GROWING PEAS

 My favorite vegetables in the universe (in food form) are pea tendrils cooked classic Chinese-style (Cantonese tradition) of simply emboldening the ingredients with not much to it but a few confit of garlic, rice vinegar water to liquify and a dab of oyster sauce to braise quick. I could eat a platter of it by myself at any given restaurant that serves it, and if I'm really hungry (which is always due to the chronic exacerbations of stomach pangs because of my plants-only diet) while the rest of my group merry away at their dim sum baskets on Canal St. in NYC, I remember when still living there, I would order another plate of pea vines and chopsticks away to my heart's content. Speaking of restaurants not found on island serving authentic dim sum, that's the very reason I'm growing my own produce (hence in photo the success of seed to fruit) and just in a matter of few months of tending and caring, not to mention the exceptional growing climate here all year round, I have them peas growing. My vegetable garden has a variety of green edibles intentionally intermixed in the ground to create a natural environment of biodiversity mimicking a grazing meadow's multi-flora biome that left undisturbed would allow ecosystem services to take its own course (think of a rainforest creating its own bloomings and provisions, a climate of renewal food). I will leave the peas on the vine until full maturity (say a couple more weeks outside the sun) and flourish plenty to take; the tendrils grow aggressively in harmony to support the hanging pea pods and these green outburst-tendrils are gold to me when harvested. I can't wait to cook them and feast!

My food garden would not be possible without the green hands and generosity of Sal Paradise. (I have written about him many blogs ago entitled "Soul Food"; please check it out.) He plowed the field and cultivated the vegetables and herbs and sprinkled wild flower seeds and planted pansies and impatiens to color the land - for my sake. It's as if there's an invisible botanist Santa who'd climb down from heaven to gift me a self-sufficient and sustaining food source, and that all he wanted me to do in return is to water them with love regularly (he said touch the soil to know when it's time) like a heartbeat, and with my hand the relationship will thrive. Wherever you are "on the road," Sal, know that all is well with the plants - because of you.             

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MILK ALTERNATIVE

I love the lines in Earth Verse, a poem by Gary Snyder, writing about our planet as Wide enough to go on finding/Green enough to go on living/Old enough to give us dreams, and I thought it was thematically appropriate for my piece today on food self-sufficiency with adherence to sustainable agriculture - for earth's sake. Making milk from nuts (today I used wal, hazel and cashew combined) is one of those permaculture practices that keep our earth living (v. cattle extraction from industrial feedlots contributing to the global warming phenomenon we all know about by now). The green earth has almost infinite sources and ways to find food and medicine (not including trees and primary deforestation), instead I am talking about plant-based sources ubiquitous like grass - the meadows, for example, have wild flowers and herbs and berries we could share with the birds and the bees and moderately create "honey from a weed," as Patience Gray would say. And I used legumes, which made all the difference. Indigenous Knowledge which goes back thousands of years had understood and respected the ecological rhythm of earth's terrestrial (including fresh water) and marine environments that their physical survival was corporeal and spiritual to the seasonality of fruits and fish - and according to research was disease free. In the ancient Nō plays of Japan (which Mr. Snyder had experienced first hand in that county living there during the 60's; these plays were harbinger to the famous kabuki theaters) a performance line there (my current reading list is the plays actually, because Gary, my hero, did and it made all the difference in his art; and I follow my teacher's lead) struck me, saying: Life lays in a dream and we wake up to it. Veganism-Buddhism-Haiku Poetry are all altruistic philosophical tenets I reckon intertwined in my lifestyle and emotional intelligence, including in cookery. When I make my alternative-sourced milk I think of both earth's wellness and it's gifted to me by transcendence. And I think of our ancestors paving the way for this return of earth-man sacred interrelationship. 

Walking on walking

undefoot

earth turns

streams and mountains stay the same 

(G.S)

        

PS

After posting this blog I quickly googled for the bio of one of the most iconic American beat poets/professor/Zen Buddhist I've followed more than half my writing life, Gary Snyder, for whether he was still around or not, and Wiki gave me a born date plus his educational (UC Berkeley) and literary achievement (a Pulitzer Prize in 1975 for Poetry which I knew) background, but what I didn't know and frankly didn't expect to find out (born date wasn't hyphenated so he's still around, age 92), yet to my surprise and what made me cry, honestly, was that: we shared the same birthday. It touched me so much. and my feelings free fell wistfully and I didn't know what to say anymore than here. 

 

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LAST SUNDAY

 

I daringly proposed to my cousins to have another go at my vegan food and spend their last Sunday dinner on the island with me at home cooking for them how like my mom used to do (whom they had known so well back then) calling family over to come by and eat. So I texted this menu for their determination:

•Sorrel Leaves Farro Risotto 

•Chayote Tendrils Salad with Mountain Apples and Chico Fruits 

•Espresso Brownies with Berries-Orange Compote

And I closed with, How often do we get together like this, cousins? My mom would be really happy.

The sorrels are in season - a spring herb:vegetable on the tangy and acidic palette profile - that come back this time, it is a family of the spinach with a vibrant zest when eaten raw; it would be delicious in a creamy risotto while stewing, offsetting their bitterness spice for unctuous earthiness, and with buttered pine nuts in the mix would produce another level of tastefulness (think of collards and mealy grits combined - but Italianized). 

