LEMONANE SPRINGS

I hate hippies. Here I am looking like every other freak in Berkeley and finding myself forced to deal with some of the stupidest people imaginable.

I belong to a neighborhood food conspiracy, and my fellow freaks have exercised so much social pressure that I have eliminated foods from the family diet that we all love. These people buy my food for me, and they will not permit the conspiracy to handle anything that is �bad for you.� I missed the whole brussels sprouts season because the stupid conspiracy couldn�t find brussels sprouts which were organic enough. Now, I like to eat organic food and I buy it whenever I can, but I love brussels sprouts. I have now started buying produce outside of the conspiracy so that I have free choice of vegetables and fruit, organic or not.

A friend of mine wanted to get margarine at a cut rate price through the food conspiracy, but the conspiracy refused to handle it because it is �poison.� Well, people should be allowed to pick their poisons. In this case, her old man has heart trouble, and butter is more harmful to him than all the artificially hydrogenated oils and chemicals in margarines. When we explained that the old man had heart trouble, one truly sensitive freak dealt head-on with the problem of imposing his values on others. He said, �Freaks don�t get heart disease.� When we said that this one did, he said, �That guy must be a camy.� Camy – that�s short for carnivore. Is it because vegetarians suffer so much with their diets that they feel they assume superiority over meat eaters?

Anyway, I�ve stopped doing most of my shopping at the food conspiracy. I�m going to deal direct with farmers, millers, etc., and be able to buy my own combination of healthful, organic, whole foods – and lovely, satisfying junk. To celebrate my liberation, I�ve been making a whole bunch of unnatural foods which have managed to support several cultures over hundreds of years.

Whenever I think of luxury breads, I think of challah (Jewish egg bread). It is made with unbleached white flour, and is rich, golden, and light. This is the challah I made:

CHALLAH

In a big bowl, dissolve two packages of dry or compressed yeast in 1-3/4 cups of water. (Use warm water for the dry yeast and use lukewarm water for the compressed yeast.) Add 1 tablespoon of salt, 1/2 cup of sugar, and 1/4 cup of melted butter or margarine. Beat in four large eggs. Some Jews brew a pinch

of saffron in a small amount of hot water, and add the strained golden water to the bread for additional flavor. I don�t.

Now add unbleached flour, a cup at a time, until you get a dough, that is stiff enough to knead. This will take about seven cups of flour. Put another cup of flour on a counter, and dump the dough out onto the flour and knead it for 200 or 300 strokes. When it is properly kneaded, the dough should feel very smooth and bouncy. When you stick a finger into it, the dough shouldn�t be sticky.

Put the dough into a greased bowl and cover the bowl with a dish towel. Let it rise until the dough has doubled in volume. Stick your finger into the dough. If the indentation from your finger remains after a minute, the dough is properly risen. Punch, push, and press the dough to expel all of the air in it. Now you are ready to shape it.

You can either just stick the dough into three greased 4�x8� bread loaf pans, or you can divide the dough into three long strips and braid it. If the dough doesn�t want to remain in long strips so that you can braid it, let the dough relax for about fifteen minutes. It should be more cooperative then. Put the braided loaf on a greased cookie sheet. Cover the dough loosely with a dish towel and let it rise again until doubled.

Brush the bread with a beaten egg, sprinkle it with sesame seeds or poppy seeds and bake it in a preheated 350 degree oven for 45 minutes to an hour or until it is golden brown in color. Cool the loaves on a cake rack. The braided bread can be cooled either on a rack or on the cookie sheet.

If you wanted, you could substitute 1/2 cup of wheat germ for an equal amount of white flour. This amount of wheat germ does not alter the flavor of the bread, and I have no objection to nutritious foods as long as they taste good.

Unbleached white flour not only makes good bread, but also makes better tasting noodles than whole wheat flour, or soy flour and gelatin, or any of the other combinations which make incredibly nutritious noodles. There are lots of eggs in these noodles, so they are far from a total nutritional loss.

EGG NOODLES

Mix whole eggs into unbleached flour. This recipe is slightly vague, but the usual proportions are 1 egg for each cup of unbleached flour. However, sometimes, I have to add an extra egg toward the end of the mixing because all of the flour hasn�t been absorbed. The goal is to get as unsticky a dough as possible. Now, knead the dough in more flour until it is absolutely unsticky, is incredibly velvety and smooth, and will hold the marks of your fingers when you squeeze it. This will take anywhere from fifteen minutes to a half hour of hard kneading. Let the dough rest for fifteen minutes.

