Food Conscience / Consciousness

So Chef Vinata titled this morning's lecture. She gave an impassioned introduction to the Slow Food movement. She said she doesn't like to speak negatively about anybody, but, in reference to fast food of all stripes and the resulting mechanized farming, mass distribution, and homogenization of product, she noted, "In this process, we are losing the old, the ancient, the species, the seed, the soil." She talked about the way that three thousand individual apple varietals in North America alone have been whittled down to eight or ten "harvested" varieties. She described glowingly the work of a hypothetical Sonoma cheesemaker, who knows his cows and goats and can make enough product to serve the local community, "and maybe he can open up a little shop in the Ferry Building." But he's not shipping cross-country.

She also talked about grass-roots movements in general, and the power of the collective, and, in an aside: "You may think I am just the hippie chef from India..." And at the end of the lecture, she directed our attention to the white board: "It may appear blank, but it is filled with space, space for you to go out and sow your own seeds. A place for you to make your mark." And then we turned our attention to cooking, salt-free.

We again had relatively free rein, and she urged us to use herbs, spices and vinegars creatively, to minimize our dependence on salt as a flavoring ingredient. I cooked polenta, a first for me, and flavored it generously with parmesan cheese and basil, then poured it into a sheet pan to solidify. Then I made a simple Italian-influenced stir fry: shallots, garlic, pine nuts, and broccoli, seasoned with fresh basi and oregano, cooked with some vegetable stock. I also made a balsamic reduction. You can try this at home. I reduced balsamic vinegar (use the "faux" stuff you can buy at the grocery store, not the fancy 25-year-old kind that you got in your Christmas stocking) until it was a thick syrup — a couple of drops of the reduction brightened up several of the dishes we shared today. Totally easy and amazing.


We had zucchini-garbanzo pancakes with curried tomato sauce, a cauliflower/chickpea/potato medley, some sautéed chicken breasts (marinated in ginger and orange juice), a arugula/roasted beet salad, lentil soup with feta, oatmeal-raising cookies made with pink peppercorns, and honey nutmeg lemonade.

Rudy returned after six days AWOL. Jordan and Travis arrived at about nine. Our group "grocery lists" were due today, and Travis sent Tashana his requirements via text message. She was incredulous, looking at her phone. "He wants 150 cloves of garlic!! Thirty bok choy!! Seventy-five shiitake mushrooms!! Two pounds of basil!!" Some sort of math error, clearly. We're supposed to be making twelve to fifteen servings of our menu items.

Jim wandered in about ten, as we were finishing our cooking and beginning to prepare the buffet. He spent more than an hour "updating" the grocery list that Dava and I developed this morning. I saw it after he'd turned it in. He's requested a dozen eggs. But we're the vegan team. He is SO not on the bus.