WRITING & RESOURCES43 years of
thinking out
loud.
Useful information, strong opinions, recipes, academic articles, and occasional meditations on why Chinese medicine keeps being right about things.
These posts migrated from sixfishes.com, where I wrote for over a decade. The voice is the same. The clinic has changed hands. The knowledge doesn't expire.
Sweet Medicine: Prunes, Dates, & Pineapple as Everyday Therapies
In Chinese medicine, food and herbal medicine exist on a continuum. Here, three sweet, simple fruits — prunes for bone health, dates for labor readiness, and pineapple for inflammation — show just how powerful everyday eating can be, with recipes to match.
My Acutonics Session: Sound, Healing, and Gold Geometry
With my eyes closed, I began to see intricate, shimmering patterns in my mind's eye, reminiscent of Alex Grey’s visionary artwork. These patterns, like his paintings, seemed to represent the energy flowing through my body.
Acupuncture for Pain Relief: What Your Body’s Trying to Tell You
What's Cara Cooking? Gisele's Charoseth
This is my most treasured Passover recipe — a Sephardic charoseth that belonged to Gisele, a patient who became family. She carried the recipe entirely in her head. After she passed, her family helped piece it together. Last year, I made it and told her she had to help me out. It was really close. She would have been proud.
Cara's Personal Bone-Building Plan
When I first wrote this blog, I had just received my DEXA scan results. Mild osteopenia — age-appropriate and not worrisome, but enough to make me take action. This blog post became one of my most popular, and I've been living this plan ever since.
What’s Cara Cooking? The Five Flavors of Passover
Passover is coming, and this year I'm craving clean, bright flavors. I'm also thinking about how Chinese Medicine's five-flavor framework maps onto the Seder plate in ways that feel especially resonant right now — bitter, spicy, and grounding all at once.
Seed Cycle Your Fertility the Chinese Way
Seed cycling is trending in integrative health circles — but does it work? I've been recommending seeds to patients for decades. Here's my honest take on the evidence, why I think the popular protocol gets overthought, and why Chinese medicine has used seed-based formulas for fertility since 1550.
The Treatment of Recurrent Fevers in Chinese Medicine
Each autumn, the same fever returns. For patients experiencing cyclic or recurring illness, Chinese Medicine offers something conventional treatment often doesn't: a strategy for addressing the root cause, not just the symptoms. Through the principle of latent pathogens, practitioners can identify why illness resurfaces — and how to stop it.