The WOW factor

The WOW factor is an important part of meals and celebration.  Done properly, it can give people a place of departure for conversation when they do not already have something to talk about with each other.

The WOW factor is something simple and easy to achieve.  You simply try to add one little item that opens the heart and the palate to a sense of uniqueness and treat.  You may have a plain meal, but the WOW factor diverts attention away from the routine and familiar and says..."This is special".

At camp it is a simple as offering a new fruit.  When peaches come in and are reasonably priced, buying them changes up the routine of the daily four fruits that we always offer.  Pears do the same.  Corn on the cob is a WOW factor during the summer.  We get to shuck the corn husks (we ask each camper to do one or two) and then we add it to our simple meal of burgers and hotdogs.  The context (for us camping) is tapped a little and we are given a slightly altered view for a second, when the WOW is added to the meal.

Maybe it is chocolate covered strawberries, maybe it is Indian food one night for dinner - with naan; whatever the slight deviation from what people expect, you are giving them a delight, something to talk about, and a tiny piece of celebration in their community of life.

Ciao!

TJM+

Used with permission of Mollie Katzen

Summer's Here

Summer Camp is upon us again.  We have been working hard getting the new kitchen staff trained in the mystic ways of the camp kitchen.  There have been a few simple injuries and a lot of laughs.  It is really good to have a kitchen crew that knows how to laugh and work at the same time.

The price of peaches has been great, so we have been able to add them to the standard offerings of apples, bananas, kiwis, and oranges so far this summer.  I did notice that a lot of the meat and dairy prices went up this week.  So, all of you cooks out there, watch the summer trends.

We spent some time smoking some meats on the grill.  Regardless of the type of wood used, I like to slow cook the meat before it hits the grill.  This way the meat is receptive to the flavoring of the grill heat and smoke.  It tends to permeate the meat better when the fats and juices are already exposed and leaving the meat.  It does make it tricky to get the meat off the grill when it is so succulent, so be sure that your grill is clean and also sprayed well before the meat hits it. Have a sturdy spatula on hand and tongs as well.

As summer is here, make sure you stay well hydrated out there.  The humidity is particularly tough on all you campers, so drink plenty of water and eat lots of fruit.  All of you camp kitchen staff, good luck with your programs this summer.  May they be safe and enjoyable.

All our organizing and menu prepping is finished here, my first book (in 2010) is at bookstores now (CLICK HERE), and the second one is mostly done being edited, so it is back to blogging for the summer.  Get ready for some tasty treats and creative ideas from the camp kitchen.

Cioa!

TJM+

Refinement of Taste

Fasting offers a full array of unique opportunities for people that they may not normally have.  I utilized 3 of my 4 blogs to ask folks to fast for the Gulf Oil Mayhem and Disaster.  I reiterate that today and ask you to fast and pray during one meal a day until this madness is stopped.

Today, I want to get back on track for the blogs and look at fasting from food at Father Tom's Cafe.  Fasting from food has a tendency, over time, to help us refine our sense of taste.  Almost with the same intensity that stopping smoking can have on the olfactory and gustatory senses.  A heighten sense of taste is a byproduct of abstaining from food for just one meal; or, even a whole days' worth of meals.

There is a sharpness added to the mind if you do not fast too long - over too many days.  Folks often notice feeling more cognitively flexible and supple of mind.

There are the spiritual benefits that come from fasting, particularly if you replace meal time with prayer time.  It gives you time to focus on inner matters or social matters in prayer with the Father of All Nourishment.  It also gives you some time to sit in silence before the Father - a Sabbath of the heart if you will.

Finally, there is also the feeling of being hungry.  Very seldom do we tubby Americans ever feel at a loss for anything.  Feeling hungry on a regular basis may plug us in to the sense of need that most of the planet experiences on a frequent basis.  Like the prophets of the desert, being hungry will make us more socially aware and Divinely called.  Hungering and thirsting tends to build our passion about people who are going without.

Give fasting a try.  Here is a wonderful reference to fasting from Saint John Chrysostom - http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles4/ChrysostomFasting.php

Next post...Back to FOOD.

Ciao!

TJM+

Fast from a Meal until the Oil Outrage is ended

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote of the responsibility of all men in a free society (Heschel insisted that in a free society where some are guilty, all are responsible) in "The Moral Outrage of Vietnam".

"It is weird to wake up one morning and find that we have been placed in an insane asylum while asleep at night. It is even more weird to wake up and find that we have been involved in slaughter and destruction without knowing it."

