Last week, I wrote about consistency and one of my readers commented back to me on LinkedIn that it was also about constancy. This week, I thought I would spend some time thinking about constancy, as it is important both in and out of the kitchen. Constancy has been defined by Merriam Webster as the “state of being constant or unchanging” and as the capacity to demonstrate “steadfastness of mind under duress.” Cooking requires one to constant and at the same not be constant. There are those moments when preparing the meal, especially during the holiday season or other major event, can seem stressful. However, in those times, one stays centered, focused, and remembers that one will make it through one more time. Watching chefs at work, you can see their constancy. Regardless of how hectic things get and how much duress they are under, that ability to stay constant is important in ensuring the quality of food, but also the ability to be present for the kitchen staff. In cooking competitions, one sees the cheftestants ability to stay constant during competition. At the same time, it is important to be open to constantly growing and evolving in one’s knowledge and understanding of foods, ingredients, preparation methods, etc. chefs can spend years perfecting a single dish.
Read moreConsistency
For those who have been following this blog for a while, you know that one of my favorite sources of inspiration is the Food Network show Chopped. This week was no exception. One of the spiritual messages that I have been receiving lately is about consistency. One of the primary reasons contestants are “chopped” is because there is inconsistency in plating and in preparation of the food. The inconsistency can be that the meats were cooked to differing degrees of doneness. Other times, the same amount of ingredients was not placed in the same way or in the same amount on the plates. Consistency is important. If you are going out to eat at a restaurant, it is important that all who order a dish, regardless of when they order it get the same dish. One of the things I have found personally challenging is when I order something and love it and then order it again a few weeks later and it is not the same dish. Inconsistency challenges one’s ability to trust they are going to have the same experience or that all who order it will experience the same dish.
Read moreThe Zenful Kitchen is closed this week
The Zenful Kitchen is closed this week as the chef is taking some time to rest and recuperate.
It’s about the stick
For the last two nights, I have been making dinners served on sticks. Last night was chicken and zucchini yakatori. The night before was chicken and tomato pesto skewers. My family loved both of them and they were both put on the “you can make this again” list. At first, I thought this is my first time to cook food on sticks, but then I began to realize it was not my first time to serve food on sticks. Numerous times, I have made popsicles, in which I have inserted a popsicle stick as it froze. I have also used straws and created breakfast skewers with donut holes and chunks of fresh fruit.
Food on sticks is becoming increasingly popular and is one of those things, which exists in every culture around the world.
Read moreWatch, Do, but not On
Anybody who has ever had a conversation with me about food knows that I am a Chopped junkie. In case you are thinking I need a 12-step group to help me overcome my addiction, I do not. I thoroughly enjoy watching this show for a number of reasons, some of which have nothing to do with food itself. One of the reasons is that so many of the chefs who are on the show have such amazing stories to tell about their lives that I find inspiring and remind me of the power of the human spirit and the transformative power to manifest our destiny, often times building them out of rubble. There have been episodes I have watched that the stories have moved me to tears as I have listened to how people have come through numerous bouts with cancer, loss of limbs, homeless, and addictions and as Maya Angelou once wrote, “And still I rise.” This show has also reminded me of the importance of being humble. I have always found it interesting how the humility one brings to the ingredients and the creation of the food somehow seems to translate into how the dish tastes. Simultaneously, I find myself rooting for those who seem to be the most humble and to be focused on honoring the ingredients. For me, ingredients are like people. There are those you enjoy being around more than others, but each is a gift from the Universe and should be treated with dignity and respect.
Read moreScallops Sense
The other night I was watching a rerun of an episode of Chopped where they had amateur home cooks competing on the show. In the first round, the contestants were given amongst other ingredients scallops in a shell. One of the contestants was unfamiliar with how to deal with scallops in a shell. To be honest, most of the time when I get scallops they have already been cleaned and shelled. So, had I not taken the time to learn about this I may not have even known that they come in shell, but they do. While they are not as difficult to open as other shelled mollusks, they do need to be opened and cleaned before preparation. Besides having the sand and grit washed off them, the various organs such as the liver, abductor muscle, and sex organs need to be removed. Then and only then they can be baked, broiled, fried, or prepared in some other way.
Scallops are one of those foods that are not only healthy to eat, but they are powerful spiritually. Eating scallops is like any information that life presents us. There are some things that need to be removed and some things which need to be washed off before we can even consider ingesting them and making them part of our internal belief system.
Read moreExegete your cookbook
When I was in seminary, my homiletics (fancy word for preaching) professor, Dr Gail Ricciuti, taught us how to exegete a periscope. In other words, how to critically analyze and understand a scripture. One of the first steps, she said, was to forget everything you have ever heard about how to interpret a scripture. She taught us that by holding on to what we thought we knew, we would be blinded to the new revelations that the scripture could reveal to us. In retrospect, it seems that she was teaching us a similar lesson to Matsuo Basho, a Japanese Haiku poet, who once wrote,
When journeying upon the path of wisdom, do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought. Seek the meaning behind their footsteps, and not upon the steps themselves. For in seeking the footsteps you shall be glancing only upon the next footprint. And you’re sure to stumble upon an unforeseen obstacle. But in seeking the meaning behind their footsteps you’re sure to see ahead; comparable to looking up while walking. Thus allowing you to easily maneuver around the hurdles on the path you walk. …And if you walk like this long enough, you’ll one day, to your surprise, find yourself among the wise.
