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    Beyond Measure: The Cookbook For People Who Think They Can't Cook
    Beyond Measure: The Cookbook For People Who Think They Can't Cook
    Beyond Measure: The Cookbook For People Who Think They Can't Cook
    Ebook170 pages1 hour

    Beyond Measure: The Cookbook For People Who Think They Can't Cook

    By Jane Eliot

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    About this ebook

    With optimism and wisdom, Eliot invites us to join her on a freewheeling, spontaneous journey through her kitchen, where she shows us how to trust our own instincts as cooks. She guides us through a world of taste, mistakes, anecdotes, insights, and delicious ways of thinking about and preparing food, and teaches us to test truth against our own experiences.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJane Eliot
    Release dateNov 24, 2010
    ISBN9781935670407
    Beyond Measure: The Cookbook For People Who Think They Can't Cook

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      Book preview

      Beyond Measure - Jane Eliot

      Special Smashwords Edition

      Beyond Measure

      A Cookbook For People Who Don’t Think They Can Cook

      by

      Jane Winslow Eliot

      Beyond Measure

      Special Smashwords Edition

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

      Copyright © 2010 Jane Winslow Eliot. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written permission of the author. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

      The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

      Cover Art Design Jefferson Eliot

      Illustrations: Alexander Eliot

      Visit the author website www.janewinsloweliot.com

      ISBN# 978-1-935670-40-7 (eBook)

      ISBN# 978-1-935670-41-4 (paperback)

      Digital design by Telemachus Press, LLC

      http://www.telemachuspress.com

      eBook published and distributed by Smashwords.com

      http://www.smashwords.com

      Version 2011.07.06

      Contents

      The Gist of the Gypsy’s Tale

      Part I -You and Your Kitchen

      1. Fool – Cook

      2. Chaos – Kitchen

      3. Sun – Hand

      4. Stars – Utensils

      5. Moderation – Ingredients

      Part II – Recipes

      6. Moon – Seeds, Nuts, Beans, Eggs

      7. Lady Luck – Planovers

      8. Hung-Up – Sauces

      9. Pilgrim – Soups

      10. Lion – Rice

      11. Appetizers - Lovers and Others

      12. Magician – Substitutions

      13. Eve – Apples

      14. Nature – Vegetables

      15. Planets – Grains

      16. Catastrophe – Bread

      17. Strength – Yogurt

      18. Hermit – Herbs

      Part III - Just Desserts

      19. Sweet – Talk

      20. Charioteer – Balance

      21. The Card with No Name – You

      22. At Last – Judgment

      The Gist of the Gypsy’s Tale

      "I and my people call ourselves Wanderers. That is what we do. Others call us Gypsies. They’re not wrong. You see, ‘Gypsies’ is short for Egyptians,’ and Alexandria in Egypt is the place from which we began our wanderings. Now that city gleams along the Mediterranean coast beside the Nile River Delta. It was constructed by Alexander the Great centuries before the birth of Christ. But there came a day when Alexandria lay under siege by evil enemies. Soon Egyptian capital was in ashes – along with its great library of ancients’ scrolls which contained the most valued wisdom of earlier humanity.

      "My ancestors wondered: ‘Can anything be saved? Yes. There might still be time to summarize the library’s key contents in picture form upon a set of twenty-two papyrus scrolls, minus text, so the secrets would remain hidden in the open, These drawings are now called the Grand Arcana of the Tarot. When catastrophe struck, the scrolls were smuggled out the gates of the flaming town.

      The rest you can easily guess. We descendants of those few survivors have wandered the world ever since, spreading ancient knowledge and wisdom by means of the cards in my hand and the games we devise. Over time, the deeper rules of the game were revealed to trusted others. Never the mysteries.

      She looked up from her cards with a glance I still feel:

      These are won in personal search and silence. I asked her if I might take part.

      Permit the ancient stories into your life. Do not leave your days and nights to others. For each day can be portent or important, but it is in a day that your life takes place. Go now. Test truth against your own experience.

      BEYOND MEASURE results from Grandmother’s never-forgotten encouragement. In her honor, and for fun along the way, I’ve incorporated the Tarot’s Grand Arcana into this freewheeling, happily spontaneous effort. What follows was written along the beautiful, winding, ever new Wanderer’s’ Way, as I walked at will, sometimes strong, sometimes with beloved companions, often by mistake, once around the world by mistake, always daring to test truth against my own experience.

