Karla Oliveira - Tassajara Cookbook

TASSAJARA
COOKBOOK When you cook,
you are not just working on food,
you are working on yourself,
you are working on others. SHUNRYU SUZUKI ROSHI TASSAJARA
COOKBOOK lunches, picnics & appetizersKarla Oliveira, M.S., R.D.Photographs by
Patrick Tregenza and Renshin Judy Bunce First Edition
11 10 09 08 5 4 3 2 Text 2007 Karla Oliveira, M.S., R.D.
Photographs 2007 Patrick Tregenza and Renshin Judy Bunce All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except brief portions quoted for purpose of review. Published by
Gibbs Smith, Publisher
P.O. Box 667
Layton, Utah 84041 Orders: 1.800.835.4993
www.gibbs-smith.com Designed by Black Eye Design
Printed and bound in China Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Dat
Oliveira, Karla. 1st ed. p. cm. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-1-4236-0097-8
ISBN-10: 1-4236-0097-5
1. Vegetarian cookery. I. Title. TX837.O45 2007
641.5636dc22 2007012378 This book is dedicated
to my sons, Colin and Jackson,
for just being. contents I would like to thank David Zimmerman at Tassajara for his encouragement, valuable input, and being there to help with this book whenever needed. To Sonja Gardenswartz for seeing her live her practice as Tenzo with patience and openness and for her faith in me to do this book.

To the Guest Cooks and Bag Lunch Crew past, present and future for their creativity over the years for making the Bag Lunch what it is today, and for bringing their kitchen practice into our lives. I would specifically like to acknowledge David, Anke, Mako, Kathy, Linda, Jana, Darcy, Raiwin, and the others who gave me input or left valuable notes on the Bag Lunch. To Edward Espe Brown for his teachings, humor and generous spirit. To my editor, Melissa Barlow, for her patience, insight and kindness. To Richard Raymond for his kind support over the years. And to my sons, Colin and Jackson, for their help in the kitchen and input with the recipes.

And finally, to the San Francisco Zen Center for this wonderful opportunity. I would also like to acknowledge some of the many cookbooks and sources used as the creative backbone for these recipes by the Guest Cooks. There are certainly more than I can list so please be assured, the Guest Cooks thank you. Some of the books are: The Tassajara Recipe Book, GardenFeasts, Moosewood, The Tempeh Cookbook,Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, TheUnplugged Cookbook, Chez Panisse Desserts,World of the East, Vegetarian Appetizers, and The Garden of Vegan. Whats for lunch? We all need to eat. And we have lunch in various ways: bag lunch, cafeteria, diner, burger place, deli or restaurant. Whats the occasion? Perhaps its everyday on-the-go fueling up.

Maybe its just food, something to get done and out of the way, or maybe its time for a breaka real respite and time for nourishment and sustenance. During the Tassajara guest season, the Zen meditation community opens its gates to visitors, and since theres no radio, no TV, no movies, a few newspapers perhaps a day or two old, there is not much to do except eat. Many of our visitors appreciate the chance to take a vacation and enjoy time being idle: napping, reading a book, having a cup of tea. Relaxing with a set menu, family-style breakfast and dinner, Tassajara guests are presented with a choice for lunch: Would you care to eat in the dining room or make a bag lunch? Of course, if you havent been to Bag Lunch, you havent a clue to the incredible extravagancethe luscious display of breads, cheeses, spreads, sauces, salsas, fruits, home-baked cookies, chips, guacamole, tomato slices, lettuces, nut butters, jams and jellies. Its a far cry from the first bag lunches made forty years ago when the kitchen made them all the same: cheese sandwich, an apple or orange, some carrot or celery sticks, and a cookie. But this turned out to be down right frustrating for would-be flavor connoisseurs.

The solution was simple. Put out a display of ingredients and let people activate their innate capacity to make choices and improvise lunch. Now no two are the same! We can give thanks to all those caring for and producing foods. And we can appreciate the hard work and generosity of time and spirit that Karla Oliveira has put into this collection. We make choices with our eating habits. We dont have to do what weve always done.

You can use this cookbook and begin to savor your opportunities to eat. Bon Appetite. Edward Espe Brown Bag Lunch Spread The Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, founded in the 1960s, is a year-round Buddhist monastery deep in the Ventana Wilderness near Carmel Valley, California. Tassajara is owned by the San Francisco Zen Center, which also started Greens Restaurant, a very popular vegetarian restaurant (and cookbook) in the San Francisco area. In order to support itself, Tassajara hosts guests and retreats from April to September, offering beautiful and peaceful surroundings complete with hot springs, creek, Japanese bath houses and wonderful foodoften the primary reason people visit. And for the Tassajara residents, the guest season abounds with Zen practice opportunities.

In addition to offering three delicious vegetarian meals a day, there is an option to take the Tassajara Bag Lunch. The Bag Lunch allows guests the freedom to hike, go to the swimming pool, creek, or to just relax in the garden. The Bag Lunch offers a gastronomical picnic feast along with a very beautiful visual experience. Each day the Bag Lunch provides as many as twenty different colorful spreads, several roasted vegetables, salads, marinated tofu, cheeses, fresh baked bread, olives, pickles, chutneys and delicious desserts to name just a few. This book has been created in response to Tassajara guests who have requested the Bag Lunch recipes over the years. These recipes have been adapted from other cookbooks by the Guest Cooks and Bag Lunch Crew at Tassajara.

The Guest Cooks and Bag Lunch Crew are Zen residents and students who usually have no formal cooking experience or training, but work in the kitchen as a very important part of their Zen practice. The recipes are quite simple but they have been prepared with great attention and care. This is what makes the food special. The Zen students bring their zazen practice (meditation) into their work, taking the leap out of the conditioned small mind, into the freedom and generosity of the mind that is accepting, fresh, and full of possibility. It is the unfettered mind of a beginner, otherwise known as Beginners Mind. Cooking as a Zen student is a way to practice generosity, patience, concentration, and thoughtful effort but in Zen, not worrying about the outcome.

Here is the paradoxthe students have to be concerned with the outcome of the food while not being concerned. So it being said that if the Zen students cook with a Beginners Mind, then we all can. And as with any cookbook, the recipes are meant as guidelines. One needs to taste for his or her own and decide as to whether or not a recipe needs more of this or less of that or if it needs an ingredient at all. This is owning our own reality, as Edward Brown sayscooking for what we want it to be, taking that leap of faith in ourselves. The Bag Lunch is also a highly creative endeavor, and the Guest Cooks and Bag Lunch Crew are given full creative license to use leftover beans and vegetablesanything left from making the guest mealsto create unique, spur of the moment delicacies, as Edward Brown calls it The Tassajara Creative Catering Company.