How to Change The World with Leftovers

As Featured in whatcanwedonow.wordpress.com, My blog about proactive lifestyle:



One of the largest problems in our society that lends itself to creating more problems is an idea really.

It’s the idea that every meal needs to be different, new, and exiting. Perhaps this is a reactionary movement to the overall repetitious and monotonous nature of the majority of people’s work schedules, and life patterns in general. With this, come the promise of new and improved, next year’s model, and a guarantee that you can come along. You can even learn how to make new and exciting dishes 24 hours a day on a cable network, and be titillated and perhaps inspired to do the same by our modern culinary gladiators.

But here’s the show that I want to see. “Iron Chef Leftovers”

Tonight’s secret ingredient is “Rice that dried out in the cooker last night”. Overcooked dry rice. Exiting isn’t it. It is to me. Because it represents an opportunity to make good from bad. So in this. We learn that bad was never really bad. We only saw it that way. This is the point of this blog. What we can do now has nothing to do with a label, boycott, or petition. It has everything to do with our lives RIGHT NOW and our perception of them. When your mom made that awesome taco salad with the Doritos all crumbled up for your birthday party, she wasn’t trying to poison you. She probably didn’t even know about MSG.

So we learn a little about ingredients, about what really goes into our food. And we throw away Mom’s outdated poison recipes. I propose that the “new” mentality about food quality is poison.

The cooks of yesteryear, which to me was an evolution of depression-era homemakers, knew how to make good out of bad. They knew how to make coffee out of roots on the roadside, and how to make rations last a long time. The problem we have in our perceptions today is that we view resourcefulness as poverty consciousness. I spoke to a person who told me that their CSA was too much for them and they ended up composting most of it after it spoiled.

Wow. That really got me. That one fact showed me where this food revolution was going.

Absolutely nowhere. What good was this farm produce in the hands of someone who could barely make a salad yet alone freeze or put up vegetables for the winter. They obviously had been interested in doing the right thing, but perhaps out of a drive for acceptance, or some sort of socially redeeming bragging rights? I’m not sure. At least the farmer got the money, anyway. But that’s not good enough.

We need to put resourcefulness back in our cupboards. The key to resourcefulness is desire. You have to want to make the best out of something. That’s where the energy come from that you are replacing. So in essence, when you are resuscitating leftovers, you are transfusing your energy into them. That’s how it’s done, believe it or not.

The following is a recipe that my wonderful partner makes for our family out of my leftover sushi rice. It’s kind of like a pass-off, or an assist in basketball. I lay it out for her to play it out. It’s altogether beautiful, like the more people that stir a sauce, the better it is. Gee willies, I don’t wonder why….

Breakfast Rice Porridge

4 cups of leftover dried-out sushi rice, basmati, or brown rice

2 cups milk, rice milk, tea, or whatever liquid you want

¼ cup maple syrup, brown sugar, molasses, honey, or agave or whatever you want

¼ cup ground flax meal, protein shake, or whatever hidden healthy thing you’d like to disguise from kids

Grated fresh cinnamon to taste

Put the rice in a pot. Add liquid and everything else. Slowly heat and stir. Serve in bowls. Grate some fresh cinnamon on it. Be happy you have food to eat. Then eat it up, yum….

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Good Direction verses Bad projection: Rule#3 of Cooking With Business

From my Blog: Cooking With Business
http://cookingwithbusiness.wordpress.com/


Long term direction is something that very few people have. In fact, even people who have no long term direction and KNOW it inherently are choosing to have one. It is the same way with food. We must learn the rules, apply the rules, and then learn how to consciously disregard them altogether. This achievement itself again requires long-term direction.

Entrepreneurs are not as flash in the pan as one would think. Behind every move people make in the business world comes with SOMEONE’S countless hours of research or laboring.

The truth is, having to maintain true direction is more important, even if it means you have to be poverty stricken for while. Even the biggest Gurus will tell you that you have to wade the marsh to get to the mountain. That’s half the fun, right? But the marsh is where we learn the most, and any shortcuts we take to cross that cost us our identity will certainly cost us an equal amount of prosperity, lost in the long term. Short term shortcuts=Long term losses. It’s basic Math.

