Excerpt from an email to my family
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Yesterday was the end of the first module of the course, "fundamentals". Today was the start of "essentials", which is an intensively hands on course that will carry through the next 4 days. Aprons on, hats on, knives out! The schedule runs very tight from 8 am to 6.30 pm everyday, and at times it can get quite stressful for my leisurely brain to work at such speed - but that hasn't stopped me from having a wonderful time. Today was our first real theory class on organizing a kitchen and general knife rules. We made sprouted buckwheat granola, sauerkraut, and almond cheese. We've actually been eating these things everyday since we got here, and they are ALL favourites with us because they taste so good. Today we got to make them! We were also assigned a batch of sprouts each which we have to take personal care of over the next few days (or weeks) depending what sprout we got. We carry them around in a jar. I got an easy one - clover. In the later part of the morning, we made garden blend soup, pizza crackers and black forest cherry brownies. All these things that we made became our meals or snacks at various points throughout the day. Now, these items are not raw foods which I have been excited about in the past, but I tell you, EVERYTHING we made today was so delicious, it really blew me away!
Finally time for lunch! Lunch was a massive salad spread with our garden soup. This doesn't sound delicious but the kitchen here has a way of making it delightful. The soup was what we made in class, and I really don't like these raw soups usually, but today's was SO GOOD. At every lunch, there is a sweet touch - we all hold hands around the buffet spread and feast our eyes on it. We say a big family prayer together and celebrate EVERYTHING! And then we eat. No doubt, this is a fully fledged woo woo school.
The afternoon was spent on learning to use our knives, practicing good knife etiquette and also learning the techniques of cutting various fruits & veggies. All the stuff we were cutting/dicing/juliening/chiffonading eventually went into our own sushi rolls, which we would then eat later in something Gastronomy Lab, which marks the end of each day. During this time, we are quiet and reverent with the food that we've just made, and eat our food with deep consciousness and intensity, paying really close attention to what we are tasting - the 5 different tastes, the effects of the textures, the effect of each different vegetable in the roll, where the different tastes occur in the mouth... it was so overwhelming that I could not begin to think of how I'd balance the food better, because I was just taken aback by how much was going on in my mouth as I consciously chewed and tasted my food. New dimensions indeed.
