I vow to taste the truth and let it target those who hurt us. Good evening. Welcome to our new members. Okay, is there anything, any questions or any thoughts or whatever from class to class? Anything we need to deal with? Did anybody make tofu chocolate mousse? It did make miso tofu. Uh-huh. Was it good? Yeah. I don't think I can compare it to anything. Good. Good. That was a stupid idea on my part. I can't remember what you tried to compare it to. Good. Fine. Hello. Oh, yes.

[01:01]

The city extender. Yeah, we've extended ourselves. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. We should put our name in there. Well, Berkeley doesn't have one at all. Just remind me that now that I got the extender, I want to talk about ceremonial chairs before you guys leave. Ceremonial what? Chairs, before you leave. This is really interesting if you're listening to this. It's about the ceremony on Sunday. Nothing to do with, well, you know, they're both going the same place. Okay. All right. Please excuse me. I'm trying to settle down here. I'm really tired, so I'm feeling a little bit punchy. I'll try not to make too many dumb jokes. I've been thinking about You could tell her that she's been in my apartment. She must have had a rough time. Um, okay.

[02:06]

So, um, amounts of... You could come over here, too. Come over here. Or do you want to... But then I'll be in front of her. Oh, I see. Let me get on with it. When you're figuring the amounts to make, you need to, of course, you need to know the, as best you can, you need to know the count, which, of course, in both Greenbelch and the city is always, particularly at the city for dinner, is always interesting. At the city center, you can say evening zazen, And if you sit evening zazen, you can stay for dinner. So the Tenzo never knows how many people are going to stay for dinner. So you develop a kind of a sense of it. But it's always a guess. And at Green Gulch, they're supposed to tell you exactly how many people are in the guest house and how many people are here and there and whatever.

[03:13]

But it never quite works out like that. Susan is just beginning to be the... Do you want to be sure I'm not talking about this? No, I didn't. I did my first one anyway. She's going to be a tensor at Greenbelt. And Jim is a tensor at City Science. At any rate, assuming you have some kind of account, even in the session here, you can't be that sure. But at any rate, you have some kind of account. But you need to also take the circumstances into account. For example, in a sasheen, whether there's a work period or not, and what kind of work is getting done. Sometimes here, there's some big project that's happening, and there's a lot of people doing a lot of physical work. So then they're gonna be more hungry, probably. The weather has an effect. People tend to eat less when it's hot. Whether there's sometimes, you know, a bunch of people get a cold that isn't bad enough that they leave, but they're just sort of feeling under the weather.

[04:24]

So then they're probably not going to be eating quite as much, that kind of stuff. There's also something that I think of as sasheen eating. And I don't know how to predict it, when it's going to happen, because it doesn't always happen. But sometimes in a sasheen, people just start eating and they eat like it's like you couldn't possibly make enough and then I one time tried to anticipate it so I thought okay like tomorrow they're probably going to really start eating well they didn't and they never did that whole sashimi we had a lot of food um so it just it just sometimes it happens and I have not a clue if that post refers back to those things you know to have some have some backup waste and instant couscous or whatever. And then another thing that I don't think we talked about this in class. I think we talked about it some after class. I don't remember for sure. But the deliciousness factor.

[05:25]

For example, if you put avocado in the salad, they're going to eat more salad. And it's good for servers to take this into account, too. That's not a good time to have just one bowl for offering seconds. There's avocado in the cell. You might want to have four. At any rate, adding one of my things that passed the heart anyway was to, if the greens cooked way down or the zucchini kind of disappeared when it got cooked or something, was to add a can of corn. Well, canned corn is like putting candy in a bowl. and people eat a lot so it's not like you if you like steamed or you know blanched zucchini then you were going to put a little rice vinegar on it and you could figure an amount for that well you couldn't just add canned corn to that same volume because it wouldn't be like that they'll eat a lot more so you have to or maybe you saute some onions you know to mix in with the greens well that's really good kale and red onion

[06:36]

Sauteed in olive oil, it's delicious. Well, see, again, you need to make extras. You have to take that into account. What? It's not an extender, is it? Well, it is an extender, but it also has an effect, you know? Or if you were to, I remember one time I roasted the zucchini. You know, I just put a little bit of olive oil on it and roasted it in the oven rather than boiling it. Well, I remember Leslie James saying, I never knew I liked zucchini that much. Because it's delicious when you roast it. It's also a lot more trouble, and it's not something I would do for dinner, mostly. Kind of bad practice for dinner, first of all. Shrinks to nothing, too. Yes, that's right. And that's another thing, which is, well, Well, I could get into that some other place, because potatoes do that, too.

[07:38]

But it's also possible for there's like the anti-delicious factor. So, like, people don't like tomato juice and V8 juice all that much. And so you offer it sometimes because you need to have some variety or it goes with the meal or whatever. And it's, you know, it's good for people and they don't hate it. But it's not something that people are going to drink a huge amount of. And if it was between orange juice and B.A. juice, they're going to drink a lot more orange juice. So just know that. And you could imagine that Tassajara, when they had, when they were, what else did they say, like snowed in or the road got closed or whatever, they were eating, this is famous, that they were just eating wheat berries all the time. And wheat berries are apparently hard to digest too. And they don't, they taste good. But probably by about the fourth or sixth day or something, they got pretty sick of wheat berries. So then they probably didn't eat very much.

