5/17/2011
This posting is directed to my clientele who are receiving vegetables. Several of you have asked me how I use the veggies. The first thing I do is sit down with a cup of tea and 'google' the particular veggie in question. Tons or recipes on line! Ok, let's go through your box. Lettuce/salads. Bok choi (chinese cabbage): Here's my favorite preparation. Separate stem from leaves. Chop both piles into 1 inch chuncks. In a wok or large frying pan I add a couple TBS's of oil, chopped garlic (I like garlic so I throw in at least 2 TBS) and about half a teaspoon of red pepper flakes. My intent is to infuse the oil with garlic/pepper flavor. If my wok is good and hot this takes about 30 seconds. Then I add the chopped stems and stir for a minute or so and then the chopped greens for another 30 seconds. Splash in soy sauce to taste. Finished! This can be expanded into a larger stir fry using other veggies. I love red pepper, onions, carrots, etc. in this dish. You could also add some cubed pineapple if you like sweet.
The Tah Tsai can be treated in a similar manner but it cooks much more quickly and really condenses. I prefer the Tah Tsai raw. I use it in salads.
The arugula can be used in salads as well but my favorite is to add it to a bowl of cooked pasta. Stir it in when the pasta is finished, drained, and still hot. The heat will wilt it. Add parmesan cheese and serve. It can also be tossed into a soup (again, at the very end...it doesn't need to be cooked. It has a wonderful nutty flavor.
You know what to do with scallions and cilantro. Some folks have an aversion to cilantro. It used to turn me off but I have come to love it.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Monday, February 28, 2011
February 28, 2011
My oldest daughter, a high school English teacher, is considering furthering her education at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. I had the opportunity over the weekend to converse with her about what course of study she wants to pursue and she told me that she is interested in how gender identity is influenced by educational curriculum, text books, and classroom management. She told me an interesting story which helped me understand a little better what she is getting in to. She recently gave her students a creative writing assignment that required them to express their feelings, among other things. She said that all of her girl students completed the assignment successfully but only one boy turned in the assignment. When she asked the boys why they had such a problem with the assignment, one brave lad responded that they were concerned about appearing gay. This surprised me in two ways. I had assumed that gay culture would be no big deal to kids in this day and age. Secondly, and more deeply, I was astonished that these boys felt so strongly that a particular kind of writing (expressing feelings) is associated with being gay.
Where does that come from? It has caused me to reflect on gender identity. I didn’t know the gender of my daughter before she was born (none of my children for that matter). I remember my first concern upon her birth was “Is she ok?”…the birth was induced and the labour was long and difficult and I was very anxious that daughter and mother would be healthy and safe at the end of it. My second thought was: boy or girl? I really had no preference but I did want to know.
Many of these students in my daughter’s English class will be mothers and fathers soon and I doubt if the gender question will carry the same meaning it did for me? Will they look at the newborn and think: Well, it appears to be a boy but what does that really mean? Is he gay? Will this initial confusion about gender identity influence how the child is raised.
My point is not to weigh in on the whole homosexual conversation that obsesses a significant part of our culture but to simply recognize that these young folks seem to have a more complicated world to navigate in than I did at their age. If a sophomore boy is unwilling to write about feelings for fear of being type-cast as gay what is he doing with his feelings? That concerns me on some level.
I like tea. Am I gay?!!
I feel for these kids and hope my daughter can make a contribution to helping them with their fears and confusion….through her current work as well as that which may lie ahead of her.
My oldest daughter, a high school English teacher, is considering furthering her education at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. I had the opportunity over the weekend to converse with her about what course of study she wants to pursue and she told me that she is interested in how gender identity is influenced by educational curriculum, text books, and classroom management. She told me an interesting story which helped me understand a little better what she is getting in to. She recently gave her students a creative writing assignment that required them to express their feelings, among other things. She said that all of her girl students completed the assignment successfully but only one boy turned in the assignment. When she asked the boys why they had such a problem with the assignment, one brave lad responded that they were concerned about appearing gay. This surprised me in two ways. I had assumed that gay culture would be no big deal to kids in this day and age. Secondly, and more deeply, I was astonished that these boys felt so strongly that a particular kind of writing (expressing feelings) is associated with being gay.
Where does that come from? It has caused me to reflect on gender identity. I didn’t know the gender of my daughter before she was born (none of my children for that matter). I remember my first concern upon her birth was “Is she ok?”…the birth was induced and the labour was long and difficult and I was very anxious that daughter and mother would be healthy and safe at the end of it. My second thought was: boy or girl? I really had no preference but I did want to know.
