The Fun Groton Fall Festival

Visit our booth at the Fall Festival Saturday Oct 8. Our excellent massage therapists will be on hand with free chair massage, and we have raffles and discount coupons for all of our services.

The Fall Festival is one of Groton’s most important events and is full of family fun. We have all kinds of food vendors, local business booths, music, a clown and a magician. The AVCRAD helicopter will be there and various safety demonstrations take place throughout the day. It’s a really fun time. Check the schedule to see what the Groton Business Association has planned for this year’s Festival.

GBA at MRA

On Thursday, May 19 Mystic River Acupuncture hosted the monthly meeting of the Groton Business Association, a division of the Greater Mystic Chamber of Commerce. This group of business people works towards the interests of small business in Groton. Some of the events we sponsor each year are the Groton Fall Festival and The Holiday Lights Parade. At our meetings we network and keep up to date on what is happening in Groton that may affect small business. And when it’s at our place, we eat!

When Mystic River Acupuncture hosts this group it is an event. It’s a chance for our small business neighbors to see what an acupuncture clinic looks like and we love to show off dishes containing healthy herbs. This year we featured Eight Treasures breakfast congee , a delicious rice porridge made with red rice and a variety of Chinese “food herbs” from our herbal dispensary. Also on the menu was Chinese rose and albizzia tea and a “chai” made from pharmacy herbs, whole milk and roobios tea, an African caffeine-free herb known for it’s healing qualities. A mostly organic fruit salad and pastries by Pastry Chef Araminta Poole rounded up the fare.

Sarah Hartford, LMT was on hand to provide chair massage to willing attendees. Sarah is new to our staff and it was a great way for her to introduce herself to the business association. All takers went home happy and relaxed!

We look forward to hosting this group again. Stay tuned next year for a new and delicious menu.

Eight Treasures Congee for the GBA

Everyone loved the Eight Treasures Congee served at the Groton Business Association May meeting.

It was adapted from the recipe Eight Treasures Porridge from Daniel Eng’s book “Cooking With Chinese Herbs.

It’s so easy to make a healthful congee. Basically all you do is throw the ingredients into crockpotin the evening, set it on low, and go to bed.  When you wake up in the morning, Voila! There is your tasty breakfast congee waiting for you.

Here is the recipe.  I adapted it by using organic vegetable broth instead of water and organic Bhutanese red rice. I also used a crockpot. The herbs are available at any Chinese pharmacy or from Mystic River Acupuncture for 15¢/gram. Just tell us you want the eight treasures congee packet.

1/2 cup of purple or black rice (other kinds of rice are fine, too)

2 Tbsp walnuts

2 Tbsp Job’s tears

1 Tbsp hyacinth beans

12 pieces lotus seeds

6 pieces longan fruit, optionally chopped

6 pieces red dates, pits removed

4-6 cups of water

1 Tbsp goji berries

small amount of honey (optional)

Rinse all ingredients except the water, goji, and honey. and place in a slow cooker or a pot.  Add 4-6 cups of water, deppending on your cooking equipment and method (slow cookers generally require less, while stovetop cooking may require more).  If using a slow cooker, turn it on to “low” overnight or all day (8-10 hours).  Alrternatively, simmer in a covered pot over a low flame for about two hours or until everything is soft.  After the porridge is finished cooking, add goji and a small amount of honey.

Serves 2-3

Spring Wellness Fair

Mystic River Acupuncture and Everything Zen are collaborating once again to bring you a Spring Wellness Fair. Stop in to try a sampling of reflexology, massage, and acupuncture. Or come by just to chat with us about what we do and how it works. We’ll have some light snacks waiting for you. We hope the evening will be every bit as enjoyable as out last event was.

Spring Wellness Fair will take place at Everything Zen, 156 King’s Highway in Groton. RSVP to Holly Potter at 860-861-8978.

Everything Fun at Everything Zen

Last Friday Mystic River Acupuncture went to Everything Zen for an evening of “Radiant Beauty From the Inside Out”. I talked about the Chinese concept of beauty being the direct result of how we feel and how healthy we are. Beauty formulas and healthy eating are a part of radiance as much as cosmetics and facial care are.

Holly and I served up an “immune” promoting broth adapted from a recipe in “Ancient Wisdom, Modern Kitchen: Recipes From the East for Health, Healing, and Long Life”. Organic chicken bones, herbs and vegetables were stewed for 24 hours to make this delicious stock that can be taken either as a broth or used as a base in any dish calling for chicken stock.  Bone marrow is rich in nutrients and stewing for a long period releases the essence of bones and their marrow into the soup. A crockpot makes the whole process easy.

Next we sampled a classic Chinese formula that is traditionally taken as a draught with wine. A gram of herbal granules was stirred into bit of warm water in our Dixie cups. We drank this down, then chased it with wine as I passed around a plate containing the same formula in raw form for everyone to see. Taking herbs to keep qi (energy) and blood circulation flowing is essential to a good beauty program, especially in cases of dry skin, acne, and other skin problems.

We finished the evening with a demonstration of wrinkle reducing acupuncture while Holly talked about the importance of using organic paraben free products on the skin. She and showed participants the special herbs I powder up for her to use in facial masks for her facials. Holly and I have been collaborating for the last year on different herbal face masks for various skin problems.