[08:40]

So that's something. Or like if you serve baklava, if you serve kasha, some people really love it, but a lot of people don't like it so well. So yeah, I do too. But if you serve something like that, people are not going to eat that much. You're also going to hear about it. Mel and I, I didn't listen. We served it for breakfast. I mean, I told you I went to him and had him review the menus. And so I said this, I was thinking about this, but maybe it's really not a good idea. And he said, no, no, do it, do it. So I did. And I certainly did. I served it for a present breakfast cereal. It was delicious. To some people. Barbara Conk called it a tonic sugar. When you hear about it, how do you respond to it?

[09:46]

My effort, my practice with it is to just to take it in and to see if I can learn from it and take it in both the compliments and the criticism and to not get defensive about it. And often simply to understand that it's different people's tastes. I did a thing at Skit Night once at Pasajara when I was Tenzo. Rebecca helped me, and I played the Tenzo, and I would pretend to just be walking down the path, and this one person would come up and say, that chili was really way too hot for the zendo. That's terrible. You shouldn't do that. And then two steps later, somebody comes and says, how come you never put any chili in the chili? So also that kind of experience helps you have some more equanimity about it because there's no way that you can win and you can't please everybody all the time and I don't know that it's useful to try. So like turnips.

[10:48]

Some people really hate turnips. Some people don't care and some people love them and especially if you put margarine on them. I served them here once and people inhaled them and really loved it. That makes a difference. That's another deliciousness factor. If you put margarine or olive oil on as opposed to a little rice vinegar, that's another thing. I remember when I was a child. So, yeah, they were just blanched, but then they were drained and then they were tossed with some margarine. Anyway, so you just try to to take it in. And also, I think I talked before about noticing what's the subtext. So, because we put so much stuff on the food, so is it really about the food at all, or is it something that somebody wants? Do they just need some attention right then? So you just try to give them the attention, and not get into arguing about the food.

[11:55]

So you have to just really practice with it and try to really listen to what's going on and to not get into, not take it personally. I mean, it's also true, I mean, I should say, for me, it's not, it's, I mean, the one place I feel pretty secure is in the kitchen. So I'm not so defensive about it. I'm very defensive about it. So, so, so I don't want to be glib Well people people do and then also when I was 10, so I did I thought I wanted some feedback I mean, I ask people to try to, you know, look at themselves and deal with their own stuff and whatever, but you need to know what's going on.

[13:08]

I mean, I like soft-boiled eggs really soft. And it took a long time for me to find out that for a lot of people at City Center, the eggs were too soft. And I would have liked to know that sooner. But there's feedback and feedback. There's dumping your stuff, and there's attachments. And there's a kind of thing where, I mean, it's really interesting to watch oneself about it. When you're saying your preference to speak of it as if it's fact, like that chili was too hot. No. I had a hard time with the chili because it was hot, too hot for me and for my taste. That's really different statements. And it's so easy to just go, you know, to speak as if our opinion is fact. And Tia used to say that the tensor has to listen to burned, not burned, salty, too salty, not salty enough.

[14:14]

And, oh I don't know, maybe raw or something. But just really outrageous things and then beyond that it's pretty much your judgment. So again, I think you need to take people's preferences into account. It's a koan. You don't want to try to cater to everybody. When I would serve macaroni and cheese, everybody would get really happy. But that's not a good thing to do. Occasionally, of course, but to serve such rich food all the time, I think that's a really disservice. I mean, when you're feeding people, And that's where they're eating every day. It's not like going to somebody's house for special dinners. So you try to find some things. And then a sashimi, if you're cooking for a sashimi, again, it's cooking to sustain people so that they can practice. It's not entertaining people.

[15:16]

And it's going to be entertaining them anyway, because people live with them. So it doesn't make sense to heighten that or to play into it. Interesting enough to interest them to do it, but not so fascinating that that becomes what people talk about. And when people do, when that happens, I worry. No, I don't think so somebody anyway somebody will put you know Avocados in the salad don't you don't have to and you know, I mean, it's it's not like, you know prison food or something It doesn't have to be Horrible or something like that, but I wouldn't I wouldn't do it to those people I think I told you that I used to make chili and beans on the last day because that was celebration food that I learned in my first few sessions with Kathy Gust and Miss Denzel.

[16:25]

So often we served chili and beans and put avocado on the side. I wouldn't worry about it. avocado breed Also, so enough about the deliciousness factors Anyway to think also when you're figuring amounts to take into account whether it's easy or difficult to eat you know for a lot of people plain nuts are kind of hard to eat because it's very dry and So they're probably not going to eat a whole lot of that. And potatoes can be very dry, unless they're fried in a lot of oil or something. But a roasted potato, unless there's a lot of oil with it, can be kind of dry.

