Genevieve’s Sour Cream Coffee Cake

Manicotti pasta shells are sold in 8-ounce packages containing 14 tubes, all laying contently in their individual beds of molded plastic to keep them from shattering. When I was learning to cook, manicotti shells became one of my favorite and most successful casseroles. The fact that my vegetarian boyfriend went crazy for them every time I made it certainly inspired me (thirty years later I can still show up with a pan of these manicotti and he expresses the same delight before devouring). The shells do not need to be precooked, unlike most pastas for stuffing, and this eliminates a messy, time-consuming step that always irritated me anyway since pre-cooked pasta is so slippery and breaks easy.

I went to a buffet at a friends right after she returned from her first visit to Rancho La Puerta spa, right over the border from San Diego, California, in Baja, Mexico. The spa, opened in the 1940s, was run according to the founder's research into the ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism, which focuses on man's good deeds. It is reputed to be almost as old as Shiva Tantra and had its greatest following in Persia, right next door to Ancient India. Ranch La Puerta is known for their organic vegetarian food prepared from their own gardens and earthy home baked whole wheat bread in an outdoor oven.

Summer Brown Sugar Berry Cobbler

Spice filled sweet rolls are an irresistible homey morning treat, especially when eaten warm. An easy-to-handle dough is made like a baking powder biscuit, filled, and rolled up to form into a simple spiral, which retains a perfect shape during baking. The spiral is the most ancient symbol found on every civilized continent, as well as being represented in nature as the whorl in seashells, coiled serpents, and unfurling fern fronds. Due to its appearance at burial sites across the globe, the spiral most likely represents the "life-death-rebirth" cycle. Similarly, the spiral symbolized the sun, as ancient people thought the sun was born each morning, died each night, and was reborn the next morning.

Some one asked me one day
to say what was on my mind.
They wanted to know how I pray,
and what it is I am trying to find.

I reached inside and took a look,
and all I could see was Your face.

Your diversity has me
split in so many needs

My thirst for you is stronger yet
You the silent nothing I haven't met
You the secret I am beginning to unveil
The shadow I cross at every step

My Baba

When we desire for something
we don't get everything

When I got one thing
My all desire fullfilled
That is my beloved Baba

I desired to serve humanity
he shows me the way

Dada Muktatmananda led a workshop on poetry in the brief span of an hour and a half.

"The real meaning of education is trilateral development - simultaneous development in the physical, mental and spiritual realms of human existence. This development should enhance the integration of the human personality. By this, dormant human potentialities will be awakened and put to proper use. Educated are those who have learnt much, remembered much and made use of their learning in practical life. " -- P.R. Sarkar