Roads to Mastery

Looking up the word mastery proved revealing.  Most of the entries had a huckster’s tone to them –assuring us that mastery could be achieved in 10 easy steps and lead to unlimited success in arenas unimagined.  What I know of the experience of attempting mastery is that it involves a serious question about identity as well as inner fortitude, single mindedness, wonder, humility, patience for failure and patience for waiting.

Easter Cake, Angel Cookies, Orange Almond Cake, Maria Denhoff’s Wet Chocolate Cake all baked by me. The beautiful product of a great deal of behind the scenes labor. Photo by Ann Cutting

For me, mastery means an internal shift from hobbyist to serious cook.

I have mastered the smaller things--making jam very, very well, becoming a prolific and imaginative cookie baker, even pulling together the family’s annual Passover dinner. I understand that the easiest journeys to accomplish are the ones that are without divergence and have a conceivable end in sight. After a 20-week course of pro-cooking instruction, my journey is just beginning. 

What I have is a road map that indicates a never ending, larger goal: the commitment to mastering something without an obvious stopping point.  

Why do these masterful folk keep on walking? Janna Malamud Smith, author of An Absorbing Errand, answers the question in this way:

“…pursuing any practice seriously is a generative, hardy way to live in the world. I posit that life is better when you possess a sustaining practice that holds your desire, demands your attention, and requires effort; a plot of ground that gratifies the wish to labor and create—and by doing so, to rule over an imagined world of your own.” 

Sheep in the road, Illustration by Simone Rein

She describes the obstacles to mastery as a herd of obdurate sheep on a metaphoric road that must be “outwitted, dispersed, befriended or herded…”

So in outwitting these obstacles aka sheep to mastery, I look again to chefs and artists who not only persevere, but take joy in this challenge.

I believe that anyone engaged in a sense- filled journey to mastery is continuously energized by metaphoric rest stops on the way made up of textures, colors, tastes and sounds. 

“If I see seasonal foods and vegetables then I say 'Oh-now I have to do something.' For this year, all the fruits are just bursting with flavors.”

Sumi Chang of Europane Bakery

Light glowing through fettuccine on the drying rack. 

Sini Monta, a meat filled pastry, in process at Su Beoreg and Monta Factory in Pasadena. Photo by Ann Cutting

Pasqual, source of all the gorgeous Santa Rosa plums for this season’s canning holding my gift of jam, saying with complete delight, “It’s so pretty!”

There is an inner self-confidence and curiosity that overrides most fear and self-doubt.   

Sumi Chang left a high paying profession as an ICU nurse after an inspiring three-month pastry course to become a minimum wage earning prep cook at a local restaurant. She showed up more than once during the early days of Nancy Silverton’s La Brea Bakery hoping to work there. After being told twice that there were no positions, she volunteered on the two days she was off from her restaurant job. Within two weeks, she was hired and began a five-year tenure that ended as breakfast chef at Campanile Restaurant. She applied her knowledge, skill and confidence to open Europane Bakery more than 20 years ago. 

Sumi Chang, right, with Maria Rodriguez, Pastry Chef at Europane Bakery.

The desire for learning takes precedence over the shame of not knowing or a lack of proficiency.

The Beginner’s Mind or Shoshin of Zen Buddhism is a natural state for children but at nearly 65 years old, attempting to enter and remain in Shosin has been revealing and frustrating.  In my cooking classes, I find myself mystified at my lack of competency as my mind shuts down and anxiety runs amok. I have super-heated oil to nearly 400 degrees by forgetting to remove the outer sleeve on a thermometer, placed a hot pan on a plastic cutting board and in making kimchee exchanged one well known vegetable for another.  I knew I was in trouble when the jelly I undercooked became a strange, unappetizing slurry instead of my imagined perfection. This was really crazy.  I know how to do this! Yet in fact, by coming to the course armed with just enough knowledge to derail humility, I am struggling.

These drawings of seedpods were created over a six-month period by an 8 year old whose journey began by not knowing and a lack of shame for what she did not know. 

Repetition of a task lends itself to developing habits of tenacity that lead to mastery.

Alex, my four-year old grandchild works on a challenging puzzle. There was a clear desire for an achievable “small” mastery as the puzzle was dumped out and restarted again and again.    

Husband Eric working to become a Master Caster. He describes the process as re-programming muscle memory combined with psyching himself out.

Repetition—doing something over and over and over again—makes you get good at it, and as a cook that is what our lives are about. It’s about that repetition—going to work every day and doing the same thing; it’s not always something new.

Thomas Keller on one road to becoming a chef. 

And the recipes this time? They are designed to engage us in what I call reasonable mastery—achievable through attentiveness and patience and some skill:

Gougères, exquisite cheesy puff appetizers, husband Eric's favorite pie crust recipe and his pie baking tips  and one way to roast a red pepper. 

Take time, be kind to yourself and you will be amply and deliciously rewarded. 

Tools for Quiet

As an avid reader of food writers, I place Bill Buford’s book Heat at the top of my list of informative, insightful and sometimes hysterically funny reads. Within the nesting doll stories about the restaurant, Babbo, his experience as an apprentice line cook and Italian food and its future lies my favorite anecdote. During a stint in a tiny restaurant in Panzano, Italy, where he was charged with stirring the ragu for eight hours, Bill worried a lot about dumping the hard-won sauce on the floor, about his very long apron catching on fire as the pot was suspended from a gas ring on the floor and of course disappointing his chef.  The ring of fire, the slow cooking ragu, the apron locked around his waist by a tight knot and his desire to prove himself.  And then the apron does catch on fire--described as an inferno—and he and the chef Dario wrestle mightily to untie its strings. 

