I guess I should just throw these batteries out. That's what it looks like. It's hard to know which battery is the cause of this and which isn't. Are these bulb batteries that you took out maybe when... It's very hard to know. I don't keep good track of these kind of things. I just wonder if you took these out because they weren't working and... You know, I might have these in the bag to replace the ones that are in here with. We don't know. We don't know because we are not tracking everyday reality in the way we might if we were tracking everyday reality. You know, I don't know. I do get the bills paid. And I eat pretty well. You know, I cook. But then there's other things that witches don't pay attention to, like which batteries are which. Yeah, well, I would say, you know, it has to do with getting older.

[01:03]

But my teenage daughters know better. That's possible. She knows better that it's not just age. She doesn't try. She just doesn't even try to track any better. Oh. Well, it's useful, you know, now and again for various things. I guess we can discuss what we want to talk about. I think so, you know. Although it's useful to track things like what the speed limit is. Okay, now let's see. Excuse me, but I got the thermos of tea. But now we still need the two cups. Okay. I believe. Okay.

[02:13]

Okay. So this tea will have, it has cream and a little bit of sugar. A little bit. Well, it's in the vanilla ice cream. I haven't added sugar other than the vanilla ice cream. Yeah, but that has a lot of sugar, right? You know enough. For some people, but some people, you know, like having a little more sugar in their tea. Oh, really? If you find that this isn't, but it's generally, it's a nice combination of sugar and cream. Cheers. Cheers. Thank you. This will be plenty of sugar for me. I don't take any sweetener usually. Oh, there you go. That's delicious. Yeah. Really delicious. You know what? I think I'm going to, excuse me, I'm going to wash my hands. In case they have battery acid on them. Oh. Okay, thank you.

[03:46]

No problem. But do you shop at the Good Earth? I shop at the Good Earth, and I shop at the United Market. Mm. The one between San Francisco and San Simón. Can't you go to the farmer's market like today? Well, today I'm talking to you, but I don't often get to the farmer's market. I don't often think about it, but three or four times during the summer I get over there. I also spend time out in Inverness. So two or three times a year I get to the Point Reyes Farmers Market. And next Saturday I'm going to be there. Next Saturday, I mean, like two or three days away, I'm going to be at the Farmers Market to do a demo and stuff. So I'll go early and buy some stuff to work with. What are you going to demo there? Some kind of salad, probably. I'm doing a lot of... I should have kept some for you, but salad using a green,

[04:48]

like especially that kale or Chinese cabbage or cabbage or purple cabbage, and cutting it up thinly, adding salt, and squeezing it with your hands. It's hand-frying. Massaging it with your hands so the salt goes, the water out, and the salt goes in, the water comes out, and then it's easy to chew. It has a nice flavor and a little dressing. So you could actually take kale and salt it and make it into a salad. Yeah. Wow. When you salt it and squeeze it, now it's tender and easy to chew, which I find helpful in this business. Yeah, I do need to chew it. Well, you know, I don't know if it's everybody, but, you know, after a while my mouth gets tired of chewing when it's really raw food stuff. Mm-hmm. So this means you can eat it raw, but it's chewable. Great. And then I add sweet and sour, so honey or sugar, and then lemon, lime, or vinegar. So then you have a little more dressing, and then if you want,

[05:52]

you can have garlic or ginger or red pepper or black pepper or green chilies. And then you can add cilantro or basil or green onion. And then you can have – I often put on some kind of toasted cedar nut because that's the bitter flavor. So then you have all five flavors. It's very satisfying to eat something like that. So the five flavors being? Salt, sweet, sour or tart, pungent, the hot flavor, and bitter. And the kale is bitter. And the kale is a little bitter, yeah. So you have a bitter green to start with if you have kale. Cabbage is more a little sweet and a little pungent. If you taste cabbage, it's often a little bit – especially once you have a little bit of salt on it, it's often you get a little mustard quality because it is in the mustard family. So cabbage you have a little bit more of the pungent quality. If you eat kale, you start out with something a little bit more bitter.

[06:53]

I've seen mustard greens have the bitter. I'm wondering what to do with them. Could you do the same thing with those? It would probably be pretty hot, but yeah, you could. It would be hot, huh? Well, yeah, because the mustard greens are mustardy. So like arugula would be like a – Yeah, it's like a mustard green. And so I usually cut up mustard greens and a lot of days I make a soup for breakfast. You make a soup for breakfast? Yeah, it's a vegetable soup. Huh. Because I don't know about everybody else, you know, but at some point 10 or 15 years ago, I realized I'm eating too many carbohydrates. Yeah. And if you start eating carbohydrates, whether it's oatmeal or toast, then you get sugar cravings. You know, your blood sugar goes up and then you get excited and then you want more and then your blood sugar goes down and you want more and pretty senior stuff, but you don't really have good energy. And you need something like, you know,

[07:56]

apples are supposed to help regulate your sugar metabolism. So maybe if you have some apples with you, you'll be okay. But I cut way back on my carbohydrates. And then for breakfast I started making a soup. So because I'm fairly good at these things, I can cut up the vegetables and make a soup in about 10 minutes. Really? 15. And the soup that you mean? You cut up the leeks and then that carrot. If I have it, mushrooms and then some kind of green. This morning I had leek, red pepper, some leftover fennel, some zucchini and some green onions. And I saute that with garlic and or ginger and then I put in a little vermouth or sherry. And then add water. And then if I have leftovers, the leftovers can go in there,

[08:59]

leftover vegetables or anything pretty much. So it's 10 minutes to cut up the vegetables, but then the soup has to cook. No, I saute it. When you saute it, it's very quick. It sautes in a couple of minutes. I start cutting up the leeks and then I start them sauteing and I keep cutting and I add things and I watch it and I stir it and cut and stir and pretty soon it's done. 10, 15 minutes. That's because I'm fast at cutting. You must be very fast at cutting. I don't take, I don't. One of the things I try to tell people is, you know, we all make choices in our life. So I encourage people to choose to cook. And once you choose to do something, then study how to do it so it's enjoyable and fun and you can actually do it and get it done rather than having it be a chore. Right, right. A chore is something you have to do, not you choose to do. So if you choose to do something,

[10:00]

then choose to learn about how you do it and how to do it in a way that works for you and is enjoyable. Now, I don't know what it is, but largely in our culture, people spend so much time in school and everything that we don't know how to do stuff with our hands, with our bodies. Yeah. Oh, well, but you can learn that stuff. Well, it's funny because today I got a newsletter from my son's school. He's in eighth grade. And they wanted a donation of a food processor because they have a garden and they want to teach the kids to make food. And I thought, well, that's interesting that they want a food processor to make food if they're going to have these kids there. And they could be cutting up the vegetables. You'd think, but then they'd be using knives and something could happen. Oh, you think that's a liability issue.

[11:02]

Probably. Oh, that's an interesting notion. Yeah. Because I thought, now why are you giving these kids a food processor? Then they think they need a food processor in order to cook, but they don't need a food processor. They just need a knife. Okay. It's kind of interesting. Yeah. That's what Harry says in here now. Nobody cooks from scratch anymore. And, I mean, of course, there's a difference between from scratch where you go out to the yard and grab a chicken by its leg and whack off its head and buying a chicken at the store and cooking it. But nowadays, who's going to buy a chicken even? It's getting to be pretty rare. And then he points out that all these chef shows aren't about cooking. Now they're about competition. And they use all these prepared ingredients. I had no idea. I thought some of these cooking shows, they were actually cooking food, but they use prepared mayonnaises and all kinds of stuff, he says.

[12:04]

But I've never watched them, so I wouldn't know what they're doing on these shows. Did you see Julia and Julia? Yeah, I have seen it now. What did you think of that? I enjoyed it very much. It was fun seeing... Who is it? Sissy Spacek or... Amy... No, the woman who plays Julia Child. Oh, Meryl Streep. Meryl Streep. I'm confused about who's who, but yes, Meryl Streep, yeah. It was fun seeing her. Yeah, yeah. With Julia. But they were really into having their recipes be completely by the book, right? Yeah. Well, and there's a certain usefulness to that. I used Julia Child's book in the 60s when I was learning to cook, and it's one of the best cookbooks there is because of that. Because you can make what it says you can make, and her directions are so careful. And there's all the ingredients you need,

[13:07]

and there's the equipment you need, and the equipment's listed there with the ingredients, and then the steps to do with that equipment and those ingredients, and it's amazing. It's such a good book. So I don't see any problem with that. I'm just... For myself and my encouragement for people is that you can also learn to taste what's what, and once you have some basics, the big thing about, you know, and Michael Pollan mentions it in here, you know, the big thing about sauteing meat, like get it dry, you know, pat it dry, or put some flour on it, and then it will brown better. So is that right? Oh, yeah. And Julia Child told you that? Yeah. Yeah. And so... But once you know a few basic things, then...

[14:08]

You know, like one of the things I make, and I write vegetarian cookbooks, but I eat meat. It's, you know, I make a... What's it called? Braised chicken, I think. And it's basically Julia Child's recipe. I coat the chicken with a little flour and with some seasoning, salt and pepper, and some thyme or oregano or something, and saute it in butter and oil, like she says, and get it nicely browned, and then I saute some... I take that out of the pan, and then I saute some onions with some flour, and I add some water, and I have a sauce, and then you put it in a low baking dish so the sauce comes halfway up the chicken, and you put a lid on it, and then it cooks in the oven for another 20 minutes or something, and it's delicious. And then you can have other vegetables in there and have it serve as stew, and so it's simple and good. Of course, it's...

[15:11]

You know, this is... It's part of a bigger issue, but obviously people don't cook much or spend much time cooking, and people think, oh, that's time. But, you know, I don't frankly find, you know, watching television very satisfying or fulfilling. I find cooking satisfying and fulfilling. Now, I don't get it, you know, why people want to do something that's not particularly satisfying and fulfilling, except that if you watch television and, you know, do some of the other things that people do, I mean... To pass the time, you know, basically, I think it's, you know, people would rather do something where you don't have to relate to anything. You don't have to actually relate to the object of consciousness and work with it. So, basically, we're just saying that our culture is intimacy-deprived, that we don't know how to relate to one another. We don't know how to be intimate with ourselves or with people or with food.

[16:15]

So, big surprise, as far as that goes. And then there's all these directions about how to, you know, how to get it right. When, you know, intimacy and connection and being with something isn't about getting it right. It's like being sensitive to the object of consciousness and listening, you know, you're listening to the other and speaking, you know, what you have to say without trying to hurt or harm the other. And, you know, and then you work with something to see if you can bring out the best in it. So, this is, you know, whether it's food or yourself or another person, you know, this kind of aim is what makes sense to me. And so, mostly, when people say they don't have time to cook, what they are really saying is, I have no idea how to be intimate and I'm not about to study it because I'm so bad at it, you know. Oh, well, okay.

