Did you hear the owls? Were you kind? Did you do your job? Did you respect the man in his sorrow and pain? Did you notice the wisdom in his handwriting? Did you honour the kitchen, bow to the Buddha, light the incense with the tip of the flame, with reverence?
If you did, who was doing it? Where was your heart?
Chapter Fifteen
Ongamira
Ongamira, in the northwest of Cordoba, reminded my grandfather of Scotland. It was where we went for part of our summer holidays: we stayed in El Reposo, a hostel run by a Christian fellowship. Ongamira was a wild place. It had a surplus of sacredness, an enchanting landscape tainted with conquest and blood spill. The original inhabitants were Comechingon Indians, who were massacred by invading Spanish troops. The Spanish brought Jesuit monks with them, who built hundreds of miles of meticulous underground tunnels to connect their churches. The wild slopes that looked smooth from a distance were in fact mined with spiky pampas and paja brava, the ferocious grasses that made walking hazardous.
It is a place that still calls me and of which I have strong childhood memories. Good memories. I remember the steep, often misty, walk up the hill from El Reposo to La Puerta del Cielo (the name means heaven’s door; it was named because of the altitude). I remember the haunted caves and grottos, the sound of cicadas and the damp smell of moist earth and pine needles in the woodland where we played. We used to pick wild mushrooms which we dried in the sun and kept in jars, destined for wintry slow-cooked tomato sauce. We used to sit around a green, icy pool, into which spring water gushed through a large iron tap. Only the fearless or the naïve ever jumped in.
We used to go out on horseback, on sheepskin saddles, which lay on top of woven rugs and blankets. When we were small we rode holding on to someone else; as we grew bigger and more audacious, we were given a horse to ourselves. We galloped and cantered on the meadows behind the lodge, feeling like explorers, following a trail upstream into the unknown.
My sister Magda was obsessed with horses and Pachi the caretaker sometimes used to lend her his horse in the afternoon. She would sit on a tree trunk outside his house for hours, waiting patiently. Often someone older would come and usurp her place, snatching the horse and with it, my sister’s smile.
We came to Ongamira in the summer, at Easter and at Christmas, sharing the space with extended family and friends.
At Christmas time, Papa Noel used to appear in my grandpa’s red pyjamas. We treasured our gifts of suflair chocolate from the kiosk. I remember sneaking into my older cousins’ room and drinking anana fizz, a sparkling alcoholic pineapple drink that the adults allowed us to drink as a toast at midnight on Christmas Eve.
The house had big bedrooms that slept whole families, a communal dining area and a big kitchen with giant pots and a mysterious pantry. Our board and lodging included three meals a day; the cooking was basic, but full of heart.
There is only one memory that upsets me slightly. One New Year’s Eve we took my grandmother Fina with us to Ongamira. As everyone toasted the New Year, in a big room full of people exhilarated with the prospect of new beginnings, I noticed that she was not there. She was sharing a room with me and my sisters and when I went looking for her I found her crying on my bed. My uncle Jorge had died the year before and she was overwhelmed by sadness. I sat with her and I remember trying to talk her out of it. It unsettled me to see her so upset.
When I was thirteen, a family we knew took over the management of El Reposo, and I decided to volunteer in the kitchen for a month during my school holidays. In exchange for help at meal times, setting and serving tables, and washing up, I got a shared room and all meals. Sometimes, if I was lucky, I got to help in the kitchen. The cook was feisty, a large woman whose name I can’t recall. She ruled the roost like a fat hen and had the keys for the pantry. Often she was the only one allowed in it.
I can’t really remember why I decided to go to work at El Reposo, rather than resting up from the exertions of school. I think I was curious and eager to spend time in the kitchen and I certainly wanted to make new friends. I suspect that I was drawn to serve others. I also fell tragically in love with a nineteen year old who treated me like a cute kid. A song called Superheroes by an Argentinian singer reminds me of that summer, of my teenage self:
You are seeking instructions in how to cook books,
you are mixing the sweet with salt,
you acquire information from tin cans,
you buy the whole world from a bazaar.