      You are welcome to join me now.

      Part I – You and Your Kitchen

      1. Fool – Cook

      2. Chaos – Kitchen

      3. Sun – Hand

      4. Stars – Utensils

      5. Moderation – Ingredients

      Part I – You and Your Kitchen

      1. FOOL

      Cook

      To start out a Fool, opened to the world, is natural enough. To remain a Fool is something else. So when I first went into my very own kitchen, even though I boldly took a firm step off the Cliff of Unknowing, the abyss immediately opened out beneath me, and I could see it was a long way down. After a two-month’s honeymoon in Europe, eating from some of the best kitchens in the world, I was alone in my own workspace for the very first time.

      Did I panic? Of course!

      Then with quick-witted optimism, I remembered: "Provençal chicken is extraordinary; there is a chicken in the fridge, I’ll cook it." Delighted, though squeamish, I washed the bird, and like an old hand at this, made sure it was empty inside. I popped it in a cold oven, turned on the heat to 400 and left it to fend for itself. Out it came an hour or two later, tough and tasteless. The best part about it was that it was badly burnt. I like burnt things, like burnt toast and crispy chicken. But clearly quick-witted optimism was not enough. At the thought of being bound to the kitchen for the rest of my life, I wept. Life was too much fun. After enough tears to make a full cup of Alice in Wonderland’s ‘tear-water tea,’ I asked myself, why not bring fun to the kitchen? Even so, I had to find the courage, because I certainly didn’t have it the next morning when I awoke to the smell of the burnt chicken.

      One good thing came of my first meal. I knew instantly how much I didn’t know about cooking. Most of it. It wasn’t that I wanted to cook American, Italian, Northern, Southern, Chinese, Indian, and be quaint, even good at it. I could ‘order in’ if that was it. No, I needed something freer: the very secrets of cooking. I did not mind being ignorant starting off on my quest, but clearly I didn’t want to remain where I was for too long. Nor did I want to be stuck merely following other people’s recipes. That would make me an instant follower. No. I wanted to know the underlying Rules and Relationships of cooking so I could create my own dishes, make up my own sauces, invent my own desserts. I figured as I learned how to bake, I would bake whatever I wanted to.

      But I obviously had a good deal yet to learn.

      2. CHAOS

      Kitchen

      Each time I step into my Kitchen, a vast silence pervades the darkness of my ignorance. My Kitchen is primal Chaos. Nothing speaks, if nothing is heard.

      I notice first that I’m not listening. What happens when I listen?

      A pound of tomatoes is squishing loudly to remind me they are sweet today, but would only stay around one more day. Use for sandwiches? Or sauces? I look about the room: A basket of red-chested apples shouts the wonders of apple tarts, applesauce, and baked apples. Onions are laughing sweetly about how I cry when I use them in my sauces. They remind me I won’t leave them out of a soup or fresh-chopped in a lettuce salad. Lettuce is crisping in a damp cloth, claiming quite mildly that it is ready for the meal. Herbs and garlic cloves whisper their gnarly, fragrant delights.

      Even so, I have to stop and make decisions: Flour is fluffing about my imagination, covering my hands with softness, making me yearn to get my fingers into a soft dough and pat and squeeze, roll and taste while I decide what to make of it. My kitchen has come alive as I listen to its silent sounds. I learn to stop and listen. My kitchen begins to guide me through its deep silences. It tells me to dare to begin.

      Every Cook benefits, from active silence, and so does your Kitchen.

      Your silent Kitchen is when dishes do not scream they are dirty; pots do not sulk they are burnt. Fridge purrs, shelves protect without shoving. All is easily found. You have basics for new intentions. Nothing distracts. Listening, you hear steam rising, casserole bubbling, toaster-oven buzzing, fried egg crackling, pasta blowing its top. You hear because you listen. In your own silence, you hear when things speak.

      Even friends, telling you what you need to know in order to respond, naturally.

      So, to get started:

      1. Have objects and foods you like on your shelves.

      2. Choose ‘simple-for-me’ goals: workable, wholesome, delicious goals.

      3. Whatever-is-easy-today goals.

      4. Then listen: In

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