May/June 1984 RAIN Page 5 ACCESS: Food Foods for Health and Healing: Remedies and Recipes, by Yogi Bhajan, 1983,140 pp., $6.95 from: KRI PO Box 1550 Pomona, CA 91769 “Anti-smog pancakes?" "Yogi tea?" Yes, they're both here in this edition of Yogi Bhajan's teachings on the healing aspects of foods. I approached this book with a grain of skepticism, but soon became caught up with the Yogi's fresh, conversational style. He first presents various foods with their healing properties, then explores the best foods for common ailments. This leads into foods for positive health, separated into special chapters for men, women, and children. The book ends with intriguing recipes based on the synergistic effects of the foods used. Foods for Health and Healing makes for enjoyable and interesting reading. I drank large quantities of yogi tea during a recent long, hard bout with the flu, and although I can't vouch for its curative properties, I have to say it tasted great. ■My only complaint about this book is its emphasis on tropical foods—besides the political and economic reasons. I'm sure there are some health reasons for eating locally. A book like this for each bioregion would be interesting. —JS The Living Kitchen, by Sharon Cadwallader, 1983,127 pp., $7.95 from: Sierra Club Books 530 Bush Street San Francisco, CA 94108 Designing a new kitchen or remodeling an old one? Then don't overlook this book—it provides a wealth of ideas and items to consider while trying to answer that age-old designer's question: What exactly do I want? I like Cadwallader's sense of the kitchen as the central room of the home, as it was in times past, a truly living kitchen connected to all other activities in the home. Her three model kitchens are well chosen and are taken from actual homes, giving the book a nice down-to-earth feel. Other parts of the book, though, seem like a warmed-over hash of well-known gardening and food books such as The Complete Book of Edible Landscaping, The Book of Tofu, and Laurel's Kitchen. A couple of annoying references to "Frances Lappe Moore" made me feel like whacking Cadwallader with a hardcover Diet fora Small Planet. And I was surprised that this author of Whole Earth Cooking for the 80's makes no mention of bulk foods in her chapter on purchasing economically; instead, she dwells on how to shop at your local supermarket. This book is a useful guide for the amateur kitchen designer/remodeler, but don't expect much more. —JS Natural Notes, monthly, $10/year from: Natural Notes PO Box 299 Flint, MI 48501 The first issue of Natural Notes, "a monthly newsletter about healthy foods and simpler living," came out in late 1983. This issue features a section on the history, uses, and nutritional value of coriander and spinach, including recipes; an informative article on MSG; favorite recipes; a good article on paper recycling; and a Kid's Corner. Natural Notes is a homey, nicely done eight-pager, worth looking into. —JS Good Foodfrom a Japanese Temple, by Soei Yoneda, 1982, 224 pp., $16.95 cloth from: Kodansha International 10 East 53rd Street New York, NY 10022 A beautiful book on shojin ryori, a 600- year-old tradition of Japanese vegetarian cooking that has been preserved in a Zen nunnery in Kyoto. The 230 recipes for simple, elegant food are arranged by season. In shojin cookery, the cook balances the five methods (boiling, grilling, deep-frying, steaming, and serving raw) and the five colors (green, yellow, red, white, and black) to achieve seasonal variations. In each meal, the cook also balances the six tastes (bitter, sour, sweet, hot, salty, and "delicate") / and the three virtues (lightness and softness, cleanliness and freshness, and precision and care). The author includes descriptions of Japanese foods such as lily root and ginkgo nuts. A series of delicious color pictures of prepared foods, as well as line drawings sprinkled throughout the book, aid you in selection and preparation. An introduction to each recipe tells the history of or interesting information about the dish. Shojin cookery delights in innovation, and so in many cases the recipes use Western ingredients (such as zucchini, which was only introduced to Japan in the 1970s). You'll find sushi (Bamboo Sushi), tempura (Ginger Tempura), and miso dishes here, but let your senses delight in such uncommon dishes as Tangerine "tofu," an orange pudding that looks like tofu but is made with tangerines and potato starch. One caveat: Many recipes contain more salt (miso, seaweed, soy sauce) than most healthy- eating guides recommend. —TK The Motion-Minded Kitchen, by Sam Clark, 1983,146 pp., $9.95 from: Houghton Mifflin Company 2 Park Street Boston, MA 02107 I've lived with 10 kitchens in the past five years—none of them designed quite right—and what Clark says about kitchen design rings true. Clark recommends simplicity: "The motto of good design is 'omit needless details'... but the motto over the door of the dream kitchen reads, 'omit nothing.'" To design a kitchen that works, Clark suggests studying the individuals who will use the kitchen and their movements, in the tradition of the kitchen-research era (1930-1955). He details principles and examples that don't waste therbligs—the fundamental movements out of which any work is built. "Items used habitually should be retrieved and stored with a minimum of motion. Those used constantly should be accessible with a single motion." There's a good bit of common sense here. This isn't merely a book on design theory, however. It's a hands-on resource for people who want to remodel their kitchens. Clark gives good advice on estimating the time and cost of your project, and he provides plans for kitchen components that minimize therbligs. He's a big fan of open shelves, and the main part of the book consists of a guide for constructing them. I particularly like the idea of dish drainers located above the sink that also serve as storage space. According to Clark, "Open shelving leaves stored items more visible and accessible, and costs about half of what closed cupboards cost. Narrower shelving, 6 to 10 inches deep, impinges less on the room space, and casts less shadow over counters. It can be positioned lower, making the contents easier to reach." Furthermore, he argues, building the cabinets in place, instead of using manufactured, prebuilt boxes, saves time and money. The appendices give more information on tools needed and motionmindedness, and provide kitchen layout templates and forms for estimating costs. —TK
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