Alright, so we have a few more of these, so these are what they look like new now, and the company in Japan replaced, this was bone, they used to put this little piece of bone here, now there's a piece of plastic here. And the one disadvantage of this knife is that most knives now, this, the blade goes all the way through here, and the blade is laminated to the handle. Not just laminated, but there's actually rivets of steel that go through and rivet the, so this shouldn't be a problem, occasionally it's a problem, but you want to get the handle wet, but you don't want to put it through the dishwasher machine, you don't want it to be constantly wet, or if it's constantly wet, this gets wet in here and moldy and slimy, and then the handle comes loose. The other thing, if you never get this wet, if it's always dry, then it's like a sponge, and what happens when sponges, when they're dry, they shrink. When the wood shrinks, the hole gets bigger, and the knife comes out. If it does come apart, you let it dry, you put epoxy in there, and you put it back together,

[01:03]

and let it dry, and you know, you don't have a, it's, I don't have this kind of problem, but you know, I've had one or two knives, and that's what I do to put them back together. So that's the one disadvantage. But then, you can see on the new knives very easily, there's two steels here. You can see a line of lamination, and there's a core of high carbon steel, and then there's another steel that envelopes around. This is the civilian use of the samurai sword. So you can see this very easily on the new knives. On these, it's a little harder to see because, you know, they've been sharpened, but you can still kind of see the line of lamination. So core of high carbon steel, another steel that envelopes around. The core of high carbon steel, and this is extremely sharp. There's two advantages to this knife. One is it's extremely sharp. It has a very long bevel. Do you understand bevel? So from here, you know, it's tapering down to here. So it's a very long taper. And if you look at this, this is narrower than most knives, and it's very sharp.

[02:13]

It's sharp because this is high carbon steel, and high carbon steel you can make more sharp than the usual steel. The disadvantages is that it's brittle. So if you whack a piece of bone with this, you will take a quarter inch triangle out of the blade. It's unbelievable. Or if you try to cut up a styrofoam cooler, you know, you... So you cut only things that can be cut. It's not for whacking things apart. And so the shape is different than the usual shape of the knife. The usual shape of the knife, and then you see how narrow this is too? So this is very straight, very narrow sides, and then it gets even narrower and sharper. OK, so the more classic, you know, combination knife is made primarily for, because Westerners, and I've warned one of our students here who asked me one year, I'm thinking of going to cooking school, what do you think? And I said, they're going to teach you how to cook a lot of meat.

[03:15]

And he said, oh, that's OK. And he had no idea, you know, cutting up pig's feet or whatever, you know, stuff that he just really wasn't. So he became a pastry chef, switched. He went to, you know, he was at the CIA, the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. Anyway, the classic knife is more V-shaped, OK, so that as you cut the meat, the V will push the flesh off to the side and the flesh of meat will fall off to the side. And you cut, you're cutting, and the flesh falls off to the side. And then when you whack at a bone, it goes in and it wedges it apart. If you try to cut cheese with that knife, what happens? The knife gets stuck in the cheese. And then you think, oh, now I need a cheese wire. This knife is narrow enough, it's not going to get stuck in your cheese.

[04:16]

You just cut your cheese. And vegetables are more like cheese. They're not fleshy like meat. So what you want is a knife that's very narrow and very sharp, and you just cut things rather than, you know, you're wedging stuff apart while cutting and then wedging. And vegetables, it's hard to wedge them because they're not fleshy like. So anyway, the design of this knife and the sharpness of this knife, it's designed for, I suppose, anyway, you'll see. Or not, you don't like it or not. OK. So before we start, I want to tell you one other story. I heard a story about Pablo Casals. Isn't this amazing? Where did it go? That's because of their way of sharpening and sharpening. Isn't that amazing? That's a lot of steel.

[05:17]

And then, you know, it's way hard to get this knife sharp. And they actually do a pretty good job of getting this. So this is now resembling more of a regular knife. Now the taper goes from here in. And no matter, you know, I once in a while instruct people here and they pay no attention and sharpen, do what they want, and take away the steel. Wednesday morning, we'll do some knife sharpening and I will explain to you some of these things. So Pablo Casals apparently at one point was working with a young man who was a prodigy at the cello. And he was teaching this young man to play a particular cello concerto. And they worked for weeks and weeks, probably three or four months, maybe half a year. And Casals was teaching this student to play the cello concerto exactly the way that he did. And finally, one day, he said to the student, great, now you can play this concerto exactly like I do. Now show me how you'd play it. My point here is that how that student would

