July/August 2012
A Vegetarian Journal for Quakers and Other People of Faith
The Peaceable Table is intended for the mutual support, education, and inspiration of people of faith in the practice of love for our fellow animals and observance of a Peace-full diet
Editor’s Corner Essay:
The Living and the Deceased, Part II: Lay Aside Every Weight
As we saw in the June issue, there are anecdotal accounts indicating that prayer for deceased people, and by implication deceased animals as well, may be very powerful. But in most cases, we will not know the outcome of our prayers for them during our present embodiment. On the other hand, we can often learn the outcome when we pray (intercede) for a this-worldly situation, person, or animal; but the results too often seem negligible. Such prayer appears to many to be mere words, powerless to bring about real change. Even when the hoped-for change does in fact occur, it is seldom possible to disprove claims that “it would have happened anyway.” No doubt this frustrating uncertainty is the main reason that prayer for others generally has such a poor press outside of traditional religious circles.
Nonetheless, controlled experiments in social science on the effectiveness (or otherwise) of intercessory prayer for the living have in fact been carried out, usually employing groups of people praying daily for a certain number of others, usually hospital patients, while a control group is not prayed for (at least not in the experiment). An example is the study cardiologist Randolph Byrd did with heart patients at San Francisco General Hospital where he worked. The results, published in 1988 in the Southern Medical Journal, showed that the prayed-for group had a small but statistically significant advantage over the control group; they suffered fewer complications, had less pneumonia, needed fewer antibiotics, and the like. The experiment remains controversial, but it does suggest that when numbers of people join in prayer, something is definitely happening. (To establish more than this about group prayer would require a meta-analysis of a number of such studies.) In any case, in regard to any one improved patient, we can still say that “it might have happened anyway.”
This unexciting situation can be approached from another angle: If group prayer on behalf of another group (of living humans) seems to have some effectiveness but nothing earth-shaking, how might we as individuals increase our openness as channels for divine healing power on behalf of both humans and animals, living and deceased? The answers I will suggest do not come from experimental studies, but are generalizations from the writings of religious teachers and mystics, especially in the Abrahamic religions. I will categorize them as suggested by the Biblical passage quoted in my title: “Seeing that we are surrounded with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin that clings so closely, and run with perseverance the [course] that is set before us.”
Quakers do not usually speak of praying for others, but of “holding so-and-so in the Light.” When this form of prayer-support is practiced in a persistent and disciplined way, it has great advantages. It is incompatible with pleading with God for a particular outcome. In order to hold some person, animal, or situation in the Light, we must (as far as we can) be ourselves in the Light. We must learn to surmount distracting thoughts and our own desires, and enter a stillness in which we are conscious of (or single-mindedly think about) the Divine Presence that surrounds and permeates all beings. Then we must hold in our mind the being or beings in question, as they are to Divine Love. Attaining this quiet state, needless to say, is not easy; distractions and desires are formidable obstacles.
Weights
The prayer life of a person who habitually gives way to distractions is sometimes compared to a weak stream that divides and sub-divides to flow around many rocks and hillocks in its path. Of course its force will be greatly reduced. Not everyone is beset with distractions, of course; some people are naturally inclined to be focused, and exert themselves to become more so. But probably most of us, when facing a difficult task or seeking inner stillness, find our attention pulled hither and yon by vaguely-appealing thoughts, images, sights, sounds, or what have you. Our culture, permeated by advertisements that encourage instant gratification, increases this tendency to distraction. (Ironically, while writing this essay I was much distracted!)
