TASTE OF HOME

A film rolls out into words. The highway home that's yearned. Seems now a long road back to full circle. Dispatches of writing attenuates the finer times to come like a menu. The course spur of the moment delighted together at last. Spend conversations. Directing foods for narrative at the market place.

  

Reminder of Lake Casitas family camping. The lines of fishing. Mother for tubs of salads and sandwiches and time to eat. Memories prosper again. Passing the 101 canyon of vineyards these moments come back not short but long of poetry gone by.       

 

Home is like a transient door made at every milestone of your return to keep. Requested salmon fillets baked and broiled them over parsley bed and parsley garlic doused singularly of extra virgin oil. The guests delighted but heard so much of the cook the siblings pride.

The coral mushrooms peach in color was for the ages taste. In alchemy of butter, capers, discs of sundried tomatoes (through stock of celery and basil stems). Make the Spanish frittata you know its reputation to us. Sure pleasure to this writer at the stove. 

Hearts, hands, eyes pressed praying gratitude for the table blessings. How rare to reunion this nuclear love for exactly nothing has changed. So much older but the same as usual for when we were all so much younger. The albums of these taste are ineffable, merry, always merry.  

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INSPIRED SANDWICH

     

     Last night's dinner came straight out of a recipe book in the Joy of Cooking, page 21, it sounded so good without tweaking, faithfulness was a must. It called for "finely chopped moistened pecans to mayo and take that tapenade onto a sliced bread and lay them together on nasturtium lettuce, and one side of bread grilled, buttered and mustarded on the face." The author of this classic is not only a consummate epicurean, Ms. Rombauer is also poetic in delivering her instructions, and this sensitivity to inspire makes all the difference in food (and eating) - her choice of nasturtiums as greens for a sandwich in the 1950s was evidence of her high-culinary ethos ahead of her time. In the book following this recipe was another interesting ingredient mix to an original club sandwich layer suggesting crushed pineapples between the hot bacon and cooked chicken (although I am vegan, just reading through this ensemble she's putting together on a club is like a breath of fresh air). So the search was on. It's past 6pm when I was feeling hungry as I read through this recipe whetting my appetite, I ran to the store. My local grocer is indeed "local," this nomenclature respective of Hawaiian-oriented food, and expecting not finding nasturtiums and pecans, a plan b was devised on the go. Canned garbanzos will definitely do, and butter lettuce has that mild-peppery and crisp quality to it as nasts are in substitute, so I grabbed them hastily, my stomach time was ticking. But I am the type of cook (or eater) that maximizes combinations of flavors if I can achieve them without much ado, therefore in the same aisle as the canned chickpeas executively I took from the shelf each of these: artichoke bottoms, crushed pineapples, yes!, English green peas and pimientos peppers. In my head I was already thinking of a type of vegan egg salad sandwich mashing the chickpeas with the chokes and folding in the rest of the sweet-smokey ingredients with mayo, mustard, salt and pepper, olive oil - and the final piece was, voila, on sourdough bread. I had everything I needed and couldn't wait to make my sandwich (by the way, a local purple taro chips was available at Tamura's and I got one bag of those for side). Again, think of maximum flavor, and reuse; I had in my fridge from that morning's cooking the remaining stock liquid from chayote squash simmered in butter and chili flakes, I rendered the garbanzos and chokes into this emulsion and paste them together for - yes - maximum flavor. Whipping up my "egg salad" was downhill from that point, all I needed to do was slice some chilled tomatoes and wash the lettuce and pat dry them, then grill my bread in butter and olive oil on the inside only, not both sides, so when I slop over the salad the toasted side is a bread support hard and firm it will uphold my layers nicely and abundantly. This hefty sandwich might not be as genteel as the pecans and nasturtiums tapenade but it is no doubt still all-American in nature and portion and could never go wrong with the chips. I was eating to my heart's content last night absorbing the qualities I imagined in the book to render in the dish of my own version and gladly at the table worked their poetic justice. This is, my friends, the reward in the joy of cooking.            