The balance of one’s physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental states is paramount to anything else. Moving ahead without it may grant temporary satisfaction, but in the long term, destroys the self and endangers others with behavior and actions that are not coming from the heart.

We cook this way when we approach the stove as chefs. We bring nothing to the dish except our honest selves. Often, a chef uses the food they prepare as part of balancing themselves in respect to the food. The food isn’t simply there, its part of it, and that’s just as beneficial to everyone and thing involved as a chef with a pure heart.

Be honest. You’re not fooling anybody. And if you are, chances are the people that you are fooling are also in the process of fooling themselves as well. That’s why they are around you and you around them.

Once you discover true direction, you have everything. From this, sprouts confidence, perseverance, determination, honor and happiness. Happiness in knowing that everything that you do is for a purpose, a reason, a particular direction. Now finding the BIG direction in our lives is a tall order to fill for many. When one sees the entire journey in each step however, the journey to the truth gets shorter.

Pay attention to what you are doing NOW. Everything in nature boils down to things at the cellular level. Such is the same with the Way in our lives. It’s the tiny interactions and things we do and say that have the most effect in our lives. Within being conscious around your tasks at hand, you may develop an appreciation for the bird you also have in your hand and leave the other two dishonest birds alone in the bush. They are a distraction. You can only truly give your attention to one thing at a time. Even if you are multi-tasking. One Thing? That’s right. One Thing. And that one thing is, drum roll please………

Honesty.

Mantra of Cooking The Self

From my blog, The Zen of French Cooking
http://zenoffrenchcooking.wordpress.com/


Mantra of cooking the self

Feeding the world

Feeding the self

Is the same thing

Feed the world the truth of self

Feed by feeding

Teach by learning

Be by simply

being

Cooking is less

About where you have been

And more about where you are

Experience is worn on the sleeves

Of great chefs

They do not speak

Of who they have served

Or where they have cooked

The tale of their mastery

Is told

On the

Plate

Organic Identity Crisis

We all want to do our best in any given situation. We are all trying to make the most out of life. Sometimes, we get caught in a cycle that we cannot see as our own creation. Understanding that everything that is happening to you IS your creation is a bestselling novel. Understanding what to create and how yet alone why is the real challenge. Factor into this decision a family to support or dependent individuals who count on your actions for survival and it gets really interesting. In all cases, it is best to remember one fundamental rule.
There is always another way to look at something. There is always another perspective besides your own. As we begin to see how our emotions determine our perspective, we can then learn more about how our perspective determines our lives, or how we can enjoy them more.
Freedom is indeed a state of mind, not an actual state of being. Getting the two to mesh together is what seems to be on the minds of most individuals, in one way or another. The major difference between the truly free and the truly lost is one thing. One group truly believes that they are doing the right thing, and one group is lying to themselves.
Learning to trust our inner selves is a difficult prospect amid such a wealth of modern distraction. It has always been distracting in the world. Trying to see your distraction as being greater than someone else’s is a distraction in and of itself. First, we must concentrate on what we are seeing in our lives. Then, we need to start to really see how we truly are being. Honesty in this regard is really a noble pursuit. The more honest we are with ourselves, the more honest our perception will be.
At this point, we can learn to decipher what really is important from what is truly distracting. To begin with, anything that would take you away from a loving place is a distraction. Seeing all life as suffering is secondary, that life itself is a challenge, and we must seek to meet it with a positive attitude.
Easier said than done? My response to this would be that we are witnessing the results of disposing of this obligation. Wearing our Sunday best would be an everyday affair. Everyday should be Valentine’s Day, and the festival of lights should last all year. We should all be able to truly BE happiness, not simply schedule it into our lives as a respite.
We need to take the bacon off of the table everyday and put it back on the Sunday table. All of the things that were once occasional and celebratory have become everyday indulgences. Within all this replication, the original message of love within the recipe becomes diluted. Further from the truth.
This type of food is a distraction from the truth. No different from falling into the lie that your life is harder than anybody else’s. When we seek true food on our tables, we are putting truth into our bodies.
When we feed our souls nothing but lies, it becomes more than difficult to sort out distractions, in turn making a decision almost impossible. The truth has been diluted so gravely that we are left helplessly dependent upon labels, diets, fads, and trends.
The return to self will eradicate this dependency.

Chocolate is the Way...