We were running out of time and didn’t get to drinking the special relaxing tea I mixed. Luckily, I had made little bag of these tea herbs for each person to bring home to make for their tea breaks during week. This tea was a relaxing blend that also “vents” or dissipates stress energy and is particularly good for tension in the body caused by stress. It’s a calming refreshing tea that taken with lemon, mint and honey.

By the time we were done, the class had renamed Everything Zen to “Everything FUN” and Holly and I were pleases and honored. It’s important to put some fun in our busy lives.

Check News and Events to learn about the Radiant Beauty specials Holly and I are offering so you can keep having Radiant Beauty and Everything Fun.

Kathleen Poole

Alternative Medicine – How to Choose

On April 11, 2011 Kathleen will present ‘The Jungle of Chinese Medicine: Which to Use and How To Choose a Practitioner’ to the Mystic Rotary at its monthly luncheon at the Mystic Hilton.

She will discuss the various alternative medicines and therapies available in southeastern Connecticut, what they are used for, and how to find a practitioner. She’ll talk about which professions are licensed and which are unregulated and the educational requirements for each. Kathleen did extensive research of schools, programs, and the state statutes regarding the professions. Handouts outlining this research will be available and  she will accompany her lecture with a slide presentation.

All are invited to attend. If you’ve ever felt confused about alternative medicine, now is the time to get the facts.

Mystic Hilton is located at 20 Coogan Blvd, Mystic.

RSVP: Laureen Morley at 860-536-4140.

We welcome ESCU medical anthropology class.

On November 14, Eastern Connecticut State University’s Medical Anthropology Class visited Mystic River Acupuncture. Kathleen spoke to the class about the history of Chinese Medicine and how acupuncture works. She demonstrated how to put an herbal formula together and weighed herbal ingredients out on both an ancient style scale and a modern digital one. The class had a tour of the facility, with plenty of time for questions. Kathleen explained the ins and outs of practicing in this country and  outlined the requirements for becoming a Connecticut licensed acupuncturist. She told the class about how the profession has changed in the past twenty years.  She described the steps she took in establishing her clinic and its growth over that time period. In past years, Kathleen has demonstrated acupuncture by giving mini-treatments to willing students. Professor Joan Greene includes a trip to Mystic River Acupuncture in her annual curriculum in order to show her students how ancient medical traditions are practiced in the modern western world.

We Love Groton Fall Festival!

October 9 is the annual Groton Fall Festival. This year will be even better, with lots of good food, crafts, music, classic cars, helicopters, skateboard contests . . . . . what’s not to like?  It’s a beautiful time of year for a festival and the Groton Business Association has done a great job organizing this event.

We’ll be there with an expanded booth (we’ve got two spaces) to accommodate everyone who wants to try a chair massage or see what an acupuncture treatment is like. We’ll have drawings for acupuncture, massage and herbal treatments, and you can sign up for our mailing list. (A newsletter is in the works, and you’ll want to be the first to know.)

For all of us who miss Andrea Elliott, she’ll be back with us for the day. Our staff will be on hand to answer all your questions about acupuncture, Chinese Medicine, and therapeutic massage. Come on out for some good old fun and be sure to stop by to say hi.

Start the day with rice congee.

In China, rice congee is a common breakfast food. It is made with rice cooked on low heat for a long time. White rice is used. We recommend this for breakfast in the morning because white rice is easier to digest than brown. Rice congee has a sweetness that awakens the digestion at the beginning of the day. Medicinal herbs may be cooked in rice congee for people who are ill, weak or convalescing. Congee tastes great as a breakfast food. For lunch you can make it with left over bits of vegetables and meats.

Rice congee is very easy to make. Take 1/2 cup of white rice and 2-3 cups of water and put it in a crockpot. You’ll have to play with the amount of water to find a consistency you like. It is like porridge, and we all know that some like it thick and some like it thin. Add whatever you want to cook with the rice. Turn the crockpot on low, cook overnight, and your delicious breakfast will await you in the morning. You may use a broth instead of water if you like.

Congee can be as simple as adding a little butter, chopped walnuts and dates or raisins. For the GBA meeting, Andrea made one with sweet potato cut into small pieces, red dates, lotus seeds, lily bulbs, and gou ji berries, and another savory one with scallions and ginger. I often use chicken broth and cook it with pieces of leftover chicken. When it’s done I’ll add a vegetable like broccoli and cook it a little longer. For breakfast congees I enjoy adding seasonal fruits.

Congee is a versatile medium for many tasty meals. If you’d like to try Andrea’s sweet congee, above, give us a ring and we can provide you with a packet of the food herbs she used.

Mystic River Acupuncture hosts GBA

In honor of Healthy Groton Month, the Groton Business Association has chosen Mystic River Acupuncture as its sponsor  in May. We will host this monthly meeting of area business owners and leaders at a before hours breakfast on May 22. We are actively involved in the GBA and are happy to welcome its members to our office for an early morning soirée. Go to www.grotonbiz.com for more information about the GBA, a division of the Greater Mystic Chamber of Commerce.

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