[06:24]

play that concerto after playing the Casals way is different than how he would play it if he just played it the way he would play it. But learning to do it how Casals would do it and then incorporating that understanding into the way he did it is a whole different thing. Are you with me here? He has to, and this has to do, this is also Zen practice. You let, you stop doing things the way you've done it and do it another way to let go of your very old childhood habits. And that's much harder to let go of. And then at some point, you can, now you can let go of the practice. It's going to be easier to let go of going to the Zen door every day than it is to let go of your childhood trauma or whatever it is, your fixations, your whatever, you know. You do the practice to help you let go of the way you've always done it, and then what you come to doing, you can let go of the practice

[07:26]

and it's not like that's the right way to do it, but it helps you let go of some old habits. So I'm going to show you things and I would encourage you to try them out and to see if it's something that you can take to for a while and incorporate and then use that and let go of some habits and try some things out and then come to some new possibilities for yourself. Are you getting this? So the first thing I want to explain to you is... Somehow, almost nobody does this. Thumb on one side, first finger on the other side. People want to hold the knife back here. Or they want to do this. And this, you'll find, once you get used to this, you never go back. It's like making a self-sabotage app. Once you stop making your self-sabotage app, you don't go back to making a self-sabotage app.

[08:28]

My handwriting guru says nobody ever goes back once they stop making a self-sabotage app. This is another class. Alright, I'm going to give you some little demos here and then we'll go on. So you need a set-up, and then we're going to take turns at the boards here and get one of these good knives. Here, use one, rather than the Tessera knives. And Carla, we need... Is Carla here? Can you get them one more of my knives? And we need two more of my knives. So you need, you know, you want to get a set-up. So it's in French, I think, a mise en place, floss or something. But it's like you've got your set-up, you've got your cutting board, you've got your knife. Do we have any more sponges for the... So you get your sponge so you can wipe the board, so you can wipe your knife. You have some place to put your trash.

[09:32]

You have some place to put your cut pieces. So do we have other places? The wooden bowls are compost. So the wooden bowls are compost and these are for the cut pieces that aren't the compost. Okay, we got that? So, I am not a fan of, let's trash the table. If you have something that's not going in with the cooked stuff, it goes in a separate container. And then when you're finished with that, you can dump it someplace, rather than like you have to clean up your table. I don't know, to me it's like, you know, a no-brainer. But anyway... Alright, so I'm going to cut off this end here and I'm going to teach you about sawing. And I'm going to explain various things and then we're going to go over and over this. So now that I've got that cut, I'm going to cut this, you know, in half this way. And here you get the magnificent inside of a cabbage little tree here.

[10:33]

And then we're going to cut it through the core again. And then we're going to cut the core out or, you know, some section of the core out. And we're going to be practicing making thin slices. Okay? So to do this, my suggestion is you take some of these off. Okay? Cut it. And then we want to get this flat. Because it's going to be easier to cut if it's flat. So you can either put it down and press, or you can actually, you know, cut it and then it's going to lie a little flatter anyway. Okay. Now what I'm, you know, and I want you to what you're studying is not getting this done. I mean, obviously we want to get it done. But you're studying, like, you know, to feel your hands, to feel what your hands are feeling, and how this works. And if you get

[11:36]

involved in getting it done, your hands will get awkward. If you feel what your hands are doing, then you start to do something differently with your hands, and you're feeling what they're doing. Okay. I'm going to be showing you about moving the knife back and forth. So this is the difference between if you use the knife just as a chisel, that's one way to do it. And of course, when you use it as a chisel, what happens sometimes the pieces don't come apart. If you cut it like this, that piece is not going to stick to that piece. But anyway, we're studying how to move the knife back and forth, so you use the knife as a saw, as well as a chisel. When you chisel something, if, you know, if you have a chisel and you want to go into the wood, you take a hammer and you go BAM! With a saw you just go BAM! And it's not BAM! You know, chop after chop, it's not BAM, it's you know, we're talking EASE.