So its two days after Valentines, and every ones house is littered with the tattered
fragments of romantic jubilation, champagne bottles, empty boxes, little red construction paper hearts, and the occasional piece of candy unearthed on the floor found underfoot by adult morning feet only to be devoured by a happily willing customer of a family dog....
Except there is one problem: I'm not done with this holiday yet. In fact, I'm not even done with Christmas. Better yet, I am still knee deep in the festival of lights. It's a holiday all the time for me. I feel like an official Ambassador of BBQ on the fourth of July. New years is even more special for a cook, having the privilege of being the one to prepare the sacred feast of any kind is a privilege that I have always held dear.
I have told people before, my illustrious cooking career began in the Boy Scouts of America. I got sick and tired of burnt pancakes on rainy days under soggy tarps. I took over the kitchen ops, collected our little "grocery" money and did the shopping. I even got a dutch oven and started roasting chickens in them with root vegetables when i was 12 years old. Life is too short to eat badly, and I saw this right away.
If you are going to cook a meal, why not do it right? Except that what is RIGHT is up for grabs right now in our society, because unfortunately, what is RIGHT is also the most expensive. We pay extra for that Organic label from a government agency that also allows a certain amount of poison to be present in a major amount of our food. But here, have a little health. It'll cost you, however.
In the end, this attitude leads nowhere. To me, there is still the task at hand, what do we eat RIGHT NOW? Where is our next meal coming from? Who will prepare it?
This is the most sacred part of our lives, yet we are often so willing to turn over the keys, in both directions. Not enough time to consider our health in a more personal way, we enact accepted forms of health, healing, and nutrition into our lives. Too lazy to even consider health, some of us just eat whatever we want.
I say that they both have wisdom. Just like the resolution to any conflict often lays directly in the middle of both opposing viewpoints, I honestly believe that after all my years cooking for myself and others, I have come to this understanding.
That chocolate for breakfast is OK. And you don't have to equate it with doing exercise. Assimilating these two things is a horrible side effect of the health movement. We should never directly correlate "exercise" with "eating what we want".
This is in essence creating a very dangerous paradigm. Just because Americans suffer from a general increase in obesity, we are willing to overturn systems of diet and healing that have been in place for thousands of years.
A healing art, like Yoga, is not meant to be taken from. It requires the gift of you be given, and it in turn gives back. If we go to anything with a taking mind, how can we receive? If we hear wisdom and not truly listen, then it becomes useless.
I believe that the healing arts that have been Incorporated into our society are incredibly beneficial and crucial in our efforts to bring health back to everyone. It is not enough for a limited amount of people to be realizing health. Despite this occurrence, eventually the lack of health surrounding that limited healthy core will bring down the efforts. It's diffraction gradient, earth science. Things flow from more to less. What solves this problem?
Balance. And as we are seeing more and more, nature will balance itself, despite all our efforts to curtail this. This is The spirit of Yoga. In finding our own individual note of balance, we are able to play along in the key of the great balance that surrounds us all the time, everywhere we go.
What does this have to do with chocolate, and holiday obsession?
That eventually, within the American diet, labels will disappear. There is no difference to me between the USDA Organic label and the traveling snake-oil salesmen of early America, offering ambiguous solutions to every problem in each bottle of "Health tonic". The show is the same. Only the names have changed. What they have and still are doing is selling our health back to us in small, controlled doses of encouragement.
Only, our lives are getting harder. When life is good, one tends not to notice what one lacks. But when one is hungry, tired, and generally downtrodden, evil becomes more apparent in our lives.
The evil that surrounds someone or something that seeks to interrupt the pursuit of healthiness on the part of any individual seeking basic nutrition. It is the same as selling air to people. Food should never have become something that we pay for. We gave up our right at that point. We sold ourselves up the river.
How do we get it back? by seeing that the problem isn't the USDA. The problem is US. You and me. Every dollar we spend, or don't. They way we continue to ignore REAL FOOD all around us and carry on with what we think is important. Our jobs, our lives, our physical realities.
Often, many people that I have been with on their death bed, catch a glimpse of the perspective of what truly matters in our lives.
Like Bob Dylan said, "Everybody has to serve SOMEBODY".
We all need to serve our food, not demand that food serve us. We all need to give back to what we extract from, feed our souls again. We all know about composting, recycling, and "Organic" foods.
What we all need is a truly "Organic" set of priorities. The major one should be this:
That balance within one's physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual states of being is paramount to anything else. Without the proper mind in these aspects, anything we try to do to re mediate yet alone nourish ourselves is like throwing good after bad, like burning antiques to stay warm. Its a temporary remedy. But temporary remedies have great sales figures, because they bank on one thing.
A lack of confidence. This lack of confidence is fueled by guilt. The guilt tells us that we should watch our weight, eat this now instead of that, and generally view ourselves as inferior if we don't fit in to the norm.
Just look at the show "The Biggest Loser". I tried not to, and then I did. I wished that I could work with those people, that I could have offered then something that nobody did. Love.
We must replace the temporary remedy with that which heals, and learn how to make a healer out of the temporary remedy.
This is the way of masters.
Chocolate pounding Yogis everywhere will tell you.
Chocolate is the WAY.

