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Indradyumna Swami at ISV

ISKCON Silicon Valley

This week we are moving the Wednesday Night Gita class to Thursday.

On Thursday, HH Indradyumna Swami will be with us to conduct a program at ISV.

Also on Thursday, we will offer to Mahaprabhu, all our Team ISV Sankirtana results from the Gaura Purnima Monthly Sankirtana Festival.

EXTRA!

On Friday night, HH Indradyumna Swami will be with us again at ISV.

Both the Thursday and Friday night programs will begin at 6 pm.

See you all there!

With gratitude,
Ys,
Vaisesika Dasa

Know more....

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Gaura Purnima 2008 Deities Darshan - ISV

ISKCON Silicon Valley

Gaura Purnima - Maha Abhisek 2008 ISV

ISKCON Silicon Valley

Gaura Purnima 2008 - ISV

Gaura Purnima Festival 2008 - New Schedule

ISKCON Silicon Valley

Ministry of Educational Development

Please visit iskconeducation.org - the official website of ISKCON's Ministry of Educational Development (MED).

We would like to express our gratitude to all of you who helped us create this website by contributing your valuable materials, time and resources.

It is our goal to continue to improve and increase this facility. All persons interested in education, for both adults and children, should be able to take advantage of the wonderful opportunities, wisdom and assets that ISKCON educators around the word have to offer.

We request all of you to please post whatever educational materials, insights, links, advice and even questions you have. Participate in our educational forums and share your knowledge and experience. With your help Iskconeducation.org can become the place to go for information on how to organize, maintain and improve ISKCON educational projects. Assist us in making this website a dynamic facility for anyone who wants to give or receive a Krishna Conscious learning experience.

Your servants from Ministry of Educational Development
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Material Body

This body is given according to one’s past desires. To fulfill desires, one is given the body, with which he acts accordingly. Practically speaking, the body is a machine, designed by the Supreme Lord, to fulfill desires. Because of desires, one is put into difficult circumstances to suffer or to enjoy. This transcendental vision of the living entity, when developed, makes one separate from bodily activities. One who has such a vision is an actual seer.

Therefore the living entity must accept a particular type of body awarded to him by maya, the material energy, according to his karma. One cannot independently say, “Give me a body like this” or “Give me a body like that.” One must accept whatever body is offered by the material energy. This is the position of the ordinary living being.

Yet the body is temporary, and only foolish, materialistic persons, who do not have full knowledge of the soul, regard the temporary body as reality and engage in decorating this body. Both of these pitfalls—rejection of the body as false and acceptance of the body as all in all—can be avoided when one is fully situated in Krishna consciousness.

As one changes an old garment, so the individual living being also changes his body, and this change of body is called death. Death is therefore a process of changing the body at the end of the duration of the present life. An intelligent person must be prepared for this and must try to have the best type of body in the next life. The best type of body is a spiritual body

Mistic Yoga

Those so-called yoguis who manufacture a circle or target are engaged in nonsense.

meditation means thinking of the Lord within. Whether one comes to that stage by the astanga-yoga system or by the method recommended in the sastras especially for this present age—to constantly chant the holy name of the Lord—the goal is to meditate on the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

One should not meditate according to one’s personal whims. One should know perfectly well from the authoritative sources of scriptures through the transparent medium of a bona fide spiritual master and by proper use of one’s trained intelligence for meditating upon the Supersoul dwelling within every living being.

The process of meditation should begin from the lotus feet of the Lord and progress to His smiling face. The meditation should be concentrated upon the lotus feet, then the calves, then the thighs, and in this way higher and higher. The more the mind becomes fixed upon the different parts of the limbs, one after another, the more the intelligence becomes purified.

The impersonalists and the voidists are therefore recommended to meditate upon the universal form of the Lord, whereas the devotees are recommended to meditate on the Deity worship in the temple. Because the impersonalists and the voidists are not sufficiently purified in their spiritual activities, arcana is not meant for them.
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Fisical Beauty

One’s bodily luster and beauty, one’s constitution, one’s activities and one’s qualities all depend on the law of cause and effect.