[17:16]

And, you know, I think the only way to become intimate is that you do it awkwardly at first and then get better at it. So, you cook kind of bad at first and then you get better at it. Just like if you were to endeavor to have some conversations with your partner and you could learn to listen and you could get better at it, listening and providing empathy rather than critiques or suggestions or directives or advice. You could actually, oh, you're sad, oh, you're scared, oh, you're upset, oh, you know, you like this and try listening first before fixing. I don't know, but that's just my idea. But, you know, what do I know? I'm, well, anyway, I just keep studying these things and keep working at them, you know. It's not like I'm an expert. I'm just working at this stuff and I'm not going to give you a bunch of advice about how to do it. I'm just going to encourage you to make some mistakes, show up, start someplace,

[18:20]

make some mistakes, study from your errors, see if you can do it better the next time. I don't know, but somehow people would rather not do anything that might be criticized or that you could get wrong and maybe we could have a relationship where we don't relate to each other and we could kind of hang out together and you wouldn't know me and I wouldn't know you and we could hide the worst parts of ourselves from each other so that you'd still like me, you know. And, I don't know, that's, I guess that substitutes for relationship or connection or intimacy in a lot of instances. I don't know. I thought when, you know, after 20 years of relationship and my partner and I split up, you know, I thought, well, hey, you know, I meditate, I exercise, you know, I'm interested in relationship, but actually it turns out that on the whole, I don't meet, I never met, I hardly ever met women

[19:21]

who are interested in relationship. You know, you, me, you know, I am too present. You are too present? Yeah, you know, it's sort of like you're too alive. I'm sorry. No, no, no, no, we can't, anyway, there was various problems, but now I have a girlfriend, I don't know what happened. Well, wait, wait, I want to understand what you're saying. You're saying that most women are not interested in relationship, they're interested in... Well, having a relationship where you don't have to relate or somehow where things work without you having to work or without you, you know, I'm interested in... I could say the same thing about men. Yeah, exactly. There are very few people, there are very few people, men or women, who actually seem to want to know somebody and... With all their warts. Yeah, with all their warts, yeah. Well, it's not surprising,

[20:25]

there's this great article here, by the way. Making room for my junk, ma'am. Oh, yes, this is so cool. And after 13 years of marriage, her husband decided to move in with her. Oh, is that right? Well, they've been living together, but he had kept his office, so he had tons of stuff from his childhood and everything, and she's, like, overwhelmed by, you know, the stuff, and at some point she realizes, down the end here, he may have all this baggage, but I have my baggage, and it's kind of brilliant, because she realizes my baggage is that I thought I could have a pristine, perfect, clean relationship. Yeah, yeah. Isn't that... Oh, nobody else has that, or... Yeah, yeah. Well, there is that thought

[21:27]

that we all look at everybody's grass and it's so green. Yeah, yeah, it looks that way. Yeah, yeah, we all... You know, nobody raises their voice in anyone else's house, and... Yeah, don't raise your voice. I did, I made that mistake recently. Oh, well, I hope we're still friends, but maybe not, we'll see. You raised your voice to somebody? Yeah. It was the dog snatching the toast out of my hand with his mouth. Your dog? No, at the other person's house. Oh. So I was startled and also kind of intimidated and scared, and I don't like dogs snatching. You know, I live with a dog, and I don't like the dog. What the fig, you know, with his, you know, out of my hand. Yeah. But, you know... So I lost my patience with that.

[22:28]

Today I talked to my friend, and she said, well, you know, we do give our dogs treats when they're learning to walk and cross the street, and when you hold the treat down by your side, so you probably had your toast down by your side close enough to where it might have been. Well, that's an interesting thing to say. So thank you. Meantime, they have been telling me about how they never give their dog food from the table or in the kitchen because the dog doesn't learn to beg. Well, I'll tell you, we don't ever give my dog food from the table or the kitchen, and he is the biggest beggar you will ever meet. I mean, he will, if he was here, he would take the chair, get up on the chair, and then actually get up on the table and take the bear's food. No, I don't, I wouldn't allow that. Well, I wouldn't allow either. No, I'm just talking. But at any rate, you know,

[23:35]

I think it's kind of like a parent making an excuse for their child doing something that they weren't supposed to do. Well, at the same time, you know, I don't try to excuse my impatience or losing my temper. You know, I don't think anybody deserves to be yelled at. I mean, I think there's something to be said for being firm without, you know, making your point without becoming enraged. But we're doing the best we can. So, do you bake bread still at home? I bake bread about twice a month. I make olive oil bread. Olive oil bread. Yeah, olive oil bread. It's nice and light and fairly short. You know, two hours, two and a half hours start to finish. And so, simple, light, you know.

[24:40]

And again, since I cut way back on carbohydrates, I'm not eating as much wheat. But, you know, occasionally, not very often, but occasionally I make, you know, biscuits or cookies or something. I like Michael Pollan's finish to his article here. He says, if you want to go on a diet, just eat what you cook. I don't know. It ain't working for me. For most of the population, if they were eating what they cook, then they would be eating less. Yeah, yeah. Well, I guess I enjoy my bread. And not, you know, not nearly so much fat and sugar and stuff, you know, like in the french fries and everything else that is manufactured. No, so yeah, I don't bake nearly as much as I did

[25:47]

when I was younger. I just don't have the appetite for it. I'm eating a lot more vegetables and fruits and nuts and seeds. Mm-hmm. And I still like potatoes somehow. Oh, potatoes are so good. Compared to... So I eat more potatoes compared... rather than grains. I like... Somehow, you know, basically my idea about what to eat, you know, is I'm going to eat what's aesthetically pleasing. And I think it's important that you, you know, learn to trust your own aesthetic, what you like, what you don't like, but also that you, you know, keep trying things to see if your aesthetic is still the same or if your aesthetic might be broadened or shifted by eating something else. Because if your aesthetic is kind of undeveloped,

[26:48]

then you say, well, I just like meat and potatoes, so I'm going to eat meat and potatoes. But... So my aesthetic would... My sensibility would be, well, yeah, fine, and why don't you keep trying some other things? And... But, you know, I'm just talking out of experience, but, you know, I have an interest in trying things. And I know in Chinese medicine, digestion is related to... The capacity to digest things is related to your capacity to digest or take in your experience. So when you're... When your digestion is very narrow, when you narrow your digestion down to just eating a few things, then you also narrow down your capacity to take in a wide range of experience and digest it. Anyway, that's the understanding in Chinese medicine. So I think it's important to, you know, eat fairly widely and keep trying things out and seeing what works and what doesn't work and what you like and what you don't like and to taste things carefully

[27:50]

and to, you know, give your attention to what happens. I mean, I like potato chips, but, you know, I eat potato chips carefully, I taste them, and after a while, I don't feel very good. So how much can I, you know... How much can I stand to eat potato chips and not feel good, you know? Not very much. So... And I think, you know... So I think a lot of what happens also is then people are not particularly aware of their bodies, their physical sensations, you know, and what's going on. So then you don't... You know, one of my examples of that is years ago, I had some Kentucky Fried Chicken, and I think in those days it was actually chicken and it tasted really good. Well, the next day, or even an hour later when it's room temperature, it tasted so greasy. And that grease was okay when it was hot, but when it's cold and you eat that grease, you're like, Why would I ever be eating something like this?

[28:51]

And, you know, I don't know. I don't want to eat rancid foods. I don't... You know, I just... It's like I can't, you know... But for me, that's just like... It's not about something with my head. I'm going to eat this and not eat that, which is most of what our culture recommends is that you have good rules for yourself about what to do and what not to do. And then you say, well, I'm such a bad... And chocolate is so sinful. Chocolate is not sinful. You know, why don't you give your attention to what you're eating and you'll, you know... If you give your attention to what you're eating, there's nothing that's sinful or decadent. You know, it's your own consciousness that either gets captivated by something or not, or you can give your attention to something and we all have the capacity to choose what to give our attention to rather than letting it be grabbed by the next immediate gratification thing that comes along,

[29:53]

whether it's the media or food. I don't know. But the whole potato chip thing and the chocolate... You know, like... But you can't eat just one. You remember that commercial, right? Yeah, no. I do a ceremony eating just one potato chip. You do? That would be really hard for me to eat just one. Well, that's why it's a ceremony. And you can do it with a group of people. Well, that's our, you know, our plan and we're going to sit down and we're just... And you focus on it. You focus on eating the one potato chip. You don't focus... You're not talking to a room, you know, full of strangers and, you know, nibbling on chips and drinking wine and you don't have a cigarette in one hand and a chip in the other. You're not watching television. You're giving your full attention to the one potato chip. Some of us have a hard time with that. Yeah, so you might have a hard time, but then you're in a room full of people who are just eating one potato chip. And we're going to watch you. We're going to see if you just take one. Yeah, me? No way. It's a ceremony and you... No, so if you agree to participate in the ceremony, then there you are, you know.

[30:54]

So you actually have one potato chip ceremony. Ceremony of eating one potato chip. It's in my... It's in the new book. Oh, is it? I have to look for that. Okay. Which is in the... The big fat one. Yeah, the big fat one. They're beautiful, though. They... I'm afraid that they don't have a very good index, which is a little disappointing. Because... As far as I know, you cannot look up potato chips in the back and see where this thing is. Huh. Which is... That's a little disappointing. They need to have their ceremony. I tried to look up potato fiascos back here. Oh, I was reading about the potato fiascos. I loved that. Maybe they didn't index the writings and they indexed the recipes? Yeah. So they didn't... They didn't index the writings and I think the least they could have done...

[31:56]

Is there an index for the writings and the recipes? It's to index... I think they could have at least indexed the titles. Is that in the table of contents? No. No, and they don't list the stories in the table of contents, so it's a little distressing. And you didn't see a final version of that part of the book? I didn't see the index, so I just assumed that they were going to index. I know where... Oh, you know... Well, anyway, I don't know where it is in this book. I know where potato fiascos is, because I had that marked. But you didn't know where the potato... Eating just one potato chip here is 423. So I used to... Oh, 423. Here I have the ceremony. Bets have been made. Challenges have been laid.

[32:57]

You've been told you can't do it. You never dared to try, but here's the sacred taste. Taste what you put in your mouth. Experience it. The potato chip is already manufactured and always ready for you, waiting perhaps in the aeons for this opportunity. So concentrate on preparing the other ingredients. To strengthen and focus concentration, eliminate all the most obvious distractions, TV, radio, stereo, reading material, especially People magazine and the daily newspaper. Talking, shopping, driving, concentration is to be applied to the potato chip and only to the potato chip. No dip allowed. You are encouraged to be seated and not to have a drink in the other hand. Attention is to be attuned to what is actually present moment after moment. Attuned because attention is often turned toward what is wished for or feared and frequently glosses over the actual experience. Refine or focus the attention by pointing out what is to be attended to,

[33:58]

how the chip feels in the hand, how the chip looks, the smell of the chip, the intention to place the chip in your mouth, how the chip feels in your mouth, how the chip tastes moment after moment, how the chewing sounds and carefully the sensations of swallowing. Mindfulness is to be whipped up or aroused as it tends to save itself for more important things than tasting potato chips. Remind yourself that eating a potato chip with mindfulness is vitally important. To be mindful means the experience attended to actually makes an impression. One way to arouse mindfulness is to practice making notes about what you're going to tell your grandchildren about this particular potato chip. Beige, greasy, between the fingers, beautiful curve, cute ruffles, urge, like a fire flaming to life to place in mouth, feel with tongue, powerful crunch, and so on. Please don't take my word for it. Find your own words. Couch your ingredients, seated, undistracted, focused. When you're ready,

[34:58]

pick up, you may pick up and eat, better yet, savor the one potato chip. Get everything you can out of that chip because it's the only chip in the entire universe. But what I did mention is don't try this at home. Do this with a group of people and hit the bell before and afterwards. But I did this one time. Curiously enough, one of the first times I did this ceremony was 1996 at Green Gulch. The first Sunday of the month starts with a kid's lecture for 10 or 12 minutes. So I told the kids, we've been here at Green Gulch for 25 years and there's a ceremony we've never done. I'd like to do it with you today. Would you like to do that? And they said, yeah. And I said, it's a ceremony of eating one chip. And this boy who was seven leapt to his feet in a big voice so the whole room could hear. 250 people. You're crazy. And so that gave me,

