The migraine was gone today, thankfully, and in true Sunday brunch in the Bay Area fashion, my husband and I took his best friend out to dim sum for her birthday. We have a great dim sum place near us - one of the very best in the Bay Area, in fact - and it's a luxury we try to limit to once or twice a month.

Generally at dim sum I stick to the sweet stuff, the steamed Chinese broccoli, and the mushroom rice crepes. I'll eat anything with any kind of sweet bean paste involved, and their sesame balls are pretty fantastic. My absolute favorite, though, are the baked egg custard buns. Don't get me wrong - the steamed buns are good. But the baked ones at this place are just out of this world.

Inspired by these buns, this evening I decided to make a simple, reduced fat egg custard with some leftover nonfat evaporated milk and the last of our eggs, and after the custard cups finished baking I lighted candles, turned down the lights, unrolled my mat, put on an evening raaga for music, and began a simple practice. I was on the mat for a half hour, and added a new pose - vrksasana, (vrrk-SHAH-sah-nah) or tree pose. 

It was a challenge - I had to really center myself, lower my center of gravity a bit, stabilize all of my core muscles to stay comfortably in the pose, particularly as I lifted my hands above my head. I'm still too fat* and inflexible at this point to tuck my foot up into my groin and keep it there comfortably - you need muscle build-up in your inner thigh as well as flexibility in the knees for it to be comfortable -  but even with my foot planted just above my knee it was challenging enough to be a good starting point.

Vrksasana has always been one of my favorite poses. I first learned how to do it properly back in 1995, from Alexa Simpson at Yoga for Life in Benicia, California, which recently closed. I suppose she retired from the yoga studio life and is now focusing on other areas. In any case, she's a fantastic teacher and was one of the people that really opened up the world of yoga for me. Her classes were always a challenge and a great pleasure, and she's one of those people against whom I judge other yoga teachers. Perhaps that's unfair, but it's inevitable. I'd been doing yoga fairly regularly before I met her, but without a lot of confidence. Her classes taught me that anyone at all can be a successful yogi or yogini.

A half hour daily seems to be a good pace for me at the moment. The occasional one hour class is a good challenge, but I am realizing that regularity is the key, and starting simple and slow is the best way to ensure that I am successful in making yoga a part of my life again. 

In any case, here's the egg custard recipe, which I've modified from one over at Epicurious.com. The use of evaporated milk cuts down on the fat, and gives a rich but light flavor to the custard. You should adjust the vanilla to your own taste - I happen to love a strong vanilla. You can add more sugar if you want it more sweet - I use raw sugar and 1/3 cup is a very gentle sweetness. Some of you may prefer 1/2 cup sugar, in which case you may want to experiment with using a little less milk. Make sure you use a quality pure vanilla extract. I might try using agave nectar in this recipe in the future - I'll let you know how it goes.

I love the smell of this custard as it cooks! It's almost as good as the eating of it. :D

Egg Custard 

1 can nonfat evaporated milk + nonfat milk (about 1/2 cup) to equal 2 cups

2 egg yolks

2 eggs

1/3 cup sugar

1-2 tsp vanilla, to taste

optional: cardamom powder

Preheat the oven to 300. Place 6 1/2-cup ramekins in a deep glass baking dish large enough to hold them. Set this dish aside. You might also want to get a teakettle full of water heating on the stove at this point. You'll want the water hot, but not boiling.

Put the milk into a heavy-bottomed saucepan and slowly bring to a simmer over medium-low heat. Meanwhile, whisk the eggs, sugar and vanilla in a bowl until thoroughly mixed.

When the milk comes to a simmer, gently whisk in the egg mixture and combine thoroughly. Don't whisk it too hard, or it'll get foamy. 

Pour immediately into ramekins. Some people say you should pour it through a strainer, I say poppycock. There's no need. You just have to get it into those ramekins while it's hot. Pour the hot water from the teakettle into the dish - again, make sure it's hot but not boiling - until it comes up to about half the height of the ramekins. Put all of this into the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes, until the custard is set. It's okay if it's still a little wobbly, but you don't want it to be too wobbly.

Remove from the oven, sprinkle a bit of cardamom powder on the top, and allow to cool in the water. You can serve warm after 20 minutes, or you can chill for 2-3 hours before serving. Keeps well for 3-4 days, covered.

_{* For those who recently joined this blog, fat is a beautiful, neutral, descriptive word. It is not a dirty, ugly or derogatory word to me. I'm reclaiming it as a simple, neutral description of body type devoid of judgment. The fact that I am active, beautiful, intelligent, and successful as a human being have nothing to do with my body size or shape, and I prefer the word "fat" to a negatively charged word like "overweight" or words meant to coddle an ego, such as "plump" or "plus-size." I prefer fat, thankyouverymuch. That being said, anybody who uses "fat" as an insult will get a talking to from me, as fat-hating is one of the last frontiers of socially-acceptable, outright discrimination in our culture.}