Campfire cooking - the stew to beat all stews (cooked on a campfire)

Over the Mountain in Estes Park, CO

My family likes to camp.  We're pretty outdoorsy and, in Colorado, we're near to great mountain retreats.


Pelican at Bear Creek Lake Park, CO at dawn

 



One of my favorite meals (and easiest to prepare at the campsite), is campfire stew.  The best part?  Everyone prepares it for themselves, the way they like it, so no one’s able to complain about the ingredients!  That's important when you're camping with kids.

I do suggest some pre-camping prep, but I’m good with that.

 

Here’s a list of ingredients I pack for the stew (all diced into bite sized pieces):

Stew beef

Chicken

Onions

Carrots

Celery

Pre-cooked potatoes.

 

To make things easier, most stores sell the mirepoix – pronounced meer- pwah - (onion, carrot and celery mixture) precut and frozen now.  You could just grab a bag and toss it in the cooler.  Also, everything can come with you pre-cut if you don’t have time to do the prep at home before heading to the camp site.  I do bring a cutting board and knife with me no matter what.

Other requirements and suggested bring alongs for campfire stew:

Butter

Chicken stock

Aluminum foil

Salt and pepper

Bowls and spoons

A large “pre-heated” hot fire

 

 Instructions

Have everyone grab a large piece of foil, fill it with the food they want in their stew, a dollop of butter and either water or chicken stock (not too much because the other ingredients, as they cook, will also produce moisture and you don’t want your “packet” to leak if you can help it.)  Seal the packet and toss it in the fire.

 

Please note:  Anything with chicken should cook extra-long to make sure it’s cooked through.

Let your individual stew packet cook away while you do other camp-y things for 30-45 minutes (so be sure to prepare this and get it in the fire before you get too hungry!)

 And viola!  Campfire stew!

 

The Teacher-Student Connection: Standing on each other's shoulders

Carol Douglas ~ Petal Doll

Teaching is source of creative influx for sculptor and jewelry maker, Carol Douglas. She began her career as a teacher and has since moved into sculpting for herself and others. Now, after many years creating on her own, she has returned full circle to teach metal clay and polymer clay workshops to students of all expertise—from the amateur to the professional.

 The rewards of passing on knowledge come back tenfold, Carol says.  In addition, sometimes a student takes a lesson and does something so creative as a result, that she finds herself inspired to go further next time. 

“It’s a synergy,” Carol said.  “I start on your shoulders, then you can start on my shoulders, and it goes on and creates a pyramid where we keep going up.  If you don’t share, then everyone stays on the ground level digging in the dirt.”

Carol Douglas ~ Butterflies

When Carol was teaching, she soon became resentful that she wasn’t sculpting for herself.  “I thought, if I don’t do it for myself I never will,” Carol said. “I hadn’t developed my own style, but I had been learning the notes during that time [as a teacher], learning how to troubleshoot, and in showing others to do stuff I learned how to do stuff by myself.”

By that time she had done a lot of the technical legwork needed to have a firm basis for her own creations and, as such, thrived when left to her own creative devices, winning a number of awards and having her work highlighted in a number of prominent publications, the least of which being “The Mind Key Project: An Anthology.”  Even today, however, she often finds her students creating something she may have never dreamed of doing.

Carol Douglas ~ Dragon Creature

“It’s not to be jealous that you’ve made something better than I’ve made,” Carol advises. “But [as a teacher] to say: how can I make something better… and then you can learn from that and make something better too. It makes me step up to the plate and keep reinventing the wheel.”

Copper pendant, by Danielle

I had the blessing to take one of Carol’s intensive workshops, and tried my hand at sculpting with a tricky medium—metal clay—for the first time.  Carol taught the basics, and from there I found myself manifesting an idea that she said was certainly not a beginner’s project.  I had struggles along the way, and during each step, Carol came in to help me fix my mistakes, and troubleshoot the issue.  When my piece came out of the kiln cracked down the middle, there was no stress, we simply went about fixing and re-firing it.

Danielle's Eagle Face

When we worked on polymer dolls, I took her idea of creating a bird-man and morphed it into an eagle from a creative meditation we’d done earlier that week.  I followed her instructions, then went off on my own, and was amazed and thrilled by the result.  Notice the photograph, and be aware that I had never sculpted anything more extravagant than a sinewy dragon necklace in polymer, and had certainly never—ever—thought I could do something as intricate and alive as a face. My creativity might be all my own, but I attribute my success wholly to Carol’s adept and sincere instruction and desire to see her students thrive.