Read moreBurgers are Another Black Dress
This morning I was reading a blog called Loving Food, Fashion, and Life. Her entry was all about cheeseburgers and as that was what I had planned to make for dinner, it caught my attention. Her opening line was “If you’ve never had a plumpalicious burger stuffed with cheese in the middle that clearly oozes out cheesiness with every bite, well—you’re missing out on a good portion of life.”[1] As I was imagining this burger, it dawned on me that the cheeseburger is one of those basic black dresses (or suits) that I have talked about as it applies to broth and grilled cheese sandwiches.
There really are only two basic essentials to a cheeseburger: the burger and the cheese. The bun, in some respects, has become just one more accessory to the cheeseburger. One would think that there is not much to making a burger, but the blend of meats varies from person to person and restaurant to restaurant. They do not even need to be made with beef. One could use ground turkey, chicken, lamb, or a mixture of vegetables, beans, and grains to make a vegi burger. I have made some burgers out of baked beans and oatmeal. I have also taken other meats and added them into my ground meat. For example, I have mixed chorizo or Italian sausage or bacon into my burger patties before cooking them.
Read moreFiesta Mix Lessons
This evening, one of the women who came for Love and Inspiration, brought a bag of Fiesta Mix she had picked up at the store. Fiesta Mix, for those who have never had it, is a combination of pretzels, Cheetos, and two kinds of tortilla chips. I guess you could say it is a junk food party in your mouth. When she first brought the bag, it seemed like your ordinary bag of mixed snacks.
As our discussion about things happening in our life progressed, I realize that even something as simple as this mixed bowl of snacks had a powerful lesson to share.
Read moreSpiritual Pasta
Growing up my mother taught me one way to make pasta. You boil the water, you put the pasta in for the time on the box, and then you drain it and pour the sauce over it. We won’t talk about her sauce here. The only time you did something different with the pasta was if you were making the boxed macaroni and cheese, in which case you added the powdered cheese, butter, and milk and stirred. That was how I was raised to think about pasta. My only other memories of my mother and pasta was when she was making a noodle kugel, but then she still made her egg noodles the same way or kasha varnikas in which she boiled the noodles and added them to the kasha. Overall, her basic approach was boil, drain, and use.
Read moreTaking a Break
For those of you who may be looking for my Zenful Kitchen blog, I am taking a break this week, so i can focus on my grading. I will be back next week.
Z is for Ziti
Whoo hoo! I am so excited that I have made it through the alphabet one more time. I am sure my fellow blogger Julia Fox is going to miss seeing me post each week, but I am not sure I am ready to do it a third time, well at least not yet. Blogging my way through the alphabet food wise has been fun and I have learned about some interesting dishes and foods along the way. Today, I am going to end with one of my favorite foods Ziti. Baked ziti, for me, is so comforting. It is not because it is something I grew up with fond childhood memories of, as my mom was not a good pasta cooker. Well, her pasta was fine, it was the sauce that was memorable and not in a good way.
Ziti like elbow macaroni and any pasta with a whole in the middle catches my attention because it provides a tunnel for all the sauce to travel in and through. When I get a tray of baked ziti with the sauce, sausage, and cheeses melted throughout, it just makes my mouth water
Read moreY is for You
This morning while I was posting my thought for the day to my blog on WordPress, I came across this picture about self-acceptance. While the picture has nothing to do with food, other than counting calories or eating vegan, it has do with something important to one’s approach to cooking, food, and spirituality – YOU. After all, as the sign says we are all different. Our relationships with ourselves, Spirit, and food is not about others, but about us.
As I thought about this, I realized that one could re-create this about food.
Read moreX is for Xavier Suppe
X was a challenge for me the last time I was blogging my way through the alphabet and this time was no exception. I had originally thought xanthum gum, which is normally thought of as a gluten free additive which can be used as a thickener. However, it was not resonating with my spirit and since that is what this blog is all about, it was just not going to happen. Then, in my research on X foods, I stumbled upon Xavier Suppe, which is Italian for Xavier Soup. It is a traditional Italian recipe, normally made in December for the Feast of Saint Xavier. It is a classic chicken and vegetable soup with flour and baked Parmesan cheese dumplings served garnished with parsley and chervil. Perhaps that is why it resonated with my spirit; it looks like and reminds me of my mother’s chicken soup with matzo balls, Italian style.
Learning about this soup, made me want to know something about the person it was named after Frances Xavier was a Roman Catholic missionary and one of the founding members of the Society of Jesus, more commonly referred to as Jesuits.