A strain of Indian mysticism refers to the mind pulled about by distractions as the “monkey-mind,” referring to an ape’s jumping from branch to branch. I suggest instead that we call it “our inner Mrs. Allen,” after the heroine Catherine’s temporary guardian in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. Mrs. Allen, wife of the wealthy squire of a tiny English village in the 1790s, is a placid, good-humored woman who invites seventeen-year-old Catherine to accompany her and her spouse to Bath. Here the teenager will have her first opportunity to attend balls, dance with eligible young men, and find romance. Chaperoning Catherine is an important responsibility, because the naive girl knows virtually nothing of the many unspoken rules and niceties of courtship in society circles. But Mrs. Allen is too preoccupied with her own lace-trimmed gowns, or with any trivial thing that catches her eye, to do her job. “As she never talked a great deal, so she could never be entirely silent; and, therefore, while she sat at her [fancy-]work, if she lost her needle or broke her thread, or if she heard a carriage in the street, or saw a speck upon her gown, she must observe it aloud . . . .“
Thus it happens that when a noisily confident young man Catherine has recently met drops by and claims a pre-arranged date to drive her out in his open carriage, Mrs. Allen, placidly lost in her forest of trifles, doesn’t bother to question his claim, or advise her uncertain charge that such a ride is not the done thing. Fortunately, the youth is not a sinister villain but merely an ill-mannered braggart, and Catherine suffers only a tedious afternoon. But she does miss out on a chance to spend time getting to know another more promising swain, Henry, whom she really cares for.
It is difficult to motivate ourselves to recall our inner Mrs. Allen from her meanderings, and get her to focus on the job she has taken on. She is no monster but an amiable person, and the things that distract her are pretty, or at least harmless. It’s also difficult because she’s been rich and spoiled for such a long time; her self-indulgent habits have almost taken her over. What is wrong is not anything she does but the far more important thing she fails to do, the thing her trivia block out. Unless we can “lay aside every weight,” surmount distractions, our minds will be too clogged to serve as channels of healing power to our animal and human neighbors in either world.
Sin
Another category of hindrances to opening ourselves to the Presence that will empower our life of prayer is “the sin that clings so closely.” It is hard to see sin for what it is. For one thing, the word has become almost meaningless, or even positive: it suggests the fattening-but-delicious fried chicken or bacon-and-pattie melt, the “sinfully decadent” chocolate-covered dessert forbidden by the superego. But sin is not eating yummy desserts or thumbing one’s nose at joy-killing authority figures: it is a ruthless evil, a destroyer. It withers souls, damages or destroys bodies. Sin appears in the probable backdrop to the delectable chocolate: anxious cocoa farmers pathetically underpaid by the huge chocolate firms, resorting to slave labor: children enticed away from their parents with promises of good jobs, never to return; chronically hungry; cutting down cocoa pods with dangerous machetes in the tropical heat; mercilessly beaten for trying to run away from slavery. (Note: Fair Trade and organic chocolate are almost never slave-harvested.) Sin appears in the devastated forest and prairie with their native dwellers dead; the stinking factory farm; the nightmare slaughterhell--invisible behind the pattie melt or fried chicken or cheese-dripping pepperoni pizza.
Thus these images are after all accurate; sin can indeed appear as very attractive, or it would not “cling so closely” even to persons who mean to help heal the wounded in the cloud of witnesses. Drawing upon another character in Northanger Abbey, I will characterize this more serious hindrance as “our inner General Tilney.” The General, father of Henry whom Catherine loves and of her good friend Eleanor, is “very handsome, of a commanding aspect,” self-assured, graced with courtly manners. Not only that, he clearly intends to promote Catherine’s and Henry’s relationship; he pays the girl extravagant compliments, and invites her to visit in their home, Northanger Abbey: “Can you, in short, be prevailed on to quit this scene of public triumph and oblige your friend Eleanor with your company . . . .? I am almost ashamed to make the request, though its presumption would certainly appear greater to every creature in Bath than yourself.”
Initially, Catherine is flattered, almost dazzled by the General’s attentions, and what they mean for her future with Henry. But soon she finds herself feeling confused. While he treats her with overwhelming gallantry, his sons and daughter are uncharacteristically silent in his presence. He berates and abuses servants over nothing. He says one thing and does another. The morning after her arrival at Northanger, when Catherine is all agog to explore the supposed Gothic wonders of the Abbey, the General asks her whether she would like to tour the house first, or be shown the gardens; but without letting her answer, claims to see on her face that she prefers to tour the gardens. His flowery, complimentary talk is all talk at her.
