.
" Mistresses
of Spices " meeting at our 'Tosa Spice House, Sunday Sept. 10, 2006.
.
Two fold purpose. One. To start the making; writing; of the
Spice House manual,
based on two approaches. The ISO Standards and their western
science methodology which involves specific nearly mathematical use of
precise language
for purposes of tight implimentation of quality control standards.
Then the old spice culture methods of both the ancient Chinese I
Ching
method, and the Hindu Kush " enneagram " method, both methods of which
get into purpose; meaning; more abstract reasons for knowing what one
is doing.
.
Second purpose. To make known three young lady Spice apprentices
from
which one will be selected one year from now on Julia Child's birthday
Aug. 16
to become an accepted member of the " Mistresses of Spices study group
".
.
Show picture here of Dorothy Ann, and Jenni, who is one of the twelve
original
members, and the three candidates: Katie, Brittaney, and Colleen.
.
Four books involved in the study:
Mistresses of Spices, a novel, by Chitra Banerjee Divakarna
The Secret of the Golden Flower, by Richard Wilhelm
The Intellilgent Enneagram, by A.G.E. Blake of England
The European Common Market's I S O standard's handbook.
.
The Seven Spice Books which are used for study by our Spice House
apprentices:
The Book of Spices, by Frederick Rosengardtcen Jr.
Herbs Spices and Flavorings by Tom Stobart
Spices, the large coffee table book published in Paris
Alice Aarnd's Spice Book
Jill Norman's Sspice Book
Seasonings, by Sylvia Windle Humpreys
The Golden Book of Spices pub. in Racine, Wisconsin
Spice Trails by the talented .......
.
show photographs here.
.
the Twelve original " Mistresses of Spices "
.
Melanie
Sarah
Miriam
Corrina
Jenni
Thuy
Leah
Carly
Jessica
Eva
Caity
Teddi
.
the teacher & originator: Ruth Ann with encouragement from
both Catherine Brandel & Julia Child.
First meeting held on Julia Childs birthday, Aug. 16, 2001
.
Teacher's Assistants: Patty, Pam, Jeri, Dorothy Ann, Barbara,
Gisele, Rita, & Jill.
.
..
our annual Julia Child birthday event on Sunday afternoon Sept. 10,
2006. Present are, besides Ruth Ann & Dorothy Ann
& Jenni, the three new young " to be brought into the Mistresses of
Spices secret India school of wisdom " .ladies:..
Katie, Brittaney, & Colleen. Show pic here ( if it
turns out ) soon. Also start to post the reading from that day,
the afterward by Carl Jung from the small classic " Secret of the
Golden Flower " by Richard Wilhelm, about the very old
ways the Chinese looked at what life was about; what one's role in life
was about. The mixing of the " cassia buds &
vanilla bean sugar " ( cassia buds from south China ) and also the
bundling of Tung Hing 8 inch sticks of cinnamon to be
passed out to be used like the " falling sticks " of China to tell
about what is to come; and also the simmering of the
cassia buds, and also about the pyramid rainbow spice mills and the
special peppercorn mixture that they are filled with.
More to come from this gathering of Sunday Sept. 10, 2006.
Aug. 16, 2005. Yes, here it is again, Julia Child's
birthday. Two sentences from two different people: " God
puts you here,
and God takes you out, but everything in between is all up to
you. " and from Paul, our Gurdjieff teacher: " Your
birthday is
not important, but your death day is. "
.
Ruth has given Julia Child's massive work THE WAY TO COOK in the last
few days to Thuy, to Jenni, and to Sarah.
Thuy is just back from a month in China ( with Carly Annette ), Jenni
has just arrived in China, Hong Kong, for an entire
year to teach English at a Chinese University. While there she
hopes to pick up a copy of " The Secrets of Chinese Mediation "
by the Zen master Lu Kwan U ( Charles Luk ) as it has the " fragrance
adorned " prose which we use in our doorstep
mulling spices ceremony for opening a new Spice House ( along with the
beautiful writing by St. Paul from Corinthians on
Faith, Hope, and Charity ) ...and Sarah is just leaving to start a new
life in San Francisco.
She has asked me to get her Carly's email, so she could possibly get an
introduction of sorts to Michael Bauer of the
San Francisco Chronicle, as Sarah has hopes to be a food writer and is
looking to write there in San Francisco.
