{"id":1726,"date":"2014-06-16T16:33:16","date_gmt":"2014-06-16T16:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews\/?p=1726"},"modified":"2018-06-02T10:28:48","modified_gmt":"2018-06-02T10:28:48","slug":"feeding-orchids-to-the-slugs-tales-from-a-zen-kitchen-by-florencia-clifford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/2014\/06\/16\/feeding-orchids-to-the-slugs-tales-from-a-zen-kitchen-by-florencia-clifford\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Feeding Orchids to the Slugs: Tales from a Zen Kitchen\u2019 by Florencia Clifford"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Vala Publishing Co-operative Ltd, 2012<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hbk:\u00a0224 pp<\/strong><\/p>\n

ISBN:\u00a0978-1908363039<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Reviewed by Hermina Stafford<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

__________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

At first glance when I was asked to review Florencia Clifford\u2019s book with\u00a0what I thought was a curious title, I was somewhat bemused at being\u00a0told it was a cookery book. However it is so much more than that.\u00a0 The book is unusual because it is a personal journey of self-discovery\u00a0combined with the author\u2019s love of cooking.<\/p>\n

Florencia was brought up in Cordoba, Argentina and she paints a vivid picture of her early food influences from her Scottish paternal ancestry and the Argentinean women\u00a0of her family. She explains to her readers that she was always destined to be a cook because her soul had been nurtured through the food in the kitchens of her childhood.<\/p>\n

Finding Buddhism changes her life and eventually Florencia finds a job as\u00a0a Zen cook in a Buddhist centre in Wales. This is where she begins to\u00a0learn more about who she really is, not just through being part of the\u00a0community but also through creating and serving meals.<\/p>\n

She is clearly a sensitive and deeply intuitive person on a spiritual journey and becomes increasingly aware of her deep connection to the natural world and to the changing seasons. As the book unfolds we find her discovering more about her own creativity and learning more about the art of living in the present moment.<\/p>\n

The reader cannot help but be affected by this author\u2019s ability to see cooking as a joy and by the way her spirit shines through her words as she describes her recipes.\u00a0 She speaks of\u00a0 her cooking as a kind of alchemy \u2013 the transformation of basic ingredients into food. She writes: \u201cThe kitchen brings me back to something ancient that inhabits me, a non-linguistic space.\u00a0 It is something innate, inherited\u2026..a deep\u00a0<\/i>understanding of food that comes from within<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

This book is beautifully illustrated by Michaela Meadows and is full of delightful-sounding recipes.\u00a0 Florencia\u2019s\u00a0 descriptions of the meals she prepares and cooks evokes for the reader a visual image of the colours and deliciousness of the food\u2014so\u00a0 much so that I found myself wanting to sit down and be a guest at her table.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Working as a Zen cook in a Buddhist centre in Wales, this author begins to learn more about who she really is, not just through being part of the community but also through creating and serving meals. This is a beautifully-crafted book, part personal journey, part reflection on life and part cookbook<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,7,14,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-gaia","category-health-and-wellbeing","category-practical","category-spirituality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1726"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2691,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1726\/revisions\/2691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}