Although Carol was almost fifty when she finally went out on her own (ie: not as a teacher), she says the benefit to starting later in life was that she was wiser for it, recognizing that she wanted to do what she wanted to do, rather than create things for others or in order to make money.  It was a poignant reminder of why she went into teaching in the first place—to give students the room to make their own creations from no one’s imagination but their own.

“I still wanted to play and experiment,” Carol said.  “But it’s important to me to do something that is important to me.”

Carol Douglas ~ Dragon Beaded Necklace

Teachers and Students Connecting Through Nature

Every day I am a runner in a maze as if I were Zelda from the first Nintendo system. One day I teach, and they learn meanings of words like "scruples" and facts about the real Dracula. The next day I am shadowing a student who at any moment could disappear into the woods, or I am intervening in a verbal battle between a bully and his or her prey. "Enough with the side conversations. Get off the table, please. Focus on your work. Stop cursing." These are a few of my favorite daily declarations. But then there might be a Wednesday or Thursday when I get to play Scrabble with my struggling readers. There may be a Friday when I can get the most difficult kid to work on vocabulary for at least twenty minutes.

Then there are the experiences I can safely say don't happen in every other public school. We as teachers and students have the opportunity to connect to each other in nature. The gardens are planted and maintained by the students under the guidance of Tim, our Environmental Science teacher, who willfully admits to his students that his plants are his children. Whether the kids know it or not, he infects them with that empathy. He gets our toughest kids to care about the praying mantises he raises. They listen when he tells them not to kill bees and spiders because without them, there wouldn't be growth. He can also scare the shit out of kids who disrespect his wishes, and that is a valuable skill. Students learn what happens when lines are crossed, and we teach what it means to be a part of this earth.

We have our own alpacas, goats, chickens, rabbits, and a pony. Kids in our animal care program rake hay and crap, get head-butted by Wiggles the Mean-Bastard goat, feed the uneaten salad from the cafeteria to the chickens, and hose down the alpacas on hot days. Students quickly get over the smell and learn the therapeutic power of caring about beings other than themselves. Keep in mind, the animal care and the gardening occur on school grounds. When we take some of the kids out of the building for the day, we reach a whole new level of teacher/student connectedness through nature.

This past fall I went hiking with some of the students. Since our kids are being raised under the endless deluge of technological distraction, it's easy for people to assume they wouldn't get anything out of a hike. Well, unfair presumptions are a big reason why our kids are who they are. The students seemed to meld with the trees, the rocks, and the streams - the wild seemed to fit with the wild, in a sense. They climbed without complaint, put their feet in the water, some went for full submersion without a second thought. At one point we found a rocky but climbable cliff overlooking a small lake. With the pre-autumn sun pounding down on us, we sat and gazed at the stillness of the water and the changing of the leaves. Some skipped rocks or climbed trees, and for a few hours the world made more sense. We didn't have to worry about anything except the slippery moss, the sandwiches warming in the van, and the reality that connecting to nature will never be part of the common core.

The Teacher I'll Never Forget

Mrs. Brischetto’s breath reeked of coffee and cigarettes.  Her face was inches away from mine, infuriated eyes glaring behind huge glasses.  Frustration settled in every wrinkle on her face and her arms flailed in the air.  My second grade classmates gathered around my desk watching me shrink smaller and smaller into my chair.  My math book sat opened on my desk and I stared at it blankly.  The unfriendly shapes and words started to blur together, creating a soup of ink on the page.  I don’t remember what my teacher screamed but her words were slicing me to pieces.  They belittled me, taunting me on my inability to figure out the math problem.  She had explained it to me over and over.  I just didn’t get it.  I felt stupid, embarrassed and more than anything I wanted some space.  Space to collect my thoughts, to regain my dignity.  I also wanted to cry but something held back the tears: the anger boiling inside of me.  To this day, I remember wanting to flip over my desk and run out of class, away from that barren room with little color, from the cracked tile that snaked throughout the old school building.  Away from her.  

