Sunday, October 15, 2000.
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The birth of the " Blue Design " ... which has become  the Spice House logo.
Please look in the lower right ... the blue pattern, similiar to a sea horse.
Earth Day 1990.
 High on Mount Everest in Tibet in a Tibetian Buddhist Monastery at 16,700 feet.  The monk has opened the spice  bottle   with the whole nutmegs and is smelling it.
He is smelling nutmegs mixed with air from here in Wauwatosa.
Barbara F. is onthe right.  Sunshine has settled on her tunic, and the blue design is there.
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Perhaps the highest monastery on the Earth; the Rongbuk Monastery in Tibet.
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So here it is ... Sunday morning Oct. 15 ... it is just one year ago to the day from when we
had our " spicehousebrand " domain name officially registered.  And it was last March 17,
Patrick Huwiler's birthday, that we started our web site spice entries.  We had the nice
design along the borders that Patrick put in ... we should go back to that ... a little bit of
art work mixed in; blended in, yes.
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Ruth rushed off to open the shop at 10 AM ... Kyle will be in at noon ... Jessie will be in at
2 .... Kyle & I will be " cracking " an entire 70 pound original sack of the very finest grade of Saigon casssia cinnamon ... a high 5%+ volatile oil content ... to use for the upcoming
Holiday season in blending our Jefferson Street Mulling Spices.  Jesse will be working on
getting that Elizabeth David saffron article cleaned up, made more readable, for putting it
on our web site.  Jill Norman of London, who is executor of Elizabeth David's literary
estate has given us permission to do this, but we do have to make the type more readable
before we make up our scan and a jpeg. file on this excellent saffron article, which addresses a number of relavant points about the use & purchasing of good saffron.
We hope to annotate it in the side columns expanding a little on her comments.
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I am cooking French toast downstairs in the kitchen .... a special style ... using our aromatic Chicago Spiced Sugar.  And Robert Bell, the man who holds the rights to the
literary classic Desiderata, has given us permission to print up 1000 copies so that we might include these with the Chicago Spiced Sugar that we sell this coming Christmas
season.  A half cup bottle for $ 4.95 gets you a complimentary copy of this elevating
short piece of writing ... this mixture has a base of real vanilla bean sugar, along with
the rich China Tung Hing Cassia Cinnamon mixed in, and also the elegant Oriental
cardamom spice that we've powdered fresh here ourselves at the Spice House.
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But the main thing I'd like to do this morning is to list the aspects of the Spice House
apprentice program.  I think that is very important here on our one year anniversary day.
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The Spice House will begin to grow more now here in Wauwatosa for a number of reasons ... and it will only grow properly if we are able to attract young people to work
with Ruth & I who have special qualities; higher qualities.  There is no other way; and
 no secret to all this .... the quality of an endeavor is the quality of those responsible for
its existence; its daily existence.  So we have to get very very fine people now in this next
step.  The purpose of this web site, in my view, is pretty much along these lines.  By
trying to explain what the Spice House has been about all these years ... that this might
draw more good exceptional people to help us out ... and to keep pushing us upwards.
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( Also this Sunday mornng I worked on writing out the recommendation for Sarah Marx
Felder's application to graduate school at the University of Illinois when she gets back
from her year in Japan where she is teaching English ... also I worked on the email to go to Jill Norman in reply to her comments on how her saffron flowers are doing there in
London ... not so good she sez.  We planted ours in two different places ... the fifty or so
saffron bulbs we planted on the south view of the Spice House are not doing so well, sort
of the same as how Jill describes hers ... but the ones up the hill at the house are doing
very well.  Lots of blossoms coming out.  Why the difference?  Well, I do believe it is the
amount of sunlight ... up at the house is much more sunlight ... and also John B. put in
a 50 pound bag of special rich potting soil into the saffron bed there when the planting was going on.  Sunlight & rich added earth.  Earth.  Where did this word come from?
How did it evolve?  Earth .... Jill mentions Rudolph Steiner ... I should bring out once
again the Spice House study material where we tried to get this special idea of what
spices really are by understanding what the Earth really is ... how much more it is than
we realize ... and Rudolph Steiner was able to clarify this in his writings & his expounded
way he taught about the nature of the Earth; the living Earth.  Paul taught Ruth & I that
the Earth requires a very high level of effort on each individual's part in order to help it
acheive its requirements in the larger scheme of things.  The beauty & complexity of
spices are related; more than related ... to this way of looking at things.  Dig out the
material from the last time we brought Rudolph Steiner into the Spice House studies.
Especially regarding very old ideas of how to plant spices as practiced in the Far East. )

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To be reinforcing to the others here at the Spice House ... how to do this?
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To be able to do, to accept, a required amount of spice physical work ... grinding, lifting,
moving spice bales, sacks, drums, etc ... Ruth & I still do this too ... it is not that hard ...
but one must be in a good physical state ... or pretty good anyway.
