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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
Photo from early 1990, some seventeen years ago.
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There she is, my Grandmother Ruth.  Picture taken in Pennsylvania at Northeon Forest in 1988.
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Saturday, Oct. 27, 2007.  Halloween.  The making of the very first batch of the " Carmelites Soup Spice "
based on the recipe given in one of the finest of all the spice books, :" The Book of Spices " by
Frederic Rosengarten Jr. PhD. of Princeton New Jersey. Show page with recipe here soon.
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Mistresses of Spices and the Kavanaugh Hill White Buffalo Spices and the Carmelite ladies come together..
I held the bowl from Nepal over the fence, so that it actually was over the Carmelite Sisters grounds, in their space.
I mixed as Gram read  ... a short reading but a very good one.  It was something about the consequences of the
organ " kundebuffer ".  I asked her at the start what kundebuffer was and she explained it to me .......
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*  the readings by Gram on Sunday mornings to my Mother and my Aunt and my Uncle in the early 1970's.
a chapter each Sunday read from the then just published " Book of Spices " by Frederic Rosengarten Jr.
*  the " strange to be there " recipe for Carmelite Soup in the chapter on Bay leaves.
* my Great Grand Mother Anna sends down roast chicken every Sunday about noon for the kids to eat while Gram reads.
*  the Carmelites in Italy.  The Italians helping the Carmelites get started here in Wauwatosa.
*The Indian teepees right here where our house is, where the Carmelites are next door.
* An Indian " sign " the lightnig striking the chimney from the old horse barn and sending it thirty feet.
*  Another Indian sign, the fierce store that took many trees down on Kavanaugh Hill, but ours was bent in half to the ground.
.Gramma's White Buffalo dream.  Very few ladies are ever given this dream to have.  Only special ladies..

Above, my Grandmother at the very first 'TosaFest, Sept. 1976.  Shown below is my Mother, and even
my Uncle Billy ( top photo in backround with white shirt facing sideways ).
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