[12:39]

I'm talking EASE. Alright, so that's the trash. So then you're trying to get the cut pieces into a different bowl. If you're not careful, you put them in the same bowl. Okay. I'm going to concentrate on this hand to start with, and then I'm going to come back to this hand. Very few people ever are going to study your left hand. It's just all about the right hand. But I'm going to explain the left hand too, in case some of you want to study. Alright, so if you're going to move the knife back and forth, and you hold it here, now watch how much my arm has to move to do this. Okay, you got it? You see how much my arm is moving? If I hold it here, it's moving a half or a third as much. So, if you're going to move the knife back and forth, you want to do, you want to hold it here. And this way you have better control of the knife, you have better control of the back and forth, it's more in your wrist, less in the whole movement of the whole arm to get this movement. And then, you know, and when you hold it here,

[13:45]

the knife doesn't do, go anywhere, your hand doesn't go. If you hold it here, sometimes the knife goes here. Sometimes the knife can go here. In this case, the knife isn't going to go anywhere unless your hand goes in that direction. So, that's one advantage, the knife doesn't surprise you and just twist. The other is, you have better facility. Ease, you have more ease. And this is what I mentioned last night, we're studying how to have ease, and you're going to have to go through a period of awkward unfamiliar to get to ease. So even though this may be unfamiliar and feel awkward at first, in the long run, if you get a feeling for it, it's going to be easy. And part of the reason why people don't cook is it's too hard. It's too awkward. And it's awkward because you're not actually studying ease, you're just doing it the way you came to do it, whether it was awkward or not. And you don't know, and people don't know the things you can do to make it easy. So part of my job is to help you understand that there are some

[14:46]

easier things you could do. You could have a sharp knife. And one of the keys to that is it's yours. And the people who sharpen the knives make the rules, and if you sharpen your knife, you make the rules. Yes! Okay. Sorry to go on and on about all these things, but okay, now I'm going to show you about cutting the vegetable. So rather than just up and down, if you saw, with these knives, there's two ways to do it. One is you put the knife down, the tip of the knife down here, and then you're going to cut this direction. So when the knife comes towards you, you're bringing the knife down, and you're pulling it towards you. It's not just down, but it's also down and towards you, okay? Now, and we're trying to cut this thinly. Probably as a practice

[15:49]

and probably for the sake of the salad. Mostly when, if people get this, now the next thing they do is this. Now is your other hand in danger now or what? So don't pick up the knife. You cut, and then you slide the knife back. You cut, you slide the knife back, and the knife never comes up above your hand. People say, isn't your other hand in danger? From what? The side of the knife here, from rubbing on the side of the knife? Is that dangerous? I don't think so. What's dangerous is if you get the cutting part of the knife up above your hand. Now your other hand's in danger. Am I making sense here? Alright, so let me pause here for the other hand. And we're going to keep going through this over and over again, okay? But I want you to, first of all, to try out this one, and then we'll go on to the next one.

[16:51]

Alright, so this hand, if you want to study this, and if you have more stuff here, you know, you may at some point, you're using your thumb and last finger can grip this a little bit. Your three fingers are on top here. I'll show you later, you know, chopping up parsley or cilantro. We'll chop up some cilantro this afternoon. This is so useful to be able to use your hand like this. And this is stuff you can study. You know, this is not something you're going to master this afternoon, but if you're interested in re-inhabiting your body, having intelligence in your left hand, intelligence is your consciousness that's actually inhabiting your left hand and studying what your left hand is doing. That's intelligence. You can use your intelligence to give your left hand intelligence or to study the intelligence that's in your left hand when you allow it to have it. Instead of just telling it what to do, you can actually see what it's capable of. Anyway, to me, these are different things, but, okay. So this is here. Now, I used to use

[17:52]

the knuckle of the middle finger to guide the knife. So, that knuckle is the thing furthest to the right, right? Now, not everybody can do this somehow, but for me, it's pretty straightforward that I can have this knuckle. Because some people go to have this knuckle out here, and somehow it's down like this. But there's this angle here, so, you know, I've been practicing this, of course, now for 45 years, so it's going to look easy when I do it. And it is easy. If you study it, it will be easy for you. So, this is where the guide is. So I cut, I bring the knife back, cut, so the knife is always coming to my finger. And then you can, you know, once you have this down, you can actually talk to your friends and stuff, like, hey, how are you doing today? Okay, so, it's a little bit like this, you mean?