[17:26]

And if they're served with tomatillo, they can be kind of dry. And they're not so easy to eat. And people probably, if they want to eat potatoes, would love roasted potatoes. But they're not always so easy to eat. As I said at the first part, taste it so that you know. Of course, when you're planning it, you may not know. But it's great and it rules. But potatoes can be dry unless you serve them with a condiment of ketchup or sour cream or something like that. Or you cook onions with them or something like that. But at any rate, whether or not it's difficult to eat, I mean, you may serve it anyway. A lot of people serve nuts in the third bowl. But just remember that if it is difficult to eat, then people are probably going to eat less. So I'm not saying you shouldn't serve these things. And another thing is there's this great section in the Tenzo Kyokun where Dogen talks about it, about how many times you divide the food.

[18:37]

So when you're figuring amounts, you have to take that into account. Because it's like you have to leave some for the pot. So if you had some for the zendo, and then you're doing a separate thing for the servers, then you need a little more food. And if you're also doing it for, if you were at Tassajara and you were serving some for people who were sick, or there were people that were eating in the stone office, or they were da-da-da-da. Every time you divide it, you need more food. So I thought when I read that he talked about sometimes one grain of rice is just a grain of rice and sometimes it's three and sometimes a half a grain and so on. And I thought, well, that's really weird. But then I started working in the kitchen and I found out that it was completely down to earth and sensible and practical advice. So. I'm sorry. It doesn't matter. I'm just saying that every time you divide it into more serving pots, serving places, serving pots, then you need to have, it's not just like one cup per person.

[19:44]

Say if, for example, if you had 10 people in the Zendo and you had three servers that needed to be served in a separate casserole for some reason. And you were serving, you were planning on one cup of X per person. So to the Zendo, you send maybe 12 cups so that there's a little extra just in case. Well, then for the servers, you have three cups plus another cup just in case. So that's at least one extra cup beyond what you might have had otherwise. Here it's not usually such an issue because you don't have to serve up separately for the servers. But when it's cold weather or something, it's a very nice thing. to do for them so they get some hot food. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

[20:47]

Well, it's always good to do it, but it doesn't always happen. But it's, but when it's, when it's cold, it's just that much more important because otherwise, because you can get cold. Um, OK, so now I'm going to talk about amounts as a rule of thumb, but always taking these other things into account. And remember that this is a net amount, which I'll come back to, the thought that when you cook onions, they cook down a lot. So I'm talking about the amount when you serve it up. Per person, I think of it as usually about a cup and a half of cereal. and one to one and a half cups in the middle bowl, and a half a cup to one cup in the third bowl. And again, this is the kind of thing, and if it were nuts, it would be even less than a half a cup per person, probably two, three tablespoons per person, something like that.

[21:49]

This could give you those numbers? Yes. One and a half cups of cereal, one to one and a half cups in the middle bowl, a half a cup to one cup in the third bowl. And then I just said, you know, in nuts, it would be even less than half a cup. It might be between an eighth of a cup and a quarter of a cup, something like that. This is fully cooked broth, right? Yeah, this is the end result. And I usually plan on three eggs per person for scrambled eggs, unless they have a lot of, you know, mushrooms or whatever. Okay, lunch. That's a third bowl, three eggs in a third bowl. Scrambled eggs disappear. We made 180 eggs for 50 people this morning. They're wearing it out. Is that an oreo key meal?

[22:50]

You have to fit it in circles? No, that's the problem. You have a whole plate. Yeah, that's two eggs in your jacket. And a third bowl, that's like three servings. No, not scrambled eggs. Three eggs scrambled is maybe half a cup. Also like potato and mashed potatoes. People don't eat a lot more potato than mashed potatoes. It's an individual. Yeah. Go on. No, go on. I was going to say, people really like mashed potatoes. So they'll take more than they would if it were just a baked potato. You have to cook a lot of potatoes for mashed potatoes. It's partly the deliciousness factor, and it's also because when they're all mushed together, you don't think of it as a lot. It's a difficulty factor. Well, about a fifth of the potatoes go on, you know, just right back in the peeler.

[23:51]

Well, I don't peel potatoes for mashed potatoes myself. I use boiling potatoes for mashed potatoes nowadays. I think, I love potatoes. And it's also one of the most nutritious. However, if you do peel them, yes. You just boil them and then you mash them. You drain them and then you mash them. You cube them. No, you chunk them. What do you do? Well, I peel them, boil them, and mash them. Well, I do that, except I don't. Okay, well it's the same, I just don't heal it. So dinner, a cup and a half of gruel, oh I'm sorry, a cup and a half of grain, a cup and a half of soup, and one cup of salad roughly, more if there's avocado.

[24:53]

And the easiest way to deal with configuring a salad is if you have a standard bowl that you use when you're prepping a lettuce, then you just keep, you fill the number of bowls, you fill them pretty kind of rounded, the number of bowls that you have servers plus one more. And that usually is about right. And then, and then also when you, when you dress it, you might be a little conservative about how much you dress and keep a little back. But also, I think we're going to talk about gruel next week, but just so I don't forget. Leftover salad, I think, is a really good thing to put in gruel, because it kind of lightens the texture a little bit, and the little bit of vinegar in it and so on gives it a little flavor like that. I don't think it does much for you in terms of nutrition. So it isn't that big a deal. What, Charlie? It's an aggregate. Yes. One of the, there actually are six aggregates. All right, dinner.