That day started a life long hate of math.  I’ve never been good with numbers and that was obvious from an early age.  But my deficiency, I now realize, goes beyond a skill I’m not good at.  Mrs. Brischetto was an old school educator in Italy.  She believed that children were to be herded like cattle.  You sat them down, showed them how to do something and they’d move along to the next thing.  When I didn’t fit that mold, she couldn’t deal with it.  Her angry words struck me harder than any hand could, planting the seed that told me I wasn’t smart, that I would never learn math.  Her fury and disappointment launched a life long panic every time I walked in a math room.  I would start each semester just knowing that I’d fail, that I’d flunk each test, that the teacher’s lectures would sound like ancient Latin.  And I did fail, very often.  

Looking back to the foundation of my fear, the seed that grew to become a tree of negative self-esteem was the outcome of a terrible student-teacher relationship.  I was a painfully shy and insecure child and starting school at five years old, a year younger than the rest of my peers, presented a huge emotional obstacle.  My early encounters with Mrs. Brischetto gave me a profound distrust of teachers. Mostly, it gave me a fear to learn.  Slowly, that low self-confidence bled into other areas of my life.  I just thought that I was never going to be good at learning, that it would take too long, that I’d have to work too hard, to truly excel in school.  It took me several years to understand that no one learns the same.  

A student-teacher relationship can impact a child with long-term feelings.  The American Psychological Association says “Students who have close, positive, and supportive relationships with their teachers will attain higher levels of achievement than those students with more conflictual relationships.”  Unfortunately, not everyone who chooses this profession understands this truth.  

There are many jobs that require a true humanitarian heart, a love for people and for kids, and a gentle spirit.  A doctor, for example, needs to remember that a person is much more than a body with organs, but also an individual led by a spiritual soul.  He or she needs to understand the delicate foundation that makes us human beings, that tugs our heart strings, that makes us whole.  But none other will ever come close to the most important job of all: Teacher.  The person who spends more time with a child than her own parents do; the one who can identify immediately the boy abused at home; the person who sees his blank face as shame for not being able to learn like the other kids; not indifference.  The leader, the molder, the second Mother or Father.  The one person who can affect a child for the rest of his or her life.  

Where I learned to love Editing - The Teacher Student Relationship

No, no, no!  Latin is good!

Mr. Vargas, you suck.  You got my Latin-loving hopes up and I feel like I was taught wrong.

 

Let me explain.  Mr. Vargas was my seventh grade English teacher.  He wore polyester, drove a banana yellow corvette and he taught English.  Now, this was before they called it "Language Arts", before there were any ESL classes, before IB classes and before reading and English were separate classes.  You took English.  Only English.  And you learned about the English language.  We conjugated our little 7th grade hearts out!  For what seemed like hours and hours I'd work on my homework.  I'd write essays and decode poetry and take furious notebooks full of notes.

I am sure that this is where I learned to love the act of editing, which I still do today.  While I never really connected personally with Mr. Vargas, he certainly shaped my life.  I remember his name and it's been twenty years. 

Back to the matter at hand.

Naomi, my friend/employee/co-worker/desk mate is a documentary freak.  She is full of knowledge that she likes to spout all over me.  It’s like a brain vomit every time she starts the conversation off with “So, I watched this documentary…”  This is usually followed by “last night” cause apparently she goes through withdrawal if she doesn’t watch at least an hour of informational programming each night.  

Today, we were talking about languages.  No idea how we got on the subject.  Naomi says that “English is a Germanic language.”

My immediate response was, “Nuh uh!  It’s derived from Latin roots!”

She went on to explain that what we know as English is actually Germanic with some Latin thrown in after Normandy (north France) invaded England.  She speaks very intelligently on the subject for a minute and my only response was, “Then why’d I spend my entire 7^th grade learning Latin roots from Mr. Vargas, with all the prefixes and postfixes?  Seriously, the whole year in English class I memorized that shit.”

She went on to explain all intelligently and crap.  Grrr..

Eventually I turned around in my chair and said “I’m going to need to look this up.”  I was in a huff!  So, I looked it up and, turns out, she’s right.   Damn it.

Not that I begrudge her being right.  She usually is.  The woman knows more about raising pandas in captivity (the keepers dress in panda suits and rub panda poo all over themselves in order not to confuse the baby pandas!) and the different biomes of Canada (the first nation’s people burned down the maple trees and seeded streams with salmon eggs.)  Seriously, she’s a font of knowledge.

Anyway, I found almost exactly what she was saying about the language here.  Pisses me off.  Like I told her, “German is an ugly (hkughk, svien, lkaflkj – yes, I actually made those sounds) language!  I don’t want to think that the language I speak is derived from something so yucky!”  