Read moreW is for Water
As I sit here sucking down another 28 ounces of water flavored with slices of lemons and limes, it was obvious the focus of my blog was going to be water. It was not just my being intentional about drinking half my body weight in water, which inspired this week’s blog, but also the messages about water I received from my spiritual addiction to the Food Network and Cooking Channel. So many things we do in the kitchen and in the preparation of food include water. We use water to cleanse our dishes and cooking utensils whether it is in a dishwasher or when washing them by hand. We use water to wash fruits and vegetables. We use water to soak beans, to rinse grains such as quinoa, or to rinse the liquid off canned beans. We use water to cook so many things including potatoes, rice, quinoa, pasta, beans and so much more. We use water to make ice cubes for drinks or to shock vegetables or seafood after blanching or precooking them. We use water in making simple syrups and in making a wide diversity of beverages, especially those that might cool us off on a hot summer day (lemonade, iced tea, iced coffee, etc.). There is not a meal prepared in the kitchen, which does not include water, yet rarely do we give water much thought or consideration.
Read moreV is for Versatility
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This week I could have gone with a number of V foods (vanilla, vegetables, vegetable juice, vodka, veal, venison, etc.), but the word I kept coming back to is versatility: the state or quality of being versatile. The Merriam Webster online dictionary offers four definitions of versatile: [a] changing or fluctuating readily, [b] embracing a variety of subjects, fields, or skills, [c] capable of turning forward or backward or moving laterally and up and down and [d] having many uses or applications.
Versatility is such an important quality in life whether it is in working with ingredients or in one’s spiritual life. So often, we become familiar with one way of preparing something, like bacon, that we do not recognize the versatility of the ingredient and the numerous things, which can be done with it. When we begin to focus on the flavors of the ingredient, rather than the ingredient itself, we open our minds up to new possibilities. This is in part what chefs like Theresa Gilliam are getting at when they create cookbooks based on a single ingredient, such as her new cookbook Bacon 24/Seven. In an interview she did on her book, she said that one of the most unusual dishes she and her co-author created was Bacon Baklava. She said, “It's unusual enough that a lot of people might not have tried that flavor combination. It is actually a very traditional baklava recipe. You just add the bacon to the ground nuts mixture. The bacon balances to the honey syrup and the salty nuts which are the sweet and savory.”[1]
Read moreU is for Ube
Finding something U ish to write about has been a little bit of a challenge. Most of the U foods or culinary words I could think about were from the Asian diaspora, except for underseasoning. Ultimately, I came to be enthralled with a potato consumed predominantly in the Phillipones, called Ube. It is not to be confused with other purple potatoes. Rarely is it used as a starch. Ube challenges our notions of what a how a potato should be used.
Jun Belan, a food blogger, who writes about foods and food memories from the Filipino kitchen wrote this about this yam. “Ube [ooh-beh] is purple yam, which should not be confused with purple potatoes or with purple sweet potatoes. Purple yam is not uniquely found in the Philippines but Filipinos by far use it more than anyone else to flavor and color their sweet treats and breads.
Read moreT is for Tortillas
For the last week, I have been reflecting on what the focus of my blog would be for this week. T words floated into and out of my brain. I thought about tomatoes, tuna, tacos, tenderizer, tomatillos, turnips, thyme, and even tequila. Ultimately, I kept coming back to tortillas. They are a staple in our home and something I often times make by hand. Making corn tortillas is a bit easier, then flour ones, but both are simple to make and much tastier then most of the tortillas you buy in the store. Although there is a wonderful little Mexican store about 20 minutes from me and every other week the truck comes in filled with cheeses, salsas, tortillas, and a diversity of other staples used in the Mexican cuisine.
It is at this little store that I got my tortilla press and learned how to make my own corn tortillas. Although a tortilla press is not necessary, it does help to ensure the flatness and consistency of your tortillas and I recommend one of the heavier cast iron or metal tortilla presses. I always put a Ziploc bag over the top and bottom parts of the press when making them and that makes clean up a breeze. While they can only be used in making corn tortillas, it is still one of the best investments I have made in terms of my kitchen equipment (next to our waffle iron and immersion blender).
Read moreS is for Stirring
The word that has been “stirring” around in my brain the last few days has been just that “stirring.” It was hit home for me over the past few days as I have listened to culinary judges’ comment on various aspects of stirring, including how often, with what, and when. I had never quite thought about how complex the simple process of stirring actually is. Ultimately, I found a vide titled “Stirring Conclusions” by Peter Hertzman which offered me so much information about stirring. Some of the things I knew, but some I was not aware. One of the points he made was that many people stir only because the recipe tells them to and don’t think about the reasoning behind it. For example, he suggested that there are three reasons to stir: [a] to create a homogenous mixture; [b] to evenly disperse temperature; and [c] To alter the viscosity of a liquid (thicker or thinner).
As I thought about this, I wondered how many of us do things just because
Read moreR is for Roslyn Kamin Jacobson
If you have been keeping up with my working my way through the alphabet, you know I just wrote my R blog last week (R is for Risotto). Today, however, was my mother’s birthday. She left this world in 2001 and is the one who in numerous ways fed my love of cooking and baking. So today, I just want to celebrate my mother and the gifts she gave me in our kitchen growing up on Kingsland St in Nutley, NJ
My mother inherited a legacy for baking from her mother. While cooking was not her forte, baking was. The two things I remember her baking the most were her rugelach, which I made a few weeks ago.
Read more