[25:58]

A cup and a half of gruel and one to one and a half cups of vegetable. Always taking the deliciousness factor into account. And then I stuck this in here. Gamaccio is anywhere from one to eight to one to 14, depending on who's leading the practice period and this style of the day and who knows? I'm sorry? I said anywhere from 1 to 8 to 1 to 14. Sesame seeds is a large number and salt is the small number. Just in case. OK, so back to net amounts. Just remember, if you're planning to make a soup or a stew or something, and you're figuring out how much onion to prep and how much da-da-da-da,

[27:17]

And you figure that you need to end up with three gallons say or five gallons or whatever Remember that a lot of vegetables especially onions and bell pepper and eggplant Mushrooms they shrink by a lot By about half even so so you you have to remember that you have to take that into account when you're trying to think of Well, how much would I prep in order to have x finished volume? How much is calcium? Oh, of course, it also... Does it even have a number? No. No. But, well... 12 to 1 is close enough. Yeah, well, I think that's about right. 10 to 1, maybe. 12 to 1. Were you just making that up? I think it's in that range. It also depends on how tender the kale is. And whether you really cook it or not.

[28:22]

You should cook it. I saute the red onions, but I usually would blanch the kale and cook it somewhere with some water, because otherwise it's kind of tough. Especially for the Zendo, it's hard to cook. So I would cook, I used to cook it at City Center, we'd cook it in this huge wok. But then we'd put some water in it and put the lid on for a while. So we would saute, stir-fry it first. But then we would put some water in it and cook it that way until it got reasonably tender. Lunch is putting something momentarily in hot water. Well, in water. Not necessarily momentarily, but for a short period of time. It's cooking it not necessarily all the way. Another way is to blanch it first, and then stir fry it. Yeah. Well, especially if you're really stir frying.

[29:23]

Like if you're making, I learned that about spinach, you know, to cook it. You could stir fry it first, but then take it out and drain it. If you're cooking, like, spinach with garlic, you know, a Chinese recipe, it's really different if you take it out and drain it, and then toss it with the garlic. night and day, barbacoa. Stir fry the spinach and take it out. Well, you either blanch it, or with mascarpone, it's a little easier, I think, to just toss it in the wok for a minute and let it give up its water first. Take it out and drain it. Pour the water out of the wok. Put some peanut oil in there and then toss it with it. Cook the garlic and toss it together. But I'm just saying, because otherwise it just, it's just, there's a lot of, there's no, there's no sauce. It's just a lot of water. And also, but also sauteing it.

[30:25]

Well, spinach, I mean, it shrinks. Spinach is like 16 to 1, forget it. Well, I would just put it in a colander, but I would, well, some people, you know, I mean, you know, some recipes call for squishing, but I don't know that I would. When I was doing that, I think I was doing it, and I just kept doing small batches. I kept doing it, and doing it, and doing it, and so I had it in a colander for a while, and then I put it in a bowl, and then blah, blah. Yes, but it's a little you know when you're making five gallons We talk about kitchen practice already And but also even like hard vegetables what you think like broccoli or cauliflower they also

[31:42]

lessen in volume when you cook them. And I don't know that they actually, that they shrink so much. It's not like an onion that really does shrink. But when you're measuring them, when you're prepping them, broccoli florets or cauliflower florets are hard, and so they don't mush together. And then when they, they what? When they're cooked, they're softer, and so they mush down to each other. So even then, the volume will be less. It's just not as dramatic as it is with things like onions. I didn't put this in here, but I was so obsessed with it, I forgot. I don't know if you've ever noticed it. You know, you say you have I think, let's take the terms of minestrone, which is just, you know, like big soup, right?

[32:46]

So it's whatever you have in the kitchen in terms of vegetables and some stock and then maybe, you know, pasta and beans or something like that and tomatoes or not. So you're just thinking in terms of volume. So if you had, you wanted to make five gallons and you had two gallons of, sautéed vegetables. Onions and bell peppers and some zucchini or whatever, you know. And then, if you just then put in three gallons of stock, you wouldn't have five gallons of soup. Doesn't work like that. Because of this, I guess the spaces between the vegetables or whatever, I don't know, but it doesn't work like that. It's not enough. No, the vegetables keep shrinking as you cook it. Well, maybe that's it, but even when you just pour it in there. Anyway, it doesn't work like that.

[33:49]

It's magic. Whatever it is, it doesn't work like that. So just know that. And so you would probably have like four gallons of soup. So just be aware. Yeah, well, I'm making that up. I don't know the exact amount, but just be generous when you're figuring these things out. And I want to say, I think I've mentioned potatoes shrink. when they cook. They have, I guess, pretty high water content, some more than others. But at any rate, they do shrink. And you can just simply take that into account. But another way is to blanch or parboil them. And then they don't give up so much water when they cook. And then you can, if you want to roast them, you can finish them in the oven, and they won't shrink so much. And that's useful to know when they're already prepped, and there you are. And you're looking at it, and you're thinking about how many people you have to cook for. And you think, well, this is just on the edge.