    

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MARKET DAY

     My neighbor food grower texted me this morning about the sweet corm on the cob. Shall I reserve a bunch for you? That was affirmative on my part and immediate. After handwashing my laundry in this sky condition and hanging them across a warm sun already spreading on my upstairs porch, warm glows there and gently breezy, I anticipated the farmer's set up in town just a few blocks away to be marvelous as always, and that's the trip I can't wait on my bike. He has a particular way of designing his produce and cut flowers on the table with definite attention to detail and beauty, the attractiveness is a delight to any farmers market shopper, to me it is reminiscent of the the makeshift street plants and bookshops along the Seine river in Paris, or like this cute souvenir shop in the Bellevue Botanical Gardens in Washington with succulents growing in glazed terra cottas alongside poetry cards on racks and colorful umbrellas. My farmer not only has an artistic eye but also an apothecary knowledge in presenting to the public all the benefits of his bouquets of herbs (in lovely glass jars) fresh rendered as tea to make and great for your immune system. The mamaki sage and the uhaloa help boost the respiratory and olfactory organs for maximum oxygen intake and toxins release, but add agave syrup for palette pleasure.

     My mind is set on what to do with my corn. I was already thinking about making a full pot of stock using it with husk and all, at the same moment in the boiling will add split lentils (I love preparing legumes with root vegetables to achieve ample heartiness in salad of citrus fruits), and the ears of corns I know will do the same job. Once cooked, I will, standing on the perpendicular to the kitchen counter, slice down the kernels all around the cob, four equal rounds, then rinse them in a cold ice bath waiting in the sink, strain and harvest, alas mix in again with the lentils for a magnificent "yellow and green no-grain rice." I have pink lady apples I'm thinking for this rice salad as alternative to leaves, and for dressing I have lilikoi fruits tempering their acidity with sweet orange peels, fold in olive oil and kosher salt that's it, I am already salivating on the prospect for my lunch on market day. Yes, market day is special to me because I know I will be eating great and will be relaxing at home and listening to my new L.P.s (I recently acquired a Thelonious Monk's Criss-Cross album from Requests Music just next door to the farmers stands in town) and I know, too, that my farmer's passionate efforts in growing food will be used wisely, healthily, he doesn't know I food blog, but that doesn't matter because the story comes from him as it is a gift from nature. The biodynamic principles he uses in growing is an indigenous-derived agricultural ethos adhering to moon phases, and he regards the pollinating and altruistic contributions of insects, critters, and worms vital to the ecoservices natural to making plant life. He is also a science writer as hobby when not growing food. I'm very impressed with this myopic and personal experience of the consilience of art and science on one stand.  

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HEIGHT OF SUMMER

 "The table reflects the habits of the household and, no matter how unassuming its setting, its appearance should enhance the food. A change in its daily décor is as stimulating as a change in the seasoning of the food." (from The Joy of Cooking) 

Green figs and heirloom cherry tomatoes will be a decorative salad lightly dressed, and served chilled. The nectarines and peaches will be poached in ginger roots liqueur, and because my lovely proprietress had taught me how to crack open the raw macadamia nuts out of their thick shells - wrapped them in a kitchen towel and gently hammer - I will add these macs in the infusion of the poaching liquid while bubbling for flavor depth. This concoction will be "syrupped" for a few days or longer in the fridge (using a sealed mason jar) until fully concentrated and intense; I'm thinking to glaze this fruit-nut sauce over a scoop of vanilla ice cream later on. Oh, my best gal pal's birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks, I will reserve a bottle for her effectively presenting it pretty, like those European preserves you'd buy at Dean and Deluca's olives and condiments aisle.

I've been eating substantially fruits from all stripes and farmer's greens of all sorts to wit this height of summer, and have made all the difference in carrying my energy around like a "solar-powered jukebox" (to borrow an expression from Gordon Hempton, an acoustic ecologist from Washington state). Not cooking over a hot flame keeps the mineral integrity of food undiminished, and it is in the biologique stage of breaking down in your body one is benefitting from the source, no oil, no grease, no carbs added, no substitutions, just straight organic mana into you. When I go for a swim at the cold forest riparian pools fed by the waterfalls before sunrise at Iao Valley, raspberries and maroon guavas are sometimes available to forage, I pick and eat them, and that's all I need to keep my stamina up to withstand the cold spring and fit up, back or breast stroking against the stream.      

Today at lunch I have invited a small gathering of Buddhist teachers to chant our prayers and later talk about a few lessons regarding the principles of the Lotus Sutra to guide my life. I will temporarily install my altar (a scroll written in kanji calligraphy) on the table you see with these fruits, thereby preempting blessings before need, and offering up earth's abundance to the universe in gratitude for what we are about to receive. I've been spiritual with my food blessings this height of summer because it not only sustains my physical life but clarifies my existential place in the world in service of my work, family, doing good to others, and devotion to the art of poetry and writing on which the "ground of my being" stands (borrowing from theologian, Paul Tillich). The heights the Buddha had reached in his spirituality, I hope someday I will find.    

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