[18:57]

Well, the other thing is, there's actually a little key here, which is, when you bring the knife back, you need to get it, you're going to have to get it to go over to the left. Because you don't want to just keep doing this. So how do you do that? So that's a little secret, you know, in the middle of this. Which is, when you bring it back up here, you're going to have to, and for me, that's because it moves over to my knuckle. So that's why I don't have to watch it. Because if you're, your eyes, once you start using your eyes, and you know, it is useful to use your eyes, but you're studying how to not have your eyes think that they're in charge. Because normally, if you activate your eyes, you're thinking like, don't do that, do this, and your eyes will take over the mental function of telling your hands what to do, what not to do, and then pretty soon, your hands don't know what they're doing. So you're studying like,

[20:00]

can you feel what your hands are doing without your eyes, you know, criticizing them? Alright, let me just, so let me just show you a little bit more, and then you're going to try this out. So again, so this is the first one we're going to try. If you want, you can try to your left hand, and you, you know, put the top, the tip of the knife down, try holding it here, and try this cut. And then see if you can get the knife back, and bring it forward. So, you want to get a feeling for this, instead of trying to do it in a hurry, you want to get a feeling for what you're doing. And this movement, you know, back and forth, if you can get a feeling for this movement back and forth, the classic way, if you have a French knife, I'll just show you this briefly, I want you to try this first one out, but the classic way, if you have a French knife, you know, which is curved, a French chef knife,

[21:01]

it's curved, so you have the end down, and you go forward, you rock the knife forward. So you cut as the knife is moving forward, rather than as the knife is coming this direction. So it's depending on what you have to cut. You move the knife this way, or you move the knife down and forward this way. Okay? And, you know, I'm not the only one who says this. You can, but I figured this out, because I study. Should I be holding the knife here? Should I hold it here? Do I cut like this? Do I move it back and forth? What do I do? And then, I look in Julia Childs, and she says, hold the knife here, move the knife back. And then I go to the New England Culinary Institute, and they say, the main thing that every new student needs to learn is to move the knife back and forth, and not just up and down. To rock the knife back and forth, one way or another. So, this is nothing new. If you haven't studied this, and gotten to this, it's like everybody who goes to the New England Culinary Institute.

[22:02]

You know, people don't understand that you can move the knife back and forth in order to cut, and it'll make it easy. Okay, so let's try this. Take a... Cut one of these out to share. Are you ready? And you've got a piece here. If you cut this in half, you can give them half. So, if you're starting the beginning here, cut off the... You don't need a whole one. You know, divide one of these. Somebody... I mean, you can start another one if you want. It's okay, go ahead. Cut off the bottom. That's going in the compost. The compost... Try holding the knife on the blade, please. And slide it back and forth, not just up and down. Move it back and forth, even to do that. Okay. We're cutting it, and then put it down on the flat side. It's going to be easier to cut the cabbage in half if it's on the flat side.

[23:03]

It's not rolling as much. And try moving the knife back and forth. Yeah, that's one of the harder cuts. And then take one of those and put it down flat again and cut it in half. And then cut that up. Remember, you're going to take a few leaves off the bottom so that you can put them down flat. There you go. And then you might want to cut that in half lengthwise. Lengthwise? The other direction? And then you can cut it crosswise. Yes. Okay. Okay. Okay, so now you're going to take a couple off of here and start with a piece that's

[24:06]

something that's doable here. And try cutting it across. This is a smaller piece here. When you get to this point, can I mention this to you? Your attention, please, when you get to this point, take a few leaves off the bottom. And then you're going to be able to put these down flat. Rather than trying to cut this whole quarter, you're going to do it bits at a time. And if this isn't lying flat, cut it so it lies flat. And then you're going to try the cross pieces. I'm generally using this, the knuckle of the middle finger, first knuckle of the middle finger. And then sometimes it ends up being both knuckles, so the first and second. Well, you can

[25:07]

work on whatever you want to at any particular time. But right now we're concentrating on getting the feeling, especially for the sawing motion. Oh, look at that. So you can have it go down a little bit more. Do you know what I mean by down a little bit more? So it goes not just back and forth this way, but also down as you bring it towards you. This looks like trash here. Oh, that is a trash bowl. I'm getting confused. Oh, yeah.

[26:09]

The point of the knife never leaves the board. Yeah, right. We're going to do some other ones later when the point of the knife leaves the board, but for now we're studying how to get it just to get that easy back and forth feeling. So it's okay to cut like that, but I just want to mention to you that what I wanted to get you a feeling for was, what you're doing is you're bringing the knife this way, starting this way, and then you're actually cutting it this way. Which is what I was saying is the second way. But if you want, so you can cut this way, which is you're cutting as you move your hand forward, which is fine, but also I want you to be able to study and know how to do

[27:14]

cutting as you move the knife this way. So both of those are effective, and then over time you can decide for any particular thing which one to use. But this is a good one to know, like when you cut green onions, they're often easier to cut when you move the knife this way. So anyway, see if you can get a feeling for that for the sake of having it in your repertoire. That's out there, and I'll move your hand with you if your other hand's out of the way. Okay, so that's the feeling of getting that cut right. Oh, look at this, you're just moving right along. Are you professional, honey, or just a mom? I've been working. [...]