Love,
Tenzo

It's all in the verbage

I was reading Food Arts magazine and came across the following
wine description:

"Jean-Louis Chave Selection Cotes du Rhone Mon Cooeur 2008"

Now come on, that ALONE sounds like a good time...

It went on futher:

"This CdR delivers serious intensity, its dark berry fruit aromas swirling with smoke, tar, and espresso. On the medium-bodied palate, the fruit reveals licorice and spice, with pepper and toast permeating the finish with soft tannins and ample acidity-"
Score:90 Cost:210 Cases:2600

That alone, to the educated palate, is like a free glass of wine. I was there, experiencing that glass of what would be like a bottle you grab when a child is born or someone comes home from a war.

Awesome.

I then realized that food in this day and age had become encased in vivid descriptions and imagery, such as

"Tonight we have a fabulous salad of miniature wild shiitake mushroom charlotte with balsamic roasted shallot and red rasberry vinaigrette with a raw wilted salad of catskill fiddlehead ferns and dandelion shoots in lemon and maple roasted garlic.

Now I want to be completely honest with you. I just made that up.

But the words are from my heart, and they represent something I would want to serve to exite someone, yet keep it real and grounded in peasant cooking, as I often like to do.

I never got that expression. Peasant cooking. But thats what a Charlotte is considered, because by taking old bread and baking it in a muffin form pan or a ramekin with butter rubbed on the sides, you've got a shell to fill with WHATEVER you have at hand. Thats the spirit. Over the years in my own kitchens I started calling it "Rustico".

But what occured to me whilst I was fantasizing of a picnic at the perfect time with this wine, which by name alone sounded like a front row seat to a Steely Dan concert in the 70's (hence the smoke and tar) and yes, the perfect cheese, which for me would have to be some French raclette left to melt in the sun and spread on a fresh wild apple wedge (there I go again, making stuff up), was that what if food were to be described in a simular manner to a fine wine, something like this:

The chicken pot pie underpromised and overdelivered homey flavor like a parcel arriving just in time for Christmas with a creamy yet tangy bechamel which lingered long enough in the song of flavors to suggest another sip of smoky egg nog spiked with fresh grated nutmeg. The perfectly roasted vegetables carried notes of love and care, gently suspended and cradled within the sauce, guarded yet complimented by gentle strength yet fragility of the non-judgemental crust which carried me back to childhood like an unexpected ride to the candy store with my grandma.

This is what I would do if i was marooned on a dessert island.

I would not need a "Spalding"

I have an active imagination. Add to that a sincere desire to make dreams come true, and your close.

Put some amazing ingredients in the hands and the rest sounds something like this:

Maple-pecan pretzel crusted free-range pork tenderloin with red potato and leek mash and blueberry merlot compote topped with thyme whipped creme fraiche.

Love,

Tenzo

The second rule of Cooking with Business

Never trust a skinny chef, or so the adage says.

the chef should be plump, robust, rosy cheeked and chock full of the wares and dishes that they pro port such goodness in...

In other words, they should be happy. So one could easily say,

"Never trust a chef who isn't smiling".

Whoa. Hold on there. None of those Iron chefs on Sunday night are smiling...but wait, sometimes they do, and when they do, it is gorgeous...does that mean that they are smiling all the time?

You guessed it. And so begins the second rule of Cooking with Business.