My thought is that she would make a marvelous shop manager or owner of
a complex higher level food shop of one type
or another there in San Francisco as she has such excellent people
skills. But I'll see if I have Carly's email address.
.
There are; were, twenty-two ladies in our Spice Wisdom School.
The three head teachers were; are; first, yes, Julia Child
herself, then Catherine Brandel ( I just ran across the " Ras Hanoot "
she sent to Ruth & I from Turkey some years ago ),
and of course Ruth herself. Ruth, or Ruth Ann, is in with some
pretty high company with the other two, but they both are
gone now and it is up to Ruth herself to carry on with this really
special teaching situation. So the seven " teacher's assistants "
are extra special important. Who are these seven?
.
daughter Patty
Penzey Erd
daughter Pam Penzey
daughter in-law Jeri Penzey
Barbara Fromm of Seattle, but formerly of Mequon. Daughter of
John Fromm.
Jill Norman of London
No. 6 .......?
No. 7 ....... ?
.
A goodly amount of the content of this special spice teaching has to do
with maintaining texture, richness, complexity,
and especially meaning on one's life's work. So we have
mixed up the special " Peppercorns Sovor/Saveur " as a sort of
three dimensional teaching accumulation to work with; to work
from. With it comes the chapter on the Akhaldan Sovors
from an unusual book, Gurdjieff's All & Everything. The
Akhaldan Sovors were a group of learned men in ancient Babylon
who attempted to fight the " dumbing down " that was starting to occur
with peoples all over the Earth at that time. In a
sense it is what Ruth & I struggle with too, today, in our small
spice shop. To keep things very rich with content. Yes,
there
is always that struggle on just how complicated one should make things;
keep things, and this written material about the
Akhaldan Sovors is of help to Ruth & I when we get done in, worn
out, fatigued, by the process of keeping a store like ours
together. Alot of the struggle with this sort of thing rests with
those who help us in the shop. Sarah has just spent a couple
of months with us. She is special and has helped us keep this
complexity alive. She has written out in her own hand a few
pages from Gurdjieff's material about the ancient Society of
Akhaldans. Just as a note, this looking to the Akhaldan Sovors
started some fifteen years ago when, at a Spice House apprentice meeing
in the dining room of our old Civil War white house,
Billy & Pam read aloud the first two pages from this
material. We actually have this initial reading on tape somewhere
here
around us ....... just below is one page from Sarah's writing ...
then a link to the other pages she wrote.
.
.
.
About the" Twelve Mistresses of Spices " Spice Wisdom School.
.
.
.
Jill Norman is holding up the book " Mistress of Spices
" by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. Patty gave Ruth & I a
copy when it first came out a few
years ago as a Christmas gift. The
book led to the starting of our " Twelve Mistresses of Spices Spice
Wisdom
School ", which has twelve young lady members ....
.
each
is more beautiful, more talented, more filled with potential, than the
last, and all young Spice House apprentices. The study material is
based
on the beautiful teachings of the centuries old spice cultures of
the Earth. In addition to the twelve young ladies, there are three
older
lady teachers, and seven lady teachers assistants. Twenty-two ladies in
all. Below Jill has agreed to become, as Patty is, one of the
seven
teacher assistants.
.
.
.
.
Jill Norman with daughter Patty Penzey Erd. July 2003. ( Chicago
Old Town Spice Talks. No. Three: Saffron.).
.
Here Patty is presenting Jill with her honorary " Pyramid Rainbow
Pepper
Mill " and the very special whole peppercorns mixtutre known as "
Colored Fancy Mixed Peppercorns: Peppercorns Sovor/Saveur
".Mixture
of four different pepper berries: the black is for Julia
Child,
white is for Dione Lucas, green is for Elizabeth
David,
pink is for M.F.K. Fisher.
.
The twelve, in order of them coming into The Spice House ....
.
Melanie & Sarah, Miriam + Jenni + Corrina, Leah
& Thuy & Carly, Jessica, Eva & Caity, & Theodora.
.