Illustration by Simone Rein

I remembered this story differently as an example of the meditative possibilities of cooking; its repetition of movement without encumbrance of typically racing thoughts and a desire for the “efficiencies” of multi-tasking. What I now understand in re-reading Bill’s story, is that his mind was racing so much so, that he did not realize that he was literally on fire.  Rather than destroying my thesis--that the repetition of handwork, the simplest of tools, the discipline to create internal quiet and the external demands of something that will not be rushed are actually akin to the precepts of meditation--I am feeling even more certain. 

My way to calm down has little to do with physical stillness.  I make jam, and it is now high season for the seemingly endless repetition of cutting fruit into smallish pieces, macerating it in sugar and lemon juice and cooking until the alchemy occurs –gel point! 

Pasqual and his Santa Rosa plums at the Pasadena farmers market

There is a certain irony to today’s post in that the food offerings are all slow-mo cooking requiring extended time with a stove top or oven. 

But the season’s yield of fruit just keeps coming with encouraging and sometimes desperate little messages from friends, “I have 1,000 apricots, really! Is it time to make jam?” “We have more Rangpur limes. I hate to see them wasted.” 

There is the rare opportunity of stumbling upon Pasqual at the Saturday farmers market selling the impossible to find Santa Rosa plums, many bruised and thus perfect for jam. I cleaned him out and promised him a jar. And there are my memories of Southeast Asia where we ate food that matched the day’s scorching heat as sweating was a part of cooling. 

There is another irony in that the perception of food making, a deeply centering activity for me and most serous cooks, has been hijacked by media as intense, competitive and requiring supernatural speed to the finish line.

So here we go…a slow down for our overheated times.

I wondered if anyone else found inner quiet through the rhythm of activity instead of physical stillness.  Here from some of my hyper-productive friends is a beautiful secret--they are actually able to find the most precious of quietness through their hands, their senses and extended times alone.  The physical beauty of strawberries, of almost purple, dried hominy for blue corn masa, taking joy in a beautiful knife and its precision when chopping, the scent of pozole cooking slowly can win the battle between a distracted mind and a centered body.

Blue corn and blue corn masa from El Mercado in Boyle Heights.

My favorite very hard working knife. 

Mario Rodriguez' pozole. Photo by Ann Cutting.

Some of the most effective worker bees are so, because they enter the zone seemingly effortlessly.  What I find truly delightful as a person who has waded into and stayed in the deepest end of the arts pond and am now doing the same with food, is that there are so many similarities between cooks/chefs and artists, especially when they enter what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes as flow. 

First Observation:

After speaking with even the busiest chefs and artists, I realize that every single one of them does something essential for their souls and their creative spirits. They find time to be alone.

Sumi Chang of Europane Bakery with one of her favorite baking tools, an offset spatula.

Sumi arrives at her bakery by two in the morning for the quiet that allows her to stop thinking.  “No one is around. I am just kind of focused and nothing bothers me…whether I have employee problems, or whatever at that moment. When I focus, I don’t think about them, I think about taste, flavors and textures. I lose track of time.”

Second Observation:

In the case of serious cooks and chefs, there is a reverence for the simplest of tools, which act as an extension of their hand, body, history, palate and spirit: a simple spoon, a knife, a 70-year old mortar and pestle (molcajete) passed down from grandmother to mother, a rolling pin. For some, there is almost a superstitious belief in the tool’s essential role in assuring their proficiency, much like a baseball player’s special bat.   

Grant Yegiazaryan of Su-Beoreg and Monta Factory rolling the dough that frames cheese and herbs for his wife Evelina’s beoreg, a family recipe.  The rolling pin, described as irreplaceable, is an extension of his arms. “No other rolling pin will make this dough.” Photos by Ann Cutting.

Mario Rodriguez holding his mother’s molcajete, passed down from his grandmother. The patina created by traces of ground spice is a part of its beauty. Photo by Ann Cutting.

Steve Brown, executive chef and former teacher at the New School for Cooking and his special spoon with his name engraved on the handle, a gift from a sous chef. 

 Third Observation

Chance favors the prepared mind.

Louis Pasteur

In the case of artists and cooks, chance favors an attentive spirit – resilient, observant, trusting of senses and understanding the dialectic between intent and awareness of possibility.

Ann Cutting leading and being led in the formation of a stoneware bowl. As a researcher, a photographer, a teacher and ceramicist, she, too, describes being unaware of time and ceding control by allowing for surprise within four exacting disciplines. 

The bringing of the clay into a spinning, unwobbling pivot, which will then be 'free to take innumerable shapes as potter and clay press against each other. The firm, tender, sensitive pressure which yields as much as it asserts. It is like a handclasp between two living hands, receiving the greeting at the very moment that they give it. It is this speech between the hand and the clay that makes me think of dialogue. And it is a language far more interesting than the spoken vocabulary which tries to describe it, for it is spoken not by the tongue and lips but by the whole body, by the whole person, speaking and listening. And with listening too, it seems to me, it is not the ear that hear.It is not the physical organ that performs that act of inner receptivity.

Mary Caroline Richards from Centering, in Pottery Poetry and the Person

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Francesca Mallus, teacher and chef, kneading pasta dough.

Fourth Observation

The confluence of time standing still, of being led by senses as well as mind, of quietness can change our perception of experience. 

For Mario, the molcajete is a physical link to a grandmother long dead.  For Sumi, the memory of the scent of roasting chiles at the Santa Fe farmer’s market is the identifier rather than a calendar for the fall season.  And for Dennis Keeley, friend and photographer, his apricot jam is a link to the memory of its making.