Many of these students in my daughter’s English class will be mothers and fathers soon and I doubt if the gender question will carry the same meaning it did for me? Will they look at the newborn and think: Well, it appears to be a boy but what does that really mean? Is he gay? Will this initial confusion about gender identity influence how the child is raised.
My point is not to weigh in on the whole homosexual conversation that obsesses a significant part of our culture but to simply recognize that these young folks seem to have a more complicated world to navigate in than I did at their age. If a sophomore boy is unwilling to write about feelings for fear of being type-cast as gay what is he doing with his feelings? That concerns me on some level.
I like tea. Am I gay?!!
I feel for these kids and hope my daughter can make a contribution to helping them with their fears and confusion….through her current work as well as that which may lie ahead of her.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
January 26, 2011
March has been trying to poke its head through this past week. It made it a few times! But not today. That January sun just isn’t high enough to burn through this fog. For a few hours during the March ‘breakout’ I felt the pull of the garden soil on my spirit. Part of the garden takes the form of raised beds. The idea behind the raised bed approach is that the soil warms up quicker, there is better drainage so it dries out more rapidly in spring, and the soil where veggies grow is not compacted by the gardener’s heavy foot.
Soil compaction is a serious problem that has accompanied modern agricultural techniques.
Huge mega-tonned tractors roll over the soil—cultivating, seeding, harrowing, spraying, and harvesting. While the top 5 or 6 inches is fairly loose, the soil underneath becomes very compacted, prohibiting deep root development. The forming of a bed, be it a raised bed or simply an area set aside to not be stepped on, is an advantage I have over the mega-farmer and furthermore it allows me the opportunity of participating in the experience of establising sacred space.
Sacred space is always accompanied by prohibitions. Don’t walk on this bed! “You must not enter the Holy of Holies, lest you die!” (a reference to the ancient temple in Jerusalem) I would not claim that the sacred space of the raised bed in the garden is of the same significance as the Holy of Holies but there is a thin thread of connection which goes far beyond the fact of prohibition. Maybe it is as simple as “Be aware of where you are at. Everyplace is not the same as any other place.” God said to Moses out of the burning bush. “Take your shoes off! This is holy ground. The beds in my garden say, “Keep your feet off! This is special ground.”
The more I think about it, as I finish this cup of tea, the more I wonder if there is much more sacred ground than what I am aware of? The ground where the klldeer lays her eggs. The ground from which the volunteer violet surprisingly erupts….the ground upon which my father suddenly fell and breathed his last….
March has been trying to poke its head through this past week. It made it a few times! But not today. That January sun just isn’t high enough to burn through this fog. For a few hours during the March ‘breakout’ I felt the pull of the garden soil on my spirit. Part of the garden takes the form of raised beds. The idea behind the raised bed approach is that the soil warms up quicker, there is better drainage so it dries out more rapidly in spring, and the soil where veggies grow is not compacted by the gardener’s heavy foot.
Soil compaction is a serious problem that has accompanied modern agricultural techniques.
Huge mega-tonned tractors roll over the soil—cultivating, seeding, harrowing, spraying, and harvesting. While the top 5 or 6 inches is fairly loose, the soil underneath becomes very compacted, prohibiting deep root development. The forming of a bed, be it a raised bed or simply an area set aside to not be stepped on, is an advantage I have over the mega-farmer and furthermore it allows me the opportunity of participating in the experience of establising sacred space.
Sacred space is always accompanied by prohibitions. Don’t walk on this bed! “You must not enter the Holy of Holies, lest you die!” (a reference to the ancient temple in Jerusalem) I would not claim that the sacred space of the raised bed in the garden is of the same significance as the Holy of Holies but there is a thin thread of connection which goes far beyond the fact of prohibition. Maybe it is as simple as “Be aware of where you are at. Everyplace is not the same as any other place.” God said to Moses out of the burning bush. “Take your shoes off! This is holy ground. The beds in my garden say, “Keep your feet off! This is special ground.”
The more I think about it, as I finish this cup of tea, the more I wonder if there is much more sacred ground than what I am aware of? The ground where the klldeer lays her eggs. The ground from which the volunteer violet surprisingly erupts….the ground upon which my father suddenly fell and breathed his last….