In time, perceiving the General’s chronic dishonesty and the suffocating effect he has on his family and even herself, Catherine comes to regard him as little less than a monster. She thinks of him as the villain of a real-life Gothic novel who shut up or killed his wife, but eventually she learns that his sin is more common-day: greed and heartless domination of all those around him, especially his grown children, whom he intends to marry off to wealthy partners. He had been told Catherine was an heiress; but later being told that, on the contrary, she is penniless (both were false), he feels affronted and goes into a Towering Rage. He throws her out of his house, leaving her to make her own way home. (Thanks to Eleanor’s lending her money at the last moment, she makes it.)
Freeing Ourselves
Our “inner General Tilney” will, of course, make himself known in more subtle ways than Austen’s odious character. Wanting deeply to ease and end suffering, to change the world for the better, we do not act with his colossal selfishness. But for all of us (except the rare person living in the Unitive State) self has a part, great or small, in our actions. For example, in speaking up for a nonviolent diet, we are sometimes accused of trying to dominate others by telling them what to do. In many cases the accusation is false, but the pain of hearing it, especially from friends or family, may easily arouse hostile feelings that are uncomfortably akin to the supposed original offence. Such feelings are particularly liable to arise in unassertive people--their style the opposite of General Tilney’s--who shy away from confrontations. They will be tempted to entertain resentments that fester for years, doing themselves much harm. I suspect that such resentments also beat upon the wrongdoer’s unconscious mind, making her or him worse than before. For that matter, if in any context we find ourselves responding to negligence or an affront with a flash of anger, we know that, however noble our vision, however genuine our actions on behalf of animals and humans, our inner General Tilney remains alive and well.
The Twin Challenges
If our inner Mrs. Allen is hard to stop because her distractions do no harm and may sometimes even be appealing, our General Tilney is perhaps even harder to neutralize, because he is so powerful and determined; and he can do very great harm indeed. Both will hinder or even block us from the deep oneness with the Spirit that heals and transforms both us and those we hold in the Light and prayer. We will not be free of them overnight. Every day we must “lay aside every weight, and the sin that clings so closely, and run with perseverance the [course] that is set before us.”
--Gracia Fay Ellwood
Photos: Sylvestra Le Touzel portrays Mrs. Allen in the 2006 film version of Northanger Abbey. General Tilney is played by Robert Hardy in the 1987 version.
Unset Gems
“The courage . . and the strength to stand up for truth are repeatedly demanded of us. The secret lies in the way in which truth is spoken--not with contempt or bitterness, but in love.”--Margarethe Lachmund
Margarethe Lachmund was a German Quaker, a heroine of the Resistance in WW II.
NewsNotes
Rhode Island has become the ninth state to pass farm animal protection legislation. Gov. Lincoln Chafee signed into law S.219/H7180 that will prohibit the extreme confinement of breeding pigs and veal calves in small crates, and the inhumane practice of cutting off cows’ tails. See Ban.
--Contributed by Lorena Mucke
To Stop Global Warming--while eating meat?
Philosopher Peter Singer and Frances Kissling, an independent consultant on ethics for NGOs, wrote to inquire whether meat was to be served at the meeting in Rio where leaders from around the world gathered to discuss sustainable development as well as the environmental problems that the planet faces. They received two replies, both pointing out how green the conference was to be--but both were conspicuously silent about the question. See Meatless?
--Contributed by Lorena Mucke
Letters: Gerald Niles, Judy Carman, Mihaela Wachsman, Carl Sheppard
Dear Peaceable Friends,
[About] praying for souls of the deceased who are caught in the traumatic circumstances in which they died: I’m not psychic, but I believe our prayers are helpful. For one thing, God hears all of our prayers. Based on what I’ve read in the Vedas, when a soul leaves a body, the transition that follows is not immediate, but gradual . . . . I think the soul recently departed . . . can greatly benefit from our prayers.
--G. N.
Dear Peaceable Friends,
Thank you so much for another newsletter filled with much practical and awesome information. It came at a very good time, since I have many friends whose loved ones had just departed, many quite suddenly, so I usually forward the newsletter to whoever I think might read and enjoy it, or is in need of something like this. --M. W.