[28:19]

I've been working. [...] On a plate? It looks like it. It's so cute. Some of these need to be framed. This could be like one of your photographs, Howard. Look at that. Isn't that magnificent? Yeah, Weston was crazy about it. The core enough so you can get the leaves flat. I mean, you know, take off some leaves so you can get them flat on the table.

[29:22]

And then eventually you'll get down to where, you know, you can cut what's left. Am I making sense with that? We did find a, look at this beautiful core here, huh? Wow. We decided this is worthy of an Edward Weston, you know, photograph. It is so magnificent. Wow. Look at this little, you know. Do I get a drum roll every time I do a cabbage? Huh? Do I get a drum roll every time I do a cabbage? Yeah, a drum roll every time you do a cabbage, absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, excuse me, but has everybody had a chance to try out this cut? Because we're going to go on. Let me show you a couple more cuts now. So, and I showed you this before, but if you want to try this out, you know,

[30:24]

this is where you can have the end down and you cut forward. Instead of cutting it this way, you're going to cut down this way. So, if this is very high, with this knife, you know, if it's very high, it's going to be, you can't do it. So, this is especially good if what you're cutting, you know, is fairly low and fairly narrow. And then you can cut this way, and it's very effective then for something fairly low because it's a short, quick little cut. You're cutting as you move the knife forward. Bring the knife back up, cut it down. And you can cut, it's a very quick little stroke, and, you know, and then you can cut things very thin. And by the way, you know, part of what we're studying here is the fact that you should taste this, you know, see what it's like to bite into a piece of cabbage. You know, this. And then bite into one of these. It's especially noticeable in apples.

[31:27]

The difference between biting into a whole apple and slicing the apple, and you bite into a slice, there's almost no skin. There's all this beautiful apple flavor. The flavor opens up from the cut surface. You get flavor out of the cut surface. Huh? Because you're going to chew. So, right away when you bite into this, you taste that cabbage, and the cabbage has a little bit of a perfumey flavor, and then there's a little bit of pungent. There's a little bit of peppery here. And you get that pretty quickly from the cut cabbage. You get that almost not at all from the cabbage that's not cut. And you're chewing and chewing and chewing, and eventually you might get that flavor. But if it's cut, you get much more flavor right away. So this is where, you know, people like to do different things with food, but one of the reasons why people don't appreciate cabbage is it's not cut. And then when they make coleslaw, they put on all this mayonnaise and stuff, and we're going to do something different today. So it really tastes like cabbage, and it really tastes good.

[32:30]

And you're like, oh, my God. And normally you put a bunch of salt on here in your dressing, and then all this juice comes out, and the cabbage is sitting in this puddle of stuff, and half the flavor is in the dressing instead of being in the cabbage. Anyway, we're not doing that today. So again, listen, so if you want, now try out this second way of cutting, okay? Down and forward. And do you all have a little bit of cabbage to try this on? You can see what works, but this is quick. But it's only going to work for something that's fairly low. So generally for the ‑‑ Andrew. Andrew was just asking, you know, why do you do one cut rather than the other cut? This cut is especially good, you know, if it's low, if it's fairly low, and it's a quick little cut. If it gets higher, like if you want to cut a carrot, you can't cut a carrot like this.

[33:34]

So you have to, you know, it's like trying to cut this. This is going to be very hard to cut this way. So you have the knife here, and you can cut this way. So it's mostly, so a lot of it has to do with height, sometimes the width. So you do what, this is going to, yeah. So, but this is very efficient. When it's lower, this is very quick and efficient. So, you know, give it a go. The end result is basically the same type of cut. Yeah, same type of cut. So you do what's going to work, and you're studying what's working. So we can try that out. So that was the first cut. So you want to try the second one? Yeah. So hold this here, and then cut it this way. As you can see, it's going to cut this way. There you go.

[34:38]

So slide it back and forth, yeah. Easy, and have an easy feeling. You're going forward a little bit more than you need to, so that this end of the knife is coming up. You're going so far forward and pushing down so much. So a little less force with it, and it'll be a little more effective. Try this piece. Okay. This is awkward because this is as wide as it is. It's too wide. And this cut is going to be better if this is fairly short. So this is up. Now hold this up this way.

