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It all started when daughter Patty gave us, as one of her & Tom's Chirstmas presents a few years ago, an
autographed copy of a new sort of different spice book " the Mistress of Spices " by Chitra Diva karuni.
The opening setting of this book is a magical island off the coast of India, where beautiful young maidens, ladies,
are taken, after first being selected by a rigorous process, to learn the main principles of ancient India wisdom.
After a number of years of instruction, under a head wise older Indian lady mistress, who is the master,
they are sent out into the world to " activate " what they have learned by bringing in the opposing force of life ...
in the case of our book, the beautiful young Indian lady is transformed into an very old hag and sent
into a most difficult place ... the Black ghetto of Oakland California to run & own a magical spice store.
This appealed very much to me ( and to Bill ) as our Spice House was, for some twenty years,
on the edge of the Black inner city and it was here that our three children worked and learned about life.
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And also we have always wanted to be a " magical " spice store too.  It's why we let little children grate spices in front.
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picture below of daughter Patty with Julia Child at an Institute of Wine & Food fund raising dinner here in Milwaukee.
The dinner being prepared there on the stage was the famous French Marengo Napolean Dinner. $ 20,000 was raised!

You will see the rare  one pound tin of the very finest Spanish " Coupe " grade saffron that Patty has brought to the
event and Julia Child is measuring an amount into a small bowl to pass out to the audience ( 150 dinners each paid
$ 140 per ticket to be part of this ) to let them sniff the marvelous aroma of this rare spice.  The battle of Marengo
in northern Italy was a legendary battle where Napolean's army seemed headed for disaster, but then something
occured, the battle turned around, and they were victorius over the Austrian army.  With the victory same a special
victory gala meal prepared by Napoleon's chef, also a combattant, who wiped off his sword, and proceeded to
gather whatever was available in the vicinity to use as the ingredients:  chicken, seafood, tomatoes, garlic,
& yes, even saffron, there actually was saffron in the small town.  The meal became a French classic.
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Mistress of Spice book, paperback edition, ....... $ 12.95
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French Marengo Spices, authentic mixture with genuine Spanish coupe saffron, 1/2 cup shaker,   $ 4.95
French Charcuterie Spices, formula similiar to  page 221 of Julia Child's classic book How to Cook,  $ 4.95
When she first came to Milwaukee in 1990 to give cooking classes, her assistant asked us to
prepare two full pounds of this French classic mixture, starting with the whole spices, mixing them whole,
then grinding them; millilng them, in our small stone ( Dr. Royal Lee inventor ) grinding mill.  Which we did.
Both daughters, Patty and Pam, did the mixing and the milling and even the delivering of them personally to her.
Spansih coupe genuine saffron, one gram amt ......................   $ 8.95
White pepper, finest grade extra fancy Malaysian, 1/2 cup flint glass bottle, finely powdered .......   $ 4.95
White pepper, as above, but in whole peppercorn form berries for home milling 1/2 cup bottle,  $ 3.95
Pure minced pices of garlic, 1/2 cup amt . flint glass bottle......  $ 2.49
Pure granulated garlic, 1/2 cup flint glass bottle,....... $ 2.49
finest grade 100% pure no additives large crystals Alberger procress flake salt, one pound pouch,  $ 1.49
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There she is, my Mom.  She is the head lady; our mistress of spices; our master of spices,
and she is a remarkable lady.  Fifty years in the spice trade, and at the age of seventy still mills
 some of the most beautiful cinnamons &  cassia cinnamons sold in America.  Every day.
 Yes she has a little help, but she still does this every day.  Today she ground rich China Tung Hing Cassia Cinnamon.
Yesterday it was the perfumy Saigon 5% steam volatile oil cassia cinnamon.
And regarding our " Mistress of Spices " group of young ladies, all spice workers here with her
from time to time, she was encouraged by both Julia Child and by the late Catherine Brandel ( of the CIA
in Greystone California ) in this idea of  teaching to this  group of young ladies to about spices, yes,
spices, but also to teach about this greater thing that spices are inbedded into as if a center guide post.
                                                                                   p        Oct. 15, 2007
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Oct. 15, 2007 entry.
A little  about the " Taj Mahal India Moonlight Spices ".  Where have we come to with the development of this mixture?
.Cardamom and saffron mixed together with real vanilla bean sugar with  India almonds crushed then  added.