Dear Peaceable Friends,
I loved your editorial . . . . I have read a lot of NDE stories and a lot of stories also of animals who appeared or had some kind of presence after "death." There is one about a dog who appeared in front of his person's car on a dark road that had washed away in the rain. When the man got out of the car to see the dog (who had died months earlier), he discovered that if he had kept driving, he would have driven off a cliff. Another deceased dog barked and woke his family when their house was on fire, saving them. Such divine mystery! What I loved the best was your advice to remain loving as we think of perpetrators and the awful things happening to animals. Our prayers are so important--I agree--and we must infuse them with love for all. . . .
By opening our hearts to all beings we simultaneously align ourselves with the Love Energy of God, or one could call it the Divine Life Force that dwells in all. Yet, in doing so, the suffering of the animals, the earth, and exploited human beings catches up to us and can feel absolutely overwhelming. . . . But it is the heart that is wounded and broken by its "suffering with" that has within it the seed of Awakening and the power to "be the change."
. . . . Is there a way to stay in balance, to stay aligned with Life and Love, to demonstrate the joy of being connected and truly alive without falling apart daily with each new revelation of cruelty and violence? We need tools to keep our balance. Some of these include: pacing ourselves; allowing ourselves time to celebrate life and time to mourn; meditation; physical exercise; finding a community online and at home of vegans dedicated to nonviolence; dedicating ourselves to a specific action or actions that give us a sense of "doing something" and yet remaining unattached to the outcome; spiritual reading that is uplifting; spending time each day looking at something beautiful and being in nature; feeling the heartbeat of earth through our bare feet.
Let us always remember, we are now in alignment with the Unconditional Love of the Universe. From that sacred place, we can rise above personal pain and do what we came here to do.
May all beings, including all people, be happy and free.
--J.C.
Dear Peaceable Friends,
The Pioneer piece on John Howard was excellent. His recognition through such magnificent statuary and the gravesite monolith show how respected he was, and the profound impact he must have made. . . . Thank you for once again showing that vegetarianism is not just some new-fangled craze.
--C.S.
Pilgrimage: Coretta Scott King (1927-2006)
Coretta Scott King is best known as the wife and later widow of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the great civil rights leader, but she was a truly exceptional person in her own right. Musician, author, and prophet, she was very much in the public eye especially after her husband's assassination in 1968, when she moved into leadership in the struggle for racial equality herself, as well as in the women's rights, gay rights, and anti-war movements. She also became a vegan for the last ten years of her life, having seen the relation between human and animal liberation. Both she and her son Dexter were influenced in making this commitment by the African-American activist and comedian Dick Gregory (See Gregory in PT 41).
Coretta Scott was born in segregated Alabama; her family owned a farm, though they were not particularly well off. Her father once tried to start a lumber mill but it was burned down by white neighbors. She had to travel miles to attend “colored” elementary and secondary schools, graduating as valedictorian of her high school class. The gifted young woman then went on to become the first Black student to integrate Antioch College in Ohio--a brave, lonely, and difficult position to occupy, as any pioneer knows. Majoring in music, fostering a budding career as a soprano, she won a scholarship to attend the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.
In Boston she met a brilliant theology student named Martin Luther King, whom she married in 1953 at her parent's home in Alabama. She and Martin took up their residence in Montgomery, Alabama, where, as pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, he soon became involved in his well-known career as a civil rights leader. Coretta shared in the work as well as raising their four children. Together with him she faced threatened violence (their home was bombed at one point) both from local government forces and the Klan.