[35:52]

Okay, there you go. There you go. Okay, can I show you one more cut? Yeah. All right, I want to show you the third cut, which is useful to know. And again, this is going to be more useful for when this is higher. But this again, it's going to be hard to cut the second way that we just did, the short little quick little stroke, which is if you have something fairly low. This is actually a little bit too low. But quick little stroke, down and forward. You're cutting as you move the knife down and forward. And then, see now this, we could cut this way.

[36:59]

Our first cutting stroke. The alternative is, and for certain things you're going to want to have, like when you cut through the whole cabbage. This is similar, but it's a smaller thing. But you're going to be cutting, you're going to have to keep the knife parallel to the cutting surface. So in this case now, the end of the knife is, we had the end of the knife down, cut towards you. The end of the knife down, cut as you move the knife away from you. Now the knife is parallel to the cutting board. So the temptation here will be to try to cut straight down. To use the knife as a chisel. But you can still put the end of the knife here, and as you cut, you move the knife forward. Very easy feeling. Forward. Or you put the knife by, your hand is by here, and you cut in this direction. Or, if sometimes it's so big that you start by cutting this way, and finish this way. Forward, back. Forward, back. This is the most dangerous because

[38:03]

temptation is to get your hand above, the knife above your other hand. So here you're going to be studying, now how do I pick up the knife, and it only comes up above the cabbage, it never gets up above, so that's, that's your hand, after a while your hand knows to, how high to come up. You understand? Yeah. And with each of those strokes, you're really, you're touching your knife, is that right? Yes, I am. So that's how you can do this like this, you know, you can cut, because it's coming up to your knuckle. And you can't do that with your, you know, that's only so much you can do with your, oh yeah, that's the trash bowl. Okay, so if you want, you can try this one. And again, I would encourage you to do it fairly slowly, cut, and get a feeling of, a little bit of a sawing motion, even though you're basically doing a chop,

[39:05]

you get a little bit of a sawing feeling. Okay, Andrew? So this is also, you know, if you're going to be cutting up potatoes, or this afternoon we're going to be cutting up vegetables to roast, in chunks. Keep the knife parallel to the cutting board. Patty? Parallel to the cutting board. No, I mean, what I'm talking, excuse me, what I'm talking about is, this is going this way, this is going this way. You're having, you're putting this at an angle. I'm saying, keep the blade, the blade is going to end up, so they're here, and then you're, you're going, you're cutting forward, or you're cutting this way, or you're starting here. So you want to get some kind of feeling of forward or back,

[40:07]

as you're included in the stroke, and not just straight down. There you go. So our hands have, you know, I can't play the piano. Carla said, you know, the other night, she started to play classical piano. So your hands have, our hands have incredible intelligence. Sometime if you want, come to one of my mindfulness touch classes, you know, you can, you can really meet somebody that way. You know, when you're touching someone to receive them, instead of telling them what to do, or how to be, or what would be a help, you're not diagnosing or fixing or helping, you're just with them and receiving them. It's incredibly powerful. Yeah, we're finishing up here, so we're going to finish up. No, I want to do several little bowls. So we're aiming to finish up here,

[41:15]

so to finish up, we're going to cut up any little things that you have left, and we want to clear the stuff off the table. We're just going to go ahead and eat it all. So when you cut it, you know, with this last technique, you know, this is the one where, you know, you get to, you know, the one you get to sing with, you know, so you do, It's been a hard day's night And I've been working like a dog It's been a hard day's night I should be sleeping like a dog Anyway, you know, germs everywhere,

[42:17]

so cut this up, get it in here. And then we're going to get as much as we can off the table. We're going to get our, you know, we're going to divide this up into our plastic bowls. Okay. What is this? Do we have Band-Aids? Carla, Band-Aids? Okay. Okay.

