The case of the butch who was reluctant to bake.

I limped back into the city under the cover of darkness one night in early November and retreated to the sanctuary of my apartment. For the first 3 weeks I didn’t want to talk to anyone, I didn’t want to do anything, and I didn’t want to think.

In a city of 9 million people it’s hard to not talk to anyone. I did a pretty good job of not doing anything and not thinking for about a week. Then it was time to head back into the workforce and sadly, thinking became a large part of waking life.

As I emerged from my stupor (brought on by 8 months of organic vegetable farming) it seemed that time was moving faster than it had been in the past and that I wasn’t living a full-enough life. I started to look at my weaknesses and decided to challenge myself. There were 2 areas that needed to be addressed: my heart and my stomach.

To strengthen my heart I started to look at where I was being hard on myself or other people and then I made myself back off.

When it came time to strengthen my stomach I realized that there were skills in the kitchen that I had been purposefully neglecting for decades. As a young butch, way back in junior high school, when faced with the choice between taking Shop or Home Ec – you guessed it -- I took shop. Making spice racks and turning brass on a lathe to make a replica canon was much preferred to sewing and baking.

For me Home Ec was way too girly. What’s odd is that in my household if there was any baking or serious cooking to be done, it was done by my father. He baked everything from whole wheat bread and granola to Christmas cookies and puddings. When we lived in New Mexico he became an amazing cook of Tex Mex dishes. But as I’ve got this lily white palette (more on that later) I refused to eat most of this food, especially his enchiladas which were the equivalent of a three alarm blaze inside my body.

My mother had my brother and I cooking at very early ages. When I was 7 I checked a cookbook for kids out of the Los Alamos Public Library and begged my parents to let me cook Sunday night dinner which consisted of hamburgers and baked potatoes. At the time I wanted to cook because I’ve always been very independent and had a hankering to leave home from as early as I could remember and knew that I had to be able to cook dinner if I left home and planned to survive. Later when cooking dinner meant that I couldn’t stay out until dark and play in the canyons I began to resent cooking.

Fast forward four decades later and I found myself thinking that it was time to start baking. What’s a bit odd is that I’m usually on a wheat-fast and yet I wanted to learn the classics. I don’t want to make gluten free vegan cupcakes. Not that I have anything against them, but I wanted to go in search of some part of yesterday that I’d never bothered to include in my personal development. As with all things Ilsa I didn’t decide to read anything or do any study I just decided to do.

Last Friday I went to the Food Emporium on 60^th and 2^nd Ave, the first neighborhood I moved to when Donzie and I were together way back when. I bought all the necessary ingredients to make a chocolate cake, 2 cake pans, and headed home. When I got home I found a classic rock station (I’m not sure why but I like to cook and bake to classic rock) and set myself to the task of making my first cake.

I don’t now if I’ve got a serious case of beginner’s luck but this cake came out frighteningly good. Carly who never addresses me by full name, after her first bite said in a solemn tone, “Ilsa this is delicious.”

Then on Sunday I ended up making short-bread walnut crescents. This was the first time I baked cookies and I baked them as a trial run for the batch I plan to bring into the office for the Holiday Cookie Exchange. A lot of people liked them but they didn’t rock my world and I’m hoping to improve upon them this weekend.

My next stop on the cookie trail was chocolate chunk cookies.

It was during the mixing and baking of the chocolate chip cookies that I started to learn about myself even more. Baking requires patience. I am usually in very short supply of that substance and so it’s interesting to re-wire my brain. But when I come up with the equation “patience = cookies”, this reward system begins to work. Over the past couple of years I’ve hammered away at myself to acquire more patience and I’ve made small steps in the right direction. But it’s in my nature to rev the throttle and hit mach 2. Mach 2 is not the speed at which cookies are baked.

But what I like about baking is that it’s a process. And it’s a lot like solving a problem. And in the future I will strive for consistency and perhaps one day the first batch will resemble the next. All of this is worth looking forward to. And someday I might actually bake in the presence in someone’s company. Right now it’s all about being by myself in the kitchen and pushing myself to hit a certain mark. I like the physicality of chopping, mixing, blending. I like the precision. In making chocolate chunk cookies I realized that it was better to rely on my nose than the timer to sense, rather than know, when the cookies were done. Baking is a sensual experience and there’s not a lot of pleasure to be derived in rushing sensual experiences.

I’m still not sure if baking cookies is girly and I’m glad that there’s a straight man at work who’s going to contribute cookies to the cookie exchange. In some way all this baking is almost like a course in queer studies at the undergraduate level. My butchness couldn’t handle baking which meant that I’d found a chink in my masculinity which is actually kind of cool because I love to call myself out on my shortcomings even if it is in the privacy of my own mind.

my beginner's luck continues

test cookie

The pasture after the improvement cutting

wild oyster mushrooms harvested at Anahata

Honesty

Lately I've become obsessed with honesty. I want to be immersed in honesty. I fear this is one of those instances where I've set the bar high, possibly too high, but as a Sag I don't have much choice in the matter.