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
January 5, 2011
For all of my adult life I have heard the phrase “Live in the now” and even though it is associated with all the New Age voices that have been telling us how to live for the past several decades I have come to embrace it in my own way. I prefer to say, “Be present where you are” but in my mind the phrases are interchangeable.
Watching dementia slowly spread its wings, like the shadow of a great bird, over the small figure of my mother has recently caused me to pause and take another look at this notion. Dementia strips away memory. The short term loss is most readily noticeable but long-term is also going. Mom wakes up and doesn’t know what day it is. She asks the same basic questions every morning. Who is here? Has Zoe gone to work? What time is it? What am I supposed to do now? In one sense she is very much “in the now”.
She’s not thinking about what happened yesterday or the day before. She doesn’t have a game plan for the day. She is not ‘burdened’ by duties and responsibilities….or guilt and shame. She is literally ‘in the now’….very present where she is. Isn’t this exactly what the New Age gurus want to see in their disciples?
What is missing for mom, of course, is any sense of context. What I am witnessing is that the ‘the now’ without context is disturbing and sometimes terrifying to mom. ‘Being present’ without a context is about as far away from being ‘blissed out’ as one could get!
This brings me to my conclusion. The notion of ‘living in the now/being present where you are’, cut off from any discussion/awareness of context, is pap. I am present with a cup of tea and a laptop. I am ‘in the now’. But the context of this ‘being present’ is boundless! I think the mystics are closer to reality when they talk about all of time being present in one moment….but that discussion will be over a different cup of tea.
Now I am going to be present outside with my chainsaw….each moment an eternity of time! Ha!!
For all of my adult life I have heard the phrase “Live in the now” and even though it is associated with all the New Age voices that have been telling us how to live for the past several decades I have come to embrace it in my own way. I prefer to say, “Be present where you are” but in my mind the phrases are interchangeable.
Watching dementia slowly spread its wings, like the shadow of a great bird, over the small figure of my mother has recently caused me to pause and take another look at this notion. Dementia strips away memory. The short term loss is most readily noticeable but long-term is also going. Mom wakes up and doesn’t know what day it is. She asks the same basic questions every morning. Who is here? Has Zoe gone to work? What time is it? What am I supposed to do now? In one sense she is very much “in the now”.
She’s not thinking about what happened yesterday or the day before. She doesn’t have a game plan for the day. She is not ‘burdened’ by duties and responsibilities….or guilt and shame. She is literally ‘in the now’….very present where she is. Isn’t this exactly what the New Age gurus want to see in their disciples?
What is missing for mom, of course, is any sense of context. What I am witnessing is that the ‘the now’ without context is disturbing and sometimes terrifying to mom. ‘Being present’ without a context is about as far away from being ‘blissed out’ as one could get!
This brings me to my conclusion. The notion of ‘living in the now/being present where you are’, cut off from any discussion/awareness of context, is pap. I am present with a cup of tea and a laptop. I am ‘in the now’. But the context of this ‘being present’ is boundless! I think the mystics are closer to reality when they talk about all of time being present in one moment….but that discussion will be over a different cup of tea.
Now I am going to be present outside with my chainsaw….each moment an eternity of time! Ha!!
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
December 22, 2010
This is the season when people sing about the star that led certain folks to Bethlehem long ago. Some people get hung up on the literal truth of this event recorded in Matthew’s gospel. Has anyone of you every followed a star and had it stop over a particular place? It begs a bigger question: What does it mean to say that a star is ‘over’ something? Are we thinking of stars as Goodyear blimps? How could a star be ‘over’ Bethlehem without being over half the world at the same time? I’ve read folks who argue that Matthew is drawing on certain Old Testament references to a star (a famous one being in the account of the story of Balaam found in Numbers) Science and biblical scholarship are doing something similar when confronting the star over Bethlehem….trying to explain what has happened. I wasn’t there at the birth of Jesus but I am present in the same world he was born into….sun, moon, planets, and stars….these silent witnesses whose movements can be measured with great precision but whose speech is of an entirely different matter. Maybe Matthew was hearing the music of the spheres when he was writing his gospel….or the music of the Psalmist:
Day to day pours forth speech
And night to night declares knowledge,
There is no speech, nor are there words;
There voice is not heard;
(Psalm 19:2-3)
I wish I could hear better.