[34:53]

That might be a time to blanch them first, so you don't have to. Or maybe you don't have any more potatoes. So then you could get five. So it also makes the roast potatoes even more delicious, blanching them, because they have a very creamy, quality. Yeah. It's difficult. Actually, I'm going to come to that next. Just let me say one other thing. I've been talking about increasing recipes. So I'll talk about that. Just notice that what I know really, potatoes, onions, apples, you go and you have them in a bag or something and you get out and you need eight cups of onions, say.

[36:06]

And so you get you look at these onions and maybe you pick ten of them because it looks like that's about what it's going to be and then you start cutting them up and you cut up six and you've already got eight cups so just some things when you start cutting them up they seem to increase in volume maybe because onions are so tightly packed I don't know but just so when you're buying stuff you know when you're at the store or or just if you're just getting it from somewhere eyeballing it to take it out to have it just know that. And you go easy about how much you start, you know, how many onions you peel before you start cutting them up. But it's good to remember when you shop and when you order, some things seem to increase. So increasing recipes, it's the trouble with, you know, serves six or serves four or whatever is it depends so much on the person's idea who is making the recipe.

[37:08]

So sometimes serve six, most people would think actually it only serves four, and some people serve six, but most people would serve eight. So I think what you have to do is look, use your judgment and look at the recipe, and hopefully, I mean the worst things when they say three medium onions, Denver Medicine does this sometimes, and six large. Well, who knows what somebody's idea of medium or large could be anything. I think there are places where now that she has, she has like a conversion thing and says how much, two medium onions should give you so many cups chopped. But what's one of the good things about Julia is she does that. She'll say, you know, 10 apples you should have about so many cups. She'll say so many pounds and you should have so many cups prepped when you're making apple tart or something like that. So that's a really helpful thing. But basically, as best you can, I think you have to look at the recipe and bearing in mind these notions about net amounts and how much you want to have per person in the end, go from that.

[38:20]

I don't know if this is useful, but I use the recipe as a starting point, as ideas about how to do, what would be in something. And then I will just kind of back away from the recipe and use these basic rules and figure out some amounts that seem like they're probably in about the same proportion. And then I will figure out the herbs and spices or whatever and lock them in. And that way, I don't know necessarily what the original recipe tasted like, but it's, you know, somewhere in the neighborhood and it tastes good, so what the hell? It probably is a good idea. If you don't feel really, really confident doing that, it's probably a good idea to make the recipe first. If you can, make it for six people. Just make the recipe. And then you know what it's supposed to taste like. And then you can go from there. But often, it doesn't make that much difference.

[39:24]

As long as you're tasting as you go, and you don't just dump everything in there, especially the salt and stuff like that, and the spices. and taste it. And if it's really different, just make up another name. People like to have names for things. I don't know why, but they like to have names. Well, that's what minestrone is useful. This is soup from what happened to be in the refrigerator. But there are rules about certain things, especially for baking. If you are increasing a recipe at all substantially, I don't know about doubling it, but if you're doing tripling it or making it times 10 or something like that, multiply it out. And then when you're figuring the salt and the leavening, take 3 quarters of whatever your total is. So you cut it back. And some people say you could cut back the eggs too. I don't do it because it makes me nervous.

[40:26]

I don't want to have a flat cake or something. Just know that I guess you could over it. Yeah, like baking powder, baking soda, salt. And as I say about herbs and spices, I think I've said this a couple of times in different ways, but figure out what the recipe says and then walk it in. Does everybody know what walk it in means? You put in, say, half of whatever you just prepped, and taste it, and then see whether you put it all in. Because you probably don't need it all, but there's no telling exactly where the line is. So, W-A-L-K. Walk it in. Don't run it in. What's your feeling about it? It's temporary. Temporary. I don't know, when you say tempering, you mean toasting first, that kind of thing?

[41:30]

No, tempering is where you take some liquid out of the pot and you mix it with what you're adding. Oh, you mean like when you do it with egg yolks kind of thing? No. I've never done it with spices. You mix this in a cup or a bowl, a smaller bowl, and then you put it in. And it gives it a start. pervading a big problem. It's called tempering. I've only heard that in relation to like, you know, putting some hot stuff in with egg yolks, or, you know, because otherwise you might scramble them. And a lot of things you should, right, for mechanical reasons, right? I don't, I've never heard of it for, you know, I mean, for me, so you do it, so you, so it actually, because it's so thick. In fact, it does melt in the soup, but you have to stir it a lot to make sure. And even then, you kind of wind up with some lumps of miso at the bottom.