[36:00]

it was a perfect plant, you know, because then I explained to him and to the room, that's why this is a ceremony. This is not something for you to try at home. You'll see, you can actually do this, you know, here with the rest of the group. Well, I'm going to try it. So it helps, it does help to have a group of people and, you know, to, you know, it's the nature of manufactured foods, you know, that there's something Addictive. Addictive. It grabs your attention. And we give away our attention. Our attention is very precious and we give it away to these objects that grab our attention rather than giving it to, you know, what's actually going on in our being. You know, our thoughts are, what are we thinking, what are we really feeling, what are the sensations, and, you know, listening to our family and our friends and our kids and our parents

[37:00]

and, you know, being able to talk about things and being able to experience life. And instead of that, we're giving our, we're letting our attention get grabbed by, you know, corporate world. So sometimes I talk about what I'm doing in teaching cooking and what some people have written me about is I feel like I've re-owned my life from corporate America. Oh. You know, because if you cook for yourself or you bake bread for yourself or you, you know, you start to garden and you actually can have a life that is not just buying into corporate America, even, you know, it's amazing, but even to have a good time now, to have pleasure, you know, corporate America wants you to believe that that's something you spend money on. You just go for a walk and enjoy yourself, I mean, you've got to be crazy. You know, there's nothing going on. No, no, no, no. Come and spend this money and we'll grab your attention with all these great experiences that, you know, we're going to

[38:00]

sell you and go to Disneyland or whatever, you know, movies. So anyway, I think it, I encourage people to wake up and smell and taste and touch and think and feel and experience things and, and I don't know, you know, I don't know, I'm sure for some people it's a challenge, but part of the, part of the challenge, again, is it seems to me that, you know, we worry about getting it right and what will people say and, but again, that's, you know, I just think that you can spend your whole life hiding out and not doing much of anything because, you know, it might not be approved and it's kind of sad, finally, that as a cultural so much, from my point of view, you know, hiding out, not being willing to reveal who we are or what we're capable

[39:02]

of doing and working through some of the, you know, developing our skill or craft at, whether it's art or, you know, life, our skill or craft of communicating or conversation or cooking or gardening and, you know, it's all things that we could do and people used to do or... Because people are afraid of failure? Yeah, people are afraid of failure. Uh-huh. Being judged as being less than or not good enough. Uh-huh. So, that's why my book originally, Tomato Blessings, which is part of this book, was originally called Potato Fiascos. Oh, it was called Potato Fiascos? And Radish Teachings and then the publisher said, well, we can't actually have a book called Potato Fiascos. Oh, what does she mean? No one will buy it. I don't think that's true. But I was trying to encourage people to, I was explaining to people and then Potato Fiascos is in here,

[40:02]

you know, the title piece of that book or what had been the title of that book, the Potato Fiascos is in here because, you know, if you're going to cook or if, you know, if you're just going to be a human being, you're going to have some fiascos. So, and, so, I've, I keep choosing to have fiascos rather than, I'm not going to do anything, I'm not going to say anything, I'm going to, you know, see if I can stay below the radar and if you don't do anything, you can't be wrong and, you know, at some point, it's so, you know, depressing among other things. Why do you suppose people are so depressed? Well, eating too much tofu, maybe? How is that to? Did you cut your finger cutting something? No, this was gardening. Oh, gardening. With a little hand tool that you whack into the ground to weed. Oh,

[41:03]

so. And my thumb was in the wrong place, so I, You whacked your thumb. I whacked my thumb rather severely with a, with this little hand hoe and it broke the nail and now it's out to the point where it's a little bit loose at the very top. That's painful. Well, you know, now it's fine except that I need to keep it from being ripped up. Yeah. It's not fun when you're trying to cut up vegetables. So, this part's okay. Now, if I have a bandaid on it, it's fine. So, um, you, you wrote in the preface of your book that, of your Talks to Horror Cook book that you um, found the early writing in Talks to Horror Cooking to be immature. Yeah. I was curious about that. So, what was immature to you? Well, you know, one of the characteristics to me of immature writing is to use the words. Oh, I'm a real

[42:04]

proponent of strong verbs. Strong verbs, yeah. Yeah, active verbs. So, there was a lot of that? Yeah. So, you mean the actual structure of the writing was immature, not the ideas? No, the ideas seemed, you know, basically quite good. Uh-huh. Concepts, concepts seemed fine. The writing, the writing seemed immature and that's one of the examples of that. Hmm. And, um, and then I, um, also kind of needed to elaborate and develop, um, on the, it's, this is much more crafted. So, I, I actually, there's still the, the first part of the book here, which is largely from Tussar Cooking, is, I elaborated on how to construct things and somewhat more on flavors and ingredients because in 1973 there wasn't balsamic vinaigrette goat cheese or, um, I don't

[43:04]

know, even red chili, red, red bell peppers. There weren't very many red bell peppers. It was mostly green bell peppers in 1973. Really? Yeah. anyway, I added some ingredients and, but not, you know, um, my idea of cooking is like, I, I, I don't want to have, I, I don't, you know, if I get a cookbook and there's ingredients that, like, I'm going to have to look for, I'm like, screw that. I'm going to, like, I'm going to just cook something I can cook, you know? You didn't want to, I don't want to go look for something, you know, what do I care? You know, that's an example of, for me, like, could we just cook some food and have something to eat instead of, oh, we have to have special this and unusual that and otherwise, you know, and, um, I guess that's good for some people. They like doing that sort of stuff, but I just, I'm just not so interested in it. I'm, I'm interested in what makes, you know, food delicious and I think,

[44:06]

and I'm, I, you know, I told you about the tasting where, uh, you know, salt, sweet, sour, pungent or the hot flavors, you know, chilies, black pepper, red pepper, green chilies, um, you know, garlic, ginger, those are mustard. They're, they're flavors that add heat in your mouth and that, to have some heat in your mouth, I don't know, it makes a huge difference. And, um, to add tart, to have tart, something, you know, that's tart, um, is very refreshing and it gives a kind of vibrancy to the flavors in your mouth. So, I use a lot of tart and I use a lot of pungent, um, and not just salt and everything, you know, and I don't, you know, to me it's not very complicated. Um, it's just tasting and then beginning to know the ingredients and, you know, I think cooks, you know, often go through, like artists

[45:07]

used to go through blue periods. I think cooks go through, you know, lemon periods. You can put lemon into just about anything and it is so flavorful. And, to me, if you're going to put lemon in something, you know, you squeeze it. And, because I have yet to find a bottled lemon juice that does what a fresh lemon does, you know. I just, so, so, what I tell people, you know, what I've studied, what I've studied is, you know, what, what makes a difference? You know, what does, does fresh lemon juice or lemon peel, you know, make a difference? Is that difference, how much is that difference worth a difference? How much is that worth? Does that, is that worth my taking the time to do what's necessary to make that happen? You know, which differences make a difference? And then, do they make enough difference to act on that difference? And, to me, this is just studying, you know.

[46:07]

So, But we want you to do the studying and tell us. Yeah, yeah. You know, I'm, up to a point I'm willing to do that. But, at some point, you know, if it's, you know, it's, if it doesn't make a difference to you, you're not going to do it. You're going to use bottled lemon juice, you're going to use dried ginger or, you know, dried garlic. And because fresh garlic is too much trouble. And, so, but I've also come up now with this other flavor thing which you can read about in Tussar, in the Tussar cookbook, you know, which is earth flavors, stem leaf flavors, flowery, fruity flavors. And when you have some aspect of each of those flavor elements in a dish or together in a meal, it's very satisfying. So, I think it's important to have a kind of structure. Or, it can be very important because then you have something to like,

[47:09]

you can refer back to, you can taste something like, oh yeah, this is earthy. So, you know, when you think about it, there's a lot of things that are earthy. Cheese is earthy, and dairy products, and grains, and nuts, and seeds, and meat, and they're all earthy things. You know, they're not stem leaf flavors. Those are not flowery, fruity flavors. They're heavy, they're substantial, they're, you know, and even sautéed onions. When you sauté things, you know, when you sauté something in hot oil, the starches are converted into simple sugars, and then they caramelize in the bottom of the pan, and that's earthy. It's the sweet earth and the bitter earth. And then, when you have that in your tomato sauce, or in your soup, or something, then you're like, oh, this has some body, this has some substance, this has some earthy quality. And then, you know, the brightness, there's, and then there's the stem and leaf flavors, which is basically

[48:09]

vegetables, you know, and celery, and asparagus, and lettuces, and greens, and all of those. They're, and it's the, and in Chinese medicine, of course, we call that fiber. But in Chinese medicine, it's the part of the plant that moves from the earth up into the sky. And that's what it does in your body, it moves things. So, I'd rather think about it poetically than in terms of some kind of fiber. I mean, who wants to eat fiber? That's this little watch over here that goes off at this time every day, because nobody's figured out how to turn it off. And then, flowery, fruity flavors, you know, it's literally fruit, but it's also things like vanilla extract. Stop it. This is a, it's a watch.

[49:11]

Yeah, that I've never used. It persists, I can't even get it out of here, I have to get it out of there. Anyway, the, something like vanilla extract, you know, it's a, chocolate chip cookies. Yeah. The grain is earthy, the eggs are earthy, the dairy's earthy, the chocolate's earthy, everything, the chocolate chip cookie is earthy, except for vanilla. What about the chocolate? The chocolate's an earthy flavor, it's the, it's, especially the dark, dark chocolate is bitter. That's earthy, you think? Yeah, it's very dirty. If you put, you know, in here, I have a tomato sauce, and you put in unsweetened cocoa, and it is dirty. Does it taste good? It tastes good, if you don't put in too much, otherwise it just tastes too much like dirt. I mean, I've never eaten dirt, but, you know, this is dirty. So, um, dark chocolate is definitely dirty. What anything, you know, that brightens it at all is the vanilla, or the red raspberry,

[50:13]

or the orange, or the ginger. That's what, why, why are all those things in there? It's because the dark chocolate by itself is pretty intense, and some people find that satisfying, but a lot of people want a little bit of something bright in there. And that's what's so wonderful about a chocolate chip cookie at a Guinness, you know? So, but also, like, sometimes if you have an espresso, you put a little twist of lime, lemon in there, and that little, that's a little, that's, espresso's dark, dirty, it's bitter, and that little bit of bright, brightness comes with the lemon peel. Yeah. So, if you, when you begin to have some sense of this in your cooking, and you taste things carefully, you start to know what's going to make it bright, rather than just kind of, more prosaic, you know? And I don't know, you know, personally, I want things to taste good. I don't want to just eat the right thing. I'm sorry. You know, but then people think, well, you know, you should just steam your vegetables, right? No! Saute them

[51:14]

in oil. You know, get a grip. You know, have a life. And, you know, um, um, I don't know, you know, this is something else that I think we talked about on the phone, but, um, ah, you know, the great cholesterol con, um, you know, that fat does not cause cholesterol cholesterol does not cause heart disease. but people have been sold this. And sold that you should eat less fat. And, actually, you need fat. You know, and your brain isn't going to work without fat. And your, you know, and your, you know, fat is not the problem. Carbohydrates are the problem. And all that, all that sugar and alcohol is what turns into fat, not the fat you eat. I don't know. you said not to eat eggs too. And now, I think it's okay to eat eggs. Now it's okay to eat eggs again. Thank goodness. Anyway, it's also bizarre, you know,