Photo by Dennis Keeley

“So… I can’t even begin to express how much this day has meant to me.  To have real friends that can talk, laugh, teach, make mistakes, work together, create, transform, process and just be a little more human is nothing short of a miracle in these difficult and complex times. It is so spiritually healing to be able to produce something of such exquisite beauty from a place that most people just call the backyard. It is a great reminder that special beauty does begin at home, but is not limited to just your own home.  I won’t soon forget what we made in your kitchen, how we made it, and every time I put apricot jam on bread, I know I won’t just be thinking back to this day, but it will be a flood of all these incredible feelings into that moment…”

To encourage your own experiences with slowing down, I offer Mario Rodriguez’ Pozole, Stone Fruit Jam for plums and apricots and a take on Bill Buford’s Very Slow Cooked Polenta. 

​Refrigerator Foraging as Micro-Activism

It has been a bad week for home organizing.  Too many last-minute “crises” to solve and a lot of eating on the run. The refrigerator is now a mash up of past-their-prime mushrooms, half an avocado, multiple containers of lovingly packaged leftovers, and some standbys–eggs (hard boiled and not), mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, a large jar of anchovies and a small ball of fresh mozzarella from Roma Market bought a few days ago in a moment of inspiration. 

Why? I don’t know.  I happened to be in the neighborhood, needed a quick lunch on the run and was distracted by Roma’s delights. 

On my kitchen counter, two once-nice Yukon gold potatoes are just beginning to sprout eyes; there are multiple heads of garlic, a couple of shallots and a lot of lemons.  

Salade Composé made after my refrigerator foraging. Never the same, always delicious.  Photo by Ann Cutting.

Poached eggs--a basic food preparation technique dressed up with glorious leftovers. Artist plate by Steve Wong.

What to do? An answer to this particular dilemma lies in this week's food offerings--all of which are designed to transform those crazy quilt bits of this and that into something delicious.  These offerings are not recipes; rather they are guides designed to give you unlimited opportunities to make gold out of dross. They reference what many describe as technique, which is how our grandmothers cooked--basic know how combined with economy and a scarcity of ingredients rather than a recipe dictated run to the supermarket. 

Besides cleaning out my refrigerator without waste, I may have entered the very satisfying world of micro-activism.  But first a bit of context with thanks to my good friend Hope Schneider, who began by instructing me on the etymology of the word economics.  

 /ɛkəˈnɑːmɪks/, /ikəˈnɑːmɪks/

From economy, from Latin oeconomia, from Ancient Greek oixovuia (oikonomia, "management of a household) from lidos (oikos - house) + view (memo, distribute, allocate).  

I was gratified to learn that the word economics, which I understood to be large scale systems applied to whole countries, began as a description of a single home's stewarding of assets and resources.  

And now onto micro-activism.  How then does my simple desire to treat food as a finite resource connect to whole system change?  I turned to several local heroes moving from the individual to whole systems change makers in considering the tradeoffs around small "e" economics in both our personal and our society's values. Values that often place efficiency and convenience over the stewardship of our food resources.  

During World War II, it was considered patriotic to avoid food waste.  Rationing was a part of life and somehow we survived. 

Beverly LaFontaine in her herb garden.                               Mattie Brown, Beverly's mother 

Beverly LaFontaine, a poet and reliable sage about most things, is unimpressed with her very simple take on managing her meals probably because there is nothing difficult or unusual about it. She lives alone and her priorities center on writing, creating jewelry, exploring visual art and scheduled time with her grandchildren. There is no preciousness to her cooking style, but it is rooted in her own mother's way of conserving both time and resources for what matters. She does not waste anything.  Vegetables about to turn are frozen for later use to be added to her delicious Chicken and Vegetable Soup made once every two weeks. And despite this apparent indifference to fussing, she is committed to eating something that is both healthy and delicious everyday. 

Carolyn Bennett's luncheon of beautiful bits and pieces many of which are pickles--a food that can be stored for many months.  

Carolyn Bennet lives in the agriculturally rich area of Ojai.  She maintains a fruit orchard, hosts a beekeeper's hives and neighbor's grape vines, and manages a rotating plot of herbs and vegetables, including last year's bumper crop of artichokes. Her commitment to food sourcing and preparing is well outside the norm, but Carolyn's prodigious energy and interest in sharing a community table are central to her being. She invites all to pick and share. Her lunch of bits and pieces came together in moments, but the time to pickle and preserve was an exercise in planning, stewarding and storing the abundance of summer's harvest.  

Therese Brummel of Transition Pasadena

Therese Brummel, one of the founders of Transition Pasadena, described as "a movement of communities coming together to reimagine and rebuild our world," began this work after a severe injury forced her to quit nursing.  She describes herself as "always an organizer," and the move from the institutional setting of a hospital to community was surprisingly seamless.  Projects range from building sustainable gardens in public spaces such as the 8,000 square foot "food forest" at Throop Church and the native plant garden at the Jackie Robinson Post Office to establishing the Repair Cafe.  As of now, the Cafe has a surfeit of volunteers ready and willing to add new life to household goods and is on the look out for larger indoor space to hold its roving free events.   

Rick Nahmias of Food Forward

Rick Nahmias, Founder and Director of Food Forward, began his activism as a documentary photographer.  Food Forward allowed him to move from what he described as a "two dimensional" career to one that is "four dimensional"--living rather than recording the story.  Food Forward's website is a model of economy in describing its work as:  "Harvest Food, Fight Hunger, Build Community."  Every week, through volunteer picking events and institutional partnerships, 300,000 pounds of surplus produce is rescued and reused from fruit trees in individual and community yards, farmers markets and the Los Angeles Wholesale Produce Market and donated to direct service agencies including youth programs, shelters, food pantries and senior centers.  

