Menu/Food Offerings

People are curious about the food served (and not served) at the meditation center; here’s a sampling of the more frequent items I ate.

BREAKFAST

• Oatmeal (I added raisins, cinnamon, sweetener, and milk)
• Raisin Bran (granola and Cheerios were also offered)
• Plain yogurt
• Banana with peanut butter and jelly (it sounds weird, but it’s quite good).  Apples and oranges were also available every morning at breakfast.
• A beverage I dub “Poor Woman’s Café Au Lait”: I mixed 1/4 part milk with 3/4 parts hot water, a big ol’ scoop of instant coffee, and a packet of sweetener.  It wasn’t great, but it also wasn’t bad; and more importantly, it got the job done (i.e., waking me up!)

LUNCH

Hot meals were provided every day at lunch; here is the menu this center followed:

• Veggie burger, and oven roasted potatoes
• Tofu steaks, and cooked peas/carrots
• Lentil/tomato stew, and steamed kale
• Pasta with optional marinara sauce, and steamed broccoli
• Veggie and black bean soup, and corn bread
• Homemade mac and cheese, and steamed spinach
• Refried beans with various taco fixings, and steamed zucchini.  (An aside: I have no idea how one makes Mexican food taste Indian, but somehow, these chefs did it.)  : (
• Veggie/tofu stir fry, with optional brown or white rice.  (Mercifully, this meal did NOT taste like Indian food!)
• Falafel with pita bread, and green beans

Peanut butter and jelly were always offered at lunch; but no bread – only rice cakes.

A small “salad bar” was also always offered at lunch.

DINNER

The center offers only fruit and tea at the dinner “tea time”; however, my physical needs require a minimum of three s0lid meals a day.  (I will get physically ill otherwise.)  So before I enrolled in the course, I asked if they would be able to accommodate my need and provide a full meal at the 5 pm tea time.  They assured me they absolutely could – which actually turned out to be only partly true.  Yes, I got food every evening more substantial than fruit, but sometimes just barely.  For me, “dinner” frequently consisted of:

• A cold salad comprised of lettuce, carrots, beets, cucumbers, chickpeas, cheese, sunflower seeds, and salad dressing.  A bizarre combination, but when you are hungry, it’s surprising what can taste “good”.  (Or at least acceptable.)
• Carrot sticks
• Rice cakes with peanut butter and jelly
• Apples and bananas
• Walnuts and almonds

So, not exactly what I was told that I could receive; but better than just fruit and tea.

“DESSERTS”

Um, yea.  The center occasionally provided a “treat” at lunch, but those were inconsistent.  So, here is what was offered; and here is what I “invented” on the spot.

Offered:

• Chocolate malted balls (on Day 1, and again Day 6 – I think they were trying to help ease the transition from the average American diet to this vegetarian, sugar-free, soda-free land)
• Dates and almonds
• Oatmeal raisin “cookies” (These were little rounds of leftover oatmeal from breakfast that were baked, and then they stuck 6 raisins to the top of each one.  No lie.)
• Carrot/mango juice

My creations:

• Banana with peanut butter and honey
• Banana with walnuts and honey
• Banana with raisins and honey
• Peanut butter, walnuts, and honey
• Peanut butter, almonds, and honey

(catching a theme here?)

• Hot cocoa mix, and peanut butter (a throwback to my old camping days)