I felt very homesick. One weekend my parents came to visit, bringing a vanilla sponge with dulce de leche and coconut flakes, which my mum had baked with my grandma.
It was brought on a plate covered with a linen tea towel. I didn’t share it with anyone and hid it under my bed. I ate it at night à la Nigella, making sure that the girl I shared the room with didn’t see me. I wasn’t being mean or greedy; I was just full of longing. The last crumbs became a feast for a group of red ants who ignored my possessiveness. I wonder if the ants got the same taste that I got: the familiar flavour of home, family and love.
Vanilla sponge with dulce de leche and coconut
110 g butter, at room temperature
110 g caster sugar
2 large eggs
110 g self-raising flour
½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp Madagascar or other good quality vanilla essence
200 g dulce de leche
20 g desiccated coconut
You will need two 7 inch sponge tins at least 2 inches deep, greased and lined with greaseproof paper.
Pre-heat the oven to 170°C.
In a medium-sized mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until you get a pale, fluffy mixture that drops off the spoon easily. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs thoroughly, then add them a little at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla essence.
When the eggs and vanilla essence have been incorporated, take a metal tablespoon, which will cut and fold the flour in much better than a thick wooden spoon. Sift about a quarter of the flour and baking powder onto the mixture and gently fold in. Repeat until all the flour is incorporated. Lifting the sieve high above the bowl will ensure that the flour gets a good airing before it reaches the mixture.
You should have a mixture that will drop off the spoon easily when you tap it on the side of the bowl. If not, add a little hot water. Now divide the mixture equally between the prepared tins. Place them on the centre shelf of the oven, and check after 15-20 minutes.
When they are cooked, the centres will feel springy when you touch them with your finger, and no imprint will remain. Remove them from the oven. After about a minute or so, turn them out on to a wire cooling tray, loosening them around the edges with a palette knife first. Then carefully peel off the base papers and leave the cakes to cool completely.
Spread some dulce de leche onto the base of a plate, and place one of the cakes directly on top. Sandwich the cakes together with a generous amount of dulce de leche.
Ice the top and the sides with more dulce de leche and sprinkle with the coconut.
Chapter Sixteen
Retreat Eight: Countless Jewels
At four in the morning, I heard a racket of bird noise coming from the branches of the hollow sycamore underneath my window at the Maenllwyd. It was a raucous quarrel between magpies and jackdaws, a skirmish of scavengers. I knew it would be pointless to try to go back to sleep; the clappers would sound in an hour. At five, I duly heard the Guestmaster going around the house, waking everyone up, and I layered on woollens and scarves and ran downstairs to boil the kettles. I felt happy to be here: it was a special retreat. Last year’s Mahamudra was John’s last retreat in the Maenllwyd and I was pleased he had left Sophie to continue leading this retreat in the Tibetan tradition. Vajrayana or Tantra is the form of Buddhism which comes to us from Tibet. Tantra means “continuity”, meaning both the unobstructed presence of the sacred within all things and the practices which maintain the b
right flow of awakening to this.
We were a small group. At the last minute Jin Ho, a Taiwanese nun studying in England, decided to stay for the week after popping round to say hello. I had met her before and we had shared some special times together. She follows a monastic diet, which excludes onions, garlic, leeks, spring onions and chillies. I had cooked for Jin Ho before and I was always honoured to cook her special meals. There were only three kitchen assistants but we would manage.
For lunch I served a fragrant celeriac soup with spelt rolls. I had expected spelt to be a difficult flour to work with but the rolls turned out crusty, light and airy.
In the afternoon we held a ceremony in the Chan Hall for our dear friend Alec, whose funeral was taking place at around the same time. Sophie led the chanting and we lit a piece of frankincense, a gift from Alec to Hughie. I was still in shock at this untimely loss of a dear friend, finding it difficult to grieve. As the incense stick began to burn and smoke, I thought of Alec and his perfume stories. He was an outstanding perfumier, with a passion for smells and taste. He used to tell me stories of the ancient frankincense trade, of the times when its sweet aromatic smoke used to be considered precious, and of how it is extracted from the boswellia tree. The tree is stripped, the bark is lacerated and the resin bleeds out of the tree and becomes firm. When the resin becomes hard it is called tears. The incense became a symbol of the tears I was not able to shed despite my sense of loss.