The scale of these fruit "rescues" ranges from one person to massive group efforts requiring pallets to transport the yield.  More than anything I could write, Rick's description of Food Forward's work reinforces the impact of micro activism on our community.  "Any individual from 8 to 80 can harvest fruit and immediately change a person's life. Because of the sturdiness of that fruit, it will last a couple of days. You take an orange off a tree and give it to someone in need.  At its core, Food Forward is about sharing abundance. This is about a gifting community, not a bartering system. There is something quite beautiful about giving without thought of return. We need this sense of positive impact and generosity more than ever."  

Now moving from micro, to community to country and to the world, the connection between our individual patterns and choice is never more evident.  

A very, very ripe tomato and avocado caught in the nick of time with fresh mozzarella. 

Just consider Adam Chandler's 2016 article in The Atlantic,  which states "...roughly 50 percent of all produce in the United States is thrown away—some 60 million tons (or $160 billion) worth of produce annually. Wasted food is also the single biggest occupant in American landfills. What causes this? A major reason is that food is cheaper in the United States than nearly anywhere else in the world. But the great American squandering of produce appears to be a cultural dynamic as well, enabled in large part by a national obsession with the aesthetic quality of food." 

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that, each year, one-third of all food produced for human consumption in the world (around 1.3 billion tons) is lost or wasted. If food waste were a country, it would rank behind only the US and China for greenhouse gas emissions.  

Ross Chainey, World Economic Forum, August 2015

Take heart! The first step to micro-activism is awareness that leads to a drive for internal change.  Here to fortify that desire to become a diligent refrigerator forager and possible community activist are a collection of  "the basics" of food preparation techniques and a link to more heroic efforts in reducing food waste now underway throughout the world.  

Last, but not least are the words of Sister Simone Campbell, Executive Director of Network and the leader of the Nuns on the Bus Movement.  

"We are a hungry nation, in every sense of the word.  Many are hungry for physical nourishment; all of us are hungry for good words, and hungry for knowledge that we are not alone.  We are so hungry for community, to know we have each other's back, to know that we are together in this nation." 

Sister Simone Campbell of Network. Photo by Dennis Keeley.

Neighborhood Foraging as Entry to Community

Pasadena and Altadena's seasonal indicators are different than what we have come to know from most other places as fall, winter, spring, and summer.  Our seasons enter our consciousness more through taste, color, and smell than temperature.  They slide into one another without distinct fanfare until suddenly it is too hot to think or do. Winter into spring is heralded by the distinct combination of orange and green as citrus fruits ripen and fill our trees. Spring into early summer is a purple time: our Jacaranda trees come alive with bloom that eventually turn whole sidewalks into a softening carpet of blossoms.  And then summer into fall when night blooming jasmine perfumes our evenings; a scent that takes me back to my childhood and awakens my four-year old grandson's wonder--what is that Grandma? 

In the time between winter and spring, my foraging instinct led me to what could only be described as the sweetest way to enter my new neighborhood--through sharing this abundance. I noted tree after tree loaded with citrus fruit, most of it unpicked, just beckoning me to turn what might be wasted into marmalades and candied citrus from newly discovered fruit varieties. Through the neighborhood website, I made a pitch for harvesting anyone's excess fruit and gifting in return a large jar or two of marmalade.  

In less than a week, my message box was full of generous offers. Three of these exchanges became longer visits that led to a sense of my community knitting even more firmly together. Pasadena and Altadena bear little resemblance to New York, but the words of Jane Jacobs,  tireless warrior for her city's soul resonate never the less.   

While you are looking, you might as well also listen, linger and think about what you see.

The first fundamental of successful city life: People must take a modicum of responsibility for each other even if they have no ties to each other. This is a lesson no one learns by being told. It is learned from the experience of having other people without ties of kinship or close friendship or formal responsibility...

New York, Altadena and Pasadena are places with character and complexity, with layers worth excavating.  In this case, I began with the search for oranges. 

Elizabeth is a retired professor of Linguistics and Archeology at Occidental College who has lived in this area most of her life as her father was a mathematics professor at Cal Tech.  Her memories are vivid because she continues to live what she loved as a child. "My parents had very little money," she says, " and so took up cooking and folk dancing as forms of affordable recreation. I remember they had a large cold storage area for our home canned fruits where I would help my mother and grandmother wipe the jar tops and take them down there. I was probably three or four."  

The Waylands, Elizabeth's parents in the early 1950s. The Rangpur Lime marmalade tradition began here. 

Like her parents, she exhibits a resourcefulness that transforms a problem or scarcity to opportunity.  Her scholarly focus on the lesser known contributions of "women's" work from the bronze age forward is a testament to resiliency and imagination. Although a stretch, I believe her family's creation of a delicious marmalade out of an intensely sour fruit whose origins are Northern India is a sure sign that adventurousness runs in her family.  

Kate Sullivan and Ed Verreaux with the "old orange tree" and picker.  

The cryptic message said, "Come and pick from your old orange trees, Kate."  I noted the street as the same as a former home of mine without making a connection until I spoke with Kate.  Fifteen years ago, Kate and husband Ed's home had been a glorious nest for my daughter and me.  "My" old orange tree had survived and thrived under their care.  

I picked a generous portion of navel oranges with the very picker I had  given them those many years ago and then took a tour.  The waves of sadness and memory I felt were bound up in knowing that our houses have lives that extend beyond our own. 

Martha holding a jar of her father-in-law Victor Jaramillo's honey. 

