Hermitcraft: Curried Jack

I always eat my jack o' lantern. Jack pumpkin is cheap per-pound, but grainy and bland compared to food-meant squash, so the uninitiated are often counselled to eat one of those instead and throw Smilin' Jack on the compost.

But ingratitude to that degree my Scottish soul hard abides. Indeed, I've been known to buy several of these giant gourds and carve just one, keeping the others in a cool dark dry place for the months beyond.

The trick to making meat of this vegetable is knowing how to draw out its qualities, and/or to use it in robust dishes where its colour, texture, and restrained sweetness add value.

Which is why I appealed to India for help.

The following simple and quick recipe coalesced in my kitchen about 25 years ago. It's a hearty and healthy Punjabi approach, vegan in its native form, with a widely available North American masala, and I look forward to it all year. (Note that I forgot to scatter the peanuts on this one before I took the photos.)

Curried jack can be served alone as a side dish or over rava, rice, or diced potatoes for a main course. Don't skimp on the spices; too much is enough. Also, I'm fairly spicy for a white guy, so if you aren't, go easy on the jalapeño, black pepper, and ginger.

Finally, like all highly-flavoured dishes, this one is markedly better the next day or later. I seldom get my act together effectively enough to make tomorrow's supper today, but if you're having guests or carrying to a potluck, this is the master stroke. Any road, the unlikely leftovers will be incandescent at next day's lunch.


CURRIED JACK

Serves 2-4 as a main dish, up to 8 as a side.

Ingredients in order:

1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper
1 teaspoon powdered turmeric
1 teaspoon whole brown mustard seed, or substitute yellow
1 tablespoon neutral vegetable oil or ghee
1 clove minced or pressed garlic
1/4 to 1/2 cup chopped onion
10 jarred jalapeño rings, or 5-7 fresh, chopped fine
1 1/2 teaspoon grated fresh gingerroot
3 pints peeled and roughly diced pumpkin
1 16-ounce can of diced tomatoes
1 large bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon ground thyme
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 cup sliced celery, chopped cabbage, or frozen peas
1/2 cup peanuts (or substitute cooked pulses or meat at the appropriate time)

Rava, rice, or diced potatoes for bedding.


Take a large saucepan or skillet with tight-fitting lid and chafe it over low heat until evenly warmed.

Add the ground cumin, fresh-ground black pepper, powdered turmeric, and whole mustard seed. Move gently with the edge of a spatula until spices are lightly toasted and fragrant, about a minute.

Add the vegetable oil or ghee and stir in the spices to blend.

Add the minced garlic, chopped onion, and grated gingerroot and stir them into the masala mixture.

When the garlic and onion have softened and become translucent, add the diced pumpkin and turn carefully and well to fully distribute the spice mixture.

Turn the heat up to medium and add the canned tomatoes, ground thyme, and lemon juice, turning again to integrate. Don't worry that the tomatoes don't seem to moisten things much; the next step will take care of that.

Add the bay leaf and seal the whole under the lid, 5 to 10 minutes. Shake often to heat evenly and prevent scorching.

When the pumpkin has raised steam, add the green vegetable, lower the heat to medium-low and turn the lot well.

Fit the lid again and allow to simmer until the pumpkin is completely tender and translucent, about 20 minutes, turning from time to time.

Scatter the peanuts over the top and serve over rava, rice, or diced potatoes, if a main course.

WW: Autumn centrepiece

Just Enough

Oryoki reminds me of Dorothy Parker.

Among the many anecdotes from Parker's life – most of them entered into the record by the subject herself – my favourite entails the strategy she used to attract men during a particularly dry spell in that department. It seems members of the opposite sex were simply walking past her without slowing. So Parker wrote a single word in large block letters on an index card and posted it on her office door.

The tactic proved immediately and continuously effective. By her own account, into her office flowed an endless stream of "…older men. Young men. Rich men. Poor men. Married men. Unmarried men. Men who were not too sure."