If you have already applied the first rule, which was always being prepared for being unprepared, how one behaves afterword is crucial to adhering to the second.

One must smile all the time. We mustn't demand that life evoke this action, we must create it within ourselves. In this way, we haven't to prepare for anything. We remain the same, unfettered, between before and after.

So in this way, a chef who always has that "face" they wear is smiling. They are smiling when he is busy at work, presenting his food, simply being themselves. And they are smiling afterwords, because they know they truth about what just happened.

They handled it like they handled it. And they did their best. Just like the last time and the next time will be. But here we are again, doing our best, smiling.

If you tell the truth the first time, you never have to remember what you said. This is the second rule of Cooking with Business. This guarantees a smile before, during, and after anything you are doing.

Ask any chef. If a dish starts with a lie, or a bad ingredient, it never goes away. it just comes through in the end. No matter what we do, it still is there.

But a great dish, just like a great business deal, starts with great ingredients, and great people.

Cheers!

Love,

Tenzo

Cooking with business

Imagine being a well accomplished chef, who has faced a variety of situations both in their professional life, and in the kitchen environment. They have produced food in multiple ways, multiple times, for multiple people.

Yet each week, millions of those people gather for a visual feast. They all build with anticipation at the thought of watching said chef take on a seemingly impossible situation. Preparing a multiple course meal from a "secret" ingredient provided to then seconds before a showdown, open kitchened, in front of the world to be judged by an irrelevant panel of food related and often not "professionals".

Most business people would shrink at the thought of this surrounding their "work" day. But true business people will tell you, they treat what they do the same as the Iron chef. It's true, I have found a few...But unlike the chef, they often do not get the satisfaction of meeting those whom they serve. Thats another department. Thats marketing.

The ingredient is not all that "secret" to the chefs. We know this. We all know that they get a possible list of three types of things, that are similar in its constituency, such as three types of "fish", and that the chefs then request a certain list of ingredients ahead of the show. So much for spontaneity. But still, they don't know which "type" of fish. And they don't know what the other chef is going to do. Or do they? They do if they are a true business person.

This goes to show something. That true spontaneity happens only in front of you. What appears to be someones improvisation is actually a well orchestrated event, even if it was in part created by other outside forces.

This is the first rule of cooking with business. Everything comes from somewhere. Somebody had something to do with it. And you have to find out who, if you would like to succeed in business. There is no "secret" ingredient. Deep inside the true businessman, they know whats coming. To know what is coming is true business.

Everyday, flocks of business people hit the streets running towards a goal. For some, it is profit, for others cutting losses. But for the true business person, it is simply about one thing.

Making the most out of whatever whoever throws at you, wherever and however they do it. This is the same as what Iron chefs do. It doesn't matter that they "kind of" know what is coming. They know that one thing is definitely coming. The true secret ingredient.

Themselves. And how they are going to handle it.

And if they can smile afterwords, well, that's the second rule of cooking with business.

The importance of who comes in between

You and your food. It is truly that simple.

There is a certain nutritional relationship that comes about inherently through harvesting your own food. We feel a slight bit of this when we go to market, whatever type it may be. It is laden in the old adage "bringing home the bacon"

My question is, how did the bacon ever end up leaving home.

Once we moved beyond the original agrarian model of each family having it's own farm, we began to trust others with what most cultures consider to be the most revered and sacred portion of the human experience. The gathering, harvesting, or slaughtering of the food that they will in turn consume. When we pass this trust along, we are doing so with the highest regard and respect possible, right?

In this society, we place more trust and regard on the labels on products than we do in actual relationships. It is simply a matter of economy. Most cannot afford the time to accomplish this in part to their commitment to the gaining of income in non-agrarian ways. That is to say, in lieu of raising livestock, one ventures to work in order to be able to live and afford to pay someone else to do this for you, if you consume meat or dairy products. In addition to this, you are paying for someone who comes in between who comes along and distributes and receives payment as well.

So within your purchase, you are paying for the label, the money the farmer has payed to get that label, the packaging, the gas to ship it, the distributors cut, the cut the market receives, and finally, the tax involved in certain situations.

Wow. That's alot of people within you and your food.

Who are they? Do you know them?

