Welcome to Handful and a Pinch

My name is Magdalena and I am so happy you are here.

“handful and a pinch” is a blog about vegetarian and/or vegan cooking, baking and creative living with the focus on mindfulness. My passion is to create food from scratch in order to avoid unhealthy additives you find in processed foods.

I do:

• love things that are simple, clean, pure, AND easy
• pay attention to where my food is coming from.
• prefer it to be organic, but regional and seasonal foods are most important to me.
• out of respect for Mother Earth and all who are involved in growing our food, sustainability is key to me.

Where I come from

This blog was born out of my practice of mindful living and my deep love for good, healthy, delicious, REAL food. This love and joy for good food runs deep in my genes.

Anna, my wonderful Oma who was born in Vienna, Austria. She was an amazing, wonderful chef who owned and ran a restaurant in Bohemia (now Czech Republic). And my grandfather Joseph was a baker and beer brewer. (I told you my love for cooking and baking is in my genes!) But at the end of World War Two, they had to leave everything behind. Her husband served in the German Army and when the Russian army advanced, the family was in great danger. My Oma took her three daughters, her bicycle, and one suitcase, and walked to the border of Germany. They took refuge at a German farm.

That’s how I was born and raised in Bavaria in Southern Germany. I loved to spend my school holidays with my Oma and Opa on the farm. On her old-style wood fired farm stove, Oma cooked and baked the most delicious meals with fresh ingredients from her garden. She preserved the garden’s harvest for the winter. She pickled, and made delicious jams with wild raspberries or blackberries we harvested at the edge of the woods.

Her delicious blueberry sheet cake on a thin yeast crust  filled the whole house with this wonderful aroma of fruit and cinnamon. I always will remember her heavenly cold-stirred apricot jam. Cold stirred by hand! I mean, stirred by hand for hours, with no electric mixer!

I loved her simple meals like Kohlrabi in a creamy sauce with yeast dumplings. But nothing was like her simple garlic toast. It was a long slice from a big, round farm-baked loaf of bread, toasted on the iron surface of the wood stove. As soon as the slice became crusty on both sides, Oma rubbed it with a fresh clove of garlic, topped it with the melting lard or butter, and finished it with a pinch of salt. It was heavenly—and so delicious in its simplicity!

Whenever I asked my Oma for a recipe, she always answered, “it’s very easy, my love: just take a handful of this and a pinch of that.” I was not convinced that would work, because her hands were so much smaller than mine. But she always said, “you’ll figure it out darling!” Well, I did figure it out, and to this day this is still mostly my way of cooking. Thank you, Oma Anna, for the “Handful and a Pinch” approach to cooking. It is because of Oma that I love cooking and baking. She gave me the confidence to experiment and create my own recipes.

But don’t worry, on this blog I will provide you with precise recipes that guarantee success! And at the same time, I also hope to encourage you to be creative and brave, and to modify the recipes to your own liking.

My previous life

I worked in corporate for 30 Years, as VP of International Sales and Training.

For me, food was a very direct way to connect with my business partners as human beings. Even and especially when we did not speak the same language. I was convinced that the way people display and treat what feeds them daily, the way they prepare and cook their food, reveals so much about their culture. I feel so fortunate that I was introduced to the different cuisines of my business partners’ countries, including Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan.

Every time I visited a new country, my curiosity and love for food led me to explore fresh produce and fish markets, grocery stores, and specialty stores that sold baking tools and cookware. So, not surprisingly, as souvenirs I always brought back home to Germany specialty foods like Taiwanese Oolong tea with a Chinese clay tea teapot, or Korean lemon honey tea, which is delicious and wonderfully soothing when you get a cold. I loved finding special spices such as Korean Chili paste.

Japan particularly inspired me: the way the Japanese people mindfully and respectfully chose, treated, and prepared every detail for a meal. The seasonality of the ingredients, the beautiful styling, the arrangement of the food on the plate were like a piece of art to honor creation. This spoke directly to my heart and soul on many levels! For one, this aesthetic approach appealed to the artist/painter in me, as it involved creating art with color and light. And on a very deep level, it spoke to the mindfulness practitioner in me.

My mindfulness Practice

I have practiced Mindfulness with the Plum Village tradition of Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh since 2001. In 2014, I formalized my commitment to mindfulness as a life practice and ordained in the lay community, the Order of Interbeing. It helps me to daily observe and practice the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings https://plumvillage.org/mindfulness-practice/the-14-mindfulness-trainings/. They are my daily guide for a happy and joyous life, ethical behavior, and compassionate action in society. These trainings help me to stay in the present moment and enjoy life right here and now.  They help to recognize that my happiness is not separate from the happiness of others, cultivate concentration and insight to free me from fear and the illusion of a separate self. Since 2010 I am living in Colorado, practicing with my husband Matt in the Colorado Community of Mindful Living.

What brought me to Colorado?

It’s a pretty simple answer: It was LOVE!

I met my now husband Matt, who is a Dharma teacher in our tradition, in 2002 at the lotus pond in the monastery of Plum Village, in beautiful southwestern France. Pretty romantic, isn’t it? After his two-year world travels, we spent six years in a long-distance relationship. I mean really long-distance, between Munich, Germany and Denver, Colorado. And finally in 2010 I made the brave decision to cross the ocean and half of the US continent and moved from Munich to Denver, leaving behind my family, friends and job, and letting go of all my possessions to build a partnership that supports mindful living.

Living in Colorado changed my life dramatically: whereas before I traveled the world as a businesswoman, suddenly I was at home most of the time. It took be by surprise how easily I was able to relish the time for my passions of cooking and baking. I enjoyed creating beauty and art with painting, crafting, and cultivating a sustainable and mindful lifestyle.

I find that the most natural place for me to practice mindfulness is in the kitchen, where I become more clearly aware of my choices, my actions, and the impact I have on the earth and the people around me.

Many of these recipes are tried-and-true successes that come straight from my kitchen (and from my heart). Or my easel, for that matter! Once in a while I will share some of my paintings with you.

I see life as a joyful process of learning and exploring new challenges. Writing this blog in English is one of them, as English—as you may guess—is my second language. It’s so relaxing to know and admit I am not perfect but working diligently to get better every day. I am so grateful to have such a supportive community. Special thanks to my tech-angel Shelly, my editor Courtney, and my wonderful husband Matt who is so patient and loving who encourages and inspires me every day.

My aim is to create a community of mindful, kind, loving people, supporting each other to increase happiness and joy in life with cooking, baking and creative living.

Please send me your feedback as to what worked for you or what didn’t, as well as what you wish to see here on this blog.

I look forward to connect with you.

Yours,

Magdalena