I understand this obsession perfectly.

1. I've worn out a few other obsessions (They're threadbare and deserve a rest)

2. I've got a lot of time on my hands

3. I tend to be a bit "finely ground" when it comes to processing my inner workings

4. Life remains short and but I still have time to make up for past mistakes

Mind you, I'm not a particularly virtuous person but this thing around honesty just won't let go of me.

What's really going on is that a new-version of me is trying to be born. 

As a young man I was a complete ass. I cheated on every girlfriend I ever had. As I got older I realized that I'd left in my wake a lot of broken hearts and that was nothing to be proud of. There was something in me, something that was rooted in fear and infidelity was based on that. Promiscuity wasn't about lust. It was about cowardice.

It's never enough to have awareness -- I had to do some work on this. So I did.

And now I'm at a place where I've just got to be honest through and through. I'm willing to own all my mistakes. 

When I was taking the course at IIN one or two people said things that stuck in my mind for a really long time. One guest-speaker talked about love. But she was talking about feeling love on the cellular level. I'd never thought about that. It was possible for each and every one of my cells to be encoded with love. (That meant I had a lot of work to do in order to re-encode ALL my cells.)

One of the first things I did after hearing this was detox my liver and spleen. Then I set about visualizing and meditating on love. I saw all my cells as tiny bright, shiny lights. All silvery white and shimmering with love. I started that work 2 years ago and just now it's starting to pay dividends.

I mentioned that I wasn't going to go into detail about Steve Hermann's reading until the New Year but I've changed my mind on that. One of the ancestors who came through was my Scottish great-grandmother. I was a bit surprised that she came through as I rarely think of that side of the family. (Conversely, I'm always dreaming about my Italian ancestors.) For the purposes of this discourse I'll refer to her as Peg. 

Peg came through first. She was making a strong case for herself and rather insistent about a couple of things. One of the things she talked about was music. She said I wasn't supposed to listen to "80s pop music" and "no Joy Division." She wanted me to listen to classical music. She wanted me to surround myself with culture. (BTW: it was the reference to Joy Division that made me realize Steve was legit.)

And since I had a lot of free time this week and as I live in the World's Greatest City and as I'm on a budget -- I went in search of free culture. And I struck gold. Today I headed to Trinity Church for Concerts at One, featuring the Moscow String Quartet. I went to hear Shostakovich but came away a fan of Borodin.

Have I appeased one of my guides? I don't know. Maybe she'll appear in a dream and let me know that I did good.

But the point here is this: I was listening to Borodin String Quartet No. 2 in D Major, part III Notturno, Andante and all the light in my being was glowing silvery and I had my eyes closed, soaking up the vibes and I thought, "This is love." I suppose I should make the distinction between romantic love and Love. I think Love is sometimes found in romantic love, but Love is not something that I find in 80s pop music. I can go out and have a couple beers and dance for a few hours to 80s music and be super-happy but that won't bring me Love. The Moscow String Quartet, performing live is another story. They "bring it."

While I was listening to Shostakovich, String Quartet No. 4 in D Major, pt. IV Allegretto: I thought, "Damn, these women are rockin' this."

Really, I should be thanking Peg for this insistence that I stop being a chicken going for the cheap thrill and suck it up and go for the real thing.

Live performances of classical music fit in with slow cooked food, organic farming, and knowing that nothing matters but doing right by others anyway.

And this brings me back to honesty. It's not that I want to make up for past mistakes mainly because I'm not sure that can be done. Rather, honesty right now means that I can have a deeper, more complete life experience. Honesty is heartfelt, and highly portable and I can take that goodness all the way to my core and not suffer any nasty side-effects or contraindications.

And if I remain at this vibration, who knows what sort of deliciousness will head my way.

Medium rare.

This past year I’ve been working on my boundaries and value system. Strengthening my boundaries and re-defining my values. 

I’ve also let my intuition play a larger role in how I make decisions.

In the end, it’s all worked out and I faired better than I would have had I tried to remain in control. 

Once I entered into an agricultural life it was interesting to observe my life as I did my best to remain in the flow of the seasons. Once the veggies were done, I moved onto apple picking, once the apple picking came to an end I moved onto cooking. And it was cooking that dominated my last weekend in Massachusetts.

I was at a loss as to how to occupy myself during the final week of October and then I got a call on Monday afternoon asking me if I’d like to cook at a retreat that was being held nearby. I said, “Sure.”

