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