The Green Room and the Art of Conscious Eating

Day 32 – 12:03 AM (The Drexel)

The Green Room

Caught up with Chang-Sun and Reginka today for lunch over at The Green Room. As we all walked into the place, it was obvious how it got its name: It was a jungle in there! Row after row of large plants, small trees, and intricately carved railing outlined a geometrical, multilevel layout. Each level had a number of booths, tables, and chairs, all of which seemed to be carved from various exotic woods. Potted bushes and several grey-stoned waterfalls encircled the whole room, mostly concealing The Green Room’s tall glass walls. Meanwhile, the entire domed ceiling showcased a mammoth montage of Egyptian-style Biblical art, with an all-black cast of warrior types depicted in classic Old and New Testament scenes. And at the focal point of the room, where the mural flowed vertically into a strip of candlelit stone, there was a near life-sized replication of a black Jesus on the cross.

“Fucking incredible,” I said, looking up at the mural, as we all took a seat at a booth in the back.

“Oh yes,” Chang-Sun said, “that’s Giashyleo’s work. He’s one of our renowned painters and a professor of art over at the MCA. Great, isn’t it?”

“Mother of God,” I remarked, eyes still fixed on this extraordinary work.

“Yes, but with slightly darker skin than usual, right?” Reginka joked.

Settling into the booth, I took a closer look around the restaurant and noticed the mind-boggling amount of detail in all of the woodwork. I mean, every rail in this place was like one of those customized canes with the elaborate woodcarving. And even our tabletop was a canvas to hieroglyphic-style engravings that mirrored certain images in the ceiling mural. This place was half-museum, half-wildlife preserve. A unique ambience, indeed.

When our food showed up, it was what I have grown to expect around here: simple, clean and delicious. Nothing refined white or processed, fried or oily, or overtly salty or sweet. They simply don’t prepare food like that here. Instead, it was super fresh, with emphasis on things like multicolored veggies, dense whole grains, and a variety of legumes. Flavorful herbs are used to enhance the entrées, while thick dressings and sauces are avoided. It isn’t the sensationalized assault on the taste buds, like so much of our modern cuisine is back home. Instead, it’s lighter, and substantially more nourishing. And it has a closer-to-the-original-source purity about it. You feel good eating it.

Speaking of which, let’s talk about the food in Zentauria. I’ll start with the good news. In an item-to-item comparison to what we’re used to in the ultra-refined, heavily sprayed world of non-organic North American produce, everything tastes markedly more delicious here. The actual flavor of virtually anything you find at the market is so fresh, pure, and “un-fucked with,” it’s almost beyond description. I mean, you bite into a piece of fruit here and say, “Ah-ha… so that’s what it’s really supposed to taste like, huh?”

Big red strawberries explode against your teeth like liquid candy bombs; almonds, radiant and alive with a smoother, more pronounced flavor, resonate in your pallet with a delicious aftertaste; carrots, fiery orange, crunch with a sweeter crispness than we’re used to; and you can actually taste the richer green pigment in their collards, which sway in the open fields, free of any type of pesticides or inorganic fertilizers, just like everything else around here. And as for freshness, most anything you find at the market or order at a restaurant would have been pulled from the ground or plucked from a tree within the last 24 to 48 hours, tops. That’s fresh, people.

The bad news, however, is that as you begin to explore the culinary world here in the cafés, or through prepared food items from the market, most of us westerners would find the food to be a little on the bland side. This is because Zentaurian cuisine is a long way off from the overly-processed, heavily-sweetened, and mega-salted foods that pass as standard American fare these days. But this is what happens in a community where refined sugar and high-fructose corn syrup are non-existent, cooking oil is used rarely, reluctantly and sparingly, and table salt never makes its way to the table. [In fact, salt is considered a low-priority seasoning, used only on occasion, and in modest amounts.]

But now for more good news. After a couple weeks of eating the Zentaurian way, your taste buds somehow make the pilgrimage back to their original “set-point,” and you really begin to appreciate the nuances of their dishes. Your pallet sharpens and you begin to taste everything in a new way. Even more importantly, you begin to experience a greater sense of nourishment and fulfillment from the Zentaurian meal or snack. You feel energized, revitalized, and always free of that greasy-brick-in-your-belly feeling that’s so commonplace in our culture after a heavy meal.

The Art of Conscious Eating

Another big part of the Zentaurian eating experience is the level of consciousness that goes into every bite. This is one area where I think I’ve done pretty well, even though some of my friends like to fuck with me for eating so slowly. But here, everyone eats as slowly as I do. And as I see it, there seem to be three unspoken thought processes behind eating consciously:

The net result of engaging this level of conscious eating is that you tend to not turn your meals into a gluttonous feeding frenzy of mindless consumption. And when you enjoy meals with others who are aligned with the highest ideals of conscious eating, you are cultivating a powerful environment of peace and awareness… a tangible, micro energy field that contributes to the ever-expanding macro. I have felt this a number of times back home at gatherings where everyone was eating vegan. Here in Zentauria, I feel it every day.