In the past my favorite question used to be, “Why?” My new favorite question is, “What have I got to lose?” The answer thus far, has been, “Nothing.” This fits nicely into my Zen-nihilist belief system -- nothing matters so you should do the best you can and go as far and as high as possible.

When I finally got in touch with Steve Hermann I was honest. I don’t remember exactly how the conversation went but I recall saying, “I’m not a cook.” He paused and said, “But you can cook?” I said, “Yeah.” He, and I, didn’t have a choice in the matter. He needed a cook and I needed something to do. He said that I should come up with a vegetarian menu and he’d do the shopping. I said, “Sounds good.” He also mentioned veggie burgers and Lukas came to mind immediately.

When I woke up Tuesday it was so typically autumn in New England – gray, rainy, damp, cold. I thought, “It might as well be November.” I lugged myself to the library and started to create a menu. Breakfasts were going to be simple: fruit, cereal, yogurt, granola, juice, and tea. Lunch and dinner? Now there was the rub.

Since I was only cooking for ten people and only cooking for a few of days I did a couple of things in preparation. First I used a technique that Olympic athletes use where they visualize themselves running through a race. They picture every last detail. So I relaxed and placed myself in the kitchen and saw myself prepping and cooking and serving the food. Then I said, “I can do this.” Next, I decided that I would cook things I’d want to eat. Since I’m not a vegetarian it made it a bit of a challenge.

In the end I settled on the following:

Friday Dinner

Nadine’s Vegetarian Chili (named, by me, after Cara’s Aunt)

Corn bread

Brown rice

Sauteed bok choi

Sauteed beet greens

 

Saturday Breakfast

Fresh-baked lemon poppy seed muffins

 

Saturday Lunch

Quinoa salad (quinoa, green beans, dried cranberries, walnuts, garlic vinaigrette)

Side salad: lettuce and carrots

 

Saturday Dinner

Veggie burgers (black beans, brown rice, beets, red onion, red wine vinegar)

Sautéed kale

Sauteed beet greens

Apple crisp

 

Sunday Lunch

Roasted root vegetables (potato, sweet potato, onion)

Brown rice

Potato salad (red potato, fresh chopped scallion, olive oil, salt)

 

Since I knew that Steve’s group was going to be working to strengthen their Medium skills I wanted them to eat really well and I wanted it to taste good. That kind of work can be very taxing.

Saturday night Carly joined me in prepping and hanging out. She’d never been to Earthlands and wanted to check it out. We had a ton of fun. One of the retreatants told us her life story, going so far as to illustrate and highlight certain chapters by showing us photos on her iphone. And my apple crisp, which has received rave reviews at home, pushed everyone into a happy-food silence and once the power of speech returned, it was unanimously declared, “Delicious!” Sunday after lunch, the woman from India approached me and said, “I’ve been living in this country for 8 years and this was the best vegetarian food I’ve eaten.” The man from Mexico gave me a bear hug and said, “Thank you for the great food!”

And this brings me to one of the most interesting aspects that I have to spend time mulling over -- I didn’t feel connected to making people happy with good food. I thought I would feel something.

How interesting is that?

It was weird. It’s almost like how comedians are usually the saddest people around. Perhaps cooks are the most removed from the effect their cooking has on people. And yet comedians continue to go for laughs and cooks continue to make great tasting food. (The lack of affect might also be the result of the fact that I'm exhausted on every level, so I'll give myself a couple of weeks rest and then see how I feel about all of this.)

I realized that I don’t want to work in a restaurant kitchen. I want to work on food recipes. It was great fun making the food but I want to get into food products.

And perhaps it’s a good thing that I didn’t feel attached to the way people responded to my cooking. It’s not that I’m jaded. Rather I don’t have to go in search of feeling validated. I’m not seeking approval. Although, when it comes down to it -- I do want to create great food and attract a lot of customers. I can feel the competitive part of me kick into high gear on this. But I don’t need to hear each and every person say, “That was great.” I’ll know they’re happy because they’ll keep buying my product.

When Steve and I discussed payment I’d been toying with the idea of charging 20 per hour, then I decided I didn’t really want the money. I wanted a session with Steve and I wanted the cooking experience.

Sunday afternoon, once all the retreatants had departed, Steve gave me an hour-long session. I’ve had several psychic readings in the past (and attended Nancy Weber's workshops) but I’ve never consulted a medium before. And the approaches are really different. It was interesting to watch Steve during the session. He gets very animated and his body language changes when the different people come through. I won’t get into detail on the session because when it comes to this sort of thing, I never kiss and tell. However, should any of what the guides relayed come to pass in the waking state, I will post something about that in the New Year.