Divide the dough into lumps about the size of a baseball. Roll the dough out on a floured board until it is between 1/16 of an inch and 1/8 of an inch thick. The thinner the better. Pick up the sheet of dough and hang it up to dry for ten minutes while you roll out more dough. After the surface of the sheet of dough is dry (but before the sheet gets brittle), cut the dough into strips. The width of the strip is up to you.

Now, you have a choice. You can either cook the noodles right away. Or you can toss them lightly in flour ^nd let them dry until dinner time. Or you can let them dry completely, turning them often, and then store them until you need them. If you don�t get them thoroughly dry, they will mold when you store them. Personally, I don�t like to dry the noodles because then they taste like store-bought noodles. Whenever you decide to cook them, cook them in a big pot with lots of salted boiling water.

Egg noodles are good thousands of ways, but today I favor pesto on them. Basil will be coming into season soon, and pesto is the best way to glorify this wonderful herb. However, don�t even try this with dried basil – it tastes aw-

ful. If you can�t find an herb farm, or an Italian market which sells fresh basil, maybe you could try to grow it yourself. Nurseries usually sell basil plants. If you can�t find them, start basil seeds in egg cartons, flat sections of milk cartons, or pots indoors, and transplant the basil plants outside to a sunny flower bed when they are at least three inches tall.

PESTO

Put 3/4 cup of olive oil into a blender. Add three packed cups of basil leaves, and blend the whole thing into a liquid. Add five or six cloves of garlic, and one cup of grated parmesan cheese. Blend again until it is liquid. Add Vi to one cup of pine nuts, almonds or walnuts, and blend again until the mixture is smooth. This makes enough for about three pounds of noodles. Pesto should be tossed into the noodles rather than be slopped on top of the noodles like some people do with spaghetti sauces. Add salt and pepper when you are mixing the pesto into the noodles.

As a final blow to my friends who refuse to let the conspiracy sell granulated white sugar because the refining process leaves poisonous residues in it, I suggest a batch of empty calorie caramel candy.

CARAMELS

Put two cups of sugar and one cup of light com syrup into a heavy four quart saucepan. Cook the mixture over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the sugar is dissolved, the mixture looks clear, and the syrup is coming to a boil. Boil the syrup to 300 degrees. USE A CANDY THERMOMETER.

While the syrup is cooking, cut Vi cup butter or unsalted margarine into bits. Also, take 1 1/2 cups of cream from the refrigerator. When the syrup reaches the proper temperature, drop in a few bits of butter, and stir it in. The candy will bubble up and steam. .Keep adding the butter a few bits at a time until it is all used up. Stir the candy between additions and don�t let it stop boiling.

When you�ve used up all the butter, pour the cream into the candy in a thin stream. Don�t ever let the candy stop boiling. Stir the candy constantly during the additions so that it doesn�t scorch on the bottom of the pan. By the time all of the cream has been added, the temperature of the syrup should be down to about 210 degrees. Boil the candy until it reaches a temperature of 246 to 250 degrees. The higher the temperature, the harder the caramel. It

may take as much as thirty minutes for the syrup to reach the proper temperature, but after it gets above 230 degrees, watch it carefully. The temperature can shoot up suddenly.

When the caramel is cooked, remove it from the heat and let it cool for five minutes. Then stir in two teaspoons of pure vanilla extract. Stir in the vanilla only enough to blend it thoroughly. The more you stir the caramel, the grainier it will be, and you could ultimately get fudge.

Pour the caramel into a buttered 7�xll� shallow pan. When it is completely cook, turn it out of the pan and cut it with a heavy knife. Wrap each piece separately because caramels will stick together amazingly quickly.

I agree that a steady diet of unbleached four, white sugar, insecticide residues, and food processing chemicals is not sufficient to support growth and good health. However, everyone expects his food to taste good as well as to nourish him. And, if he has enough food to eat well everyday, he can afford to eat some foods which aren�t maximally nutritious.

Candy has its function too – it makes people happy.