amuse-bouches (& the fire of transformation)

.....an "amuse-bouche" is a whimsical appetizer offered before the meal, invented by the chefs to please, tease and invite the taste buds to a kind of ecstacy....

what new can we create from the seemingly useless? how can we utilize as much of our food sources as possible?  

in the Conscious Kitchen, we work with creativity, resourcefulness and awareness in many different ways.  this is a recipe for a once-in-a-lifetime “amuse bouche” called Jeanne D’Arc.  the idea was hatched as a result of the sheer wonder evoked by very naked, vulnerable oranges whose skin had been "zested" and whose juice had been squeezed for other recipes and dishes already...coupled with our desire to create as little waste as possible.  our "collective chefs" worked with sheer inspiration with the parts of the orange that are FULL of nutrients, yet often overlooked as a potential ingredient.  

we transformed a seemingly useless skin into a fiery taste sensation.

"Jeanne D'Arc gave her life for something new to be born. There will be a fire of flavor exploding in your mouth"

in giving our recipes and dishes a unique name that captures the experience of creating the dish, we create a kind of wholeness, an invitation to remember not only the taste of the food, but its personality.  it is a way of saying "i hear you!" since the name is inspired from the ingredients, the process, and the context in which we find ourselves cooking so consciously together. 

the power of naming also brings to life a story.  and this story is a way to introduce our eaters to the food that is offering itself to us, and the light of inspiration from which it was created.  and that all of this - the food, the ingredients, the process, the love and inspiration - will be nourishing their bodies and souls....

food ingredients

2 oranges, using leftover peel 
     ...naked, wounded, surrendering with unexpected shining beauty and softness...

zested orange and lemon peel, 
     ....mixed with bit of freshly squeezed orange-juice and the leftover pulp from squeezing the orange

date-water 
       ...the soak water from dried Axladitsa dates creates a sweet water that can be used as a  sweetener...

greek honey

2 bananas, sliced

1 dark chocolate bar, cut into squares

wild fennel, freshly harvested from the walk on the wildside

       ....for extra-taste and decoration (a little Tree of Life on each island of fire)

preparation:

mash the orange peel and zests together. add some date water and honey, as needed and then roll them into balls. to arrange each amuse bouche, take a square of chocolate, add a slice of banana, the ball of orange and add a dash of wild fennel.

magic ingredients

the conditions for creating such amuses for our bouches is really about the kind of space we create together in order to be fully responsive to that which wants to be created.  it certainly helps to have a beautiful, spacious, sunny, windy kitchen, with life blowing through, in all its forms…this kind of vitality and life shows up in the spirit of teamwork that evokes fun, joy, laughter, reciprocity and trust ~ in one's own creativity and giving trust to each other to create;  spontaneity and improvisation that surprises oneself and others; wonder, details and beauty as essential ingredients;  resourcefulness that leads to surprisingly new and refreshing things born out of what we think is rubbish/ left overs/ compost/the old skin.... 

....is really a kind of hosting Life in all its potential....

thank you to Katrin Kohlbecher for her generous harvest of this recipe and experience

and to Richard Moreham and Julie Arts for their gleeful photos 

eating Light

...it seems we've lost a sense of wonder in the food we eat.  we have forgotten that our food is actually Light manifest. in the interplay of sun, earth, and elements is a magical alchemy creating the plants that give their bodies to us so we can receive energy. we are what we eat.  Light. Energy. Life. it is pure potential - how do we process this Light?  how do we give back with the energy we receive?...

in the joy of hosting a conscious kitchen as part of the Axladitsa Immersion, we really played with the idea of eating Light.  

rather than thinking about "lite" diets or cutting down on foods, we invited in what it really means to eat Light.  we consume the nourishment that Light provides in every fruit and vegetable that we eat.  the vibration of Light is transformed into the uniqueness of carrot, a cabbage, thyme, aubergines...  Light becomes manifest through complex and incredible processes of photosynthesis and creates, well, our food.  


when we consume it, it becomes us....
so imagine with every bite, you are eating Light!

the first paragraph is a quote from an introduction i wrote for the "eating Light" section of ascent magazine's sustainability issue.   

eating Light profiles 3 young people who are bringing their light to their lives and work with community. you might want to check them out ~  gayla trail cultivates rich soil for plants and relationships as a pioneering urban gardener, and founder of you grow girl.    bryant terry is an eco-chef and author of Grub who feeds his african-american southern lineage through educating young people in healthy eating and preserving tradition. and jill boadway was the chef the radha yoga & eatery in vancouver's downtown eastside, and is the co-founder of the Conscious Table which shares a practice of conscious eating to cultivate gratitude and awareness. 