[52:14]

with the, ah, food industry and the, you know, pharmaceutical pharmaceutical industry and all this stuff. I mean, statin drugs are only the world's best selling, you know, most profitable drug actors. So they have a huge, huge billions and billions of dollars at stake in getting you to believe that you need these things. And I have at least two friends whose lives have been devastated by statin drugs. I'm convinced that, you know, if you read about the side effects, nobody thinks it's my statin drugs. But you can get depressed. And, you know, I have one friend who got depressed enough, you know, to try to commit suicide. And obviously there's many things going on in somebody's life, but, you know, that all started when he started taking statin drugs. And over, and ten years later, after taking statin drugs for ten years, one thing led to another and he'd never been depressed in his life. But,

[53:14]

you know, statin drugs mess with your liver and that has a lot to do with whether you're depressed or not. If you don't have good liver energy you're not going to have, you know, you can easily get depressed. And I have another friend who got peripheral neuropathy which turns out to be one of the side effects of... What is peripheral neuropathy? That's where the nerves in your hands and feet and your periphery start dying. The pain receptors. And when the pain receptors in your hands and feet start dying it's extremely painful. And then you can't sleep and then, you know, you... Is that a common side effect of statins? No, I don't think it's a common side effect but it's not a common thing to have happen either. It's so uncommon that he had, you know, serious difficulty getting it diagnosed and even the head of the UCSF neuropathy department said, I think it's in your head but tell you what, we'll send a biopsy to John Hopkins in Baltimore. And they

[54:15]

said, yeah, you've got peripheral neuropathy. And that started after he started taking statin drugs. There's no way to prove these things but that is one of the side effects. And I know he's very concerned about his heart, you know, and then he's eating, you know, less, you know, low fats and then he's taking these drugs. And, you know, how do you get these things? But, you know, I'm convinced that doesn't mean that there's any science for this but, you know, there are side effects to this stuff. And I've been telling my doctors for years, I'm not going to mess up my liver in order to supposedly benefit my heart. I'm sorry, I'm just not going there. And the doctors keep telling me to take Lipitor and now I've finally got this book that says it's all of, you know, at one point in the book he says the evidence that cholesterol causes heart disease is bracket, blank, closed bracket. And he says the U.S. Department of Health set

[55:15]

out in 1986 to prove that cholesterol caused heart disease and after 11 years they gave up and they said we can't prove this. And the evidence that the drug manufacturers use is not complete and they make stuff up. And he quotes this stuff and he shows these studies and it actually does not show that cholesterol causes heart disease. You know, they seem to know a lot more about cholesterol now than they did when they first started feeding us this cholesterol story. Now there's good cholesterol and there's bad cholesterol. No, I know, but he says about that that that's all just bullshit too. Because, see, what happened is, see, cholesterol causes heart disease, right? The French, well, let's, you know, so the French have the highest saturated fat intake, the highest cholesterol in Europe, and one of the lowest heart disease rates. Oh, that's the French paradox. But cholesterol

[56:16]

causes heart attacks, got it? So we don't care if there's a French paradox. Well, and then they eat. They sit down and they talk to each other. It's a social time. We can enjoy life. We're not just, we're not just fueling the human body. But, and then, you know, and so then there was, well, but these statistics don't apply to women. Oh, that's because, well, that's because women have more of this other kind of cholesterol and less of this. So they come up with whatever explanation they can come up with to try to keep their original premise that cholesterol causes heart disease in place in spite of all the evidence that's contrary to that. So at some point it says, excuse me, but if there's all this evidence contrary to this, how can you still keep your basic premise? You know, have you followed the whole hormone replacement therapy? No. No.

[57:16]

It's really very similar, only they actually did studies that showed that after all those years of selling hormone replacement therapy, that it was causing breast cancer. It was causing breast cancer, stroke. It was not helping with anything. Yeah. It was just creating a mess. Yeah. It's very similar. Yeah, very similar. So that's hasn't taken as long to figure out. Another one of the startling statistics, by the way, is East Indian immigrants are vegetarian, don't smoke, don't drink, extremely low cholesterol, one of the highest rates of heart attacks in the world. I wouldn't think they were low in cholesterol from going to an Indian restaurant. They have all those gravies. Well, anyway, this is his statistics. Huh. Huh. And that may just be restaurants and that's what people eat at home. Yeah, yeah. But anyway, so they're the ones who are vegetarian and

[58:17]

so, but cholesterol causes heart disease, remember? So anyway, I'm just blown away by all of that, but you know, it also confirms for me that I'm interested in an aesthetically pleasing diet, you know, eating a variety of foods, having a variety of flavors, a variety of tastes, you know, colors, textures, and I'm willing to spend a little time, you know, preparing it because I like working with my hands. I've found that, you know, I have, it's much more satisfying and fulfilling to me to do something with my hands rather than, you know, I get restless if I try to watch television, you know, or sit at a movie at home. I can go out to a movie theater, but often the movie theaters, I start getting restless. I want to be doing something with my body. I don't want to be the passive recipient of some, you know, kind of entertainment. I'm sorry, maybe some of you like that, but, you know, I don't

[59:20]

find it fulfilling. I don't find it satisfying. If I watch television, or when I used to watch television for very long, I would feel extremely lethargic. I'd feel, you know, sort of depressed, sort of sad, and then what do you do, you know? Like, well, why don't I go outside and, you know, go for a walk, get some fresh air? I mean, how do I wake up from this, you know, kind of malaise of, you know, sitting in front of a television? So I don't know how people do it, you know? I don't, I just don't know how people do it. I cannot, I can't, I can't stand it. But, okay, so again, I just, you know, can only assume that means that's the alternative to actually relating to things. Right. That's an alternative to actually being with something, you know, being with your body, walking, exercising, doing, being with food, gardening, you know, carpentry, you

[60:21]

know, hammering, sawing, nailing, you know, playing musical instruments. There's so many things that, you know, one can do with one's body that to me is energizing and satisfying and, you know, but, okay, so. But, so, anyway, that's my encouragement for people. I don't know. I've been working on this for years and then Doris came along and put me in a movie, so that was nice. So, you became a little bit of a celebrity from that? For a few minutes. Is that right? Yeah, you know, when the movie premiered at the Mill Valley Film Festival, I had, you know, 300 best friends for about an hour, who I've never seen, who I haven't seen since. Really? 300 best friends? Well, I don't know, you know, we went across the street from, you know, to the, that meeting place that's across the street from the Mill Valley Theater.

[61:22]

It's right on the corner there, I forget what it's called, but the. The Piazza? No, no, it's right at the corner of Throckmorton and Blightdale and if you're coming up Blightdale and you turn left onto Throckmorton, it's on that far corner. And it's a club, a house of some kind, and they rented it out for things and so the distribution company rented it for a party for the movie after it was shown across the street. And we had food, and so while I was there, then everybody was my friend, and I've never, you know, I haven't seen any of them since. But that, you know, one of the things that's fun about the movie is how much of the audience, you know, I've seen it now about 40 times, and every audience is different. Really? Yeah. And I'm the kind of, I tend to feel what's in the room. So if somebody, if people are attentive to the movie and responding to the movie, then I feel like,

[62:22]

oh, people are attentive. And that audience in Mill Valley was one of the best. Oh, really? Yeah, they were, the audience was just fabulous, and they were attentive and absorbed. You know, other audiences are going to be like, well, when is something going to happen here, or what is this about, or why would I watch this, and it's sort of confusing for them, the stuff about that and stuff. But this is a very, you know, Green County is a good audience. And then this is about one of the only places in the country, you know, at the Raphel Theater, the movie showed for a month, or off and on, and, you know, it didn't do that anywhere else in the country. That's a great theater. So partly it's, you know, Knowing Men, partly it's the Raphel, and partly it's Marine County. But the movie, you know, got great reviews in New York and Boston and L.A., and, you know, it was in the theater for about three minutes, or, well, not three minutes, but three days or a week, and then disappeared. And now it's on DVD. And because of

[63:24]

the movie, there's the complete Tusser Cookbook. Is that right? Yeah, Shambhala wasn't going to do this until the movie. Is that right? Yeah. So then they said, I said well, no one was going to watch it. I said, well, no one was going to watch it in Germany either, but the book sales went up. It was a box office disaster in Germany, too, and book sales went up from 570 a year to over 5,500. Is that right? Yeah. In Germany? Tomato Blessings has been in print in Germany all these years. Uh-huh. In German. Das Lechern der Radischen. The Smile of the Radishes. Oh, it's called The Smile of the Radishes? Ah. And so it's been in print in Germany all these years, and it's still in print in Germany. Oh, that's why they have that. They put a little logo on their book, you know, and so people know. I said, I told Shambhala, put a logo on there, and they said, your book's not, your movie's not in the, you know,

[64:24]

and I said, I just called them last week. I said, I don't know why you didn't put something on here, but it's in, like, as seen in the movie, and they said, well, your movie's, you know, come and gone. I said, it's on DVD, and it's just been showing recently on the Sundance channel, so, duh. Uh. But anyway, as seen in the movie. Yeah. Whatever, you know. Well, there, it's a, um, it's a, a groovy, um, publisher. They're not, they're not publishers. They're not marketers. It's okay, you know. Um, I'm not going to worry about it. The sales numbers of the movie in Germany went from 500 to 70. 70 to, over 5500. And what about here? Well, I don't know. We'll see. I think the bed book sales have, you know, gone up slightly since the movie came out. Um, but my tomato blessings that the movie's based on has been

[65:25]

out of print since the years. I have a copy of it, and I love that book. Yeah, so that's a good book. And so... You told me how to sweep. Yeah. Sweep? Yeah, you told me how to sweep. Huh. When you, you know, maybe you didn't talk about sweeping in there, but that's what I remember about it. It's like, okay, if you're sweeping, you're sweeping. Sweeping, there you go. If you're cutting vegetables, you're cutting vegetables. Do what you're doing. So tomato blessings is out of print, so you don't know... So it's slightly, the sales of the bed book slightly shifted, and perhaps people will figure out that this book has something to do with the movie. But it's not like Julia Child and Julia and Julia where anybody knows that the movie has something to do with the book, has something to do with the movie. But, you know, Doris had, the filmmaker, Doris Dory, had, you know, a copy of my book in English, Tomato Blessings, and Registrations,

[66:26]

and she had highlighted everything in the book that she liked, and then she made a list, you know, yellow legal sheet of paper, you know, 35 items or something that she wanted me to talk about in the week, you know, in the 12 days that we were filming, stuff to, and then she kept track of what I had referred to and what I hadn't. It would remind me. So that was kind of nice. It's very gratifying to have somebody like Doris interested in who you are and what you're up to. What does she do, what other films has she made? Well, her most famous film in Germany is called Man. Manor. Manor. M-A-N-N-E-R was the title in German. I've never seen that, but that's her, somehow, the status here in Germany, but her best-known film here probably, well, recently her movie was called Cherry Blossoms, which came out last year, and was at the Rafale for a while, and people liked.