[42:32]

But it's sort of the sort of cooking we're doing. It's kind of incredibly complex. No, I could see doing it. You know, if you had something really thick and you wanted to have, you know, be pretty sure that it was going to pervade everywhere, that you would do that or something. I said white sauce. Well, when you're worried about something getting lumpy, you add the liquid a little at a time and it keeps stirring. Often, I don't know. You know, I'm just experimenting. I'll take a little bit of the broth and put just a pinch. Oh, sure. Yes. That's what I've done. Yes. Did everybody do that? And that's a good thing to do with gruel, too. Because it's too dangerous. Yeah. That's right. So you take out a little bit and mix a tiny, tiny bit of the seasoning in and then taste it and see if it really is a good idea. And rice, when you increase cooking rice, you don't need, you know, there are a lot of rice recipes say one cup of rice to two cups of water.

[43:38]

You don't even need it with one cup of rice. But at any rate, with mass quantities, you don't need that much water. So it's usually If you wash your rice, which I don't do, but feel free, I'd say it's probably one to one and a quarter. And if you don't wash it, it's about one to one and a half. One rice to one and a half water. I don't think it matters to you. Brown needs a little bit more water. I usually do one and a half, and then add a cup or two, because it cooks for 40 minutes. yeah I'd say like one to one and three-quarters on a small scale or something well that's fine yeah it does change I guess just because of the volume maybe yeah Well, there's a there's a serial

[45:03]

The other thing is to always have, I mean, when it's too liquid, that's difficult. I mean, you can make it on the drier side and always have your boiling water ready. It's not a problem. It's often worked before, but it depends on the cereal. So let's take a short break. Five minutes. Could I see this? Well, I am. You got it. I am e-mailing. You would have been the old mailman. I'm e-mailing them. All right. And so, anyway, each one of you are all going to be able to make two free armadillo cheerleaders. I know Michael's going at Blanche's door.

[46:18]

I know, I assume that he's going to, and I don't know if he's going to do much. Well, maybe he won't need to. I don't think so. Well, we don't know. I don't know. Where are the ceremonial chairs? You know, the chairs that they sit in for a show song or whatever. Oh, yeah. Where are they? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, they could go in the place in the park. Yeah. You know, cooking increased quantities and I just said, we'll talk about it next week, but I said the best thing for mixing large quantities is your hands, well-washed hands, because they're gentle and they're just perfect shape. You know, you got the palm that gets the stuff, but your fingers can kind of gently get into it and it's perfect. Well, maybe you shouldn't.

[47:27]

Yeah, maybe you should use gloves, yeah. It's not good, band-aids. You wind up with a band-aid in the food. I learned that the hard way. Luckily, I found it. I don't know, I shouldn't put that on everyone. That's on the tape right now. So we were talking about getting the ceremonial chairs and I realized the tape was running. A little entertainment. So I wanted to talk some about ingredients. And the first thing I was thinking was about really knowing them. And we've talked about a lot already in terms of knowing the properties and how things behave when they're cooked and so on. But what I was thinking about particularly is reading labels. We were talking before class, some of us, about if you look at, you think, oh, organic is good.

[48:32]

Well, yeah, maybe, but not necessarily. If you read the label on Muir Glen organic tomatoes, Except for the puree, for some reason, is just tomatoes, and I think that holds in all the different kinds of brands. I don't know why, but it is. So read the ingredient list. But at any rate, we're blend tomatoes, chopped, diced, you name it. They're very high in salt. They're higher in salt than a lot of the regular commercial brands of canned tomatoes. Why they are, I don't know, but they are. So it's important to know that. And then you may, for different reasons, you might or might not want to use them. Or you might want to use some of that in some of something else. Or you might want to use some tomato puree in a recipe because it doesn't have salt in it. Especially if something is too salty and you're trying to extend it so that it's less salty, so you just have more volume. You probably don't want to put any canned tomatoes in there.

[49:34]

But you might want to put a can of tomato puree in there. So read the label, and especially if you're shopping at the bowl, read the label and think about that when you're cooking. So you don't, if you're using canned tomatoes, you don't put salt on the onions while you're sauteing them. Yeah. One more useful thing about labels and amounts is that a lot of, like the Muir Glen tomatoes, when you, when you get a big can of them, it says six pounds, 14 ounces, and you go, gosh, how many cups is that? And if you look on the label, it says serving size, one cup, and servings per container, 16 or whatever. So that's a really useful thing if you want to know how much, you know, a 15 ounce, and sometimes you know a 15 ounce can is almost two cups, but, you know, with different sizes and all, you can figure out exactly how many cups in the can. Yeah, that information is really useful. It's also in terms of salt and sugar content,

[50:35]

You have to notice how they're measuring it. So they're measuring it usually per serving. And sometimes they have different sizes of serving. So you can't just read what it says for sodium and then just go from one to the other unless you see if they're each looking at one cup, say, of tomatoes or something. So it's really useful to know. So salt and fat and sugar, those three things, often you should notice it. And just generally knowing that canned tomatoes are salty. Canned vegetables are usually salty. So if you had used some canned corn, that's salty already. So you might add that before you salt vegetable if you're going to add that to a vegetable. Margarine is salty. I don't know, but I usually bake with sweet butter. But sometimes, you know, you wind up with butter with salt in it.