to read the entire intro and article which profiles these 3 inspirational people & their projects, click here.

the whole process of collectively imagining and then manifesting the sustainability issue of ascent magazine deeply influenced the way i think about sustainability as the union of our inner light and outer action.  when our editorial team first met to begin to think about the "core" of the issue, how we would approach sustainability in a way that was unique to ascent magazine and that offered a spiritual approach to this issue, we were inspired by the core teachings of swami radha, the founder of ascent, timeless books, and the yasodhara ashram.  in particular, the mantra,

"i am created by divine light, i am sustained by divine light, i am protected by divine light, i am surrounded by divine light, i am ever growing into divine light." 

to find out more about swami radha's work, her contribution to yoga in the west, and her teachings about Light (Light and Vibration and The Divine Light Invocation), visit the ashram's website at www.yasodhara.org.  

her own story is incredible and inspiring, radha, a diary of a woman's search.

walk on the wild side into edible landscapes

it's a evening of radical amazement.... 
and what if we practiced this everyday, and together? seeing and sensing the wonder of the world in every moment.  what would our food taste like and offer us if we ingested that amazement, the miracle of light transmuted into form, which becomes our food?

well, we did a little experiment in that regard, with the Conscious Kitchen we we hosted on the 3rd evening of the Axladitsa Immersion. we visited the edible landscape to see what She would offer... edible flowers, wild herbs to inspire our menu, fresh lettuce from the garden and luscious conversations all the while.  our little troupe came back filled with offerings of taste and beauty to make the food & space sparkle with wild welcome.

remarkable patterns of light in the food - the Tree of Life in the cabbage, the perfection of peas in a pod... and the scents and tastes of wild thyme inspired the Take Thyme Salad, wild fennel splashed on the Jeanne D'Arc orange-peel-banana-chocolate Amuses-bouches, the edible flowers on the Sunbeam Salad. and the look of sweet rapture on the faces of the radical chefs and eaters.

this little shift, this little invitation to eat Light and be amazed by the miracles that become of our food, inspired our blessings on the food.  no words, just look, see, smell and taste with reverence, in silence.

then dig in!

photos by richard moreham and julie arts

jerusalem's first conscious kitchen

the invitation to create a conscious kitchen in jerusalem grew quite naturally from a new learning triad in which i find myself.   we are 3 women of 3 different generations who meet regularly to explore the complexity, paradoxes and possibilities of life. 

on the menu was first of all, a good deal of fresh produce from the Yehuda market, magically transformed into a delectable seasonal meal cooked with the characteristics of Spring.   Secondly, was a process of creating a conscious space in which to eat, share and open the space for new themes and insights to come forward and feed our learning cycle.

on the Food menu

cool cuke soup with spicy tomato chutney

fennel and orange salad with tangy dressing

fresh local veg stirfried with ginger, lemon zest & hijiki seaweed

spelt bread

stRAWberry cashew cream tarts (on pecan-date cookies)

lemon water with fresh mint

on the Who menu:

judy tal is a hungarian-born israeli, a mathematician by training who courageously stepped out of academia and into a new life of leading leaders in learning.  a real expert, she is creating mathematical models of complexity and self-organizing. a grandmother and second-generation holocaust survivor, she exudes strength and vulnerability. "it is a miracle that i am alive!" a true artist in the truth she speaks about life.  she is almost 60.

jill levenfeld is an LA-born israeli, a peace educator deeply committed to dialogue and co-existence with palestinian children and adults, religious, inter-faith, diverse communities. her full heart and soul are invested in a breath-taking depth of projects with palestinian friends and colleagues. contagious curiosity and boundless energy, jill is honest and generous beyond measure.  she is a proud mother of four children, two of whom are in the army. she is almost 50.

i am the almost-40-year-old.

the What menu:

Check-in 

to become present to each other, asking what is alive in our lives and hearts since the last time we met.

Framing in

 the spirit, intention and practices of the Conscious Kitchen. 

Preparation

in silence 

in the spirit of Radical Amazement a la Schumacher College kitchen which is a way of entering a relationship with the food that is offering itself

(a term coined by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel)

Cooking

the spirit of the season ~ quick cooking, seasonal, local bright foods arranged in bouquets, 

cooling foods

Blessings 

from each of us, in our own way

on the food, and those who grew it, prepared it, 

the land it came from and the miracle of its existence in the first place

Eating with gusto, appreciation and chewing!