The conclusion I’ve come to (in my head) is that there are just too many similarities between English, Spanish and French for me to ignore.  I think I’ll continue to live in my Latin-loving bubble.  And continue to edit, because I love it.

This was originally posted on my blog on April 21st.  Click the link if you'd like to read more!

In a Nutshell: The Mind Key Community at large

Saturday was Mind Key's very first Festival, and despite the rain it was a fabulous way to ring in the summer.  A lot of programs were cancelled due to the downpour and overall resulting mayhem.  I know a lot of people didn't turn out because the weather was just miserable... but our members were there, and in the end it turned out to be a fantastic networking event.  To those of you who did weather the storm to get a massage, healing, and a cupcake thank you!  Our musicians and our artists who had their work showcased in the Anthology thank you too.  We're hoping to have our next festival later this summer or in early September.  We will keep you posted, of course.

We did learn one thing (and I'm not talking about getting an event tent for the next festival... although we may consider it), and that's that monthly meetings among members and friends might not be such a bad idea.  We all had a good time and learned a lot from each other.  We shall keep you, our readers--the Mind Key Community at large--appraised of our first venture so that you may join us and take advantage of fantastic deals for readings, healings, artwork and jewelry items at these meetings.  They will also be a great place to socialize, network and learn more about Mind Key, our members and what we can do for you.

Interested in taking part in our next festival?  Want to build your brand or get greater exposure for your business or art?  Mind Key is looking for fresh energy, and new creativity.  Please check out "What it means to be a Mind Key member" to learn more about joining our team.

You can also meet some of our members and see what they're all about and what Mind Key has done for them.

Meet Vera--Shamanic readings and reiki healing
Meet Dina--A baker with a passion for unique creative, tasty and accessible sweets for all
Meet Joani--Massage therapist and intuitive healer with a focus on sports medicine and oncology massage

Writers and artists looking to build their following and get more paid work.  Check out what our writers have been doing and consider being a part of our team.  Email danielle@mindkey.me to learn more: "Meet the Mind Key writing team"


Thanks as always for being a part of our Community.  Here's the rundown for the last two weeks worth of blogs in case you missed anything.  Come back this week as we write in gratitude for our teachers and students.

What it means to be a Mind Key member

Meet Vera
Meet Dina
Meet Joani

Meet the Mind Key writing team
About the Midsummer Festival
Start your own Ghost Hunting Group

 

This week on the blog:

the teacher student connection.
Share your story HERE

Midsummer Festival TODAY

Don’t forget to join us TODAY for the Mind Key Midsummer Festival in Ringwood. 

The weather looks like it will be beautiful, and we’re gearing up for a day full of music, events, and lots of fun and inspiration.

CLICK HERE for a full listing of vendors, activities and a schedule of the day’s events. This family-friendly event is also a great opportunity to get some physical healing, learn about membership and view our beautiful hardcover book: The Mind Key Project: An Anthology for the very first time.

We will have live music, an open mic, and round out the day with a bonfire by the lake.  There will be awesome give-aways and gift certificates every hour.  Need a last minute gift for Dad?  Pamela Dzbenski will be taking photos and portraits all day long!

Stay for a few minutes or the whole day.  

We hope to see you soon!

Blessings,
Danielle

The Mind Key Midsummer Festival is Tomorrow, Saturday June 20th

The Mind Key Midsummer Festival is an opportunity for the Community at large to meet vendors and educators whose goal is to help you find healing and passion.  At Mind Key, we believe that when you are on a path that leaves you fulfilled, inspired, and always striving for the next best thing, then health and happiness follow. 

We’ve planned a day of events with this belief in mind.  Self discovery through dream interpretation, creative activity, and different health modalities are only a few of the ways we’re sharing our path with you.  Musicians are encouraged to bring their instruments and play at our open mic.  Poets and writers can read their work between demonstrations throughout the day.  Children will have an opportunity to explore their creative side with activities and events just for them.  There will be talks on discovering those who have passed on, revealing your past lives, and more. The day will wrap up with a Shamanic Journey to bring in the Summer Solstice at 8pm with Cristina Maria RojasFernandez. Bring a mat to sit or lay and blankets/shawls to be warm and comfortable as well as handheld instruments: drum, rattle, any thing to make music.