[67:26]

And before that, probably her best-known movie in the United States is the movie Enlightened, Guaranteed. In Leutung gierntiert, or something, which was a very funny movie about two German brothers who go to Japan instead of Japan. Oh, interesting. Interesting. So, um... Real time. Daily alarm. Daily alarm. and Monday flashing once. Entry daily alarm. Press C key to select hour and minute setting. How do you turn that off? It doesn't say how to turn it off. Well, if that's how you turn it on, then you should be able to turn it off at the same place that you can turn it on. Press C key to select... Yeah, I

[68:28]

see it just went up at 639. So, press D key to adjust the flashing item. Press B key to confirm. But how do you eliminate the daily alarm? See, it doesn't tell you how to do that, actually. Isn't that interesting? It just tells you how to set it, but not how to unset it. Press B key. Oh, there's the B key. All right,

[69:40]

we'll have to figure this out later, but I don't know that I'm going to be able to turn this off. It's just going to keep going off every day. Yeah, I've got a timer going for 20. So, I have to press to Oh, there it is. Now it's timing something. That looks like a running watch. It's all kinds of stuff. Stop that. Oh, So, when did you start eating meat? Or did you never stop? Oh, I never stopped eating meat. You know, when I'm at the Zen Center, I don't eat meat. We have a vegetarian diet. Over the years, for many years, I didn't eat much meat. So, yeah, I started eating a little more meat just in the last year. I got inspired by the Ren Sun Farms, which has grass-fed beef, as opposed to beef fed

[70:40]

with corn. Beef fed with corn really worries me. Cows don't live on corn. And it's sold to people like corn-fed beef. That's some really great thing. When cows are fed corn, they also have to be fed antibiotics, and they're also fed beef tallow. I mean, sometimes the cows are fed cow fat. I mean, it's so weird, and then we eat this stuff. So, I'm willing to eat meat if, you know, I don't believe in, you know, I don't like factory farming. I don't mind killing animals. It's factory farming and all these strange things. You know, that was so inspiring in Michael Pollan's book on Omnivore's Dilemma about the grass farmers in Virginia and how they're growing cattle and they're moving the cows from field to field, and then they bring in the chicken houses and the chickens go out and

[71:40]

packet the cow pies for the maggots in there and eat the maggots and that spreads the cow pies on the fields and, you know, and they figured out, I mean, this stuff is not complicated and yet people, you know, would rather, you know, try to make a killing and, you know, make huge cesspools of, you know, debris. And as they say in Virginia, you know, we'll compete with anybody who's not just spoiling the planet. But, you know, somehow it's the same with a lot of things, you know. You know, there's just a thing in the paper, you know, coal mining in West Virginia, you know, is ruining the town water supply. Why? Because they can get away with it. You know, they can, you know, dump billions of gallons of polluted water and, you know, ruin the town supply. And they're not going to... And that's... And that way you make money and then they go on to someplace else

[72:40]

and just, you know, ruin something else. Wendell Perry wrote about this years ago, you know, in a book called The Unsettling of America. And I just... You know, there's something to be said for nurturing or husbandry versus exploitation. You know? And I'm just... I don't understand, you know, that somehow we as a culture, you know, and maybe it's been true throughout history that people who enter exploitation get their way and manage to exploit and despoil and it's hard to stop them. And, you know, many people are interested in husbandry and, you nourishing and... I don't think I can stop this. I don't know how to do that. Anyway, I'll study it later. Um... So I heard that you donated the proceeds from

[73:41]

the first Tassara book? Yeah, the Tassara cooking to the Zen Center. To the Zen Center. All of the proceeds? Well, I got originally about $15,000 and the book was making about $40,000 a year. So over the course of time, you know, it's... Well, just in the first 15 years there, I probably made half a million dollars for the Zen Center. Really? It was a huge, you know, bestselling book. It's sold over three quarters of a million copies now. And, you might be exaggerating slightly, but if you estimated $30,000 a year for 15 years, that's $450,000. At some point, Tassara cooking came out. Tassara bread book was Shambhala's and may still be Shambhala's number one bestselling book.

[74:42]

Tassara cooking was their number two bestselling book. The two bestselling books at Shambhala, you know, unless something's changed. And so it not only benefits the Zen Center, but it's what kept Shambhala in business for years, too. To have a bestselling book makes a huge difference in a publishing company. So that's kind of nice to have, you know, because Shambhala seems like, you know, they do a lot of good books. books, especially, have various sorts. So you didn't take any of the money from the bread book? As I say, you know, up until I left the Zen Center in 1985 or 1986, I had gotten originally about $15,000 before I turned over all the money to the Zen Center. And then what was

[75:44]

left of that, I think, oh, well, and then I bought a piece of land up in the Sierras for $5,000, 20 acres for $5,000 that I then sold when I got divorced for $8,000 and split the money with my, you know, ex-wife. So I ended up with about $4,000 out of all that. So then when the, I started getting money when, you know, when I moved out of Zen Center and, but, you know, I, you know, I wouldn't, I probably wouldn't do that again, but there's not much to do about it at this point. You mean you probably wouldn't have just turned your money over to them? You would have kept it? Well, you know, I would have come to some agreement about dividing the money

[76:45]

rather than just having it all go to the Zen Center. But, you know, if I had gotten more money, maybe my ex-wife would have gotten most of it. I mean, who knows, you know? But I thought, you know, I lived in a building across the street, I lived in a building across the street from Zen Center that, you know, sold one day for $49,000. It's a four-unit building that sold for $49,000. And Zen Center bought it the next week for $54,000. And if I had, you know, $20,000, I could have made a down payment. you know, then Zen Center had it for a number of years and sold it for, whatever, $650,000 and now it's worth more than a million. I mean, you know, having money, you know, the younger, the earlier you have money and do something with it, the better, you know? Not that I would

[77:45]

have done something else. It's the same here in Marin County. I mean, who could have known, but I thought, well, when the time comes, you know, I'll get people to help me have a Zen Center and I'll get a Zen Center because people are interested in me having a Zen Center and I don't know. And I always thought I'd be a Zen teacher when I grew up, you know? And I mean, a Zen teacher where you have a Zen Center and a group and stuff, but, you know, I don't know anymore. I've ended up, you know, teaching, you know, in Germany and Austria and, you know, I just got back from Columbus, Ohio and Seattle, Oregon and I also went earlier this year to Pittsburgh and I went to, you know, I go to Toronto most years. I go to

[78:45]

Maine every other year and, you know, nobody here sets up classes for me or organizes anything for me. So, I travel to earn a living. And nobody here asks me, you know, will you teach cooking, will you do some classes at our cooking school or, and I just don't seem to be the kind of person who calls around and, you know, puts up my resume or, you know, could I do something with you, would you like to do something with me? You know, I'm in the phone book. So people call you from Columbus or Seattle but they don't call you locally. Yeah, nobody calls me here. I'm here locally, I'm just kind of an anonymous person, nobody, people don't know me and don't know that I have much to do with anything. And the Zen Center is an example of that. If you know over the years, it's been, you know, 40 years since I've was in the kitchen at

[79:46]

Tassajara and, you know, three or four times over the years they've been asked me to work in their kitchens but I haven't done that, you know, but it's extremely rare. I think I have a lot to teach and a lot to offer but, you know, the cooking channel, I'm not the cooking channel, I'm not competition cooking, I'm not, you know, and it's so different, you know, like where we started today. You know, mostly the world wants to be told what to do and I'm not here to tell people what to do, I'm here to encourage people to study carefully and see what they can find out which is what houses of grace, you put whatever happens, good or bad, study carefully, see what you can find out and, you know, work with things, study things, taste what you put in your mouth, feel what's in your hands, feel how your hands can do things. So,

[80:50]

I don't know, sometimes I'm a little discouraged but on the other hand, you know, I don't know, I have a nice life and I'm pretty happy and, but I don't know what to do with myself, you know, time is getting short, I would guess, I'm 64 and I have a few years left and, you know, maybe I'll figure out something to do, maybe I won't, but I can always write some books and because, you know, I'm not very entrepreneurial that way, you know, as far as, or whatever you call that, entrepreneurial or, um, um, some, anyway, um, a salesman for myself, no, and I don't have anybody to do that for me, so, um, it's, you know, it works out, I mean, I, as I say, I have a good life, and I have a, you know, nice house here, thanks to Tomato Blessings, I have a beautiful house in Fairfax, um,

[81:51]

you know, and even though Tomato Blessings went out of print, I got a, that's why you get a good advance, so you actually have some money, and, you know, at the time, I had, and I have a very good book agent, if I have a book that's merits, you know, I'm selling for big bucks, so, I don't know, you know, it's, it's just a strange world we live in, you know, and you, you do what you do, and life goes on, but, you know, the world is interested in, you know, follows, um, you know, money, and, um, you know, fame, and stuff, and, um, and people who have some, you know, hutzpah, and drive, and, what have you, I don't seem to have much hutzpah, or drive, so. It's in my fingerprints, which doesn't mean you can't figure out how to do it eventually, but. Why do you think

[82:51]

it's in your fingerprints? Well, you know, I studied with, I went to have a reading with Richard Unker, who's here, and we're in County, October. Richard Unker, he has a website called Life Prints, and he has a book called Life Prints. I see, I see. And he can look at your hand and tell you who you are. I don't know if I want to know that. So, that's when I'm, here, let's look at your hands and see. First of all, just the length of your fingers. See, you don't have, you don't have much in your fingerprints, either. You just have longer fingers? Well, what did it, you know, if you've got a, you have long fingers. No, if you have an index finger that's longer than your ring finger, you'll use it. Oh, so I should watch out for those people, huh? Those are the people that are like, Ronnie, you need to, I don't know why you haven't, this is what should be happening. I had a friend in, well, I had a friend whose toe, index toe was bigger than her. Probably. And I just thought. Probably this is, well, my toes are

[83:52]

like that, you know. Oh, yeah, there you go. But not this. Yeah, yeah. And that does something? But then we can look at your fingerprints, too, and I could tell you, you know, something about you. Okay. I see. You know, once I have. But I have, you know, success in the world and leading the community. Success in the world and what in the community? Leading the community. Right. With passion and creativity. And I'm here to be of service. So, so it's interesting to me that, that it sounds like, it sounds like you have some regrets about how you're perceived in this community and not appreciated as much as in other communities. Yeah, I have some regrets about that and just, you know, people say, you know, profit's never

[84:53]

appreciated in their hometown. But yeah, I'm much more, I mean, in Europe, I go to Europe and people love having me there. And they are so good to me and I have so many friends now in Europe. And I have friends here but, you know, they don't set up courses for me or organize things. And the Zen Center here doesn't call me and cooking schools here don't call me and you know, nobody, people don't invite me to do stuff. But, you know, mostly cooking schools don't invite me to do stuff anyway because I'm not, you know, you have to be a name chef or something, you know, or have more famous books or something. But you wrote the Bread Bible. Yeah, there's a better Bread Bible now, you know, it's called the Bread Bible. Oh, I didn't know that. It's a big fat book and it's, I may get it because I'm sort of curious about more, maybe if they have it at the library I can, you know, just take it out and

[85:53]

copy out the recipe for baguette, her baguette recipe. She swears by her baguette recipe and she said she made baguettes 25 times before she came up with this recipe. Bless her heart, I love it, you know, when somebody is that into something, you know. So, I'm very curious to try that at home and see if I can get the, you know, crusty on the outside, you know, big holes on the inside, you know, nice soft crumb inside, crust outside. And she's got a way to do this at home. Okay. You know, as opposed to, I mean, because usually you need a, you know, a rack oven and the special pans and you've got to be able to squirt steam in there at the right times and she has you put a tray of ice cubes or something into your oven, you know, I don't know how it works, and she's got two starters. Interesting, interesting, wow. So, I'd be curious to see how she does it. I wonder if the reason that