On the fatal April 4, 1968, the threats became reality with the murder of her husband. A few years later, justice appeared to be served with the conviction of James Earl Ray for the crime, but Coretta and her family found much to trouble them about the investigation and the verdict. With the courage she had repeatedly shown before, she asked unwelcome questions. In time the family saw enough evidence to convince them that Ray had been framed. After assisting in a lengthy investigation headed by attorney William F. Pepper, in 1999 they brought a civil suit against Lloyd Jowers (owner of a restaurant near the Lorraine Motel) and other individuals, the city of Memphis, the state of Tennessee, and certain agencies of the U.S. government, seeking token damages for conspiring to kill Martin Luther King. Coretta herself testified at the trial. After a short deliberation the jury found in their favor, exonerating Ray and finding the defendants responsible. However, Coretta and her family had the humiliating experience of having media for the most part present them as dupes, print distorted accounts of the trial (which almost no journalists had attended), and in time bury the story. The prolonged stress of this whole experience may have compromised her health.
Regarding the veganism she adopted in 1995, Coretta said in an article in Ebony (July 2003):
I feel blessed that I was introduced to this lifestyle more than 12 years ago by Dexter. I prefer to eat mostly raw or 'living' foods. The benefits for me are increased energy, a slowing of the aging process; and I have none of the diseases like hypertension, heart disease and diabetes that people my age seem to get.
She added that “Veganism has given me a higher level of awareness of spirituality.” She called her vegan diet a blessing. She certainly appreciated her son Dexter's view that animal rights are the “logical extension” of his father's philosophy of nonviolence. Dick Gregory, the inspiration for them both, wrote in Callus on My Soul:
I felt the commandment 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' applied to human beings not only in their dealings with each other -- war, lynching, assassination, murder and the like -- but in their practice of killing animals for food and sport. Animals and humans suffer and die alike. Violence causes the same pain, the same spilling of blood, the same stench of death, the same arrogant, cruel and brutal taking of life.
Coretta was greatly honored during the last years of her life, as though to make up for the countless humiliations of a gifted black girl's childhood and youth in the days of Jim Crow, and for the abuse, including frequent threats of violence, that she and Martin continually received in the days of the great nonviolent civil rights struggle. She was present when President Ronald Reagan signed legislation establishing Martin Luther King ‘s birthday as a national holiday. She received honorary degrees from numerous institutions, together with many other tributes ranging from a school in Atlanta to a forest in Israel named in her honor. Yet she continued to speak up for the oppressed.
Coretta died on January 30, 2006, at a controversial hospital in Baja California, Mexico, where she was undergoing holistic treatment for stroke and advanced cancer. Over 14,000 people, including President Bush, former presidents, and other celebrities, attended her eight-hour funeral at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Georgia, a megachurch where her daughter, Bernice, was an elder. Her legacy was immediately and widely celebrated.
But her finest memorial must simply be the image of a life of great courage and thoroughgoing integrity. When she saw wrongs that cried out for righting, she spoke out and put her convictions into practice, at whatever cost. That consistency extended to exploited animals as well as oppressed human beings.
--Robert Ellwood
Book Review: Putting the Horse Before Descartes
Bernard E. Rollin, Putting the Horse before Descartes: My Life's Work on Behalf of Animals. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011. 286 pages. $35.00 hardcover.
Bernard Rollin, now among the leading ethicists speaking out for animals, here tells his story in his own witty, irreverent voice. The dust-jacket photo shows the author with benevolent, Santa-like visage, beaming at the viewer as he hugs a colt. The picture is appropriate, but there is considerably more to Rollin than it suggests. In fact there is none quite like him in the animal-activist community.
Rollin grew up a Jewish kid in New York. Living in a tough environment, working summers at Coney Island amid thugs, bullies, anti-Semites, and plain crooks, he learned early how to stand up for himself. And something important had occurred when he was only six years old: his mother took him to visit an animal shelter. He was deeply disturbed to learn that most of the unwanted dogs there would be “put to sleep.” “I didn’t understand. I still don’t.” Years later, Rollin got both a graduate degree in philosophy from Columbia and a brilliant and beautiful wife. Then, deciding that they wanted to try living in fresh air--somewhere other than New York--the Rollins came to Ft. Collins, where Rollin took a position teaching philosophy at Colorado State University.