[51:39]

Or you're using margarine because you're wanting to make a non-dairy cookie or something like that, then don't put salt in it. You know, when a cookie recipe calls for salt, if you're cooking it with, I'm sorry? Yes. And anyway, so if you're cooking something sweet, with margarine or with salted butter, don't add the salt that the recipe calls for. I would think you never would. I don't know that you would. Part of it was, maybe you should taste it. You don't need to taste it. Because it's already there, salt already, so you don't need any. Yeah. Are eggs non-dairy? Yes, not chickens. Chickens are just fine. Well, it depends on how you're using the term. It's a term of art these days, you know. I was surprised somebody served a non-dairy bowl and it was eggs in it. Well, I mean dairy, the way I understand the word, it means milk, basically.

[52:44]

It means milk and butter. Yeah, milk products. Cheese. Cheese is dairy, but eggs are not dairy. But the way a vegan would use the term these days would include eggs. So it's a corruption. Yes, you could say that if you want to say that. But if you say to somebody, you know, this is non-dairy, you know, in this community, then they may well understand it to not have eggs in it. And so it would not be subpoenaed to them to then put eggs in it without telling them. Right. Yes, but usually you say the food. You say this is a vegan bowl, not say this is non-dairy. But you say this is a non-dairy dish, don't you? You say there's non-dairy in the kitchen.

[53:45]

There's vegan in the kitchen. I see, excuse me. Well, and green gulch is like the... We're all eggosappas. I bought some veggie burger patties. I've never done that before. Anyway, if I wanted a hamburger, I was going to get it. So I thought they were great. I thought, oh, these are wonderful. These morning star things. I got at Trader Joe's. And I looked in the back, and I was like, humongous amount of salt in it. I don't want too much of that stuff yet. As I get older, I'm getting quickly more vigilant. But that's too much salt for anyone. Well, and it could be organic and have preservatives in it or funny chemicals and stuff.

[54:48]

Because if something was raised organically, it also doesn't mean that you don't wash it, right? Things raised organically could have shit on the water. So you still wash them. Bouillon cubes are often very salty, you know, or that kind of thing, those kind of stock mixes and so on. So again, you know, I mean, if you bought, you know, you can buy it in bulk at the Berkley Bowls, so I don't even know what's in there. Maybe, I think maybe it says on the, there's a little label, I don't know. But at any rate, even if it doesn't, you should just taste it. before you, you know, so that you put that in before you put in the salt. Soy milk is sweet. Soy milk has sugar in it. I forget, you know, it doesn't say sugar. We also know what, what the, what the different, all the different words for sugar, you know, cane this, barley malt that, honey, you know. So maybe they're a little more politically correct sugar, but they're sugar.

[55:51]

So, yes. White sugar is not politically correct. But barley malt is politically correct. And believe me, I know. Sugar of color. Yes. Yes. Yes. I mean, I don't think, I mean, politically correct isn't necessarily a pejorative term. I talk about politically correct all the time. But anyway, you should know. You should know what it is you're putting in. Also, how it's going to taste so that you understand that if you made leek and potato soup and you wanted to put a little soy milk in rather than regular milk, You've got to be really, you've got to be careful because it's sweet and you can put in a little bit, it works okay, but not a whole lot.

[56:57]

Not as much as you might put in milk. One thing that's not salty, kosher salt. Is it less salty? Yeah. Huh. It's sea salt. You have to put in like twice as much kosher salt. Oh, interesting. But that kind of like sea salt and the fancy salt can be really salty. Yeah, maybe that's what, because I think that's what they use. Oh, maybe that's what they use, yeah. So that's just another thing is to know your salt. And no, I stopped using organic green onions at Tazahara because they were so strong. They were very, very strong. You know, to put them raw in salad, Indian people would get heartburn. And so I just want to talk a little bit about organic or expensive ingredients. Sometimes organic stuff is really expensive. It's coming down.

[57:59]

Organic bananas used to be super expensive compared to regular bananas. They're much closer now to what they used to be. But things are out of season. We usually don't taste that great anyway, so it's a reason not to do it. But they're often, even if you, they're expensive. And then organic produce can be really expensive. So you need to think about it. I mean, I think it's a decision for the people leading the practice period, maybe the people responsible for the budget and the sangha and whatever. It's not, you know, it's not just automatic, I think, that you always buy organic. You have, there's a range of things to take into account. And there are people that just can't afford to live like that. And that needs to be taken into account also. And I'm not saying don't buy organic. I'm just saying that I think it's something to think about, the expense of it and the practice aspects.

[59:05]

political considerations, which I favor doing, certainly, in which I include ecological concerns in there. But I think doing it kind of automatically, frankly, is something that's very, it's the action of somebody who's making some assumptions about living a rather privileged life. discuss this, you could just move them. Yeah. Practically, I think I know this somewhat, but I don't have any more, like, some vegetables are, like, it doesn't matter that much. Oh, uh-huh. They don't have the oxygen. Yeah, there are, there are, and I don't remember exactly, but there, yeah, there's some things that are much worse than others, which is another thing to take into account. Yeah, but I think... I have a list.