[86:54]

people don't call you to set things up here in the U.S. or here locally in Marin is because they feel like you're not being I don't, I don't know what it is, you know, and, you know, and it's probably me, too. I'm not, you know, I'm not, I'm not sending out resumes, I'm not sending out letters, I'm, you know, I'm not angling to, you know, to, you know, I don't know how to do this. this stuff, you know. I don't, I don't know how, and people say, oh, will you hire an agent? Oh, you just hire somebody to market you, you, you, and people have all these suggestions. They're like, well, maybe that's what you do. I don't, you know, know that that's what I want to do,

[87:54]

and I don't know that I want to be, you know, I'm happy to be in a movie, but, you know, I don't know that I want to be, you know, at one point when I left SendCenter, you know, I was cooking, I did, I had kind of a nice time, you know. I, when you leave SendCenter after 20 years, you need to figure out a way to earn money. It's extremely challenging to leave SendCenter after 20 years because you have no place to live, you have no money, and you may or may not have a relationship, but wherever you move to, you don't have friends. Because you had a community. Because you had a community and all your friends are at the SendCenter, and then you move out into the world, and you have to find a place to live, and you may or may not have to get a car, and then you have to figure out how to get some money. And I spent 20 years not earning enough money to pay income taxes. So at the

[88:55]

age of 38 or 40, I started trying to earn money and earn a living. So, Patty, at one point, my neighbor in Emory said, you know, if you want to do cooking classes, our friend, her name at that time was Clark. I can't remember her first name now, but anyway, she'll do cooking classes at her house. So I called her and she said, yeah, you can do cooking classes here, and I'll get the people to get it for you. So, you know, it doesn't exactly take a lot, but, you know, at that point, I thought, well, okay, I will work at this, you know, and so I showed up for that class. I showed up five minutes before 10. They said, well, we thought you'd be here a little earlier, and I said, well, you know, what do I know? It's my first cooking class, and help me unload the car. So the whole class helped me unload the car,

[89:55]

and unpack the boxes, and get out the food, and wash the food, and now I get there an hour and a half ahead, and, you know, prep, you know, get all the food ready, at least washed, and out of the plastic bag, and in from the car, and so I charged $15, and they said, yeah, and afterwards they said, this is $19.85, or $6, and they said, this is great, next week we're going to pay you $20, and then after the second week they said, this is, you're still not getting enough money, this is, you know, $25 next week, so I did six or eight weeks of classes, and then they said, you should do more of this, so I called up Patty Anderman, because she wrote the dining out column for years, and the reason why she said, Ed, you know, if you ever decide you

[90:57]

want to teach vegetarian cooking, let me know, I will put a little note in my cooking column, so she put one paragraph in her cooking column, and then it had, one of the women had been coming to the cooking classes, was named Leslie, Leslie, she probably still lives down in the valley, she's a woman named Leslie, Mary Jock Leslie, so she's Leslie, Leslie, and we put her phone number in there, and she got over 300 calls, her phone was ringing from Saturday night through Monday, you know, late into Sunday and on into Monday morning, and she called back, those 300 people, and she set up five cooking classes for me, I had no place to cook, so she not only registered people for the classes, but located kitchens, she asked me, would you be willing to do a class in Berkeley on Tuesday nights, there's only three people signed up, and that turned out to actually be the best class, because it was at Pam

[91:58]

Grove and Jerry Nelson's at the Regent Street cooking school, he's an orthodontist, and she's a lawyer, and they had this at the time at Regent Street cooking school, and eventually we had 15-18 people there for the classes, but I did Tuesday night in Berkeley, Wednesday lunch in San Francisco, Thursday lunch in San Anselmo, Friday lunch in a freight boat in South Salem, Friday dinner in San Francisco, and I went from place to place, and I had a cooler in my car, which I'd haul out each day to drain some of the water off from the ice, and I had the same menu for all the classes for the week, so then as the week went on, the menu could change slightly and refine things, so I did that for three months, and that sort of got me started, because at that time, I was grossing about $7,000 a month. That's a lot. Yeah. Yeah,

[92:59]

well, it's hard work, too. Oh, I bet. In those days, I never had an assistant. I did everything, you know, and the classes we were doing Zen, you know, like, if you come to the class, you're going to help set up, you're going to help cook, you're going to help with the class, you're going to help clean up, you know, this is participation, this is not, I'm here to demo this.

[97:22]

And then the bookstores, like at Elliott Bay Books in Seattle, they had one copy of this. So they're not planning to sell any. But out here in Point Reyes, you know, Steve Costa said, well, we've sold about five or six of these and about 12 or 15 of these. So that's pretty good. So I'm going to also be sure to, you know, movie, book, bread book. Remember the bread book? It's now out in the hardcover with, you know, beautiful color illustrations. You got that? You know, like... That's what somebody told me. Some of my friends have said, well, that's on my list for the... Oh, that's a definite great Christmas gift. Yeah. That's on my list, too. Great. They're both beautiful gifts, I think, for cooking your life. For cooking your life, let's see. You're going to have to

[98:23]

market yourself, it sounds like. Yeah, I guess. Whatever, you know, I get by, you know, it sure makes a difference to go to Europe, as far as earning a living. Really? Because of the... Well, in one month in Europe, I earn what I earn here in four months, six months. Wow. Wow. Is it the exchange rating? Well, that's part of it. But also, well, anyway, who knows? Part of it is the exchange rate, but even without the exchange rate being what it is, you know, I'm set up to do these courses there, and people come, and... Wow. Wow. And it's actually set up for me

[99:24]

to do something. Right. Right. So, why did you leave the Zen Center in the first place? What took those back? Well, there's looking at it at the time, and there's looking back, and essentially, now I got to be 40 years old, and it was time for a midlife crisis, and, you know, it was going to be embarrassing to sit in front of a room of people and cry, because by that point, I'm a teacher, and, you know, it's not possible to sit in front of a room and cry. That's not what people want in their Zen teachers. You know, Zen teachers are not supposed to have feelings. You're supposed to be calm, collected, tranquil, buoyant, cheerful, energetic, smart, peaceful, calm, spring, whatever, you know, and you're not supposed to actually get in touch with your inner

[100:25]

experience. I don't know that's an exaggeration. You're not supposed to, um, I don't know, it's just sort of like the culture generally, you know, like, you're not supposed to raise your voice or cry or express emotion in public. I don't quite know how one is expected to get through life without doing any of that, and to me it's not particularly Zen to do that. I mean, I would think that, you know, people have different ideas about this, but my, my sensibility has been don't spend your life, and Suzuki basically said this, it's not a good idea to spend your life hiding your weak point. Why not

[101:28]

acknowledge it and work on it and, you know, move forward and rather than, so, um, I had gotten to the point where I wasn't going to be able to, um, you know, keep things buried anymore. And, you know, you don't want to act out, but at the same time, you know, it does surface. And, um, at one point here in Marin, I had a group on Thursday nights and when I mentioned to them that I was depressed, you know, that was it. You know, half the people stopped coming. We're not going to study with the depressed Zen teacher. So, you know, if you're real or honest, so I've decided to, you know, that I'm going to have the get real school of Zen rather than the look good school of Zen. You know, most Zen, like most of American culture is the look good school of Zen just like culture is the look good culture. Look good, you know, and plastic,

[102:29]

get plastic surgery, and, you know, exercise, and work out, and look good, and buy these clothes, as opposed to get real and feel what's going on in your life, and sense what's going on in your life, and having inner life, and get to know yourself, and study how to have, you know, feel your feelings without stuffing them and without acting them out, and to study how to have feelings and to be able to express them without hurting or harming others and without hurting or harming yourself, and, you know, it's called emotional maturity, but, you know, anyway. So, I've worked on that for a long time now, you know, and it seems to be coming along. Well, it must have taken a lot of courage to leave the event center after 20 years. Well, as I said, I started crying, and I couldn't imagine trying to

[103:30]

be at the CEN Center and going crying, and it seemed more important to cry than to be at the CEN Center, and I did go back for a little bit, and that was, you know, that was challenging, but then I ended up working on the Greens Cookbook with Debra, and that sort of propelled me back out of CEN Center again, on to cooking classes and what have you. That's a great cookbook, the Greens Cookbook? I think so. It's, for years, I used that cookbook for years, and it's got a lot of great recipes, some of which I worked on, and Debra worked on, and I wrote a sort of introduction for that book, which I still think is a wonderful piece of writing. It's just two pages about, you know, sensibility about cooking and learning to trust your aesthetic and develop your own aesthetic. I think I

[104:30]

called it something different, you know, your sensibility, I think I called it that. You know, there's just something to be said for sensibility or aesthetic as opposed to getting it right, and we have so little permission to, like, have our aesthetic. It's all about right and wrong and good and bad and you should do it like this and you shouldn't do it like that, rather than, you know, here's where my heart is at, you know, and this is what, you know, I really appreciate and enjoy and value, and this is what I move to do, and I'm willing to, and because I move to do it, I'm going to do it whether, you know, whether you think it's, you know, the latest, greatest or not. I move to cook, I move to garden, I move to, you know, do things in my life that bring me satisfaction and fulfillment, and somehow we just,

[105:33]

you know, as a culture, it seems like there's just so much, people are so busy, and then it's like when you get time off, you're not moved to do much of anything. You take in media, and apparently, you know, people watch hours and hours of television on the average, and I don't know so fine, but we'll see. You know, I am, as I say, you know, I get, you know, I don't know how people afford all this stuff. No wonder you're working so hard. To pay for the TV, you mean? Yeah. The TV is like, what, 35 bucks a month or something, or for $100 a month, you can get, you know, bundled, but $1,200 a year? I mean, how do you... That's what most of us are doing. We're paying the bundles. Essentially, I don't watch TV, and I have a bundle, because I have the phone service and the internet service,

[106:33]

and it's cheaper to do it with the television. Well, I've got an MCI card, and it's 3 cents a minute anywhere in the United States, and it's cheaper than a bundle. But what about internet access? So I don't have a television. I don't have a cell phone. I don't know how people can afford this, you know? I don't... I can't imagine... I get by, but, you know, I don't see... How do you afford to have all this stuff? You know, I don't understand it. Well, then, of course you need to work hard, and of course you have no time for anything, but this is, you know, and this is the same as, like, does it actually make sense for a second person to, you know, earn income for the household? At some point, you know, the second person earning income for the household means you have a second car, you're hiring babysitters, and you know, the

[107:34]

actual money you earn is like a third the actual earn is like a third the actual money you earn is like a third the actual money you earn is like a third the earn is like a third the actual

[108:34]

money you earn is like a earn is like a money you earn is like a third the actual money you earn is like a third the actual money you earn is like a third the money you like a third the third the actual money you earn is like a third the actual money you earn is like a third the actual

[109:35]

earn is like a third the third the actual like a like a third the like a third the earn is third the money you earn is like a third the actual earn is earn is like a third the earn is like a

[110:38]

third the actual money you third the like a third the like a third the money you He just coincidentally ended up there.

[111:39]

I do have a self-portrait over here. No, it's not a self-portrait. Somebody else did that of me. Uh-oh. I have. Oh, wow. That's wild. And these are another series of pictures that I did. I did a whole series of pictures called the Vision Cow. Of the Vision Cow? As in the vision area in Point Reyes? Well, somewhat. But also in reference to the 10 Oxirian pictures, this is the 10 Vision Cow photos. So this is the cow looking for its true nature. I'll see if I can find the whole series here for you. OK, let's see here. All right.