So are the fruits. I love the concept of the plating color juxtaposition of ruby red (mountain apples) with chartreuse brown (chicos) over filigrees of steamed greens dressed in calamansi vinaigrette. The pairing of this salad with the rich risotto I think will be marvelous and be very al fresco dinning experience.

“It’s a champagne from a bottle of Mum, what I had for a lucky piece and wish me luck on it and that will do - best piece I ever had, and now it’s spirited away.”  

             (Ernest Hemingway)

The boys are fishing while the girls and yours truly, the de facto family cook, are in the kitchen prepping up for the three-course menu, plus whatever catch from the sea is brought home for the omnivore stomachs (I told my cousins to butcher and clean the fish there at site for direct steaming or grilling here, absent the gore). Of course, for once in a blue moon reunion, I will make exceptions in my kitchen’s strict plant-based ethos.

I will miss them dearly when they leave for the mainland midweek. But I will make the most of this “Last Sunday” dinner with them with how I do it best when it comes to love: cooking. 

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LAVENDER, BEETS, QUINOA

It’s Oscar night and this is my “red carpet” salad menu together with yellow beans and tomatillos verde. I had cousins visiting me from the east coast and I wanted to “showcase” what I eat on the island and what from local sources - they are very curious of my food lifestyle here now given so much greens grown all year.  They loved the freshness and simplicity of my techniques - I wanted the vegetables to speak for themselves coming through as character over the vinaigrette, like the fragrance of the herb elucidating the beets. My welcome drinks were ginger soda bellinis and wellness shots of the beets and sweet potato juice with a squeeze of lime, my vegan, zero-proof version of chilled sangria in a tequila glass. Amazing, they said. Thank the beet, I said. Process and creativity are everything to extend the use and versatility of food - and thinking on your feet if you don’t have much time or much to offer or have an impressive home bar. This is the healthiest meal we ever had. My, this is the happiest I’ve been in a long time, seeing you all. The recipe of the soup (not in photo) is butternut squash cubes boiled down to purée liquid with a masher and creamed down with oat and cashew milks and enhanced with a tiny bouquet of oregano-parsley-dill garni (from my garden). They loved that I grow my own food supplementing beautifully their presentation in the table as natural as can be. They noticed, too, my skin, my slimness, my vital inner sanctum glow - and connected everything with what and how I eat. I didn’t know what to say, beside poetry. I loved that my cousin helped me wash dishes and dry off plates and store silvers in their drawers and containers in their cupboards together as family, I’ve missed. And thanks to the awards show, dashing Elvis was in the house, too.

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FOOD TECH.

At Mana Foods a new vegan product is on the rise - and the reviews have gone wild from word to mouth, literally. It’s called “Just Eggs.” I put the “ready” beaten liquid mixture to the test this morning, and it did not disappoint. (Foodnote: I don’t really eat eggs in the conventional sense given my diet restriction, but French-style omelet is a classic food and something that I had loved before especially on a baguette, plain with butter and Dijon mustard, to carry out an obligatory breakfast meal.) But instead I had fresh pea tendrils in the fridge and wild black rice-lentils green tomato risotto cooked yesterday (with extra) and decided to put together a lovely brunch of just eggs and rice (in photo). Real eggs cook well in butter on a non-stick skillet over medium heat swirling the batter around while titling the pan and with a wooden spatula gathering at the center reserving the center raw to bake when three-folded (a culinary school technique every aspiring chef should master). Just Eggs surprisingly achieved the consistency of the technique without much regard to its authenticity - it just worked the way it should as the original - and I was pleased-shocked evenly. Now the taste. Before we go there you must know that the food technologists responsible for this nouveau product used mung bean as base protein sauce with other plant-based ingredients to naturally coagulate and emulsify the mixture to achieve the requisite coat. I remembered a former classmate of mine in grad school who eventually had taken a career path in biotech was really passionate about molecular food synthesizing in producing processed eats canned or frozen and how those foods can extend out their expiration and serve and help plenty without time or enough money to spend on kitchen prep time. High level and advanced food technology to the point of “cloning” like Just Eggs to cater to the vegan and gluten-free demographics (which by the way, according to market research is the fastest growing buyers of health and environment conscious food), is an amazing feat. But at what cost? Given the potential for large-scale production of these beyond egg alternatives responding to demand. But I won’t go that high road at this time (there is another journalistic platform for that sentiment) I want to return accordingly to my review of its taste. It’s a miracle that given a blind taste, whether the cook is really skilled or the product is really resilient, or both, nothing could be further from the truth. A perfect French omelet must have the texture of vulnerability and bouncy savory by fork-to-mouth at once with luscious delicacy sustaining an ephemeral buttermilk enhancement with bitterness from the greens extruding a poetic balance. What a Food Tech. genius! I wonder how my old classmate’s doing these days, at what level is he engineering food’s cutting edge, and what masterful synthesis he’s discovered at the DNA level of plant ingredients to stir away food production from intensive energy extraction at feedlots to sustainable earth practices of food eating while preserving open spaces and trees en masse to boot. I cooked an impromptu dinner once for this gentleman during one of our field (research) trips completing our thesis in indigenous knowledge and traditional agriculture. I had sense then, enjoying his meal and making critical comments, he had the culinary sensitivity-in-the-making of a Dr. Gourmet. I’m sure he will travel far and wide. 

 

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