The words may be about Vietnam, but there is a taste of crude oil in it when I hear it. There is a truth to the weight I feel when I wake up and remember that my need for fuel and energies of fuel has been responsible for the fuel leaking into the Gulf right now. I am the one responsible. We are all responsible.

People of faith - particularly the religious leaders - should be making more noise about this tragedy. Can't we see that the "waters are turning to blood" again. We have seen this before, this type of destruction and greed. We have allowed too much "fast technology" to tread in areas they obviously have no business treading. 

There should have been a few - if not more - viable options on standby for such a hideous occurrence. Have we learned nothing from the Exxon Valdez incident.  This oil leak is not a spill, this is a horror. The religious leaders should be down on the Gulf calling people to fast and pray, begging for an answer and challenging people to put on sackcloth and ashes and call on God. There should be no silence.

Fast from one meal a day and call on God for an answer and a repairer of the rig. Pray the arterial surgeons would share how they stop arterial leaks with these oil hounds. Pray that people would be able to clean up the horrible affects of oil and for the countless people whose lives will be altered beyond recognition.

Fast and Pray because of this moral outrage - and don't sit still.  Get others involved.

Ciao!

TJM +

Odd Numbers and Plating Things Up

I run a camp kitchen, so there is no vision a five star rating in my future, but that does not mean that we don't try to go a little gaga with the food sometimes.  I insist that my soups be homemade, rich and sumptuous.  I like to serve special items on occasion to break up the routine - like hot chai.  And we often serve our cakes plated up with a drizzle and a mint leaf.

We don't do this all of the time, but doing a little something out of character of "camping foodservice" in order to WOW folks and make them say, "these guys are willing to go a little beyond".

It is important to use odd numbers when doing designs and plating.  Say you want to do a chocolate cake with a strawberry on top and a chocolate glaze drizzle.  Lay the strawberry slice on the corner of the cake and drizzle the chocolate over the cake diagonally, corner to corner ( or on the plate under the cake in a corner to corner pattern - in relation to the cake ).

The eye is somehow more attracted to odd numbers and angular layouts.  I think it is because it poses the "conflict for resolution" in peoples' minds.  People equate a resolved issue with even numbers because of fairness.

Anyhow, try plating food in odd bunches of 3s or 5s, not 2s and 4s and see what it does for your eyes.  Drizzle corner to corner and offset that drizzle with a dot of another drizzle somewhere along the corner or edge of the plate/food item.  It makes a difference.

Bread of Life

The image of Bread in scriptures and holy teaching is prolific.  It is one of those proto-seminal images and is in fact one of the basic foods people share across all cultural boundaries.  I recommend my brother's books - Brother Peter Reinhart - on bread.  He is the expert.

Today I ask you to just simply sit with the image of bread making for a bit.  Think about the idea of yeast, growing and expanding in and throughout the flour that you place it in.  It is worked into the flour by the action of kneading.  Rolling and pressing the yeast into what is becoming dough, gives it a chance to work itself into the whole mix and influence the dough to begin to rise as the gases given off by the yeast's ingestion of sugars takes place.

What is it in your life that permeates into every aspect and fold of the dough and causes growth?  What are you working into your living that has an impact on the very nature of your life and its expansion and growth? This is your yeast, and it produces the quality of the bread of your life.  What is your yeast?

Jesus encouraged us with his words:

"The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough." - Gospel of Saint Matthew, xiii, 33

Ciao!

TJM+

Yetta 'Nother Mountain Pie

We are getting ready to do a training on the "Hill" at camp.  That is our adventure site.  The Boy Scouts are camping up there and we are going to do a dutch oven inservice and then a mountain pie inservice.  We want to give the boys a novelty idea for their camping trip.

Now, the mountain pies they will make will be simple ones with blueberry pie filling between two pieces of buttered bread and then slapped in a mountain pie iron and left to the coals for a minute on each side...and then another minute on each side again.  That is four flips and four minutes.

However, I want you to think higher-end on the pies for a moment.  Using a nice 9 grain bread, olive oil and some fine cheeses and smoked meats can add a nice twist to the simple campfire meal/snack.  Smoked turkey with provolone, asparagus and a basil-garlic-olive-oil-drizzle is sensational.  Smoked salmon, capers, and feta woul make a fine pie.  Of course cheesesteak meat and mozerella, fried onions and mushrooms is a must.  A grilled veggie and feta pie would be good too.

The experience is limited only by your lack of creativity.  Look for some of Brother Peter Reinhart's artisan bread recipes and get a nice heavy grained bread going and use some yummy innards.  There is no reason to make a horror pie in this day and age.  You can regulate what goes in it and produce something nice to go with your Cabernet.

Ciao!

Tom+