[112:39]

I think we should do it. So this starts out the ordinary life of cows. That's not to like. Plenty of room, lots to eat. And then at some point, they may have a feeling of cow regimentation. You know, you're sort of in a little area, and it's a little more crowded. But it's not as safe. So then you start. So then the Vision Cow appears, looking for the true way. See, this is the field of cows. This is the field here. It's the ordinary life of cows. And then this is where the Vision Cow first appears, seeking the way. That's a beautiful photo. What is the way out of the regimentation and the? Mr. Brown, it's Margot. Traffic to Mill Valley at the Vision Cow. Margot? I'm visiting with Ronnie. We're almost done, I think. OK, well, I'll think about making dinner then pretty soon.

[113:48]

So dinner and do the soon. So you may or may not get here, but you can eat something before, after, during, or later, whatever. Yeah, OK, all right, bye. So the Vision Cow appears, seeking the way for the true life. And then the Vision Cow searches. This is not manipulated. No. This is a real photo. This is a real photo. These are wonderful. There's a secret to it, but. There's a secret? Well, you know how you do this. But it's just accident. I didn't plan it. OK. But anyway, the Vision Cow searches. And then the Vision Cow gets its first tongue, stops for lunch. It's the first tongue tip tastes the scent. Something comes home to its heart. And then it heads for home. The Vision Cow heads for home.

[114:49]

You know, for its true home. And then the Vision Cow disappears. And it's just one with the. But there's still the sort of sense of the residual sense of the search. And then there's the, you know, a single thread runs through everything. Or a straightforward mind, or from the at first, you know. This is also known as utter darkness, U-D-D-E-R. And then there's, then once you have this sort of sense of this emptiness of things, then you can truly, you know. And then you, when you feel like you no longer have to get any place, now you can actually enjoy the Bliss of Cow Meditation. And after the Cow Meditation, then you return to the world of Bliss, Bestowing Utter. Lunch with a View. Otherwise known as Lunch with a View.

[115:51]

You know, larger than life, you know. Wow. So have you got this all, like, arranged in one piece? Oh, it was in the Tricycle magazine at one point. And then at one point, I had it on a. I'm going to work this out with Marie Dern, who's down the street, who does books and prints things and stuff. Yeah, but it could be like a children's book. Yeah, it could be a little children's book. So I have the story written up about, you know, how to seek the way and stuff. Wait, no, but those photos would be perfect for a little children's book, and your grandchild is going to appreciate it. Oh, there you go. All right, yeah, there you go. And you can tell your grandchild this story. Yeah. And as you tell your grandchild this story, you can be writing the book, which, you know, that is one of the great joys of having children in your life, is reading them children's books. Children's books. Oh, my god. I have to tell you, there is, I'm There's a future here. I am waiting for my, you know, I mean, right now my daughter's 17,

[116:54]

so I don't want her making babies, but I'm going to finish the cameo. Then I get to read those children's books again. So, so I feel like I could talk to you for a long time, but I There's a lot we could talk about. Yeah. So, you know, we are looking at writing the story about you in November because that's when we're doing food. Oh, OK. So I think you'll be the cover of our food issue, which will be fun. So do you have time when we could meet again so that we could do more? Is that, would that be too much of an intersession? If it makes sense to you, then sure. This is very interesting. Are those eggs or breasts? Well, I, I think they're more, you know, like breasts. But when people say, ooh, I say, well, you know, eggs, you know, fried eggs.

[117:55]

But that was my, JB was my neighbor in Inverness, and he was a wonderful artist, a wood sculptor, a ceramicist. He died several years ago. But I moved in next door to him and his wife, Christine, on the Bishop Pine Beach for her up in Inverness when I moved out from Tulsara. Christine was there at Tulsara and her, Christine and JB were there. And that's when I, and I talked to them and I said, do you know any place for me to live near you? And they said, yeah, across the street. So I ended up getting this cabin across the street from them on the Bishop Pine Preserve, and I had the cabin for 22 years. Oh, really? For a while, my, my ex had it, and then I got it back for a little bit. So, JB Plunk and Christine Nielsen, we were neighbors for many years.

[119:00]

And I wrote about them in Tomato, in a Tulsara recipe book. Cuz I used to, in the Green's Cookbook, Tulsara recipe book, I wrote, you know, that little cabin in Inverness, up in the woods, and across the street from them so I could take food over to them. And we had many dinners together and drank wine, visited, and they were such wonderful, wonderful people. I'm so sad because, you know, JB's died. Christine's moved to Montana. She's, it's a new, she has a, after a couple years, she met a man that she really liked and moved to Montana. But she also did a company, which was an organic cotton company called Coyuchi, which then she sold. I had stock in it, so. Oh, really? Yeah. I have some of their bedding. Yeah, well, there you go. It's on my bed right now. It's in Point Reyes, right? It's in Point Reyes still, so Christine is not the owner anymore, and I'm not a stockholder anymore, but. Uh-huh.

[120:01]

Beautiful. And JB's friend was Rick Yoshimoto's. He also took place. They used to have a sale at the Dance Palace every other Thanksgiving. Oh, for this rally? Yeah, for the pottery. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. JB died, um, you know, it turns out that being an artist is a dangerous life. Really? JB died because he wasn't careful enough about, you know, with his kiln. He breathes a lot of the fumes from the kiln. Oh, is that right? His brain turned to clay. Is that right? Yeah, most likely. Oh, that's what you mean, Paul. I think this may be another one of Rick's. This is solid enough that it...

[121:04]

No, this is probably JB's. I can't find it. It's both... Oh, this looks like the same. Yeah, this must both be JB. Isn't that cool? No, that's Rick. R-Y. Oh. Rick Yoshimoto. And that looks like signed... R-Y, too. Yeah. R-Y, Rick Yoshimoto. This is one of JB's. So, you know, it's local clay and... Oh, is it really? Oh, yeah. Often get local clay. What local clay do you mean? Well, that's from Tokoloma, I think. Oh, here's one of JB's. But it's another thing, you know, that's crazy about our culture. Like, people would rather buy something cheap than something that somebody made.

[122:09]

And... And that, you know, has some real life in it. And instead of, like, people eat off of some of the crummiest dishware sometimes. No wonder it's... And then somehow that's, like, what life is. And this is one of the richest cultures in the world. But you eat off of crummy plates and crummy food. How wealthy is that? I don't know. It's crazy. So, do you want to look at your phone or else? Is that okay with you? Um, well, let's see if I can find it. You get older, so many of your friends are gone. Well, I'm back now, you know.

[123:30]

I'm here, so, you know, almost any time. You're here pretty much? Yeah. I'm, um, you know, I have stuff to do basically on the weekends. Okay. Next week, um, I'm gone Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. I'm going to Santa Cruz. I'm doing the Point Reyes Farmer's Market this Saturday. And then I'm doing the lecture at Greenbelt on Sunday. Lecture and book signing. Yeah, um, I'm going, I'm taking my daughter to LA to look at colleges. Oh my goodness. Yeah. That's a big project. We're almost done with that project. She's decided where she wants to apply and all that pretty much. So, it's a big, it's a big thing to send her off. Yeah, absolutely. And then my son said, he said, I can't wait till she goes. He'll miss her when she's gone. Oh, we'll both miss her. But you know what? It's not easy to live with a 17-year-old.

[124:30]

And so, um, um, so what about the week of October? October 5th. How does that week look for you? Um, it's completely open except for Wednesday nights. I have my sitting group here in Fairfax. And Thursday night, I'm going to Mrs. Dalloway's, wherever that is. Mrs. Dalloway's? I think it's in Berkeley. Is it a bookstore or a? It's a bookstore. Mrs. Dalloway's. That sounds like fun. Um. I think, you know, Mrs. Dalloway is a fictional character. But in this case, she's the name of a bookstore. You know what? You should try to get on if you're going to do these local signings. You should try to get on Michael Krasnick's show. Do you know who he is? Oh, I've heard of him. He's a great guy, Adam. Is that right? He's great. He's really great.

[125:31]

And when you go on his show, a lot of the books show up. He has very big drops on speeches. Yeah. So your co-authors should try to get you on his show. Well, it's one of the things about my publicist is that they don't do much. Yeah, I couldn't tell Michael anything. And everybody says, if you want to have any publicity, you need to hire your own publicist. And I just somehow resist that, even though I'm slightly friends with Adrienne Biggs, who does this sort of thing. With who? Adrienne Biggs, who does this sort of thing. Oh. She lives in the NFL, and she does publicity for people on events and stuff. So does the 5th of October, a Monday, work for you? Yeah.

[126:35]

What time of day? I prefer to do the morning. Morning or 5th of October? Morning. Whatever time of the morning works for you. Tell me. Well, how about 10? 10.30. 10 is good. 10 works. Okay. Do you have a plan? Yeah, I'm going to that weekend. I'm going to do a one-day Sydney Green Gulch on Saturday. Oh, really? Sunday afternoon from 1 to 3. I'm supposed to be at the Point Re... at the Dance Palace. Oh, is that right? In Point Reyes. Oh, really? At the Dance Palace on... Yeah. October the 4th. October... October the 4th? Mm-hmm. That's what I was just advertising today on the show that's... What? ...on the October 3rd show.

[127:37]

I see. I see. The one in San Francisco that's being broadcast October 3rd. Right. And where I've already been to the Farmer's Market in Point Reyes. I'm assuming there isn't some calamity that changed the world. Right? Yeah. You know, it's kind of like pre-taped stuff before September 11th. Yeah. None of that would have worked, right? It was... everything was different. Yeah, so what do we know? But... It's not that far in the future. No, so... and if it doesn't work, it doesn't work, you know? So I don't have to broadcast it and say this happened before, you know, this other stuff happened and we're pre-empting what we were going to tell you about to do this other thing or whatever, they'll figure it out. Sunday night I'm going to Marin Sangha, which I think is 6 to 8. I better figure out where they are. Marin Sangha? Yeah, it's Philip Moffat's meditation group. Oh! Which used to meet... Was he with Spirit Walk?

[128:45]

Yeah, he's still with Spirit Walk. Uh-huh, uh-huh. Um, they met in Coeur d'Alene. Oh, they met at Turtle Island in Saint-Ophel first. At the yoga place? At the yoga place, yeah. Is that Tony's yoga place? Yeah, Tony's yoga place. And then they met in Coeur d'Alene at the yoga center there. And now they're meeting at the third place, somewhere over in Tiburon. Is the Turtle place still in existence? I don't know. Because... I don't keep up anymore on yoga the way that I used to when my partner was a yoga teacher. Oh, your partner was a yoga teacher. Patricia. Patricia... Sullivan. Where did she teach? Here. But she also taught. She was... She taught with Rodney's teacher training. She taught... Occasionally in Bell Valley and occasionally various places. And we did, you know, workshops together. So...

[129:49]

Yeah. Wow, that's a long time. And how long ago did you guys split up? Uh, 2000. And that's just been five years. Five and a half years now. And 2004. So you were with her soon after you got out of the VIN center? Yeah. Right. Yeah, and the VIN fact... That started about the same time as I was in the process of leaving Centenary, yes. So it's another phase of your life now. Yeah, history. Yeah. Yeah. So it sounds like you... That was a very difficult breakup. Yeah. Well, yeah, it's painful to break up after 20 years. But the...