As it happens, CSU also has one of the best veterinary schools in the country. Through a series of chance meetings, he became involved in that school and commenced teaching an ethics course for veterinary students. Soon he found himself, together with some students, criticizing cruel laboratory practices, not shrinking from confrontations with faculty bullies. Before long he had a regional reputation as the person, in this cowboy country, to deal with when questions of animals and ethics were at stake. He talked to groups of cowboys, ranchers, rodeo hands, veterinarians, scientists involved in animal experiments, meat producers, and more.
He had to confront remnants, still around in scientific ideology only a few years ago, of the philosopher Descartes' position that animals are really machines without human-like feelings of pain or loss. Rollin’s view was instead that of the British philosophers David Hume in 1739, “[N]o truth appears to me more evident, than that beasts are endowed with thought and reason as well as men,” and Jeremy Bentham in 1789: “The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but Can they suffer? Why should the law refuse its protection to any sensitive being? . . . The time will come when humanity will extend its mantle over everything which breathes.” (cited pp. 109, 112) Rollin has labored greatly so to extend the law.
In facing initially hostile audiences, Rollins gave as good as he got, just as he had years before in New York, asking the obstreperous why they had invited him if they didn't want to hear what he had to say, offering to meet abusive critics outside in a one-on-one. His approach usually involved some variation on the following: he would ask people if they believed in right and wrong, and--getting an affirmative answer--would then ask if anything whatsoever done to animals was wrong. Usually they had to agree on this as well. Then they could get down to specifics about where to draw the line, always the audience doing the heavy work. Here is an example from a talk at a rodeo club:
When I entered the room, I found some two dozen cowboys seated as far back as possible, cowboy hats tilted down over their eyes, booted feet up on chairs, arms folded defiantly, and arrogantly smirking at me. With the quick-wittedness for which I am known, I immediately sized up the situation as a hostile one. “Why am I here?” I began by asking. No response. I repeated the question, “Seriously, why am I here? You ought to know--you invited me.” One brave soul ventured, “You're here to tell us what's wrong with rodeo.” “Would you listen?” I asked. “Hell, no,” they chorused. “Well, in that case, I would be stupid to try,” I said, “and I'm not stupid.” A long silence followed. Finally someone suggested, “Are you here to help us think about rodeo?” I asked them whether that was what they wanted. “Yes,” they said. “OK,” I replied, “I can do that.” (p, 182) That discussion went on for hours, and ended with some real ethical insights about not hurting animals in the course of the sport.
This is typical of Rollin at work. He does not insist that rodeos be abolished, just as he does not argue for the abolition of animal husbandry before ranchers, or insist on vegetarianism to meat producers. Instead, he helps them see for themselves what can be done to make their treatment of animals more humane. In the same way, he testifies on behalf of ameliorative legislation before congressional committees, and in a series of fine books has given the philosophical reasons why.
We who are abolitionists will, of course, not be satisfied. But one can certainly say that Bernard Rollin has often been the right man in the right place in this time of transition in consciousness about the issue, awakening many who are not ready for the whole package all at once. As one who spent years of my youth in ranch country not too far from Ft. Collins I know the economic and personal environment he is facing, and I admire tremendously the toughness, courage, and tact with which he faces it.
May he live long and prosper.
--Robert Ellwood
Book Review: The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary
The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary - A True Story of Resilience and Recovery. By Andrew Westoll. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston and NY, 2011. Hardcover, $25.00. Illustrated.
Fauna Sanctuary is located in Quebec, Canada. It provides asylum to some hundred animals, including cows, dogs, monkeys, a donkey; the most prominent refugees in it are a dozen chimpanzees (there have been as many as nineteen, but some have died). Those currently living there are named Binky, Regis, Jethro (also the name of a horse at the sanctuary), Rachel, Yoko (a male), Petra, Spock, Maya, Chance, Sue Ellen, Pepper, and Toby. Black-and-white photographs of all of them appear in the book; it is quite striking how individual each face is. It would be the height of absurdity to claim that they all look alike.