[43:37]

So we're trying to get, divide up the cabbage into the bowls so you don't have too much in your bowl. We don't want anybody's bowl overflowing. And then I'm going to teach you the technique of getting the table clean, cabbage in the bowl. Actually, that bowl can use a little bit more than the one in the middle there. We're going to do, I'm going to teach you what's called, next I'm going to teach you hand-frying. Okay. I learned this term from a young man from Los Angeles, Javier Cabral, came up to me after my movie in LA and said he's a fan of mine, but he's also known as a teenage glutster. And you can read about it, he's got a blog, Teenage Glutster. And he's about to turn 20, so he's not sure if he can go on being a teenage glutster,

[44:42]

but he writes, you know, food reviews when he can get out to restaurants and various things. So he calls this hand-frying when I showed this to him. He said, oh, that's what we call hand-frying. So here's how you hand-fry. So we're going to take salt here, and we're going to put a little salt on, and you say, how much? Well, you take, this is like a large pinch. But, you know, this is useful to get the measurement with your hand rather than trying to use a spoon or something. You know, so you take a little pinch or a larger pinch, and, you know, so I would suggest, like, start with maybe two pinches, maybe three. But we'll see, then for hand-frying, what you do is you squeeze this. Okay, and then you turn it over. Now, this is not very much salt yet. We're trying to do just the right amount of salt where it's not too salty, but you can see already, like, what's happened.

[45:44]

It's starting to, it's getting smaller, it's shrinking, and it's starting to turn darker, and the juice will start to come out. Salt draws water out of things. You've all tasted this before the salt goes on? Taste it before the salt goes on? We want to know what happens when the salt goes on. That is going to be way different. When the basis, this is what I call a thin-sliced cabbage salad. It starts with salt. So I'm going to put a little bit more on here. So I've now got about three of those larger pinches. And this starts to shrink. Now, when the moisture coming out of the cabbage, it gives it a little sort of a dressing. You have sort of like an instant salad here. That little bit of juice gives it a kind of a dressing, and also, the moisture coming out of the cabbage makes it easier to chew. Okay? And I don't know about you,

[46:47]

but if I eat a raw cabbage salad, my mouth gets tired pretty soon. With this, your mouth is less likely to get tired, better flavor. You've got the salt on here. And you can see the difference, you see? And you can start to see like this is moist. Okay? Compared to this. Okay, the green has come out. You can see that there's moisture on here. It starts to shrink, because as the water comes out, then the cabbage also shrinks down. So, this is probably pretty good. So, this is your hand-frying technique. Squeeze it here, and then, you know, turn it. Okay? So, I'm going to pass this around. So, I don't... You know, if we get too much salt, you can always, you know, drain off the excess water and stuff. But we're trying to do it so that there's not so much salt that we get way extra water. Because you can also, like the macrobiotics back in the 60s and onwards, you put salt on the cabbage, you press it,

[47:48]

and you pour that water off, and then, what do you do with it? So, I like to just have the water in the dressing. So, I'll pass this around now. And you can see... You don't want to drain the water off. That's one way. Yeah. You could drain the water off if it's needed, if you get too much salt on it. But, I'm trying to do it... This is maybe slightly more salt than you need when I taste it, but... But the cabbage is very tender, and you've got a good flavor. So, once you've tasted this, I'm going to then give you the salt, and you guys can try a little hand-fried. Well, that's what we're going to do this afternoon. So, this morning, we're starting with salt, and then, this afternoon, we're starting with lemon. What does tart do? Lemon, vinegar, honey, sugar. What about pungent? What about some garlic?

[48:48]

What about some ginger? What about some red pepper? And, you know, build your own salad with the stuff that you've got. I like the salt with the lemon. Well, the salt... Yeah. So, generally, I like... You can try it and see. You start with the salt, and then the lemon is one thing, but usually, depending on how much lemon you put on, at some point, you want a little sugar or honey to... so the lemon is not too tart. So, that's up to you. You might want to go more in the direction of tart or more sweet and sour. Would it change the lemon? Make it more tender? Or would it change the... I don't know that that... I don't know about the... as far as the tender part. The cabbage is the main thing that's going to make it tender. So, the salt is coming around. So, this afternoon, we're going to work on sweet and sour, honey or sugar, lemon, vinegar. You have your choice of vinegars. You know, I mean, I don't know what we'll have a choice of today,

[49:50]

but I'm saying you have your choice of sweet, because you can use sugar, honey, raisins, dried apricots, you know, other dried fruits. Slice it up. So, you can have sweet and sour. So, we're going to study our basic flavor components today. And then, for tartness, lemon, vinegar, and sometimes, you know, a little tomatoes. We need to salt a little bit more salt over here. They don't have any here. This is already got salt in it. If you're... Javier.

[50:58]

Javier. Javier Cabral. Pan. Pan frying. It's kind of like it's cooked. So, we call it pan frying. It's tender. I don't know where he got that term, or if he just made it up. I mean, I just... I've been doing this salad for years, and I just never knew to call it pan frying. Oh, there. So, this is my signal to get your attention. So, we're going to put all of our cabbage into one big bowl, I think, for now. And then, this afternoon, we may divide it up again. Or do you think we should just leave it in all these little bowls?