And then cooked all together by a Mother for her children under the moon light to yes, add the moon light to the taste.
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Puri Moon. Sept. 27, 2007, the harvest moon, the largest moon of the year?  Four small children put their spice
filled bottles out to soak in the moonbeans of this special particular moon.  Anna & Sophia right here at the foot
of Kavanaugh Hill, and two other small children too, one also in 'Tosa and one in New Berlin ( Zak ).
Inside the sparkling clear flint glass spice bottles is a mixture of vanilla bean sugar with a certain presence;
measured small amount, of finely powdered cardamom ( which represents the moon in India.  Cardamom is the moon ).
And also a very small amount of special rare saffron from the Himalayias, Kashmir Mogra quality saffron, especially
rare these days.  Saffron represents the Sun; cardamom is the moon and saffron is the sun, and neither exist
apart from each other, but the delicate " just right " workings of the two together is important.  In one bottle is an
amount of almonds from India, crushed from the whole nuts using the magical quality of a grand mother and a
little girl doing the hand crushing together: seven almonds all told.
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 There is a relationship that has to be made as perfect as possible between the
cardamom and the saffron; i.e. the moon and the sun, but also the almonds and the vanilla beans which are the
musical part of this beautiful mixture, as the the fading of the moon and the evanessence of the sun starting to
come over the edge of the round Earth's crescent, is always signaled and announced by a most lovely thing
of the Earth's doings, the " birdsong sacrament " the offerings of these little creatures that start to sing at a
certain point as the Moon and the Sun interplay; arrange themselves together in a sort of dance, done to, with
the singing of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of small birds, and this birdsong arc travels, travels
from East to West as the Earth moves, turns, glides and opens a new day; opens every day, with this music.
The Earth is still, very still, if you listen you will hear this stillness as it has being, this stillness.
Then the singing of the birds starts and the air is filled with it and it seems to start up in a mini second.
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Explain the story, the legend, as told to us by an Indian medical doctor, who would shop here in our Spice House,
who had his office in Rochester Minnesota, who after a period of working together, then courtshipm married his
American nurse.  They decided to have their honeymoon in India, and to travel to the famed Taj Mahal in Aggra/.
The evening they arrived by coincidence, happeded to be the evening of the Puri Moon, the Harvest Moon there
in India, and it was the custom for this special moon for the Indian families to come from many miles to picnic
there on the grounds outside the magnificent edifice all through into the night.  And, according to this India doctor,
a special dessert beverage, the recipe goes back generations and even centuries, was made; cooked, in special
clay tandoors pots:  goats milk, crushed almonds, crushed cardamoms, and a little saffron. This was all done out
under the full moon, under the moon light, and here, in the doctor's narrative, he was a bit awkward in his
manner, you could see he was even a little embarassed to say this, he a scientifically trained medical doctor
and all, but the most important thing about this special dessert was that, according to tradition, it was believed
that the moonlight actually flavored the cooking mixture, that after a certain period under the moon, while cooking,
the taste of the moon light became inbedded into the delicious beverage.  In fact, the doctor said, you could see
the Indian ladies, the Mothers actually of the families, go to the pots every now and then to take a little sip to see
if the moonlight had been captured in the taste of the milk.  When these ladies felt it had, that the moon light was
of sufficient delicate infusion, then the dessert beverage was done; ready to be served to the children mostly,
and also to the other members of the family also.
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..Julia Child & Jill Norman in their small overnight cottage in Oxford getting ready to cook dinner.  What did they make?
Can we ask Jill?  They were there to go to Oxford University to listen to Dr. Max Lake's talk on " Flavour Bridges"

The very first gathering was held on Julia Child's birthday.  A thing of interest to both Julia Child and Catherine
Brandel and also to Jill Norman was this really good observation about spices, and it was this:
that the older cultures seem to have accumulated a certain deep wisdom about spices, a feeling for them in
all their depth, and that America had not yet come to this.  It is a bit this question of either " Yes or No " or
another way of looking at things, how do the cyberneticians says this?  Analogue against Binary?  Something
like this.  So, yes, Ruth and those other older ladies around her all agreed that this " school " should address
itself to this question as part of its on going work with spices.  What are spices really?  How can we explain this
 deep really profound thing they are, meanwhile still keeping alive our childlike wonderment and enthusiasm and  for them?
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One of Ruth's teaching assistants, plus two of the original group of young ladies
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Click here to continue on .......
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