Clean-up

the How menu:

 this includes bringing awareness to the cooking & preparation, nutritional content, beauty and aesthetics, rhythms of the seasons, relationships with the food's producers, the vibrations and energetics in our food, our waste to the magic of silence and conversation, sharing our cultures and rituals of blessing and thanks...

Open space 

for a rich conversation on complexity, self-organizing and the body, 
if it is written in the body's dna code to self-organize towards purpose (a bone cell becomes a bone), then do human systems self-organize towards purpose ~ and what is the difference between purpose and self-interest?

fennel and orange salad, cook cuke soup with spicy tomato chutney, 
fresh veg stir-fry with ginger and hijiki

conscious kitchens in the Holy Land

'tis the Christmas season and i find myself in distinctly new territory: Jerusalem.

there are Hannukah lights gracing street lamps and windows, and inflatable Santas in the Old City, yet few other symbols of this season as i know it - the quiet of snow, the jingle-jingle of silver bells, green and red decorations and the familiar carols playing in stores, on the street, and at home.

for some this time of year is deeply nourishing, full of celebration, belongingness and the sensuous wafts of food as an expression of love, culture and communion. peace on earth. for others, it is a season that brings loneliness. isolation. hunger.

being here in the Holy Land offers rich soil to be in the multiple traditions around this season, and in the paradoxes of union and division. the soil that has birthed Judaism, Islam and Christianity as religions rich with story, traditions, song, prayer, culture and mysticism also holds a legacy of deep and unresolved conflict.

in Jerusalem's Old City, divisions are also thresholds. the jewish, christian, armenian and muslim quarters each have their different "Gates" of entrance and spaces for worship. a place of prayer, a shared Wall, is also a source of tension: the Western Wall is the last remaining structure from the destroyed Jewish Second Temple where the Blue and Gold Mosque now stands, built on its remnants. in its stones, a reminder of both war and peace.

yet, there are shared roots among these peoples and religions, not the least of which is the Land itself. a beautiful example of shared reverence for the land, its bounty and the ancient knowledge, is through the possibilities of peace that comes with mixing and sharing traditions of food.

Chef Moshe Basson is an Iraqi Jew who grew up in an immigrant transient camp in Jerusalem's Talpiyot neighbourhood. he founded Eucalyptus Restaurant and is a member of Chefs for Peace which together "are all about deconstructing harmful images of 'the other.' The restaurant and its dishes are meant to highlight the importance of togetherness. Many of its dishes have been cooked in family kitchens for generations. when members of different cultures sat together around food, they start to talk about their lives."*

Basson speaks about the tradition holders, the sharing of knowledge between generations and cultures, as a kind of divine passing down of collective wisdom:

"Later, when I was a chef, I would go to the Damascus Gate and talk to the Arab farmers and field workers who sold greens they found foraging and that were not found in the Jewish markets. Jews from Iraq come from a different climate..... Palestinians here on this ground were the keepers of our traditions."*

"When you go out into nature with your father and sisters and people with more experience, this is tradition. People pass on knowledge, but without schools, without lectures. I feel the tradition of herbs and medicine from nature is ultimately passed down from God. It is a common knowledge and you have to know how to soak up the knowledge. I know it might be in our mind, but for me it's there and maybe it's [in the] soul. You could also call it a collective wisdom."

soulfood in the holy land.

'tis the beginning of a path of discovery, as i sign up for my first ever Biblical Cooking course in January... more to come from the conscious kitchens of the world.

watch a youtube video of Chefs for Peace Video
* quoted from the Jerusalem Post article, 03.12.09 "Of Biblical Proportions".

Marinated Pear and Garden Spinach Salad with Crushed Walnuts

with fresh spinach harvested from Axladitsa’s organic garden

preparation and presentation

slice pears lengthwise

place them in a marinade of  
olive oil, balsamic vinegar, maple syrup and a tiny bit of soy sauce for as little as 15 minutes or up to 3 hours.

the pears with soak up the flavour and become sweet.
you can also add sliced red onions or shallots to the marinade for some colour and zest!

wash the spinach and place in salad bowl

right before serving, pour the pears and the marinade over the spinach;
the marinade becomes the dressing

crush walnuts and sprinkle on top

sliced fresh or dried figs also made a beautiful topping and add some sweet to the salad

emergence of a new organizing pattern

november 2008

i write from volos, a small waterfront city in greece on the way to thessoloniki where tomorrow i will catch my plane home. i am with nora who is czech and slovakian, and apprenticing with axalditsa and rowan from denmark who is their first intern. we are having some separation anxiety after having spent so much rich and quality time together, so maria and sarah dropped us off here, on their way to athens, and we are all internet-ting together before i get the bus.