[51:59]

All right. Let's leave it in little bowls and put them someplace. So, we're going to come back to these this afternoon, and we're going to be doing... We're going to be doing sweet, tart, pungent. Pungent garlic. Fresh ginger. Red pepper. You know, you can use... And then, you know, mustard. Horseradish. You know, and then things like radishes. And then, again, if you're doing sweet, you can also use raisins. So, we'll have some different things this afternoon to play with. And then, you know, at the end, maybe some bright, you know, some cilantro. So, you don't have to put everything in every salad, but I'm giving you the options so then when the time comes, if you have already garlic in some of the dishes, you want to make this salad with ginger. Or you might, if everything else is highly seasoned, maybe you just want lemon and honey on here, in addition to the salt. Or maybe you just want just the lemon. Okay? So, this is like, you've got the concept, and you go home and, you know,

[53:00]

and then you start using what you have. Oh, darn. And this afternoon, we'll also have some apples and oranges. You know, it's also good, the fifth flavor, you know, salt, sweet, sour, pungent, the pepper elements. The fifth flavor is bitter. So, for that, we're going to use some roast pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, maybe some roast sesame seeds. The bitter flavor is, you know, in the nuts and seeds. Walnuts, you know, for instance, are bitter. Tomorrow, we're going to do another salad, a warm radicchio salad, and we'll have walnuts in it. And the radicchio is bitter. So, we're going to, you know, you'll get to know, like, what is the bitter flavor. In Chinese medicine, there's five flavors, these five flavors. Each flavor is considered to nourish a particular organ system. So, the bitter flavor, you need the bitter flavor for the heart. Too much bitter

[54:00]

will not be good for the heart. Too little bitter will not be good for the heart. Salt goes with the kidneys. You know, for a while, when salt got a bad name, it's going to raise your blood pressure, you need to have low sodium, you know. Well, I mean, part of the problem is not, you know, salt. It's that people are eating these manufactured products that have, you know, astronomical quantities of salt and sodium in them. It's not like you're going to, you put a little salt in your salad or you need, you know, low sodium soy sauce when you go out for sushi. It's like, don't eat all those crackers and, you know, you know, instant soup, instant ramen. I mean, there's things that have, are loaded and then, you know, what happens is, and then they say, oh, well, these people have too much salt. And then, and then for a while there, people were eating, like, if I need to lower my salt, how about no salt? And then pretty soon they're having kidney problems. I happen to be on KCBS talking about the Tessa recipe book when it came out and R.C. David's on there.

[55:02]

Oh, it's come to my attention that some of you are eating too little salt and it's causing some kidney problems. So too little salt, too much salt, the kidneys. The sour flavor goes with the liver. The sweet flavor goes with digestion. And the pungent flavor goes with the lungs. So when you have a diet that includes all the flavors, which is also associated with colors, then you have a nourishing diet in the Chinese idea. As opposed to, eat this and don't eat that and more, you know. And then, you know, for a while there, walnuts were bad for you because they had too much fat. And then a few years later they came out and said, actually, walnuts are okay. Well, the Chinese all along said, you know, look at a walnut. It looks like a brain, doesn't it? It's brain food. It's for the marrow. Walnut nourishes the kidney, nourishes the marrow. The bitter flavor nourishes the heart. Walnuts are good for your heart. Because it supports the kidneys.

[56:03]

Because it supports the marrow, that supports the heart. Anyway. So we're going to get cleaned up here. And we need to get our tables as well swept. Maybe there's a little wisp room we can use to get the rest of this off the tables here. So we're going to call this a morning here. Thank you. We're getting cleaned up here. Some of you, I don't know if anybody's signed up. We need some people to help Carla clean up here and get the things to go back to the kitchen, back to the kitchen, and things going to where they're going. We might need to sweep the floor here. A broom and dustpan. And is there a little broom for the table here? You could also use some of our sponges probably for getting the table clean. Oh, yeah.

[57:05]

And you could just take the tablecloths and shake them out. That's fine too. All right. We're going to just take these off and shake them. You might be able to just shake them out here. I don't know. Is it open? Anyway, wherever you want. Oh, good. We do need the floor done that way. Careful. You will have these nets for tails? Yes. So before we put the chairs around the tables, let's let Andrew finish sweeping. Let's put those knives back in those boxes.

[58:19]

That's great.

[58:21]

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