“No Fail” is all I want in a bread recipe. I mean, I suppose I’d want that guarantee wrapped around most recipes I try, but yeah… especially for bread. I don’t freestyle bread. Read More
The Chinese Tea Shop (Vancouver, BC)
“The first bowl moistens my lips and throat.
The second bowl breaks my loneliness.
The third bowl searches my barren entrails but to find
Therein some five thousand scrolls.
The fourth bowl raises a slight perspiration,
All life’s inequities pass out through my pores.
The fifth bowl purifies my flesh and bones.
The sixth bowl calls me to the immortals.
The seventh bowl could not be drunk,
Only the breath of the cool wind raises in my sleeves.”
– Lu Tong (Chinese Poet: AD 790-835 – translated by Steven R. Jones, 2008)
Jalal al-Din Rumi Quote
“If wheat springs from my dust when I am dead…
And from the grain that grows there you bake your bread.
What drunkenness will rise and overthrow,
with frenzied love, the baker and his dough,
it’s a tipsy song his ovens sing!”
– Jalal al-Din Rumi
Ikkyu Quote
“Lots of arms, just like Kannon the goddess;
Sacrificed for me, garnished with citrus.
Revere it so!
The taste of the sea, just heavenly!
Sorry Buddha, this is one precept I can’t keep.”
– Ikkyu (Zen master, on the subject of octopus)
Soy-Pickled Shiitake Mushrooms
Stroll through the prep area of any Japanese restaurant and inevitably you’ll find a shallow pot with a wooden lid simmering away. Lift the lid and an aroma of deep savouriness will overwhelm your senses; soy sauce, shiitakes, the deep woods. Umami. The secret weapon. Read More