This is the season when people sing about the star that led certain folks to Bethlehem long ago. Some people get hung up on the literal truth of this event recorded in Matthew’s gospel. Has anyone of you every followed a star and had it stop over a particular place? It begs a bigger question: What does it mean to say that a star is ‘over’ something? Are we thinking of stars as Goodyear blimps? How could a star be ‘over’ Bethlehem without being over half the world at the same time? I’ve read folks who argue that Matthew is drawing on certain Old Testament references to a star (a famous one being in the account of the story of Balaam found in Numbers) Science and biblical scholarship are doing something similar when confronting the star over Bethlehem….trying to explain what has happened. I wasn’t there at the birth of Jesus but I am present in the same world he was born into….sun, moon, planets, and stars….these silent witnesses whose movements can be measured with great precision but whose speech is of an entirely different matter. Maybe Matthew was hearing the music of the spheres when he was writing his gospel….or the music of the Psalmist:
Day to day pours forth speech
And night to night declares knowledge,
There is no speech, nor are there words;
There voice is not heard;
(Psalm 19:2-3)
I wish I could hear better.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
December 14, 2010
The Food Day section of today’s Oregonian featured some recipes that looked pretty mouth-watering to me. Maybe it was because I was hungry.
My son Sam, a junior in college, has shown an interest in cooking and we like to watch the Iron Chef show on the television when he is home. We have decided to do an “Iron Chef” meal at some point over the holiday season. We plan to identify several food items, write their names on a slip of paper, throw them in a paper bag and when it comes time to cook a meal we will draw a slip out and that one item must be included in every course of a five course meal. So far in the bag we have oranges, mustard, clams, walnuts and a few others I can’t remember. The other limitation is time. We must cook this meal in one hour. We have some time to think about this. For example, what if we draw ‘clams’? We must come up with five courses that include clams as an ingredient. Clams in a soup, clam fritters, pasta with a creamy clam sauce, clam dip for veggies and a dessert—using the clam shells as cups and filling them with ice-cream or fresh fruit. That’s five!
We’ll have to go through each of the ‘theme’ ingredients in this way so that when the hour comes we have a game plan. I view this as a kind of playing. Play is viewed in our culture as frivolous, a waste of time, and something we outgrow. Isn’t it ironic that we spend big bucks to watch a sporting event, theatre production, or a concert (essentially paying to watch other adults play!)
Cooking is about creation. It reminds me of the Creation account in Genesis 2. God forms man out of ‘red clay’ (adamah). He works with what is at hand. The ‘ingredient in the bag’ was clay. I don’t read this literally, i.e. man was formed from clay, but I do read it as saying something about God. He plays.
The Food Day section of today’s Oregonian featured some recipes that looked pretty mouth-watering to me. Maybe it was because I was hungry.
My son Sam, a junior in college, has shown an interest in cooking and we like to watch the Iron Chef show on the television when he is home. We have decided to do an “Iron Chef” meal at some point over the holiday season. We plan to identify several food items, write their names on a slip of paper, throw them in a paper bag and when it comes time to cook a meal we will draw a slip out and that one item must be included in every course of a five course meal. So far in the bag we have oranges, mustard, clams, walnuts and a few others I can’t remember. The other limitation is time. We must cook this meal in one hour. We have some time to think about this. For example, what if we draw ‘clams’? We must come up with five courses that include clams as an ingredient. Clams in a soup, clam fritters, pasta with a creamy clam sauce, clam dip for veggies and a dessert—using the clam shells as cups and filling them with ice-cream or fresh fruit. That’s five!
We’ll have to go through each of the ‘theme’ ingredients in this way so that when the hour comes we have a game plan. I view this as a kind of playing. Play is viewed in our culture as frivolous, a waste of time, and something we outgrow. Isn’t it ironic that we spend big bucks to watch a sporting event, theatre production, or a concert (essentially paying to watch other adults play!)
Cooking is about creation. It reminds me of the Creation account in Genesis 2. God forms man out of ‘red clay’ (adamah). He works with what is at hand. The ‘ingredient in the bag’ was clay. I don’t read this literally, i.e. man was formed from clay, but I do read it as saying something about God. He plays.
Monday, December 6, 2010
December 6, 2010
The ancient neglected Gravenstein apple tree was so laden with fruit this past summer that several of the branches snapped off leaving ugly jagged scars. There are several apple trees on this property, some old, some young, and I have done fairly well at keeping them pruned but intentionally left a couple of the old ones ‘go wild’ mostly because I simply did not choose to make the time to keep them pruned but there was also something about their magnificent wildness that was captivating. When my children were young they hung ropes from the mighty moss clothed arms and constructed a primitive platform supported by these same arms. As they grew older and lost interest in that kind of imaginative play I noticed that their platform had been taken over by creatures of the night, raccoons I suspect.