The daffodils were still blooming and the sycamore buds were tentatively opening. Baby lambs hopped about in the surrounding fields and the lovage plant was lush.
I made the mushroom stew using some young, flavoursome shoots of lovage. I used scissors to cut them off the plant, very carefully, to allow the plant to continue growing.
I noticed a big tub of organic pearl barley in the pantry and decided to serve it with the mushrooms. Apart from tossing some grains into minestrone soup I had never cooked with it. I stood next to the pot as it boiled, as I was not sure about the cooking time. After about twenty minutes, I tasted it. It was cooked but still firm so I drained it and allowed it to cool slightly. It looked lovely: sheeny white with a dark line across the grain.
I made far more than we needed for supper; this gave me something to be creative with the following day.
Barley’s origins are traced to ancient Mesopotamia and it is considered to be the oldest cultivated grain. A relative of the rice plant, traces have been found in Neolithic Middle Eastern sites dating from around 8000 BC. Although it has largely been replaced by wheat and rye in Europe since the Middle Ages, it is still a vital grain in many parts of the world due to its weather resistance and adaptability. It is an important food for Tibetans; in Japan it is used to make tea and miso. The Scots still use it in scotch broth and in the production of whisky. It is nutritious and low in fat. If you roast barley before cooking it, it has a nuttier taste and cooks much faster.
The barley complemented the mushrooms well: little piles of pearls on people’s plates, seeping up the inky juice from the stew.
Because of the season, the mountain was hosting not only the retreat participants but dozens of sheep and their brood: the spring lambs who hopped away and hid when I approached them. They were daringly shy, their woolly coats marked with neon graffiti, sapphire symbols sealing their fate even before they were fat enough to satisfy the greed of Sunday roast lovers. Life auctions them at birth with a spray can.
I loved their bleating sounds, their call of Maaaaa. I sat and watched them play in small gangs, like scamps rampaging down the bank. Some hiding, others seeking, they ran and chased each other. On the other side of the track I watched the mothers graze in peace, their swollen teats resting from the tear and suck of their young.
The next day, the pearl barley became a salad to accompany a sweet potato tagine. I cooked half a cup of wild rice and mixed it with the barley, slowly caramelised some red onions, toasted some pistachios, sliced apricots and added a curl of orange zest and some fresh basil. I made a dressing with extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, orange juice and sea salt. I added just enough to give it some moisture.
The weather was unseasonably cold, too cold. I wore three pairs of socks, but my feet still sought warmth from any source of heat I could find: from the lumps of coal in the pit of the stove; from the open fire; from the gas heaters. It was warmer outside than it was in the house.
The squirrel who lives in the tree by the compost heap looked as if she had had a good winter. She was so fat that she struggled on her runs to pilfer bits of food from the offering tray; she would soon make a tasty treat for hawks and owls. Perhaps she was pregnant.
I felt quite detached from the group. Jin Ho gave me a head and neck massage using almond oil mixed with natural scent oils Alec gave me: benzoin, labdanum, rose Otto. She was kind and caring and told me to relax. My arms ached; I had a ball of trapped nerves in the back of my neck, at the level of my throat. It felt like an accumulation of things left unsaid, of my untruths.
Jin Ho always appeared when I needed her most. I remember arriving to cook for a Western Zen Retreat one spring, on the day she finished a three-month solitary retreat in the little hut in the grounds of the Maenllwyd. She had spent the winter there, and decided she would like to stay another week. She asked me if I would cook her one meal a day; in return she would come and help me in the kitchen. We took a walk together every afternoon, leaving the teapots and cake ready for the retreatants. We would stroll in a full circle, up and down the valley, sharing stories and questions. Sometimes we just walked in silence.