This generous and beautiful jar of honey was given to me in exchange for marmalade by Martha Jaramillo, manager of my daughter and son-in-law's apartment in Pasadena.  She and I like to talk food and ingredients, which led to a discussion about my marmalade bonanza.  Talk turned to her father-in-law, Victor, a venerable bee keeper living in nearby El Sereno.  

Victor Jaramillo at his honey stand next door to the El Sereno Library. 

I visited Victor at his home and honey stand on a busy stretch of street between the El Sereno Library and a church.  Describing himself as the "oldest beekeeper in the world," Victor will be 94 on June 28th.  He has been keeping bees his entire life. As a 15-month old in Zacatecas, Mexico, he experienced his first honey harvest riding on his father's back.  He had a talent for finding bee swarms even as a young child. 

His bees rest at night in a jumble of hives scattered around the front and side of his old wood frame house and "work" during the day in various nearby locales: the hills of El Sereno and Bouquet Canyon and the gardens and hillsides in South Pasadena. Earliest to rise, latest to rest, along with some honey every day is his recipe for longevity.  

Victor sells his honey every Saturday and some Mondays during daylight hours.  It is, as he says, "the best honey in the world." 

Navel and blood oranges from my generous neighbors.

As tangible delights from my adventures, here are this week's recipes: Orange Marmalade with a  Rangpur Lime variation, Candied Orange Peel, Eric's Anasazi Beans with Honey and Rumi Mahmood's Jhal Gosht Curry with Rangpur Lime Marmalade as a bracing condiment. 

For those of you wishing to try your hand at foraging, a bit of advice.  Don't be afraid to stop if you see something interesting: a small stand of fruit, someone selling their own baked goods, or even a mysterious food in a store.  I am an inveterate question asker and have found that my inquires usually evoke delight and the beginning of connection.  For those of you who live on the east side of Los Angeles, I recommend Lily and Steve's Porch Market in Altadena, an occasional celebration of carefully crafted and grown foods complete with free coffee and baked good samples.  

I leave you as well with a poem that reminds me of the reason I forage.  Not so much for any particular orange, but where that first small connection can lead.  In this case to people with histories and lives worth knowing and honoring. 

Oranges by Roisin Kelly 

I’ll choose for myself next time                                                                                               who I’ll reach out and take                                                                                                     as mine, in the way                                                                                                                 I might stand at a fruit stall...

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A Definition of Nourishment: A Baker's Life Part II

nour·ish·ment - ˈnəriSHmənt/ . noun

1. the food or other substances necessary for growth, health, and good condition.

2. the action of nourishing someone or something.

Many of us have heard the discouraging statistics about American's food quality, the loss of crop diversity, the subsidizing of corn to the detriment of any other produce and the destructive impact of our food industry's "efficiencies."   National Geographic reported that 94% of the world's vegetable seeds circa 1903 are now missing from the earth. A recently aired documentary, SEED: The Untold Story, is a richly documented adventure story of world wide seed savers determined to hold and cherish our planet's bio diversity. These seed savers literally comb the earth for food varieties that were once common and are now rare.  

Taking this possibly overwhelming issue to the local and more "digestible" level moves me to my food purchasing choices, a consideration of value and the prohibitive cost of some high quality food products.   Local Pasadena baker Joseph Abrakjian attempts to balance the reality of his cost of running an ethical business with consumer access.  But the question of value continues to dog Joseph, who at times feels personally affronted when a customer questions the $7 dollar price for a loaf of bread.  On the other hand, he has been counseled by artisan food making peers that his products are under priced.  But, he has said with feeling, "good bread should not be a luxury."

Joseph Abrakjian at Seed Bakery removing those loaves fresh from the bread oven. 

Bread samples by volume and by the ounce.

While I always lead with taste and quality of ingredients as a criteria for value, many families on restricted budgets can not. So I conducted a little experiment by purchasing 3 loaves of bread.  Rustic Country Pan Loaf at Seed Bakery and two commercially produced loaves, Nature's Harvest Whole Grain and the ubiquitous Wonder Bread, at my local Von's Supermarket. On an ounce by ounce basis, Joseph's bread, while more expensive than two store bought loaves, is actually closer in price than is first understood.  Each slice of his Rustic Country weighs more than twice as much as a slice of Wonder Bread or Harvest Whole Grain.  

And then there are the ingredient comparisons.  There is nothing to be written here other than--wow! 

Avoid food products containing ingredients that no ordinary human would keep in the pantry.

Michael Pollan, Food Rules: An Eater's Manual.

And then there is taste.  While one of my childhood memories includes the deep satisfaction that compressing a slice of Wonder Bread into a tiny, dense ball gave me, this particular delight has worn off. Joseph's Rustic Country has a gorgeous texture and just a slight tang of sour dough. There is no mystery to his ingredients.  They are heirloom grains milled by Joseph, water and sea salt. 

How can a nation be great if their bread tastes like Kleenex?   

Julia Child

Roger Thomas, Egg farmer and owner of Thomas Farms.

And then if we want to go even more deeply into the question of nourishment as value, consider for a moment the story of one of Seed's many food purveyors. Roger Thomas, single dad of four boys and owner of the ten acre Thomas Farms in Twenty-Nine Palms. His Rhode Island Red hens are pasture raised and lay their eggs in a large barn where they are free to come and go as they please.

And there are Seed's nine employees who know the regulars and are clearly pretty happy as there has been little or no turnover since the early days.  

And there is the community around Seed, where we receive so much more than simple food nourishment.  

And then there is the link between our little weekly action and the world's food supply. Who knew that we could support biodiversity, by investing a bit more on a loaf of bread?  