the november harvest at axladitsa

we have spent the last 2 weeks together with others from belgium, turkey, denmark and canada harvesting olives with panayoti, a wonderful local friend and farmer, and making olive oil. maria and sarah's olives produced the best grade olive oil yet this year at the local olive press. it was amazing to see the vats of olives, churning and turning into the biggest tapenade i've ever seen, then coming out in a tinted green oil that we've been using everyday in our meals. i have a 1.5 litre in my bag right now that i hope will grace my kitchen in montreal, and not the clothes in my bag. the prize bottle is wrapped in many many protective layers. believe, me this olive oil is worth the risk.

but we also created the Conscious Kitchen together as part of the overall gathering we were hosting. it was my first time really integrating these ideas into a living place and system and it was really amazing.

we learned a lot about how to integrate this not only as a programme here, but simply into the operating system of how axladitsa hosts gatherings. beyond cooking together, and hosting each other through food, is collectively being conscious of where the food is from, what choices we made and make everyday to plant, pick, buy, and compost our food and be conscious of where we create waste. so we have ideas for how to further integrate this into further gatherings with the vision of axladitsa becoming self-sufficient.

the other europeans there were really interested in co-creating their conscious kitchens with them. in fact, there is a whole emerging network out there for whom the conscious kitchen would provide a deepening of their practice and new avenues in to their work. we've already booked a week long conscious kitchen workshop for next november to co-incide with the olive harvest.

emerging the art of hosting meaningful spaces

our purpose for being together at Axladitsa was to deepen our understanding and practice of hosting, or of holding space for emergence to occur.

we saw the evolution of hosting spaces for meaningful conversations because the people who gathered here are developing a next level of this practice through hosting meaningful spaces. this means living this practice by integrating it into our daily lives.

that our work is in creating our own living spaces as learning spaces.
so 5 of the people gathered are actually integrating their living and work spaces and hosting what we called a "living learning centre". this is quite different than consulting or training and bringing a practice to a place or organization and then leaving. or creating workshops or retreats over a period of time. rather, it is to integrate it and live it at every level every day with family, work, neighbours, the land, and offer this living example to others to participate by inviting them into the rhythm of this living system/home/learning space.

what is so exciting for me, is that this is how i have been re-imagining my work and my life.

that at every level it is a practice, and it is integrating and aligned with other parts of my life - this idea of living wholeness. that is what the conscious kitchen is for me, too - a constant inquiry into how all these choices in how we eat or nourish or consume are connected not just to my own body, but to all my relationships: with people, places, practices and the planet.

i feel this is what has been emerging for me these last few years, this deeper integration and consciousness around the personal, collective and natural. and so it is important for me to be part of an emerging collective, a group and network of people who are living and working this way, who are constantly working to be aware of the emergence of new patterns for organizing their lives, their work, and our collective work in the world. i have been feeling - and now i am witnessing - something happening that has to do with a paradigm shift around how we live, work, relate, communicate, convene, reflect, be still, and move into purposeful and wise action.

the art of olive harvesting at axladitsa

i leave for Greece for three weeks to work with the beautiful land and stewards of Axladitsa. it is the olive harvest and we are working with the Art of Hosting network who are coming to "harvest" their work and see what comes next for them ~
this delicious combination becomes a new kind of art of harvesting.... we are integrating people and practice by inviting the art of hosting to connect with the rhythm and stewardship of the land.
and we will do this the through the heart of axladitsa, its outdoor kitchen....

Axladitsa's Conscious Kitchen

We welcome you into the creation of Axladitsa's Conscious Kitchen experiment with open arms, hearts and bellies!

Living Wholeness is at the core of Axladitsa Avatakia; so all our actions are based on this core principle. Living a whole life requires one to be conscious and to pay attention to the fundamental aspects of living: and food is one of these fundamentals! What we take into our physical bodies holds the power to heal or hurt both our bodies as well as the earth. So at Axladitsa we would like to create a conscious kitchen in which food is prepared with consciousness and responsibility as part of a natural cycle that nourishes our bodies and our earth.

Together we will cultivate a conscious culture of nourishment during our time together. From seed to table, into our stomachs and back to the land, this cycle of nourishment is an intentional exploration of our relationship to what and how we eat and how we integrate conscious practice, "living wholeness" into every element of Axladitsa's operations. The Conscious Kitchen as a practice is at the heart of how we nourish each other, the land of Axladitsa, our neighbours and local community, the larger systems and influences, and our relationship to how we nourish our own selves. It is also about creating a healing relationship with our own bodies.