.
http://www.spicehousebrand.com/ms-spice-ladies.htm
http://www.spice-work.com/ms-spice-ladies.htm
.
note about the re-write for this page that I discussed with Sarah Marx
Feldner ..... I am going to use her energy to
..... finally ..... get this special valuable letter from Julia Child
posted to our web site. Perhaps Sarah might advise me
if I am being " out of bounds " in any way in doing this, as I do not
really comprehend the rules of publishing re: rights, etc.
.
The very first meeting of our " twelve young lady mistresses of spices
" was held actually on Julia Child's birthday ....
Aug 16 of 2002. We had planned to hold the meeting that day, then
Billy & Jeri decided they would get married on
that very day ..... it was a conincidence as they actually had not
thought of the birthday aspect of it ..... But Billly did
spend an hour with Julia Child showing her around our Spice House on
her first visit to Milwaukke back in 1990.
.I see the letter has a few tiny saffron threads attached to it. Odd
that this should happen, but a fitting thing, as she did the
saffron French Marengo dinner with Patty helping her on the stage here
in Milwaukee at an AIWF fundraiser.
.
...................................................................................................................................................................................
About the" Twelve Mistresses of Spices " Ancient
India Spice Wisdom School now operating as a licensed
franchise here on Kavanaugh Hill in the old Village of
Wauwatosa:
show pyramid rainbow pepper mill .....
.
.
copy when it first came out a few years ago as a Christmas gift. The
book led to the starting of our " Twelve Mistresses of Spices Spice
Wisdom
School ", which has twelve young lady members .... each
is more beautiful, more talented, more filled with potential, than the
last, and all young Spice House apprentices. The study material is
based
on the beautiful teachings of the centuries old spice cultures of
the Earth. In addition to the twelve young ladies, there are three
older
lady teachers, and seven lady teachers assistants. Twenty-two ladies in
all. Below Jill has agreed to become, as Patty is, one of the
seven
teacher assistants.
.
.
outside our Wauwatosa Spice House. Jenni
was a valdictorian at Wauwatosa East High School.
She is smart yes, but Ruth & I told her she should go into the
movies as she looks like Linda Darnell.
......................................................................................................................................................................................
., In the center is a special hand made pottery shard sent to
us from the fabled Silk Road in China.
.
.
. 
...................................................................................................................................................................................
.
Friday, Feb. 27, 2004. Two young ladies, both Spice House
apprentices,
doing " stances " on the side of the store.
They are doing the " horseman " stance, which is quite painfull
to do for any length of time. When we study
quality; where good stuff; really good stuff, comes
from, we do have to think about that it is not easy, that
really good stuff will be hard to come by. I dunno, is this
true?
Or is this one of the most romantic of notions?
And what about that we have to become right inside in order to do good
work; really good work? I dunno about
that either. But we have to entertain these thoughts and think
about them, consider them. this exercise comes about
because a man is after me to help him set up a " Spice House " in
Indiana.
I am telling him that he really has to get
very strong inside; that also he has to get right inside. But
I don't think he wants to hear these things .... he just wants
to get the store open because he want to have something like we
have.
But I don't think it is quite that easy. Just
to get the money and open the store and there you have it.
Voila!
( as Ruth & her buddy Joanny used to say ) ....
our kids each worked with us from four to eight years .... and I never
let them sit down either, just as I still do not
allow myself to sit down. I recall Billy sitting one time tho
.... he had ground Jalapeno peppers in our wonderful
Dr. Lee stone mill .... and they caught him by surprise, their heat
.... his arms & hands started to burn ... he ran to
the bathroom sink and poured cold water .... than thurst his arms in
the water. He had to sit there for an hour before
the pain started to lessen. Paying the price. What is this
all about, eh? Our kids, when they did get rolling on their
own, after Ruth & I helped them to get into spices in their
individual
ways .... did know what work was, real work,
and they knew about paying the price. Yes, all of them because
millionaires. Isn't it something. Lots of money yes,
but the main thing is not the money, it's this other thing. What
other thing? We'll get into that on these pages ......
but in the backround from Melanie & Leah, is the new $ 25,200 auto
the son Billy just gifted his Mom with. She
just picked it up this week. Thought we should have a picture
of it on our pages. Thanks Billy.
I am attempting to explalin to the two young ladies in the picture
that I can help them become entrepreneur millionaires too.
But like I say, that isn't the main thing.
Sat. Feb. 28, 2004.
.
.
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