The December Tomato Harvest

We are lucky enough to have a long growing season, but this was ridiculous!

Here I am, at six in the evening, on the way to a holiday party in late December, 2009, harvesting Roma Tomatoes from my vines right outside the back door. I made little packages of the tomatoes and other pasta ingredients and put them in the bowls I had made for the host and hostess of the party.

Late harvest tomatoes can be a bit tough in the skins, but the flavors are still there! Split them in half lengthwise, place on a baking sheet covered with parchment, sprinkle with olive oil, salt, pepper and herbs (I like Thyme and Tarragon, but the range is wide open) and slow roast for a couple of hours at 250°. Chop them up and toss with cooked pasta. Or place on a veggie sandwich. Delicious.

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Thanksgiving for Two

Thanksgiving is certainly a time for gathering together. This year, our gathering was of two – just Ginna and David. It was by choice, having decided that, our lives being so full, and so full of people in a general way, rather than being a part of a party, we wanted to go out into the forest, and be… just us.

It was a day of giving thanks, and we found ourselves in contemplative moods, writing things down: people, events and, you know, stuff, for which we were grateful. My list included all my friends and family, to be sure. My granddaughters give me particular joy. But I am also grateful for soap and water, food on the table, tomatoes in the garden in November. Life force is abundant in Carmel Valley, and 65 degrees is often normal on Thanksgiving Day. I was grateful for sunshine.

. . . Continued Here. . .

Mike and Mom's Excellent Adventure

from the cook’s perspective

this is a long blog entry – no way to describe an experience like this any other way.

On the Tuesday before a long-weekend holiday, my son, Michael called to ask for the recipe for my relatively famous Warm Wild Rice Salad. It was a simple enough request. Out of curiosity, I asked what he wanted it for. The rest will become family history.

I knew he was a part of the American Tall Ship Institute (www.americantallship.com), a non profit created for the purpose of getting inner-city, at-risk kids aboard tall ships – not just to teach them sailing, but to give them a different perspective of life and adventure. Go to the above website link to see photos and to learn lots more about these special programs.

The Warm Wild Rice Salad was to be served as part of a luncheon aboard the Bill of Rights, a 146 foot schooner, currently harbored in San Pedro, California. The American Tall Ship Institute wants to buy it as part of its program development. Since Michael is one of the key characters of the group, and its primary fundraiser, he was quickly putting together a madcap adventure in the San Pedro harbor to raise funds to buy the Bill of Rights. They have to move fast. Another interested group is also close to the purchase of this beautiful ship, and, if they buy it, will haul it off to France.

So, before our phone call was over, Michael had moved right through the recipe request to, “Wait – would you just come with me to San Pedro and cook for this event? I mean, you make the salad… and the rest of lunch for 60 people… oh, and cook for the crew for the weekend as well.”

It’s hard for a mother to deny her kid anything, if it is in her power, even if her “kid” is 42 years old. As it happened, I was free that weekend and… agreed to go. I called my friends in LA, Gordon and Reparata, and said, get down there and bring your friends! It’ll be a hoot!

It certainly wasn’t as outrageous as the leap from an airplane at 13,500 feet with Dylan, as I described in a previous blog entry, but, for a non-sailor, well-known for, shall we say, a delicate tummy, it was certainly an out-of-the-box experience for me. The operative and convincing words were “the ship doesn’t leave the harbor,” which helped a lot. The story has a very happy ending. Follow the link just below to read the rest . . .

. . . Continued Here. . .

Dylan & Rachel, '93

From the Awesome Veggie Reader (Late Summer, 1993)

My dear “step-children,” Dylan and Rachel, graduated from high school in June. Rather than buy presents that would soon appear in garage sales throughout the state, I offered them “experiences” of their choice.

Those experiences changed my life. Although we have been close for twelve years, our relationships deepened this summer. I’ll tell you why.

Rachel, who was once referred to by her second grade teacher as a flibberty-gibbet who couldn’t settle down or get serious, asked to go with me to the 1993 Summer Pilgrimage to Mt. Shasta with Huichol Indian Shaman, Brant Secunda. It was my third year on the mountain with Brant and I looked forward to sharing it with Rachel.

At first she wondered what she was doing there. “How much chanting, praying, drumming and singing can we do in seven days? I wonder if I can get out of this…” But, by the evening if the second day, she had collected many hearts and friends in her usual way, had settled into the rituals and routine of dance, dirt and drums and… began to enjoy herself.

I chose not to go on vision quest that year, but to participate in the support-team fire circle of chanters and drummers, sleeping by the campfire, drumming at midnight and praying for the successful vision quests of those who walked into the mountains on their own for the night, without protection, food or water.

. . . Continued Here. . .

The Awesome Veggie Reader

In 1991 I was living in St. Helena, California. I was a seven-year veteran of the MAC World, having gone through the Classic, the SE and then, I think, the 2CI, or some such spelling. It was a wee while ago. It was a skinny little thing my Mac guru, Clifford, called the “pizza box.” We thought it was so cool because it was skinny. Little did we know.

Armed with SuperPaint, the beginner’s graphic application of the day, and some Astro Bright yellow paper, I launched The Awesome Veggie Reader, a bi-monthly newsletter, kind of a tree-ware blog: stories, recipes and tips for the kitchen. Some ideas die hard. Here I am today, with Ginna’s Café, my virtual kitchen/studio. It’s basically the same, only with more years behind me and more information under my belt, including a much more sophisticated computer (17” PowerBook G4) and way more powerful programs (InDesign, Photoshop, and all that) and my own personal webmaster (www.spiritsound.com)!

In essence, though, it is the same. Sharing thoughts, ideas and recipes with people who love to cook, grow things and make stuff. My readership back then was about 60 dedicated folks who subscribed for $18 a year and received 6 newsletters (in yellow), at least ten innovative recipes per issue and stories that at least I thought were interesting. Now, Ginna’s Café is online, and lots of it is free.

As I leaf back through issues of the Awesome Veggie Reader, I notice several things. First, the clip art is so… lame! Where did I get that stuff? Odd little line drawings full of… dots! Wow. I stand by the recipes, though, even if the typography is a little… unstructured. Everything seems to be in a size 12 font, probably Times, and, actually, there are more different kinds of display fonts than sense!

At the time, I belonged to a local Ghee Club, a group of six people who loved Ayurveda, read everything that Dr. Deepak Chopra wrote, and made ghee for each other in turns. We all practiced the ancient Ayurvedic lifestyle as much as we could, visited with a semi-local Ayurvedic Practitioner, and ate lots and lots of ghee: ghee on rice, ghee on vegetables, ghee on toast. Even ghee on graham crackers. Oooh, that was memorable. (Check the Free Stuff Page on my Ginna's Cafe website for a Ghee Recipe)

Another “Little did I know” moment: two years later, I was working for Dr. Chopra myself, making ghee by the bucketsful and designing menus for spa guests undergoing the cleansing treatment at the Chopra Center for Well Being in La Jolla, California.

I loved writing and producing the Awesome Veggie Reader. It was filled with notes on my spiritual practice, recipes gleaned from years of experimenting, and a place for me to focus my love of everything creative. I’ll reproduce some of the AVR here, for your, I hope, pleasure and edification. Recipes will appear on the FREE STUFF page of the website. Stories will emerge here. Next Blog entry: Another Awesome Summer, direct from the AVR, wherein I take my 18 year old step-children, Dylan and Rachel, on adventures.

Thanks for listening. GB

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