All of them were the victims of callous and painful (as well as futile and needless) medical experiments in the USA. They have been damaged both psychologically and physically; humans are allowed to touch them only with back-scratchers through the holes in the wire-fence walls. Psychologically damaged chimpanzees who have lived in contact with humans sometimes bite the fingers off fellow chimpanzees, humans, or even themselves This horrible phenomenon does not take place with wild, uncorrupted chimps as far as I know.
The best part of the book is some advice, on page 92, from Jane Goodall herself, recommending that we not expect too much psychological healing too soon. The apes have suffered a lot, and it will take them a good while--at least a year-- to recover. She also recommends that the chimps be given human food - spaghetti (with a fork), ice cream, popcorn, jello, muffins; and that the apes have objects that will serve as "security blankets."
Their story is told by Andrew Westoll, who previously wrote about Capuchin monkeys in Suriname, South America. The narrative is not, I confess, a pleasure to read. There is a lot about cleaning up excrement, blood, and other unpleasantness. I do not recommend the book as leisure reading, but only for those who need to know the terrible results of the oppression of chimpanzees in North American laboratories.
--Benjamin Urrutia
Recipes
Provençal Bread
Makes 2 lbs. dough for bread or crusts
1 1/4 lbs Russet potatoes, peeled and quartered
1/2 cup soy or rice milk
1 T. active dry yeast
1 tsp. organic sugar
4 cups organic flour (3 cups unbleached; 1 cup whole wheat)
1 T. sea salt
In a saucepan, cover potatoes with cold water and bring to a boil. Cook potatoes for about 30 minutes, until tender. Drain potatoes, reserving ½ cup of the cooking water. Add the soymilk to the potato water. Sprinkle with the yeast and sugar; gently stir to mix. Set aside until foamy, about 10 - 15 minutes. (NOTE: before adding yeast to the soymilk-potato water mixture, check the temperature. It should be about 100° -105° -- but no warmer or the yeast will die and the mixture will not foam.)
In a large bowl beat the hot potatoes; allow to cool a bit, then add the yeast mixture.
In a medium bowl, mix together the salt and flour. Gradually beat the flour into the potato-yeast mixture, about ¼ cup of flour at a time. The total amount of flour needed greatly depends upon the humidity – thus varies from season to season or even day to day. The dough should be elastic and workable. It should not be overly sticky.
Place potato dough in a large oiled bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic and allow to rise until doubled, about 1- 2 hours.
Sprinkle the dough and work surface with flour and knead for a couple of minutes. Add additional unbleached flour if necessary. Preheat oven to 400° F. Shape into 2 loaves; allow to rise while oven preheats. Bake until golden, about 22 - 24 minutes.
The dough may be used to make crusts for pizza; simply shape into crust, apply toppings and bake in 425° F oven about 24 -26 minutes.
This is a very delicious and versatile dough, wonderful baked in loaves or used for pizzas. A combination of flours may be used to create even more varieties. I often use 3 parts unbleached white to 1 part whole wheat. This combination results in a golden yet light dough that is full of flavor.
--Angela Suarez
Photo is from The Iowa Housewife website: see Housewife .
Caponata (Vegetable Sauce)
8 servings
2 medium eggplant, cut lengthwise into ½ inch slices
3 T. extra virgin olive oil
1 small onion, minced
2 celery ribs, chopped
1 1/2 cups tomatoes, peeled and chopped, including all the juice from the tomato
1/4 cup pitted oil-cured olives, chopped
1 T. drained capers
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
2 tsp. organic sugar
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves
Brush eggplant with 2 T olive oil. Broil until soft; set aside to cool.
Sauté onion and celery until tender. Add tomato, olives, and capers. Increase heat to medium. Simmer until tomato juice is reduced and ingredients are combined, about 7-8 minutes.
Meanwhile, chop eggplant slices. Add to pan and cook 1 minute. Add the vinegar and sugar; simmer, stirring occasionally, until most of liquid has evaporated, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in basil leaves and serve.
Caponata is a traditional thick and hearty Sicilian vegetable spread including eggplant. Serve warm or at room temperature, with plenty of crusty bread.