There is good news. Even if you took the time to visit a farm with you or your family, and tried to understand the process deeper, you are doing the right thing. There are many steps in the journey back to the garden. It begins with one. One step towards a phone, find a farm, call them up, introduce yourself. Tell the farm you really likes the wares you received. Ask if there is a way to participate. Go visit, take a tour. Every bit as important if not prioritized over the trip to Disneyland. And far more important. Let the world see a little closer what goes into food, and I believe we will start to see more clearly whats coming out of it.

There are many that are doing so much for the movement within food in our culture. But we must not grow complacent that things are changing without participating in that change in any way we can. Even if it means expanding our minds, opening our hearts, and changing our perspectives on the tried and true sources of our food.

It is hard to admit error, or to see the actual unhealthiness within our diets, yet alone our lifestyles. Therein lies the actual struggle within the movement itself. It is on the part of each individual to conquer the self and what we have accepted as being healthy and true. Why would we want to consume anything else? why would be happy if all of our human brothers and sisters weren't as well?

A world that surrounds you in pain and starvation, both physically and spiritually will never beget peace within you. You will always be lying to yourself, and always turing away.

To see the truth, one simply has to begin to see it, really. It exists all around us, and is more than readily accessible. But as long as we see it, even though we may be totally immersed in the lie that has propagated all around us, we are free. We have chosen the truth. It doesn't require a sudden and drastic change in product selection or money expenditures. For many, this isn't even an option.

It requires faith. Hope for a better table, for everyone. But as true nature would have it, the truth is addicting. It tastes better. It lends itself readily to sharing without remorse, and even better, begets happiness and satisfaction, which we all seek our entire lives. And it leaves seeds to grow for the future.

Truth is sustainable living. Community supported agriculture is a redundant statement.

This is just another way to describe the way it should be, and the way that it was.

But when you ask "Where did this come from?" or "How did this get here?", it enough. The truth looks up from it's surroundings, and smiles back at you.

It knows you care. And that's more than enough. That's the beginning.

And the final destination.

Caring.

Tomorrow's mission - Today's awareness

Tommorow morning I will be cooking for an undetermined amount of people, for three meals.

I have no idea what is for breakfast. I have no idea how many will come to breakfast. And I have no idea who will be helping me.

Awesome.

Day after day I encounter friends and people who really are dying to know what
happens next, what their lives will hold for them, what they should do, where they should go, and all of the like.

Why? I ask them. If we knew, we would mess it up. And since we don't, and really have no conceptual way of predicting things precisely, then the best thing to do is to take stock of the moment. As long as we are in the moment, we will always see the future. The future is in each step.

If we learn to see the entire journey in each step, then the journey becomes shorter.

That is, to say, if we see what is to be seen where we are, we will be paying no mind to our destination, which is indeed and should be the awareness that comes from being present in each moment.

So tommorow, when I get where it is i am going, I will cook whatever is there, for whoever is there, however I have to, with whatever is there, and however many people there are to help. I have no way of knowing what will happen.

I am sure of one thing, however. I am assured of it's presence in my future.

I will use LOVE.

Love,

Tenzo

State of Tenzo's heart

I spent two hours sitting in a diner, reading two newspapers front to back yesterday.

I thought this would be relaxing. And it was, to some extent. I was able to read enough "good" news and enough "bad" news to see that it was all just news. I had stopped reading the news over the weekend, relaxed a little. Had a dinner party on Sunday night. Then I saw all the articles about Arizona.

What if that were my child caught in a rain of a madman's bullet?

I always think like that when I read the news. I put myself right in there. It can be very relaxing. Kind of. To me, it's also inspirational.

How many people are putting themselves in each others shoes out there?

It almost seems as if everyone is only apt to discuss solutions when there are problems. Then there are those who would live their lives the same throughout with an open and clear heart. Tragedy produces drama, and drama draws attention, and attention draws outlandish behaviors from people. It is indeed a vicious cycle, bent on recreating itself perpetually.

Getting back to the question-

What if it were my child?

In alot of ways, it was. I have begun to honestly see all beings in this light, in my heart. I wonder how I ever really lived with the absence of this true perspective.

We all share the danger. We are all in the line of fire as long as hatred is behind the trigger. When fear also enters, we must stand even firmer.