[60:13]

I have a list. I could... Can you bring it? I'm not sure it'll come next week, but... Do you have a fax? Or I could fax it to Susan. What? I will. I'm going to fax you that. I have a list. The worst things are strawberries. peppers apples It's just about this the kind of sprays that they use on them and then also, you know the absorption Oh, so it doesn't have a chance to dissipate? Like peppers and apples are all waxed. Cucumbers? Cucumbers are waxed. So no matter how much you wash it or scrub it Well, it would be good to have that because that's something certainly they take into account. Does this make sense to people?

[61:16]

I don't know. I mean, this is not what everybody agrees with. It's more expensive than most vegetables, so if you don't eat anything, you get a lot more energy. Well, that's rational. Just think about the money I'm saving by not eating vegan. But just think, it's a... Or that first stage that I hit. Thanks for that question, because sometimes I can't really speak to it. Not again. It's often the same thought is going to ruin. I think I'm choosing a good way of telling it. Well, I think it's something, it's not a simple thing, and I think it's something, it's easy to be just, to be not mindful about it, and to be, and to, I mean, this is partly coming from Zen Center, but to be not, to not be thinking about how much it costs.

[62:33]

and to just have some idea about organic organic is good and not to be thinking about other considerations and mostly I think that one would you know I would come down mostly on organic but not that's just not the only thing to be that's that's Well, I mean, maybe it's something, you know, to have some discussion about here. I don't really know if there's a Berkeley Zen Center policy about it. My impression is that people buy a lot of organic, but I don't really know. But not, I mean, I think all the exact guidelines you just laid out, it's prohibitively expensive, or there are other considerations. I don't mean to make an exception.

[63:35]

Yeah, well, it would be interesting to have this chart, so that that would take, you know, that would enter into it, too. They figured out that each meal costs about $2 per person. So, a figure of $6 per person is the cost of It's still profitable. But if you have a... You're trying to debate whether the bio-organic balance... Well, yes, but that's not the only cost of a sashim. We're also paying rent here, mortgage, and we're paying in Abbott, and we're paying in Tonto. That's right. Whatever. It's interesting to note that the pre-organic and organic thing over the years, you know, going to work and see how we're at.

[64:48]

How interesting. But it seems like we do pretty well here. I think that's why we said, I think, just by the board, that it was OK to buy it again, because there was a time when we depended on the year-end fund-raising program to make our budget longer. And membership expanded over the years, and we became, it used to be a very generative, non-inclusive motivation. But in fact, it worked very, very well. I think most politicians, or at least a fair amount of other people, don't really think this. They think twice, but it's not a long deliberation about, should I buy this? Anything else?

[66:02]

Yes, I know. Yeah. Right, you know that, don't you? The tinsel. There must be bananas and peanut butter and coffee here. You have to leave town. I'd run out of bananas and survive. Well, you can run to the safe room. Excuse me? Yeah, wait until Tuesday. There are no organic bananas in the safe room. What? There are no organic bananas in the safe room. Well, no, well, when it's that, when it's come to that, you know, any, any banana will do. Even green bananas, they can't say there are no bananas. Yeah, or die with it.

[67:25]

So... Excuse me, but did you, excuse me, did they kill all the pelicans? In terms of the killer camels, did they kill a lot of them as well? So we talked in the first class, I think, about acknowledging what we have responsibility for, about doing like a kitchen circus or something like that to acknowledge the beings that have died in order to feed us. I wanted to say for next week, excuse me for not being clear about this last week, that there wasn't kind of a, you know, cooking demonstration today. Next week, however, anybody wants to come at 6.30 will make stock.

[68:26]

And if you can try to get here a little bit early now, it doesn't look so well for you guys, but try to get here a little bit early so you can just taste the different samples. But this will be stock. This will don't Last week, maybe it was sort of like dinner for some of you. This will not be in the realm of dinner. But I'd like some volunteers to help with this. Okay, well that's fine. Well, maybe we should do some bouillon cubes. Yeah, well, what I'm after is talking more about different flavorings, the depth of flavor, because I, you know, it doesn't, I don't know that it works always here to make your own stock. And so, do it or don't do it, but understand about these other things. Well, what I want to do is I want to make some basic stock and then I want to put some wine in some and some soy sauce and some and like that so that you can get some feel for what I'm talking about when I say that wine increases the depth of flavor.

[69:46]

You boil the hell out of it. No, I use the cheapest. Now, there is such a thing as too cheap. You don't use fancy wine, but there is there something that when I was... I heard that they used... Anyway, I heard it was something they called it. Kathy told me about this. She saw the label. It was called wine food. They couldn't even call it wine. Yeah, I don't know what it was. But if they used it in the, yeah. I just use, for years, Berkeley Bottle Reserve. Well, that's fine. That's not, that's not, you know. It's $4 a bottle of stuff. And I always think, what if I had a $20 bottle? Would this spaghetti sauce be better? I would, I guess. It would be. I think that would be a waste of a $20 bottle of wine, but still. I just hear people for everything.

[70:57]

Things are numberless.

[71:01]

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