Through this new website, I am so glad I can now connect with people who actually want to cook and most of all want to eat! Eating is a complete experience, it includes: anticipation, presentation, aromas, texture and most of all, good company. A good meal binds us closer and should nourish while it energizes our bodies.

Is anyone out there aware (like I have been for some 34 years) of the emergence of the Marin County "terroir"?

Please write me if you do! That is it for homework today.

Now, a recipe which I served last Sunday, July 14th, at the West Marin Solar Festival, in Point Reyes Station:

Quinoa-Salad/with Legumes

-Start with a nice pound of organic Quinoa, which you cook at the ratio of 1 cup quinoa for 2 cups of water

-Add 1tsp of salt

-Bring to boil for 10 mns and let rest for 10 mns on top of the stove, covered

-Let it cool

-If you have been unable to cook your own organic beans, chickpeas and lentils, open a 1 lb can of each

-Rinse well under running water

-Put it all in a good looking bowl, chop 2 parsley, yes organic, bunches, 1 cilantro,1 basil: chop chop finely

Add 1 cup of virgin olive oil, 1 tbs of freshly grinded black pepper, and keep on salting to your own taste -- a good excuse to keep on tasting your work!

(By the way, salt once was the price of gold in the Middle Ages, but I digress)

-1 cup of lemon juice

-5 minced garlic cloves

-2 chopped red peppers for their appealing colour

Let it stand in fridge for one hour at least, because the cold hastens the marinating effect

Serve with a couple of tsp. of sunflower seeds for protein boost and crunch!

Now, this can be eaten as is, or it can be served with a grilled fish, fowl, or beef.

I happen to sell it very well as a wrap in a large tortilla.

VOILA!

see ya at the market.

Here's my quote for the day:

WHAT GARLIC IS TO SALAD, INSANITY IS TO ART! (A. ST. Gardens)