Love knows no greater beauty than when it stands in the face of the purest evil. When the two come into contact, we have the different elements of life, combining together.

When we learn how to take care of the hatred in this country, how to love it, talk with it, and recognize it within all of ourselves and lives, then it will cease to cause harm like this.

Until then, it remains the servant of something with less of a moral goal and more of a mortal one.

Greed. Every year it takes more lives.

When we care about ourselves, we care about each other. And when we care about each other, we care about ourselves. Take whatever standpoint you want politically, this is a fundamental truth of our existence.

And what I also began to see, while sitting there in the diner, eating a piece of baklava, was that people were beginning to say something very important.

We must be careful about what we say. We must realize that our words and actions have immeasurably infinite influence.

My son asked me a very huge question the other day.

"Daddy, does what we say echo out through the universe, can they hear us talk in space?"

I answered "Yes".

Perhaps we are getting somewhere, finally, I think. Look at these children, growing into this world, this climate, these problems.

And they are beautiful. And they carry hope and promise in each step.

My condolences to the parents, friends, family and sympathizers of all those who lost their lives and were traumatized by the horrible events which occurred over the past weekend.

I will care for you by living to my utmost potential, by continuing to grow.

Because I, and my family, have the privilege and blessing of living.

To a better day-

Love,

Tenzo

Standing Up

Over the years, standing up for truth has gotten me in alot of interesting situations.
But I would'nt change anything about it. I have no regrets. Only a further desire to be part of something real and true.

Fundamentally, I believe that this is what has gone astray in our eating ethos. We have lost sight of the truth. This morning when I held my daughter in my arms, I was overcome with joy. I felt a huge amount of privilege to be her father. But when I looked deeper, I felt the same for myself. I was reminded that I was honored to be the steward of this body, soul, and mind, and what an amazing opportunity mortality really is.

So many things get unintentionally disregarded or lost in the inertia of modernization, its hard to keep track. I have been charged with reminding people of their culinary heritage, and that they are part of it's living legacy. This is my part, a job that I have been offered, and I have accepted. But cookbooks can be a time machine, a way to travel back. Lately I have been cooking out of a Fannie Farmer book, called "The Boston Cooking School Cookbook". It is dated 1941. In 1941, my Grandfather Edward was in boot camp, on his way to one of the largest wars the world theater has ever seen. Meanwhile, back in America, homemakers like my Grandmother Leda Belle were cooking for their children, waiting for their husbands to return. Both my Father and my Uncle were born while Edward wore a uniform and carried a gun through Europe, chasing one of the greatest evils the world has seen to date. Within these recipes, I can find her, over a stove, trying to cope with raising a family with practically nothing. This is reflected in the Fannie Farmer cookbook-getting a lot of results from very little ingredients.

Take for instance the ginger-snap recipe. I read it's yield-50-70 cookies-and was like, "There is no way that many cookies are coming out of that size batch". But I actually got more. My modern mind was thinking about a different cookie. We rolled the dough into logs about the width of a 50 cent piece, chilled and sliced them. This part was not in the recipe. I figured it out. Out of necessity.

Out of necessity we feed ourselves. Next comes our families. It is the highest form of dishonor to impede or take advantage of people's necessities. Unfortunately, this is where the highest margins exist within the commercial world of supply and demand.

We have a choice to honor the privilege we have been given in feeding ourselves and our families by seeking out the best foods for them. The best foods should not be more expensive, or difficult to get. Food, in and of itself, should not be a commodity. Its a necessity. Like air, or water. We all have a common vestige in the fall of food to what it has become.

The time to replace food to it's proper home has come. Let us not allow commercialism to dictate it's path. We alone each have the power to make food beautiful again. The power of our dollar is more than attaining goods and services. Its a choice, its a vote, and a representation of our efforts and time.

Find a farm, Find it now. Call the farm. Talk to the farmer. Get involved. Give them your money. Learn how to make this whole food that they offer an ally in your home. Feel the satisfaction that comes from honoring the fruits of someone's labor with the fruits of your own.

My intention is to become more of a resource for those who seek to learn the old ways, the correct ways of keeping a household and one's self healthy and whole, with hardly as much dollar as one is spending now. The excess percentage that is applied to prepared and processed food due to this lack of know how on the part of the American consumer is appalling. It is also killing our people. Slowly. They are working too hard just to be able to afford food that makes them unhealthy, developing illnesses that require further unnecessary expenditure towards remedy.