Whatever, one wonders, could Parker have written on that card to produce such results?

It's elementary, really.

MEN

I think about this epigram in my Zen practice. How perfectly it encapsulates the literal meaning of oryoki (応量器), which I'm told ultimately comes from the Chinese for "the bowl that holds just enough". (Yes, I'm aware that the way we use this word in modern Soto means exactly the opposite. More like, "how many ways can we complicate things normal people do quickly, easily, and naturally". But that's religion for you.)

But this notion that needs are finite and definable – and that serving more than a bowl can receive just results in more dukkha – is inspired. And in the end it even accomodates the current use of "oryoki" – which refers in Soto to the intricate, shame-manufacturing rituals our zendos impose at meal time – because they are in fact the precise amount of attention required to get the whole sangha through a meal in little time and with the least amount of fallout.

It occurs to me that our world has largely forgotten this value. Notions of effective action, and our duty to produce it, have been tossed aside and replaced with an odd and very irritating loyalty to stasis; the belief that "just enough" means holding to a conservative present, in which change itself is tolerated only if it results in shrinking our servings even further.

We leave ten thousand bowls empty and call it discipline, at the insistence of leaders who empty ten thousand bowls into one and justify it as their imagined right.

This is not just enough, in either the positive or negative sense.

As for me, I find living the oryoki model challenging. It's not that I'm greedy – I'm not, by nature – but I'm scared. I want a bumper, a safety net, and famously, when you surrender to that goal, you never reach it.

So I do my best to pose the oryoki question often: "Do I have enough in this moment?" It works well for small stuff, like lunch, or attention, or diversion. When it comes to the wherewithal of survival, it's less productive.

But in true Zen style, just asking the question – just that – broadens the view.

Just enough.


(Photo courtesy of Shigeru Sakuma and Unsplash.com.)

WW: Bedtime for the Venus flytrap

(The 2026 Venus flytrap season is wandering to an end. It's been a rousing year: at last count mine has got 15 open and functional traps, about twice as many as this time last year. I can think of a few reasons, mostly the plant finally finding a rhythm here after a few years of settling in. We're also enjoying an unusually sunny and dry autumn this year; the region looks more like Central Canada than the North Pacific Coast.

Venus flytraps [Dioneae muscipula] are native to the Carolinas, where winter isn't trivial, and usually by this time of year mine lets me know it's ready for its winter torpor – the not-quite-hibernation it falls into during the darkest months. Then I put it in a cold room with mostly indirect sunlight, and it stops growing – without however dying back – till spring. And in fact the recent traps are only half the size of the ones it set last summer, a sure sign of impending sleep. But those smaller traps have also matured and opened for business, which is a contradictory indication.

So I'll wait a few more days before putting it to bed.)

Getting On With It

"Well, never mind.
We are ugly, but we have the music."

Leonard Cohen

(Tōsendō Rifū's Wakashu and Itinerant Monk Playing the Shakuhachi courtesy of the Honolulu Museum of Art and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Mystery shelter

(This temporary structure lies in the middle of a forest, where it has apparently been temporary for decades. It's the sort of building often erected for a greenhouse or potting shed, or makeshift housing for someone on a longterm outdoor job. None of which applies here, in a mature bigleaf forest with no vehicle access [or even footpath, at least not anymore] to the site.

The tarp stretched over its impromptu wooden frame has mostly rotted away from all but the near wall, and a thick lawn of forest duff, grass, moss, and ferns, a good 8 inches deep, has accrued heavily on what remains of the roof.

Kids' playhouse? Teenager's summer retreat? No idea. But heck, I'd live there.)

The Nutshell Koan

This koan-calibre meme has been making the rounds on the Fediverse recently. The insight here is unmistakable, and like all incisive analysis, reveals new facets and angles as it's turned in the light.

It's also universally applicable, so if these terms are unacceptable, you'll have to find another planet to do business with.