Spice it with the parts of plants,
Hearty roots first, and flowers last;
Seeds are sharp, and leaves give taste,
Flowers delicate and heartfelt grace.

Too often, mixing our favorite ingredients in a one-pot surprise turns gray and lifeless. But if your bean dish looks vibrant, it's probably correct! That's the challenge of beans. They're not only delicious and warming, but also bland, heavy, and difficult to digest. So we have to be careful.

Boil first then fry
A secret to cooking meals on time. Start the water boiling when you enter the kitchen. Then start chopping.

Quantities guessed but measured.
Cook by feeling not formula. Develop instinct. Taste the food and modify as you go.

Delicious in pieces and parts
Every part of the recipe, even if eaten separately, should be delicious. Example: Boil pasta in salt, oil, and herbs. Even eaten alone without sauce it will be delicious.

Whole, holds.
Larger pieces have identity.

Chopping in pieces, increases.
Smaller pieces release more flavor.

Individual plates and separate tastes.
Identify each flavor, as in English or Japanese cooking.

Together in one pot.
Individuality melts away in large Italian or Indian families.

Frying food boils until it burns.
Always fry spices to get the flavor. The bubbling comes from boiling which pushing the flavor out of the spice. Water in food holds the temperature at boiling point.

Sautéed in the center keeps even temperature.
Onions burn easily and unevenly when cooked separate. To cook more evenly, keep it together in the center.

Edges evaporate excess.
When there is too much water, spread food to the circumference where it is cooler. Food won't overcook. and excess water will drain and evaporate in the center.

Cook with eight energetics
Heavy / Light; Cold / Hot; Soft / Sharp; Oily / Dry

Use the six tastes
Bitter, astringent, pungent, salty, sour, and sweet

The textures are density, surface, and center.
The density is gaseous, liquid, or frozen. The surface is rough or smooth. The center is hard, crunchy, or soft. Nuts are crunchy in the center or the edge. Roasting toasts the edge leaving the center soft.

A single bulb in a room casts an uncomfortable shadow; and a single spice is still bland. The bouquet broadens the spices bringing the flavors together. Then add the single spice in larger quantity.

A bouquet of herbs & extracts.
Savory dishes are brought together with herbs and baked goods with extracts.

Spices to move spirit
The base is at the root chakra. The bouquet is at the heart. The spice activates the crown. Each recipe designed in layers.

Fresh food from fresh herbs
To add freshness to food, garnish with fresh, green herbs.

This is everything. Go and create.

Begin blindfolded
It does not matter how you begin. Close the eyes. Reach into the pantry and pull out a base and a spice. Breathe. Build from this foundation.

Layers of temperatures, textures and tastes
Layers hold the identity of tastes and feelings. The dance of combination and separation; when to stir and when to breathe.

Cook with oil, salt, sweetness and simplicity.
The three binders are oil, salt, and sweeteners. Taste your food. Then adjust it with these three. Restricted like this, every recipe will be delicious.

Recipe is asana.
Not a formula but a genre to be explored. A pattern. What is the recipe trying to tell you? See it's wish. Craving is the intention; recipe is the implementation. Cook the craving. Recipe is complement of craving. Together like pieces of a puzzle, recipe is the bridge between wish and fulfillment.

Cook the moment.
Local foods ripen the moment we need them. What ingredients are available, already here? When wish meets them it becomes a recipe. Open the pantry, open your mind. The recipe not rigid; just a pattern, suggestion. Recreate with your imagination and materials at hand. Recipe is a bridge between wish and ingrediant, capture the moment in the garden that is now.

The master was master of five
Five genres gave you access to all the recipes of existence. One baked, another soup. Who knows the five that were chosen?

Three days to know it well.
Any recipe or ingredient can be known by cooking for three days in a row.

Survive with Substitutes
We never have all ingredients on hand.

Creativity is a quest. The recipe begins when we listen for a wish. Through meditation and contemplation the wish is purified. In this way, food becomes enjoyable and healthy for body, mind, and spirit.

Know the journey of food into consciousness.
We eat and it becomes the body and it shifts the body, creating feelings. Feeling stimulates the mind and becomes thought. Thought becomes emotion, then belief. Belief merges into the universal belief, becoming spirit. This is the journey of food to consciousness. Food is not separate from awareness. Through our choice we arrive at this table and we eat. Choices from spirit returning to spirit. Food becoming us, becoming me.

Cook with opposites to balance the internal and the external.
Food is the bridge, external becomes internal; we merge with the world. Cooking transforming the world into nourishment. Health is harmony with nature, achieved through good diet and lifestyle. Cook with opposites to balance the internal and the external, your body to the rain, the wind and temperature.

Food for body, mind, and spirit
Holistic health balances the trinity of mind, body, and spirit.

He is not burned by keeping mantra, though he becomes art and dancer.
Always remain aligned with the universal spirit while you are cooking. It is a dance, a flow, chef holds knife like a musician; fingers dance on the piano. The meal a ballet and opera, it sings.

When emotions fall away, it communicates directly.
All distraction make the food less healthy, insightful. Clear the mind and listen.

I am not the creator, but the listener
We hear it in the navel. The gut. I am not the cook; the wind of the universe moves though me. I am the hollow bamboo that receives the breath. It's the note, singing, creating the harmony of the universe. The meal, an expression of cosmic consciousness, a glimpse of truth. Every recipe a search for the divine, the unification of soul, body, and the earth.