What remedy? For what illness? The atrocious nature of this deceit defiles us. But we can each find a part to play in the remediation of this grand illusion. It's not about activism, or stopping any giant capitalistic monster. Its about realizing one thing.

That the power of world change lay in the heart of the individual.

Cheers.

Love,

Tenzo

A bowl of snow

I am hunger this morning

Yet, nothing I can consume will put aside this pang

Truth it says, feed me truth. Save your other nutrients for now.

Find me truth, it says.

So I poured myself a bowl

of freshly fallen snow

And ate until my soul

was full

Tommorow's foccacia

This is my foccacia recipe that I have been using for years. It has never failed me. Lately in my house we have been baking foccacia at night for dinner and snacking all throughout the next day. By mid-afternoon, I am pitching another batch of dough.

It is a great vehicle for any sort of toppings. Here are some of my favorite:

black olive, dill, goat cheese

asiago cheese, sundried tomato paste, pesto

roasted red grapes, rosemary, pecorino romano

You see that the possiblities are endless. But the recipe is like a familiar old song. It always makes me happy. And it feeds me...

2 1/2 cups of tepid (hot, but not too hot to touch) water
2 packets (2 T appx) instant yeast

Put yeast in water. Toss a pinch of sugar in the mix, after the yeast has been well incorperated. Lets it know you care, and kick starts the whole rising show.

Seperately, combine the following dry ingredients in a seperate bowl:

5 1/2 cups King arthur AP flour
1 T Kosher Salt
1 T Corse ground sea salt
2 T Medium ground fresh black pepper

Also, in a small stove pot, simmer these three things together;

1 cup Olive oil
2 T Rosemary
1 clove Whole crushed garlic

After it cools down to room temperature, add half of it to your yeast starter. It's nice to have a bunch of herb oil around. It's convienient at this point in the bread making process. But, sometimes, I want to push along the rise a bit so I like using the warm oil. Its nice for the bread. Save the garlic clove. It makes a nice garnish for later when you serve the bread.

Then, incorperate the yeast starter into the dry ingredients in thirds, incorperating
fully each time. Throw some flour onto a table, and turn out your somewhat sticky, but together and substantial ball of dough. Add enough flour just to make it feasible to work, adding a little as you go until you reach a nice point. Work it around, kneading, punching, rolling, and folding for about 10 min. At that point, you will want to form the dough into a ball, pinching the bottom of it closed with the palms up and hands brought together underneath, and scoop it up and into a well oiled bowl. You can use the reserved herb oil for this task. After the transfer, coat the top of the bread with a nice amount of oil. This is great for everything, the rise, your crust, everything. Foccacia is ALL about the oil. This is comfort food, but the olive oil is great for you. Its a great way to jazz up meals around the house, and since it's flatbread, it satisfies with texture, so we don't eat as much as we would other loaves. It's like the croustini with rouille in the bouillabaise. it's a vehicle, not a meal. Although, this is the secret power of foccacia as well, it can be a meal. It can make a sandwich a statement as well.

Cover your rising bread with a towel and let it come up for about 45 min. At that point, you can punch it down and transfer onto a well oiled small baking sheet with a rim, about 20 x 16. You can use a cookie sheet, whatever. It's a versitile dough.

Spread the bread out with your fingers spread out and somewhat stiff like you were stomping chords on a grand piano, pushing down into the dough and spreading it outward in the same motion. Brush some fresh oil on the top again, and let it come up again about 45 min. Pre-heat your oven to 450. Bake off your loaf with whatever toppings you'd like. It helps to lightly toss your vegetables or whatever with olive oil, so they'll brown nicely. a spritzer is cool for this.

I usually end up baking mine for about 15 minutes. But you'll find out, bread is done when it's done. Your oven is special.

Just like you.

Serve your foccacia with some oil in a bowl, and fresh salt and pepper. A little aged balsamico never hurt anyone either.

And welcome to my house. As they say, you know how we do.

And know, you know how to do it. Fresh bread is that easy.

If someone needs, I have a great recipe for gluten free foccacia. Just get in touch and I would be happy to share my secrets with you!

Love,

Tenzo