A recipe that connects the dots between good nutrition, delicious taste and very low cost comes from one of my favorite cookbooks, Good and Cheap: Eat Well on $4 a Day by Leanne Brown.  This is a revelatory book that began with the consideration of the daily SNAP (formerly known as food stamps) allowance as one of its "design" challenges along with self-financing its publication through Kickstarter.  In her introduction, Leanne writes, "Kitchen skill, not budget, is the key to great food. This cookbook is a celebration of the many delicious meals available to those on even the most strict of budgets."  I would add that all of these recipes are created from wholesome, easily found ingredients and draw their flavor profiles from the cultural richness of our various communities. As proof, try her Roti recipe.  In remembering my days as a young, single mother running a non-profit, time was an equally precious resource.  This Roti recipe required 10 minutes of active cooking time and yielded 16 delicious rounds of hot, puffed flatbread ready to be filled with scrambled eggs or dipped into soups, curries or stews.  

And as usual, some poetic musings, this time on bread and its unenending forms of nourishment. 

The smell of good bread baking, like the sound of lightly flowing water, is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight.  

M.F.K. Fischer

Peace goes into the making of a poem as flour goes into the making of bread.

Pablo Neruda

Above, Alex, our favorite preschool gourmet, relishing some of Joesph's Rustic Country Pan Loaf. His pronouncement: This is really yummy. 

A Baker's Life

Whole grains ready for milling.

Last year, I think my obsession with learning about the real work of baking hit a new high or low depending on how you feel about early morning waking.  For one month, every Wednesday, at 4:15 a.m., the alarm on my phone routed me out of bed where I drove to SEED Bakery in Pasadena to help and watch Joseph Abrakjian, master baker at work. The following is a snapshot of my experience and Seed's evolution from new business to community treasure.

I learned the old fashioned way, doing the same task over and over again-nothing fancy- just hard labor, scraping cold dough out of tubs, cutting and weighing it for the bake  and sometimes trying bread shaping. My experience was at the tail end of the process which began 24 hours prior with the leavening being made-flour, water, and time.  It thickens and ferments slowly and then various flours are added, each one ground out of whole heritage grains-rye, whole wheat, spelt and white depending on the finished bread. 

Joseph’s practice as a master bread baker reminds me of a confident artist maintaining a discipline, but forever learning and experimenting.  He knows how to create a stronger and more flavorful dough–patience as the first requirement, a slow fermentation, not over mixing, and adding salt to the mix after another waiting time called “the autolyse.”  He knows that each dough has a different character depending on the type of flour. Some are robust and can take my tentative shaping while others are truly fussy–the pastry, baguette and ciabatta dough. 

Joseph’s practice as a master bread baker reminds me of a confident artist-maintaining a discipline, but forever learning and experimenting.

From about 5 tp 7 in the morning–it is quiet concentration.  Restaurant chefs come to order bread in the early morning and supplies are delivered.  He manages to keep a number of processes in order, dough that is about to be baked, pastry cream to be made, shaping, and holding.   At times the bread does not come out of the oven until 8:30 while customers begin to sneak in around 7:45 before opening time.  Pastries are baked to hold the demand back for bread and for the breakfast crowd.  And then the bread shows up-olive, walnut wheat, spelt, baguettes, rustic country, ciabatta.  

Ingredients are sourced with care from the za'atar seasoning his dad brought here from Lebanon to organic eggs, vegetables, fruits and ethically raised meat. The food is gorgeous, fresh and generous.  The customers are returning,  are becoming regulars while the word spreads and a community is forming.  

Joseph Abrakjian and Pam Watanabe of SEED Bakery, Photography by Ann Cutting 

Joseph’s calling is clear–make beautiful food, help others appreciate it.  But the commitment is something I did not realize until I made my own 3-hour weekly promise to come and help and learn.

Seed is experiencing growing pains–more success than they expected–and a need for good counter people and baking support.  I realize that the world of a high quality, small business is like the beautiful and fragile bowl of many, promising non-profits I have worked with–something that needs to be held with care.  Grow while maintaining quality–don’t grow so quickly that the work becomes punishing, stay in the moment while planning the next step, don’t lose sight of the vision/joy.  

I realize that the world of a high quality, small business is like the beautiful and fragile bowl of many, promising non-profits I have worked with–something that needs to be held with care.

Joseph's beautiful bread, straight out of the oven.

Bread baking tools--Bannetons for proofing and dough scraper

Postscript, May 2017 

Seed is flourishing, having recently expanded into the retail space next door. Joseph and Pam now employ 9  people including a second bread baker, a pastry chef and 2 cooks.  Joseph still arrives at 3:00 a.m. as the demand  for bread and pastries continues unabated and his commitment to quality holds.  But now the bread comes out well before the customers arrive. 

DIY

 If you are interested in learning more about bread baking,  Los Angeles provides a treasure trove of resources.  Novice and advanced bakers are welcomed by Los Angeles Bread Bakers, an active Meet Up group organized by Eric Knutzen.  Their introductory classes are fun, inexpensive and a great way to enter the world of healthy, delicious bread baking.  They also sell excellent quality organic flour in bulk at extremely reasonable prices and at times offer specialized workshops for advanced bakers.  The Institute of Domestic Technology, Joseph Shuldiner's brain child, often runs Food Crafting 101, which includes bread baking among its "basics."  King's Roost, a retail store in Silver Lake,  sells milling and bread making equipment and offers classes on a regular basis.  

For those wishing to enter the pinnacle of bread making, a number of artisan bread baking pioneers have shared their secrets.  The bible for these committed souls appears to be Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson.  Almost every serious bread baker I know owns a flour dusted copy.   