As we walked and talked I was struck by her child-like face, her unwrinkledness. I sensed her ease with the world, her eyes full of wonder and mischief. She embodied clarity, serenity and a different kind of happy: an established contentment. It was during that retreat that I felt in my heart that I wanted to be a Buddhist, not as a religion, but as a path to achieve some of the serenity I saw in her.
One day, back on that retreat, as I was making a vegan chocolate cake in the morning, I asked her if there was anything she really wished she could eat after three months away from the world. She said “chips”, so I made her a nice plate of chunky chips for her lunch.
Vegan chocolate cake
200 g self-raising flour (preferably wholemeal)
200 g soft brown sugar
4 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp salt
5 tbsp sunflower oil
1 tsp good quality vanilla extract
1 tsp distilled white vinegar
250 ml water
Pre-heat oven to 180°C. Lightly grease and line an 8 inch round cake tin.
Sieve together the flour, cocoa, bicarbonate of soda and salt, and stir in the sugar. Add the oil, vanilla, vinegar and water. Mix together until smooth.
Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 45 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool. If you like, you can make some frosting or dust it with cocoa.
On the last full day of that retreat, Jin Ho invited me to her hut for some green tea. What hit me was the frugality. She had spent three months in this woodshed with a bed, a book, a stove, her mala (Buddhist prayer beads), her coat and a pair of snow boots. There was so much freedom in this austerity, no stuff to tidy or put away, no clutter. We sat and drank tea and thanked each other for the few days we had shared.
Despite my headaches, the food that came out of the kitchen was full of flavour and flair. The three assistants were focussed and diligent. One rainy day, I joined the group for a meditation in the Chan Hall. I visualised countless jewels healing my tensions. The weather was typical of April in Wales: rain, clouds, sunshine, and a chill in the air. It was a common occurrence to see rainbows lying above the valleys.
In the afternoon after tea, we offered a sacred chant, invoking the many different qualities of Guru Rinpoche, conjuring his presence and literally inviting the Guru to “dance” among us: calling him with mantra and sacred Tibet
an instruments, both to the room itself and into our hearts. Guru Rinpoche (or Padmasambhava, which means Lotus-born), was John’s yidam, or meditational deity, a guardian and protector. Sophie read from a talk by John telling the story of how Guru Rinpoche had brought Buddhism to Tibet in the eighth century. I giggled as I heard John’s words, remembering how fascinating his talks and stories used to be. We all laughed, and I am sure that those in the room who knew him were missing him terribly at that moment. We decided to do a little music practice, with all the instruments, and make “celestial music”. I played a long dung chen, a very long wind instrument that makes a low and powerful sound, like the sound of an elephant. Others played bells and drums, a conch shell and a horn made from a human thighbone. We made a racket. That was the point: the chaotic discordance was beautiful and organic.
Once again, we chanted Padmasambhava’s mantra, Om ah hung benza guru peme siddhi hung, at lullaby pace. I found myself weeping. It awakened something visceral in me, a kind of primitive mourning. It also felt healing. The word atonement came into my mind, at-onement. The wind blew into the room; the weather became agitated. Later came the first hailstorm. Hailstones like tiny gems covered the ground, countless jewels making the birds shiver.
I returned to get supper ready with a strong sense of John’s presence, my heart full of gratitude for having had the privilege of having known this great teacher. I gave thanks for the hail and for the rainbows, for the rain and the sunshine.
If I were to describe a “Zen” moment with a vegetable on retreat, it would probably be with beetroot. Beetroots have a bad press, as they often get overcooked or overpickled. This sweet, earthy root is eager to offer itself to the cook for some creative treatment. Buy it fresh in bunches, making sure it is firm to the touch. If you are lucky you might be able to find a variation on the burgundy-red variety, such as the stripy Chioggio, or golden-yellow and orange or light pink ones.
I love baby beets from the allotment, boiled for ten minutes straight after picking with just a bit of salt. You can add them to a salad of mixed leaves whilst they are still slightly warm; the beets melt in your mouth, tasting of earth and sweetness.
Tales From a Zen Kitchen Page 14