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To accept the sweet & sour idea of our spice work.  Some jobs are very easy & likable ...
other jobs are demanding ... go against the grain of our natures ... we all have to sift spices
mix spices, clean up, mow lawns, shovel snow, and also wait on spice trade out in front.
Other times we sit behind a desk for awhile ... an hour or two ... and this is easy.
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FM flavor meditation.  One does not necessarily get close to a spice by going to where it
is grown, or comes from.  Getting close to a spice is much more intimate, and we try to
get to know spices by this method of FM flavor mediation.  Being respectful; even
reverent towards spices; tasting them; letting them tell us about themselves.  When we
grind or sift or mix, they also give us their stories ... give us their special information.
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Literary spice work.  We study the great food writers of our times ... their notes about spices.  We must keep our intellects honed and not get lazy ... this is not so easy.  We
study the spice notes of Julia Child, of Elizabeth David, or M.F.K. Fisher, of Dione Lucas,
of Paula Wolfert ... and others took ... we have many books and references ... a fine spice
library that we've accumulated with the help of Tessa McKirdy in London, Jan Longone
in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Kay Caughrin in Berkeley, David Kherdian & Nonny Hograrian.  So we all are expected to work hard against getting lazy intellectually.
And in so doing individually, we help the others to do the same thing.
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Tai Chi.  To make the Spice House a special place calls for special people to inhabit it.
That is one reason why we like to always have little children coming in ... sharing their
special glow with us ... even put it into the walls here.  There is this very old idea that
certain motions practiced ... certain patterns done with a certain rhythm ... are not only
elevating ... but attract certain higher influences to a place.  It is a beautiful idea isn't it?
Yes.  Is is true?  Or just a romantic notion?  I dunno, but we do Tai Chi because of the
possibility that these ideas are true ... and also because it makes for good health; good
body health and good mental health and maybe good spiritual health.  Ruth & I & our
daughter Pam were allowed to study with a Tai Chi master: Master Yin ... who after his days as a general in Chang Kai Shek's army came to settle in Ravenswood here in Wauwatosa.
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To love to cook.  Especially to love to cook for others.
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To accept the idea of one special meal a month ... a ceremony of food & spices ... shared
with the others up here at our Kavanaugh Hill white house.  To help with the preparation;
with the spicing.  This month is leg of lamb with Mediterranean spearmint and other spices & herbs.
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To accept the idea of doing work up at our civil war house.  Restoration work of a sort ...
but also the necessary routine work.  Our annual  " vanilla bean gatherings " will be
coming up ... where we all cut open & chop pounds & pounds of different style vanilla
beans in preparation for the making of our real vanilla bean sugar .... we listen to back
round material on vanilla .... also some material on the art of perfumery ... Edmound
Roudnitska, the master perfumer,  advised his young students to study the French
legendary philosopher Henri Bergsson and learn his ideas on the developement of one's
" intuition " ... yes, a fine thing to be able to " know " something in this manner ... so
we will be reading some of this material as well as Mr. Roudnitska's writings  as we work.
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To keep a written notebook.  To keep alive our agility with our mind.  Good work habits.
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We study the connection between spices and the great old Eastern spiritual tradtions.
Why are spices woven in continually within the writings of Hinduism?  Of Islam?  Of
Jainism?  Even of Judaism?  Of Taoism?  Of Zennism?  What is the nature of this
elevation that is given to the nature of spices?
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The Gurdjieff Work.  Ruth & I were allowed to study for some nine years with a very
good Gurdjieff teacher.  Paul Henry Beidler.  Mr. Beidler was with Frank Lloyd Wright
here in Wisconsin in l932 as a teachers assisstant to Mr. Wright for the first class of the
then newly formed organic school of architecture named Taleisin.  Mr. Beidler was
accepted as a student with Gurdjieff in Paris in 1923.  Also there at that time was
Olgivanna Wright in Paris.  Fontainebleu and the forest philosophers.  What is the
Gurdjieff work all about?  Accepting the unpleasant manifestations of others ... and hoping they might accept ours.  It is extremely practical.  We've raised children along
the lines of trying to sincerely learn how to get along with others.  Nothing can exist
without knowing psychology ... a family ... a marriage ... or a small shop like ours ... or a
restaurant kitchen ... or anything really.  So we try to share this attempt at understanding
exactly why we are all so difficult to get along with ... and see if we might improve.
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Being able to type.  It used to be typing years ago; now it is computer skills.
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  ... I have to run to the Spice House now as Kyle & Ruth are
waiting for me ..... will finish later.  This is a rough start to writing out what it is that
we try to do here at the Spice House. Maybe as time goes on we can write it in a
clearer way, but I think it does give a possible new Spice House apprentice
prospect an idea of what we are about.  But mostly we have to get our work done;
do good spices; run a good spice operation.  The above things are all fit in as we
have time for them.