 Check out the schedule of times below, and if you have any questions please contact danielle@mindkey.me

We’re also offering visitors a chance to sample some of our great services.  The Mind Key Project: An Anthology, a book of art and writing put together to inspire passion and love for life, will be available for the first time to hold and purchase.  We will have giveaways every hour that include awesome merchandise and gift certificates for services such as reiki healing, psychic readings, and therapeutic massage.  This is not an experience you’ll want to miss!


Interested in what being a Mind Key Member is all about?  Get a chance to talk to us on Saturday and find out!  Plus, meet some members and learn why they're part of this fantastic community.

Lake Riconda Drive
Ringwood, NJ
June 20, 2015
Vendors 10 am - 5 pm
Evening activities to follow

Stop by for a few minutes, or stay for the entire day. 
In case of heavy rain this outdoor event will cancel
Visit www.mindkey.me for more info

Schedule of events

10:30 am: Past life regression (with Patti Lehman)
11:00 am: Start your own ghost hunting group (with Vera Remes)
12:00 pm: live music (with Gary)
1:00 pm: live music (with Eric Bunk)
2:00 pm: Interpret your dreams (with Jefferson Harman)
3:00 pm: live music (with Mike Oakes)
4:00 pm: Open mic (with Pat Durkin)
7:00 pm: Shamanic Journey to bring in the Summer (with Cristina Maria RojasFernandez)

All Day Long:
Father's Day and family portraits with (Pamela Dzbenski)
Cento (poetry collage) (with Tara Ann Lesko)
Poet and writers' open mic (between music)
Prizes and giveaways

For the kids:
Decorate your own cupcake (with Sweet Sweet Wonderland)
Make your own collage (with Tara Ann Lesko)
Sidewalk chalk and bubbles
Coloring pages and games
Duck pond, ring toss and prizes
Sandcastle building contest

Vendors attending:

Sweet Sweet Wonderland - cupcakes and baked goods
Reiki Ruth - Reiki healing
Vera Ann Remes - shamanic readings
Dana Bree - fantasy art
Sarah Loukos - tarot readings and more
Tara Ann Lesko - writer, artist and English teacher/tutor
Joani O’Driscoll massage therapist and Celtic healer
Kathleen Santora - spiritual healings
Patti Lehman - intuitive readings
Danielle Rose - writer, intuitive reader and faerie healer
Jefferson Harman - dream interpretation

Want To Be a Ghost Hunter?

capturing energy/spirits on camera

For you DYI ghost hunters, there’s much available today to get you started.  Although there is no substitute for professional (Ahhh, are there really any professional ghost hunters?) advice, going through some great websites can give you a jump start. 

My all time favorite and the site I went to first is Chuck’s Paranormal Adventures (http://www.chucksghosts.com/).  He talks about equipment, evidence, offers a glossary of terms.  He actually comes at it from both the scientific method, as well as the metaphysical, offering protection advice such as using holy water and sage, something I recommend.  I met Chuck at a recent NJ Paraunity Expo.  He is down to earth and offers good advice.

For those of you who don’t want to sit in spooky places alone or seek the camaraderie of like-minded people, there are lots of paranormal investigation groups in New Jersey.  Look them up on http://www.paranormalsocieties.com/state_list.cfm?state=nj.  Perhaps there’s one near you.

 Either way, there’s lots of expensive equipment out there that you can buy.  The list is a long one:  K2 EMF Detector, Laser Grid, P-SB7 Spirit Box, MelMeter 8407, Ovilus X, Rem-Pod, but a good video camera with night vision capabilities, a digital recorder and a still camera capable of taking a quick series of flash pictures will start you off quite nicely.  If you have an old fashioned compass you have an inexpensive alternative to an EMF Detector.  When it starts spinning there is a disturbance to take note of.  They have even come out with an attachment for the iPhone 5 that will turn the camera into a Thermal Camera which, if purchased, can cost a couple thousand dollars.  Cost of the attachment is a couple hundred dollars.

What is that you say?  Don’t have even those kinds of funds.  Explore the possibilities of iPhone and Android Apps.  For a few dollars you can arm your I phone or Android device with Apps that accomplish some of the above for a fraction of the cost.  Ghost Radar is a hoot. Billed as “for entertainment purposes only," I have gotten some pretty interesting results, like words pertinent to the situation you are in or in response to a direct question. Here are a few Apps but more come out each month:

Spirit Voice Vocal Generator

Ghost Box

Ghost Radar Connect

EVP Enhancer

Big Beard Studios

• 1.) Align yourself with a group if possible.
• 2.) Protect yourself spiritually. 
• 3.) Get the basic equipment.
• 4.) Acquaint yourself with the ethics of ghost hunting.  There is a short article on line about this by Keith Norton of Michigan Institute of Life After Death Studies at : http://knorton13.tripod.com/id24.html
• 5.) Get started.
• 6.) Don’t get in over your head 

Want to learn more?  Vera will be at the Mind Key Midsummer Festival this Saturday. Come by at 11 am to see some equipment up close and learn more about starting your own ghost hunting group.

