Triple Pea Salad

It turns out picky eaters, vegans who eat fish, fish haters all drink wine. Well, actually, the fish hater prefers beer but he brings his own. It all turned out fine. The fish eating vegan showed up after her run, by which time we had eaten most of the veggies and all of the shrimp, but she didn't freak out when the dogs stormed the door, accepted a glass of wine and was  a very pleasant young woman....

I was a vegetarian for many years so I'm quite aware of the myriad versions of diet even within vegetarianism. Back in the days when I met senior Iyengar teachers from all over the place, hosting some of them at our house, I learned a lot about individualism and diet. Some people wouldn't eat cooked food. Others wouldn't eat raw food. Still others wouldn't eat certain foods or types of food together. I remember at an informal lunch gathering of Bay Area teachers, watching Diana Clifton, a lovely senior teacher from England holding up an avocado and rhapsodizing about its perfection. 

Perhaps this is why pot lucks were a popular form of gathering for yoga teachers back then.  Everybody could bring what they chose to eat, often dishes from a popular vegetarian cookbook of the time, Laurel's Kitchen. It consisted largely of what my friend Sue called 'tan food'. Everything seemed to be sprinkled with Brewers Yeast.

The group that revolutionized vegetarian cooking in San Francisco was the San Francisco Zen Center. The yoga community had quite a close relationship with them and many of us sat zazen with them on occasion. They opened a vegetarian restaurant in a landmark building at Fort Mason Center; the restaurant has some dramatic views of the marina and the Golden Gate Bridge. Their motto is : We believe food should be incredibly nourishing and that after you enjoy your meal, you should feel great. The majority of their raw ingredients come from their own Green Gulch Farm Zen Center gardens at Muir Beach in Marin County. The restaurant is still going strong.

Their book, The Greens Cookbook taught all of us back then how to make truly delicious and beautiful vegetarian food. It's not necessarily quick and easy to prepare. It is more like a labor of love, and it is worth the effort....