--Angela Suarez
Noodle “Symphony”
1 large carrot, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1/2 cup of chopped broccoli or cauliflower
1/2 green pepper, ripped into large chunks
2 cups of spaghetti sauce
5 ozs. or 1/3 of a 1 pound box of whole grain spaghetti
2 "Grillers" or other vegan patties
1 tablespoon of worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons of crushed oregano
Put 5 or more cups of water in large pan to boil the spaghetti noodles. Put the spaghetti sauce in a small saucepan on low heat. Braise all of the vegetables in a frying pan, using 1/2 cup water (instead of oil) for about 10 minutes. Cook the noodles on simmer for the required time printed on the box. Meanwhile, break up the “Grillers” into medium-sized chunks and add them to the frying pan. Add the Worcestershire and the oregano as well, and braise for another 5 minutes. Add the heated spaghetti sauce to the frying pan. Turn off the heat under the pan. Add the cooked and drained noodles to the frying pan and stir. Serve hot
Delicious with a tossed salad and a sliced orange or raspberries.
--Richard Scott Lancelot Ellwood
Bruschetta with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Rapini
8 servings
1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes
2 T. extra virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
4 cups coarsely chopped rapini (broccoli rabe)
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
sea salt, to taste
8 slices country style bread (an Italian style bread is very good)
Vegan Parmesan for garnish
Additional olive oil for drizzling
Preheat oven 400° F.
Cover tomatoes with hot water and let soak 30 minutes. Drain and coarsely chop.
Sauté garlic in olive oil, just until tender, careful not to brown; add tomatoes, rapini, red pepper flakes and salt; cook, stirring until rapini is tender.
Slice bread into thick slices. Drizzle with olive oil and toast on a baking sheet until golden.
Top with rapini mixture and sprinkle with vegan parmesan.
-- Angela Suarez
Poetry: Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926)
Der Panther
Im Jardin des Plantes, Paris
Sein Blick ist vom Vorübergehn der Stäbe
so müd geworden, daß er nichts mehr hält.
Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe
und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt.
Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte,
der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht,
ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte,
in der betäubt ein großer Wille steht
Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille
sich lautlos auf –. Dann geht ein Bild hinein,
geht durch der Glieder angespannte Stille –
und hört im Herzen auf zu sein.
The Panther
in The Garden, Paris
His vision, from the constantly passing bars,
has grown so weary that it cannot hold
anything else. It seems to him there are
a thousand bars, and behind the bars, no world.
As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,
the movement of his powerful soft strides
is like a ritual dance around a center
in which a mighty will stands paralyzed.
Only at times, the curtain of the pupils
lifts, quietly -- An image enters in,
rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles,
plunges into the heart and is gone.
--Translation by Stephen Mitchell
Issue Copyright © 2012 by Vegetarian Friends
The Peaceable Table is a project of Quaker Animal Kinship / Animal Kinship Committee of Orange Grove Friends Meeting, Pasadena, California. It is intended to resume the witness of that excellent vehicle of the Friends Vegetarian Society of North America, The Friendly Vegetarian, which appeared quarterly between 1982 and 1995. Following its example, and sometimes borrowing from its treasures, we publish articles for toe-in-the-water vegetarians as well as long-term ones.
We manage on the traditional shoestring budget, so we welcome donations. Make checks out to Quaker Animal Kinship.
The journal is intended to be interactive; contributions, including illustrations, are invited for the next issue. Deadline for the Sept. issue will be August 28. Send to graciafay@gmail.com or 10 Krotona Hill, Ojai, CA 93023. We operate primarily online in order to conserve trees and labor, but hard copy is available for interested persons who are not online. The latter are asked, if their funds permit, to donate $12 (USD) per year. Other donations to offset the cost of the domain name and server are welcome.
Website: www.vegetarianfriends.net
Editor: Gracia Fay Ellwood
Book and Film Reviewers: Benjamin Urrutia and Robert Ellwood
Recipe Editor: Angela Suarez
NewsNotes Editors: Lorena Mucke and Marian Hussenbux
Technical Architect: Richard Scott Lancelot Ellwood