The Mind Key Community: Meet Joani

Joani O'Driscoll

As a massage therapist, Joan O’Driscoll is trained in sports medicine and is oncology massage certified. Clients looking for healing and relief from cancer treatment seek out her gentle touch, and those looking to compliment their sports and fitness regime recognize her talent for finding trouble spots and treating them accordingly.

In addition to her training and talents as a massage healer, Joan is also undergoing schooling to become a naturopathic doctor.

Diana Gibson says, "Joani O'Driscoll has helped me to recover from strenuous physical activity. Because of her massages I am able to recover faster and improve my athletic performance. She is highly knowledgeable about the human body and has the unique ability to make her client feel euphoria and complete total relaxation. I've been to other massage therapists before but having since met Joani and experiencing her healing massages no other massage therapist will do. She is amazing." I highly recommend her!!

Joan has been a Reiki Master for 18 years, and she utilizes these skills through her massage work. Through her ability to intuitively feel out what a person needs, Joan offers healing energy through her massage.  The energy work that threads through the physical medicine is in part what defines her as a healer.

"Joani is amazing at massage and healing, spirit, body and soul," client Mary said.

Each session is a unique experience as Joan is led toward using the best practical techniques for each individual. The beauty of this is how it happens seamlessly not only during her healing massage, but in most of her daily interactions as well.

“When someone walks out of my room and I’ve made a difference in their life, there’s no words, no money no anything that could better make me feel that this is my purpose,” Joan said.

Joan credits her experience and intuition with allowing her to connect to her clients and craft a unique experience for each client for every visit.  Given the Mind Key focus, Joan sees spirituality as a fact that you see healing taking place in the mind, body and spirit.  That spirituality plays a role for all of us seeking and administering healing therapies.

Meet Joani and an opportunity to experience her healing touch at the Mind Key Midsummer Festival this Saturday in Ringwood, NJ.

Sweet Sweet Wonderland: Meet Dina

Sweet Sweet Wonderland is a family owned specialty bakery in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania.  They offer a seasonal selection of baked goods from their signature cupcakes to their  brownies, cookies, cake pops, cakes, pies and more… all as delectable to the palate as they are to the eye.


Founder and lead baker, culinary artist Dina Gilmartin first realized that she had a need to bake while taking a Home Economics class in High School.  Not only was she at the top of her class, but she also received a award for outstanding ability in the culinary arts.  She was going to school for early childhood education, but her work was so exceptional that they allowed her to accept this monetary prize that was generally awarded to students in the culinary field.

Baking connects Dina with her creative side.  She has been baking for many years, and always strives for beauty, flavor and uniqueness in her creations, whether it’s crafting a Drunken Leprechaun, root beer float cupcake, or snickerdoodle cookies.   Even before opening the bakery this past year, baking for others gave Dina a place and a connection to her community.

Not a natural risk taker, Dina, who works as a registered nurse by day, decided to open the bakery after becoming inundated with orders from friends and colleagues at work. 

“I wanted to share my creations with the world,” she said.

Today her bakery is a place where people can go for what she calls a "small piece of heaven.”

Dina’s favorite part is seeing the excitement her baked goods create in others.


“The best is when someone said to me, ‘I was having a really bad day until I ate one of your  cupcakes,’” Dina said.  “It’s an escape for just a moment.  No matter how bad their day is going.”


As a mother of two young girls Dina prides herself on providing quality baked goods that aren’t full of preservatives, and offering options that are allergen and gluten free whenever possible so all children can taste the joy of a sweet sweet wonderland.

To Dina spirituality means connecting with her inner peace, and her creations certainly seems to come from a place of inner peace and beauty.

Find Dina in Northern NJ this weekend at the Mind Key Midsummer Festival.  She will have a wide assortment of cupcakes and cookies, decorate-your-own-cupcake activity for the kids, and her brand new creation inspired by Charla's winning poem from Charlapalooza last month.