Who hasn’t wanted to live in a tree at some time in their life? To the east, along the banks of Rock Creek some enterprising young folks have built a fantastic tree house that goes up four storeys! I kid you not! You can ascend a flight of stairs and a series of ladders and sit on a leather couch thirty feet above the ground. When I came upon this structure several years ago during my annual Winter Solstice walk, wherein I am on the lookout for the tiny Wren, I was incredulous. The Wookie scenes in “The Return of the Jedi” came immediately to mind. It was truly magical and truly real. I sat at the base of the tree and marveled at all the material and labor that went into this ‘play’ for truly it was nothing more than the expression of grand imagination.
Trees do many things….too many to list but it strikes me that one of their greatest contributions to my life has been their capacity to lift my imagination. And then there comes a day like today when I have just come in from cutting away at that old Gravenstein apple tree with my chain saw. The roar of the engine, the hot steel teeth cutting into the very old wood, and the warm chips flying, take me to a different place.
I understand my place in the garden as that of being a steward and in this case it means confronting wildness and taming it. The broken branches and serrated scars, if left unattended, herald the entry points for disease, rot, and eventual death.
I will say this. It’s a lot more fun to play in a tree than climb a ladder with a chain saw and start cutting away, yet, my imagination remains a part of my stewardship. I imagine the apple wood bucked up and curing in the woodshed over summer and warming the house next winter. I imagine corn, potatoes, or almond trees growing in the ground that has been opened up. I imagine the raccoons that ravaged the garden last summer checking the tree out in their nocturnal prowling and saying to themselves: “Hmmm….didn’t we see something more to our liking down there on the banks of Rock Creek.”
But what really grabs my imagination is the idea of Wookies living down there.
I’ll look for signs when I’m down there again on the 21st of this month.
The ancient neglected Gravenstein apple tree was so laden with fruit this past summer that several of the branches snapped off leaving ugly jagged scars. There are several apple trees on this property, some old, some young, and I have done fairly well at keeping them pruned but intentionally left a couple of the old ones ‘go wild’ mostly because I simply did not choose to make the time to keep them pruned but there was also something about their magnificent wildness that was captivating. When my children were young they hung ropes from the mighty moss clothed arms and constructed a primitive platform supported by these same arms. As they grew older and lost interest in that kind of imaginative play I noticed that their platform had been taken over by creatures of the night, raccoons I suspect.
Who hasn’t wanted to live in a tree at some time in their life? To the east, along the banks of Rock Creek some enterprising young folks have built a fantastic tree house that goes up four storeys! I kid you not! You can ascend a flight of stairs and a series of ladders and sit on a leather couch thirty feet above the ground. When I came upon this structure several years ago during my annual Winter Solstice walk, wherein I am on the lookout for the tiny Wren, I was incredulous. The Wookie scenes in “The Return of the Jedi” came immediately to mind. It was truly magical and truly real. I sat at the base of the tree and marveled at all the material and labor that went into this ‘play’ for truly it was nothing more than the expression of grand imagination.
Trees do many things….too many to list but it strikes me that one of their greatest contributions to my life has been their capacity to lift my imagination. And then there comes a day like today when I have just come in from cutting away at that old Gravenstein apple tree with my chain saw. The roar of the engine, the hot steel teeth cutting into the very old wood, and the warm chips flying, take me to a different place.
I understand my place in the garden as that of being a steward and in this case it means confronting wildness and taming it. The broken branches and serrated scars, if left unattended, herald the entry points for disease, rot, and eventual death.
I will say this. It’s a lot more fun to play in a tree than climb a ladder with a chain saw and start cutting away, yet, my imagination remains a part of my stewardship. I imagine the apple wood bucked up and curing in the woodshed over summer and warming the house next winter. I imagine corn, potatoes, or almond trees growing in the ground that has been opened up. I imagine the raccoons that ravaged the garden last summer checking the tree out in their nocturnal prowling and saying to themselves: “Hmmm….didn’t we see something more to our liking down there on the banks of Rock Creek.”
But what really grabs my imagination is the idea of Wookies living down there.
I’ll look for signs when I’m down there again on the 21st of this month.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)