You will be joining us here during the olive harvest, which is a powerful metaphor for harvesting our own work and an opportunity to learn by doing! We will integrate and co-create practices around zero waste, silence and gratitude, karma yoga, journaling, sustainable food systems and choices, gardening, working with local farmers and neighbours, delicious cooking, cleaning and composting and of course the art of the olive harvest.

Our conscious kitchen invites you to prepare a little before you arrive:

• to bring an offering from your own kitchen, home or land to our kitchen so that we might integrate all our gifts into Axlatditsa's pot (seeds, herbs, salts, a recipe, utensil, tea, a favorite ingredient, a grace or poem etc.)

• if you are on a particular diet (vegan, kosher, macrobiotic, etc…) please bring any specific ingredient that we might not be able to get here, be prepared to advise us in the kitchen as well as sharing the basic principles of your diet with the group (should you choose to)

• a personal journal for writing
• a healing offering to the land which has been suffering deep burns

Here are some questions to explore before our collective conscious kitchen experiment:

• Where does my food come from? How is it grown? How long does it travel before it comes to my kitchen? Who actually makes the most profit when I purchase a particular food? How much does the earth suffer by me consuming a particular food?
• How do I prepare my food? Is the way I prepare my food and the way I consume it good for my body? What is good for my body? What is the real cost of my cooking to the nature?
• How much waste do I create by consuming a particular food? How much waste do I generally create in the kitchen? Where does the waste go? Do I compost my organic waste? Can I minimize my waste in the kitchen? How can I practice zero-waste in the kitchen?
• is the way i eat sustainable for my body and for the earth?

looking forward to delicious conversation,
Filiz, Vanessa, Maria and Sarah

for more information please see www.axladitsa.org

conscious kitchens

the beauty and bounty of late September was a time of creating and cultivating conscious kitchens.
 
at our farm in the Gatineau hills in Quebec, affectionately known as The Barn, i joined 8 other women in a weekend-long harvest cooking spree hosted by our neighbour, vegetarian chef and healer, Tanya and her 2 daughters. feasting and festing, we created intentional practices around our food, its preparation and presentation, and consumption. conversation, meditation, silence, edible flowers infused our harvest weekend with such delices as .... salted herbs and herbed oils, soups and quiches, espresso chili and root veg stews, crumbles and cakes, picking and cooking wild mushrooms, salads and salsas, flower drinks and elixirs...
http://www.the-barn.ca/

that same weekend, i went down to the Kripalu yoga centre in Lennox, Mass for Conscious Kitchens: Feeding Ourselves, Sustaining the Planet to join food activists, authors, filmmakers, nutritionists, and chefs for five days of experiential inquiry into the personal and global implications of our food choices. .... conversation around healthy eating, whole foods, environmentally sound agricultural methods, and how our approach to food can change our lives and our world...

through cooking demonstrations, panel discussions, interactive workshops, and organic food tasting, we explored the healing effects of a whole-foods lifestyle, cultivating consciousness around food, and focused on aligning beliefs and actions.
Our days included lots of yoga and delicious macrobiotic meals as well as nourishment for mind and soul:
Keynote by mother-daughter team Frances Moore Lappé and Anna Lappé who wrote Hopes's Edge: the new diet for a small planet

Viewing of The Future of Food with filmmaker Deborah Koons Garcia
Cooking demonstration and talk by Bryant Terry, chef, food activist, and coauthor with Anna Lappé of Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen
Out of the Kitchen, Into the Fire, a workshop with Anna Lappé about bringing awareness into our local communities
Viewing of the grassroots film The Real Dirt on Farmer John
Spiritual Alchemy, Food, and Health with Annemarie Colbin
Ideas for incorporating whole grains into your cooking routine, with Kripalu Executive Chef Deb Howard
From Plate to Farm with Dan Barber, chef and owner of Blue Hill at Stone Barns
Sourdough and Wheat-Free Bread Baking workshop with Richard Bourdon
Harvesting Abundance and Planting New Seeds, with nutritional coach Danny Arguetty
Yoga in the Kitchen, a workshop on eating according to the seasons, with gourmet organic chef Leslie Cerier
An organic food tasting.

http://www.kripalu.org/article/408

we talked of the integrity of food and how its integrity feeds us; how technology and ancient wisdoms can work together and how Flavour can be the basis for sustainable and whole farming practices... i learned about the small actions in towns and cities in the US that are resonated across state lines, and how The Boston Food Project and B-Healthy work with young people who become advocates, farmers and chefs to inspire their families and communities to nourish themselves... stuff is cookin' both in the extreme conglomeration of multi-nationals owning life sources like seeds and genes and the proliferation of local actions building a web of systemic change~
 
integrity. eat it, have it!