As I am a believer in the adage that the perfect can be the enemy of the good, my go to recipe for bread baking is the Twenty-One Hour Boule. The recipe's ease has made it a standard part of my food making repertoire and this beautiful, fragrant boule embodies the idea of nourishment in all of its glory.  Give it a try and please share any of your favorite bread baking experiences here.  

Preschool Gourmet

My four-year old grandchild, Alex, provides a font of observations for me. I watch Alex play, but as a food aficionado, I watch with deeper interest his developing taste. There are innumerable articles and books about children at play; but little about children eating.  One of the more memorable exceptions is the Margaret Mead film, Four Families, in which the anthropologist documented how parents from India, Canada, France and Japan fed their babies.  For some reason, the French mother's style continues to resonate with me 30 years later.   Despite my skepticism about Ms. Mead's habit of extrapolating whole cultural norms from an individual example-  I remember thinking-that this mother's form of feeding nourishes more than the body. Meal time was a moment of connection--sharing the mashed potatoes with her little boy and his older brother while laughing and playing.   Eating, even at his early age, held the potential for delight  and communion rather than being a hurried chore.

Above: Scenes from Four Families,  a documentary by Margaret Mead.

Beginning at two, Alex would eat almost everything.  Rather than editing his food repertoire, he has emerged as an adventurous 'try - er."  He loves fresh fruit, especially the spring bounty of strawberries. His emerging vocabulary is most proficient in describing a growing list of favorite foods: oranges, apples, strawberries, biscuits, chocolate cookies, cake, scrambled eggs and most recently the rather pungent homemade pickles I make. I have never dumbed down his food. He eats what we do.  His latest description is “hot” when something has a bit too much spice. My garlicky vinaigrette is “hot.”

When he likes something, it is obvious. He eats with complete concentration, often pronouncing the food as “yummy.”  If he loves something, it joins an ongoing series of eclectic food requests: pork bun from our favorite dim sum restaurant and most recently home made gefilte fish. (Really!) 

The shared meal elevates eating from a mechanical process of fueling the body to a ritual of family and community, from the mere animal biology to an act of culture.

Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

Older brother Anthony set the tone for eating with enjoyment. Breakfast with grandpa; home-made sausages in the foreground. 

Chinatown plates by Steve Wong. 

He also knows that eating means sitting down and “conversing” while he speaks. His love of food means asking for more (often before he is done) and learning to respond with a thank you when served.

I realize in watching him that great experiences with food are similar to great experiences in general. We learn when something is deeply felt. And the learning within a sensory rich environment is multi-faceted. He is socializing, he is tasting, he is creating preferences, he is waiting, he is expressing his desires and he is enjoying himself.

When I cook, I invite him into the kitchen. He has learned that the stove surface is another kind of hot. He has whisked meringues for me, stirred a sauce, shaped a meat ball and torn lettuce leaves. He now knows that food does not magically appear.  It is the end of a process added to by his participation.  When he sees the table set, he scrambles onto his seat proclaiming loudly, “let's eat!” 

His twelve year old brother Anthony is becoming a proficient cook, so much so, that I invite him into the kitchen as a sous chef whenever possible.  He is a more than competent right hand guy when making jam and marmalade with me and is now the breakfast cook whenever he sleeps over.  No one has the patience to make scrambled eggs the way he does, slowly on low heat after first melting a generous amount of butter in the pan.  He grates some parmesan cheese on top as a finishing touch.  

Today, for your eating pleasure are three of Alex's favorites:  Orange Almond Cake, a custardy dessert made with whole cooked oranges, almond flour and a generous number of eggs along with his big brother Anthony's Scrambled Eggs with Parmesan Cheese.  To round out these eggy delights is the bright and seasonal home made Strawberry Jam, surprisingly easy and a great recipe to share with budding cooks and gourmets.    

And for your reading pleasure two of my favorite poems about food. 

This Is Just To Say

William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

A Newborn Girl at Passover  

Nan Cohen

Consider one apricot in a basket of them.

It is very much like all the other apricots--

an individual already, skin and seed.

Now think of this day.  One you will probably forget.

The next breath you take, a long drink of air.

Holiday or not, it doesn't matter.

A child is born and doesn't know what day it is.

The particular joy in my heart she cannot imagine.

The taste of apricots is in store for her.

Alex, now 4, still enjoys mealtime.  Fruit salad with fresh mint he helped prepare. 

Family History Part II

Date Pie and the Question of Ephemera

e·phem·er·a      əˈfem(ə)rə/ , noun

1. things that exist or are used or enjoyed for only a short time.

   • items of collectible memorabilia, typically written or printed ones, that were originally expected to have only short-term usefulness or popularity.

Mecca, Thermal, La Quinta, Thousand Palms.  Date farms and shops have dotted the desert highways in and around the Coachella Valley since the early 1920's, the towns' names indicating the extremes of this environment (survival, beauty, intense heat, and its particular crop - date palms).  I particularly love the name La Quinta - meaning "The Fifth" - the fifth what?  By some accounts, it used to mean a stop along the way after a long journey.  So, these dates, these towns, became intermittent oases of welcome and nourishment in what had been a huge, largely uninhabitable stretch of the Coachella Valley. 

Dates too are a staple of various Middle Eastern countries whose climates echo our own deserts' intensity. These  sweet nuggets have found their way into multiple home cooks' repertoires including my stepmom Margie's Date Pie. Her recipe stands out to me as one that was far removed from the extremes of its origin.  Instead, it was a well loved Thanksgiving alternative to pumpkin pie.  Less sweet, more dense in texture, with an incredibly complex set of flavors as nearly all of its essence is extracted from this sturdy little miracle fruit.  It became one of the most anticipated winter desserts, usually served after a family camping trip to Joshua Tree.  

