the body. Yoga is much, much more than it is characterized in the West. No pain, no gain.

Of course, I know some people who knew him personally in the 70s and 80s who, when he's mentioned, just laugh and shake their heads, and tell stories of a charming and arrogant personality mixed with corruption and greed. So by some people, he's considered something of a self-serving egotist, not something you'd associate with a yogi. He has copyrighted his version of yoga and rules it with an iron fist, and charges a lot of money to potential teachers (though, to be fair, most teacher training costs thousands of dollars in order to be certified according to international standards set by the Yoga Alliance, and these teachers are more likely to get jobs).

I got into Bikram Yoga for a while, and it was intense. They say it's normal to feel like you're going to vomit at least through the first class, and possibly through your first few classes. But eventually your body gets used to it and you can then use the heat in the room to sink really deeply into the body and also sweat out toxins. And I mean, a lot of sweat. So. Much. Sweat. This kind of yoga uses a sticky mat, but then puts a couple of big towels down to mop up all the sweat.

But I burned out (ha ha) on it - I just felt totally wrung out by the end of every session, and while I got past the nausea stage, I wasn't into something that just made me feel worn out, particularly when some of my friends who were really into it had the opposite experience. Dragging my limbs while they were practically doing cartwheels - it wasn't exactly inspiring.

It is good preparation for going to India in the summer, though. If I get this research grant I recently applied for, I'll be in India for a year, and I'll probably do some Bikram Yoga to get acclimated to the intense weather. And who knows, maybe I'll go back to it when I am feeling like my regular yoga practice isn't as challenging as it is right now, when I'm looking for something deeper.

So, yes, I've been a good yogini, I've done yoga every day for the last five days, and I've blogged about it, but I've been a terrible food blogger.

It's not that I don't have a passion for food - believe me, I do. And I have a passion for exquisite meals that are relatively simple to prepare. I cook every day, sometimes alternating with my husband (but more often than not these days, he's my sous chef). I'm unemployed and looking for work at the moment, so it's a perfect time to be cooking and getting back to yoga and deepening my music practice and all of that.

But I realized that I haven't been food blogging lately because... well... I don't measure anything. My relationship with spices started in childhood, as I stood over my mother's pot of spaghetti sauce, and she showed me how to measure spices in the palm of my hand. I still use this method now. And I have a hard time remembering to take pictures, besides which we have terrible lighting for camera work in our house at night (it's great for relaxation, not so great for appetizing pictures). These things combined mean that it's tricky for me to post even my most favorite, simple recipes.

I want to post Pomme de Terre Provencale, and Mexican Kichari, and Jamaican rice & pea (something I picked up from above-mentioned friend in DC). I want to post recipes for Indian Dal, and Gujarati Jeera Aloo, and more. All these are vegan, healthy, and delicious. But I lack photos and measurements.

I think people learn to cook by working with recipes, and they learn to love to cook by bending the rules and stepping outside of those rigid rules. For me, cooking is about creation and meditation. How do you teach someone to trust their nose and their palate, without being there with them? Most people in this country are so desensitized to the way things actually taste because they're eating lots of processed foods, fast food, preservatives, artificial flavors... whenever I cut out sugar for a while, I can suddenly taste the incredible sweetness of a blueberry again. Strawberries are still tart to my tongue, but also have a subtle sweetness. Very ripe bananas become the perfect natural sweetener.

How do I get around this? Suggestions? Do you care that much about exact measurements and photos? Should I make it my goal to try and help people learn to measure without measuring, to cook without recipes? That's what I do, that's my passion. What do you think?