[130:50]

But the breaking up wasn't... I mean, there wasn't a lot of... You know, the breaking up wasn't exactly difficult. I mean, the process wasn't acrimonious or anything. But yes, it's painful after 20 years. Yeah. That's a different story. Yeah. But it's all... It's all your story, right? I mean, it's all... Yeah, it's my story. Yepers? What? I said yepers. So I will let you get back to... We'll get to start working on dinner. Yeah. Yeah, what's for dinner? Well, we'll see. But I'm probably going to make one of my salads with salt and seasonings and with kale or cabbage. I think probably some cabbage since I had a kale salad for lunch.

[131:54]

And I have some really good apples and pears, you know. And I have some wonderful walnuts that I just got. And so it's pretty simple. Sounds good. That's really good. It's not one of those beef nights. Oh, oh. There are those beef nights, huh? Yeah, I get the, you know, Sun Farms ground beef and I make meatballs. And then I can cook them and I make meatballs with, you know, like garlic and ginger and sometimes some sautéed onions. You put ginger in the meatballs? Well, yeah. Oh, wow. I use their beef for meatballs. It's really good. Yeah. I've never had ginger in my meatballs. Well, yeah. And then, you know, season them with salt and pepper. And then I, you know, cook those a little bit. And then I take them out and I cook some vegetables and put them back in. And the soy sauce, you know, the teriyaki sauce, soy sauce and sugar and balsamic vinegar

[132:56]

or honey and balsamic vinegar. And sometimes a little sherry, you know, toss a little sherry there. It's a combination of Italian and Chinese. Yeah, Italian, Chinese, something like that. Oh, it's very good. And then you can have, you know, broccoli and asparagus, whatever you want. But it's like a one-dish dinner, you know? That's what I like, the one-dish dinner. Especially since I stopped having, you know, all those carbohydrates. I don't need to cook rice or bread or anything. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. Well, I hope I don't, I hope, you know, I'm going to trust you to not make me into an idiot. You know. I trusted Doris, you know, that seemed to work out all right. Yeah, it sure worked out all right. It's a great movie. I re-watched, I watched the movie at the Rap Battle when it came out, but I re-watched it. Sam lent me his version of it. And it's a great movie. Um, so anyway, um, let's see what happens.

[133:59]

Yeah, well, it's a journey, right? It's a journey. Doris used to tell me, um, that she wasn't showing me anything, you know. It's all filmed on high-definition, you know, digital cameras. So she could easily have showed me something, but. No, she wouldn't show it to you. She wasn't going to show me it. She said, the camera loves you, the camera loves you. Doris, you just say that to all the guys, don't you? Reminds me of all those movies where the photographer's shooting the models saying, oh, the camera loves you, honey. Oh, yes, that's great. Oh, you look so beautiful. That's a nice thing to say. That's a good line. And yeah, it was a good line. And then she said, no, I don't say that to everybody. Yeah. Sometimes I have to tell people to, you know, change something so that the camera will like them a little better. Honey, that's a really good line, though.

[135:02]

I might have to use that line. The camera loves you, yes. Okay, well, I'm going to come outside, too. And there didn't seem to be any mail when I came earlier. Well, there's the bills still, you know. Yeah, you know, sometimes they don't come. Well, so far, there's always been something every day. You know, the mail, as a matter of fact, is just that line down. Really, it's not very good. Really? Because at my house, it seems to be pretty good. Oh, really? I don't get all of my own. Huh. This is very mysterious. Somebody sent me the story of Moo. What is Moo, anyway? I don't know what it is, but somebody sent me a bottle of Moo.

[136:04]

Is it? Edward S.B. Brown, 75 Sequoia Road. First, thank you again for being part of Cincinnati's 10th anniversary celebrations. I believe you're... Oh, they sent me a check, too. Geez, I got a check. And some laundry to change, I guess. Secondly, I'd like to buy one of the Japanese vegetable knives. So, oh gosh, I have to send him a Japanese vegetable knife for this check. Nothing but laundry. Enclosed is a small gift for you, homemade laundry detergent. He's making a self-sabotage F. Oh, wow. How about that laundry detergent? Well, figure out what to do about it.

[137:09]

So he wants a knife? Yeah, he wants a knife. You're selling knives, huh? Yeah, you know, I'm not just a Zen teacher and an author, and they don't usually say this, you know, any place. But, you know, like when I'm on the radio, they don't say Zen teacher, cook, author, peddler. But, you know, I actually am also a peddler. I peddle things. So yeah, I sell this exquisitely sharp Japanese knife specifically made for cutting vegetables with a core of high carbon steel and very narrow and sharp. Well, it's a beautiful knife. When you come back, you know, I just might show you how to cut things. Oh, I would love to see that. I would really love to see that. If you want to spend more time with me, you know, you might have to. You know, eventually I'll get it on, you know, a little YouTube clip.

[138:16]

Why would you do that? If you do that, then people won't buy your copies. They'll look at the YouTube. Well, they can, you know, because at some point, when I write the book, I say, go look at, or I could put it on my website, you know. But if I put it on my website, somebody would, you know, could just copy it onto YouTube anyway. I don't think that's possible. I see your television. Well, that's for, you know, watching DVDs or stuff. I think I have a DVD player, and I might have a V, you know, an old video player too. But, you know, I've had this since somebody sent me this in Germany, and, you know, I haven't gotten around to watching that. They sent that to me. Oh, look at this. Sweet. I've got a Coleman Barks tape. What is that? It's Coleman Barks reading Rumi. Oh. Hafiz and Lala. Oh. Which is great, because there's a poem on there I want to write down again,

[139:21]

and I had it memorized for a while, but I don't anymore. So. Okay. Well, thank you so much for your time. You're welcome. And I will look forward to meeting you again. See what happens. If all goes well and we, you know, in a sort of orderly fashion and, you know, like we were talking about, you know, I have a radio show coming up on the 3rd that talks about having been to the farmer's market on the 29th. It went very well, yes. We had a good time. You just said it was a turnout, or what you ate, or anything else. You know that the tomatoes will even still be happening, right? We'll see. I'll get something from the farmer's market to cook, to make into salads and stuff. I'm going to bring some olive oil and vinegar and salt and pepper and a few basics and go from there. Those pears look great.

[140:21]

Those are the Kilmese. Those are great. Yeah, my pear tree needs some work. If I look at your pear tree, I know I've got it. Let's see if we can get one for you. Oh, thank you. Oh, beautiful. Be careful now. It's got a little hole there, so somebody's in there. Yeah. It's got calling logs. It's not too far in. Not too bad. Oh, this is a real hole. Anyway, check it out. It may need to ripen a little bit. Two days, you think? Yeah, maybe so. Thank you so much. Okay, blessings. Take care. Bye. Oh, yeah. I'm going to check the mail. Okay.

[141:24]

Okay. Okay. Okay.

[142:55]

Okay. Okay. Okay.

[144:24]

Okay. [...]

[145:30]

Okay. [...]

[146:34]

Okay. [...]

[147:37]

Okay. [...] chop chop chop

[148:58]

chop [...]

[150:00]

chop [...]

[151:00]

chop [...]

[152:09]

chop [...]

[153:10]

chop [...]

[154:13]

chop [...]

[155:16]

chop [...]

[156:17]

chop [...] I hear the voices of the people I grew up with.

[157:26]

I hear the voices of the people I grew up with. [...] I don't know what I'm doing with my life, I don't know what I'm doing with my life.

[158:36]

I don't know what I'm doing with my life, I don't know what I'm doing with my life. [...]

[159:38]

I don't know what I'm doing with my life, I don't know what I'm doing with my life. [...]

[160:39]

I don't know what I'm doing with my life, I don't know what I'm doing with my life. I don't know what I'm doing with my life, I don't know what I'm doing with my life. Hello? Hello? Hi Julia You've killed the 14th.

[161:50]

Well, okay, so what about the 28th? Okay, well, I'm confused just because I thought you had mentioned, would I like the 14th or the 28th? Oh, it was the 14th or the 28th of October, as far as an October date. Okay, well, we'll do it another time then, maybe. Okay, um, yeah, I missed, um, so, okay, I wasn't timely enough. Um, yeah, I, um, okay. All right. Okay. Okay, and the other thing I called you with the second message is to find out about Fruiterers once again. Excalibur, okay. Okay. Excalibur.

[162:55]

Yeah. Yeah. Five Trey. Okay. And where does one buy these sorts of things? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right, thanks a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thanks so much. Okay, later. Bye soon. Bye. Bye. Okay.

[164:20]

Bye. [...]

[165:41]

Bye. [...] Hi, Michael. You're wounded? Me too, I'm wounded. But not... But not nearly wounded. I'm not... I'm already wounded. Yeah, well... All my ancient twisted karma. Yeah. Yeah. My bandage just came off. Well, welcome to, um... Let's see. Let's see this face. Welcome here. You look great. These are nice colors. Oh, thank you.

[166:50]

Whoa. Applesville. What kind of town? Appalachia. Appalachia. Hey. [...]

[168:04]

Hey. [...] Margo? Yeah. Excuse me, I'm trying to... I'm trying to get some slash. Well, it sounds like you may need a band-aid, huh? It's part of the band-aid. Okay, well, I'm going to go... Do you need my help? No, I... Well... This food is ready, so I'm going to eat. What do you think? Oh, that's funny. I made food for you too.

[169:07]

Thank you. Because I thought you might be here. I think I might be here. I promised, and I promised that there would be food for you. Thank you. Regardless of when you might eat it. You can share this. We're going to share the blood? Yes, we will share the blood. Thank you. I brought your bottles and your bags and your towels. I saw you. Can you get a pair of forks?

[170:11]

I can. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[171:11]

What's amazing. So far, what little time I spend on it, I can't figure that out. We venerate the three treasures and give thanks for this food, the work of many people, the offering of other forms of life. May this food nourish us, body, mind and spirit. May all beings be happy, healthy, and free from suffering. What the heck? I guess. Should we do it over with feeling? No. I like this. We venerate the three treasures and give thanks for this food. The work of many people, the offering of other forms of life. May this food, body, mind, and spirit.

[172:13]

May all beings be happy, healthy, and free from suffering. Applause. Applause. You don't like that one either? Yeah, it was good. It was more entertaining. Mmm. [...] I got from the New Yorker today a letter saying, why don't I renew your subscription for you? Why? Because they know I'm not going to. And that I wouldn't want to disappoint Margo Coates, would I? I got that right. That's so funny.

[173:18]

She just bought that thing. That's what I thought. Mmm. Mmm. That's a good thing I like pears. Mmm. That's a good thing you like pears? Oh, because there are so many of them. Well, look at this salad. It just looks like a little cabbage salad. Wow. Mmm. I cooked a bit while you were gone, and I noticed that my cooking has improved a bit. I noticed that you didn't use up a lot of the vegetables in the refrigerator. I tried. I tried. I just didn't. I was in the air, you know. I used up some things, but, you know. I just took what I could. I raced through my weeks.

[174:20]

I do see some cooking. The cooking I did was good. I'll say that much. So, Ronnie was good, Ronnie. Excuse me? You said Ronnie was here when I called. She's writing a story about me for the Pacific Sun. What are you going to talk to? Huh? Your mic. Oh, still. I'm going to have to turn that off now. That would be a good idea before I say something. I was about to write the mics on, but they... Oh, this is still on. I saw that there's a mic on, so... Stop.

[175:19]

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