Now the question of ephemera. Patric Kuh, restaurant critic for Los Angeles Magazine, described drawing inspiration for his recent publication, Finding the Flavors We Lost, from the Huntington Library's recently acquired  Anne Cranston American Regional and Charitable Cookbook Collection. (Yes there is such a collection-4,400 items.  Be still my beating heart!). While the various ingredients, tastes, food making techniques have changed- the Jello mold dulled by  sour cream or marshmallow fluff and speckled with canned fruit as a comical example-the Cranston collection holds more tenacious truths. In a recent lecture at the Huntington, Kuh described Ms. Cranston's capacity to find value in rapidly written directions on the backs of bank statements, envelopes, and scribbled-over pages of books, as "a testament to what we don't throw away."  And so, are these many scraps and formerly loved flavors ephemera, or part of a long and sometimes delicious cultural history? 

" I think of recipes in a different way...they are signs of curiosity, sales tools, ways of belonging, a means of organization...great historical markers..."

 Patric Kuh

I so prefer the poetry of his definition. Although the individual card, envelope, and plastic comb bound book, often are considered ephemera, their impact on the meaning of these larger ideas of culture remain. For your poetic and eating enjoyment, alongside the Date Pie Recipe, aka way of belonging, sales tool, and historical marker, I include the Ma'amoul Cookie, aka great historical marker, a way of belonging and for me a sign of curiosity-a Lebanese date filled dessert eaten at Ramadan through Eid, and at Easter.  Time to try something new, Easter (April 16) and Ramadan (May 26-June 25) are upon us! 

Recipe for Ma'amoul and its creator, Ashkgyn

Do you have a food making or eating experience that goes well beyond a series of directions? 

Family History Part I

During the lull between the winter holidays and New Years, I used the quiet to unpack some of my  recipe collections.  The one that stopped me in my tracks was a small 3x5 scotch plaid patterned box holding my dad and stepmother's well used recipe cards.  My dad's almost illegible handwriting, a folded page of carefully typed Tuna Pancake instructions -- the food stains evidencing the popularity of this dish.  Despite sounding horrible, the pancakes (or tortillas) were quite delicious. Each recipe carried with it a memory more specific than the ingredients.  

Like a cultural anthropologist on steroids, I began to dissect these cards noticing the common use of rich, but pedestrian ingredients.  Most dishes were casseroles, stews and soups requiring simple pantry ingredients and slow cooking. The names of these dishes evoke a different time, Western Meal in One, Rumanian Cabbage Soup, Swedish Meatballs.  The reference to "foreign" foods (Rumanian and Swedish)  echo the very different demographics of Los Angeles at that time.  Based on the 1960 census, we were a county of about 6 million people of which more than 5 million were white, largely suburban, and "middle class."  Our understanding of authentic, culturally diverse eating was constrained by our inexperience, access and naiveté.  Descriptors like the "Far East" referenced a framing of our known experience as central both geographically and psychically.   

"Everybody is ethnic though nobody will call a French restaurant that. But those guys are as ethnic as anybody else.”  Jonathan Gold

These eating "adventures" were just a faint echo of the food and eating revolution that was to come.  We, lucky ones who now live in Los Angeles County, are part of 10 million. Latinos represent nearly 50%, followed by whites, and then ethnicities whose descriptions reference a growing understanding of identity, culture and community.  With this distinctiveness and connection comes a brilliant authenticity in food ingredients, sources, and evolving tastes.  

Artist plate by Steve Wong.

For your eating pleasure and dive into Los Angeles food history here is the original Tuna Pancake recipe circa 1960.  As a side by side, I include the ever brilliant home cook Mario Rodriguez' queso fundido.  While ingredients, heat level, and cultures seem to have little in common, they actually are neatly paired by the great trifecta of dairy, protein, and starch underscoring our enduring love of comfort food.  Both fill the bill beautifully.  Enjoy! 

Click here for Tuna Pancakes and Queso Fundido

Urban Foraging 101

A Joyful Welcome...

The idea of beginning a shared journal of food and community exploration can seem at this moment in time superfluous.  Even as I write - as if to echo my sentiments an email notification sounds - another alarm bell, another outrage.  

And then I remember, that the essence of health for me is a gathering of community - a celebration of something that honors our heritage, our nourishment, our connection to sensory delights, our varied experiences.  

All of these ideas land firmly in the world of cooking and breaking bread, tortillas, biscuits, naan together.   My experiences with food as entry point to connection began as a child in the Philippines sharing Fiesta day feasts with my neighbors.  The generosity, care, and delight in creating a festive meal cemented my sense of belonging despite my outsider status.  Without effort, I remember cones of spices, dried chilies, dried fish and frogs, the sounds of food hawkers competing with the visual overload.  Now, I only need to travel a few minutes away to a local Latin, Armenian, or Asian market to feel the same sense of delight and wonder.   

 I began documenting my experiences of community through food over a year ago.  I noticed that when asking a store owner, customer, or clerk about the uses of a then unknown food ingredient, they would light up and  barriers would fall away.  These conversations have led to meals created together, teachable moments for me, and yet another reminder that cooking is craft -- a form of mastery that is designed to nourish and engage us individually and communally.  

I welcome you to join me in this exploration...a form of foraging that extends beyond field and forest to my community.  

When drawn in concentric circles from my home, the foraging begins on the gorgeously food-rich Washington Boulevard in Pasadena and moves outward through Pasadena, the San Gabriel Valley, and the east side of Los Angeles.  The journey is purposely honoring of lesser traveled neighborhoods, where the smallness of a store may be easily overlooked, where a recipe has been handed down to us through the generations, and where the ingredients are truly a mystery.  I look forward to our learning together.