Vibe Cuisine

Beyond the super clean nature of the food itself, I got really interested in exactly why it feels so good to eat this food. So, after lunch, Chang-Sun had to split, but Reginka took me back to the kitchen to get a look at Chef Wattsy-Cho in action. Everyone calls him Watts.

The first thing I discovered is what’s known as the Clearing Room. Reginka explained that, by way of Zentaurian tradition, before anyone steps foot into the kitchen, you must always take at least a few minutes in the Clearing Room to first “breathe away” any kind of negative or frantic energy that you might be carrying around, and then to actually get into an elevated state. This is done not only to protect the food from heavier energy, but to consciously infuse the food with good energy. After all, Reginka explains, “People are eating more than just the food itself. They are eating all that has infected the immediate energy field or even the actual cells of the food, be it positive or negative. This has been researched and quantified extensively around here. So all of our chefs and food handlers are critically aware of their mindset before coming within ten feet of any kitchen environment.”

I asked her if some of this science was similar to what we see with certain food in Kirlian photography. “Uh… in theory, sure. But we’ve actually been able to delve a little deeper into the science from a molecular level. Fascinating stuff... and a little scary, when you see what you could be ingesting under less than ideal circumstances.”

After five minutes in the Clearing Room, Reginka and I stepped into the kitchen. It was operating room clean, spacious, and very calming. The immediate areas where the food was actually prepared were well lit, but everywhere else in the kitchen was all about candlelight, soothing blue lamps, and meditative mood music. It was almost like being in a temple… except there was the divine aroma of delicious food, rather than incense.

There were at least eight other chefs and handlers at work around the kitchen, but we went right up to Watts’ station and said hello. With his long black hair tucked under a conventional chef’s hat, a broad smile, and a smooth complexion that belied his 70 years, Watts redefined the word “calm.” As we walked up, there were at least two dozen bowls and small bottles of ingredients around him, and he was expertly cutting up some leafy green herbs.

“Hello,” he said quietly. “Welcome to our temple.” I said hello back and he continued to cut and chop.

“What are you working on, Watts?” Reginka asked.

“A blood orange herb sauce for one of our corkscrew pasta and veggie dishes,” he said.

Like a painter with his pallet of colors, Watts was assembling an interesting concoction that included rosemary, parsley, cilantro, tomatoes, pine nuts, freshly extracted orange, plum and cherry juices, some kind of flavored vinegar, a few other interesting looking plants that I didn’t recognize, a pinch or two of salt, and a couple razor slivers of garlic.

“That’s all the garlic you’re using for the entire batch?” I asked.

“Yes,” he answered calmly. “Garlic is a very strong flavor. A little goes a long way, as they say.”

“Damn… that amount wouldn’t go very far when I cook. I sauté four or five whole cloves with a little olive oil when I make a tomato sauce,” I said.

Watts and Reginka shot me a quick what-happened-to-this-poor-bastard’s-taste-buds look and just smiled.

“I know… I’ve often heard that garlic is considered overly stimulating all the way around, correct?” I said.

Watts nodded, still smiling. “Yes, garlic is extremely potent and tends to create a heightened sense of over-stimulation in the body when a lot is used. So whenever we’re dealing with flavors and spices in food, the question still remains, what are you cultivating?”

“Well, as far as garlic in pasta sauce goes, I guess I’m trying to cultivate a little flavor up in this motherfucker!” I joked.

Watts laughed softly, and Reginka said, “Well, yeah, that’s one way of looking at cultivation.”

Kidding aside, Watts was for real. Many monk traditions have advised against overly spicy foods, citing a connection between the overindulging of the senses via food or drink and the increased desire to get distracted with sensations elsewhere around the body. This was one tenet that stuck in the Zentaurian tradition, and this is one of the main reasons why the food is prepared so simply.

“Will you typically use that many individual ingredients when you create something, Wattsy?” I asked.

“Actually, no. You happen to be seeing the exception. We’ve found that, in most cases, while using a number of ingredients can be very pleasing to the eye, it often can mean too many different flavors for the pallet to properly discern. Less is typically more. But with sauces and various toppings, we try to create one central hue of flavor through the precise combination of many. And, of course, it’s fun,” he said, looking up at me, smile still intact.

This whole part of the process reminded me of the artistic process. Whether you’re talking about creating a drum part or writing something, more notes or more words don’t always equate to a better result. The message can get lost in the quantity of things if you’re not careful.

The Wisdom of Eating Pudding

We left Watts to his work and took a slow stroll around the kitchen, observing the other cooks. We wound up near the dessert area, where a young chef, named Singha, invited us to join her at a small table at the back of the kitchen, to sample one of her creations. It was some kind of raw, vegan, cheesecake-style pudding, made with cashews, vanilla bean, and agave nectar, among other things. It was topped with a handful of pitted purple cherries. We all sat at the table with three spoons and one bowl of the dessert among us, each taking small bites… savoring each one as if we were about to begin a 40-day fast. No one said a word. Reginka and I just nodded enthusiastically at Singha, then settled into ten minutes of meditative, conscious eating, allowing each little bite to melt into our tongues.

Only in Zentauria, people!

© 2009 Bobby Rock

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