The material beauty of a person is an illusion because actually the body is made of earth, water, fire, air, etc. But because there is the association of the living spark with matter, it appears to be beautiful. No one is attracted by an earthen doll, even if it is most perfectly prepared to attract the attention of others. The dead body has no beauty because no one will accept the dead body of a so-called beautiful woman. Therefore, the conclusion is that the spirit spark is beautiful, and because of the soul’s beauty one is attracted by the beauty of the outward body. The Vedic wisdom, therefore, forbids us to be attracted by false beauty.

Fatness, thinness, bodily and mental distress, thirst, hunger, fear, disagreement, desires for material happiness, old age, sleep, attachment for material possessions, anger, lamentation, illusion and identification of the body with the self are all transformations of the material covering of the spirit soul. A person absorbed in the material bodily conception is affected by these things.
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Absolute Power, Absolute Corruption

A serpent with a jewel on its hood is as dangerous as a serpent without such a jewel. Durvasa Muni was a very learned brahmana equipped with mystic power, but because he was not a gentleman, he did not know how to use his power. He was therefore extremely dangerous. The Supreme Personality of Godhead is never inclined toward a dangerous person who uses his mystic power for some personal design. By the laws of nature, therefore, such misuse of power is ultimately dangerous not for society but for the person who misuses it.

Srimad Bhagavatam 9.4.70

HH Indradyumna Swami Coming to Toronto!

H.H. Indradyumna Swami will be making a brief visit to New Remuna Dhama, ISKCON Toronto! The highlight of his visit for the devotee community will be a wondrous evening program on Friday, April 4, 2008 at 6:00pm.

Please mark this date on your calendar and be sure to invite your family and friends! More details will be available in the coming weeks!

Hanuman Express Dispatch

4.1 Govinda mas – Krsna paksa - 7 March 2008

-Dedicated to the Sankirtana of Srila Prabhupada.

-Edited by/for Hanumatpresaka Swami and theAnjana Suta Academy

-Hare Krsna-

We got the Russian Visa! Ooof! So much work. Now we are sitting in an Internet place in Buenos Aires. It was like 30-hours of packing and travel from Franklin, Tennesse to Buenos Aires – Thanu, Jaya Krsna, Jasoda, Hari-lila, Lan Airlines.

Our health is pretty good.

Knee problem is down to 10%.

Had intense pain in the front teeth, but that is 70% gone. Just go on with the program.

O.K. Let’s do this HED

-ABC-

Three Things are Enough – Chanting, Dancing and Feasting. Still following Ekadasi diet. Very nice, just like Prabhupada said.

Light of the Bhagavata - Abhirama sent some of the music for the DVD. Sounds nice. Still waiting to get to

Lima to get everything in hand, book, movie etc.

SAR – We did a Pada-padma Test for

Texas. They took it and it seems like a nice evaluation. Now they start second Canto. In Murfreesboror they are also finishing first Canto. We will start more work on this for Russia. Our idea is one chapter a day Monday to Friday and the weekends for variety. That’s first Canto in four weeks!

Rupa-siksa (NOI – NOD – V/LM) - We read Prema-vivarta by Jagananda Pandita at Nitai-gaurasundara’s house. So much thanks to M. Matsya and everbody for all the hospitality. Is very inspiring book. Not even Krsna knows the limit of the glories of His Name!

SANKIRTANA – We didn’t get much Minding Monkey writing done. But it seems to be going well. Revisions always at following address. Our schedule is getting better and better for writing.

www.JayaRama.US/archives/mindingmonkey.doc

We hope that LAD can become managing editor of Prof. D. Bazaan’s Blue Lamp magazine. Then it can become bi-lingual and Dr. Bandhopadhyay can help.

Also, we are having a lot of work with Oscar to bring a Manipuri troupe to

Lima and make DVDs.

Other things. When there is Sankirtana everything is in perspective. Otherwise Maya gets us into so many useless problems!

Sticks and stones - WCL (World Classical Literature) - Nitai-gaura-sundara Das Prabhu has the Britannica World Classical Literature series in his book case. It is about 20 volumes of all the great writers of the Western world. In our passion we have been browsing it. I mean if you are going to eat stool, at least it should be of good quality, right.

But actually it is really, honestly, hard to find anything of any value. Mostly disgusting waste of time. The greatest writers. But, the Biographys of each author are a little interesting. Most of them come from elevated brahmana o ksatriya families. Rare for some street dude to become a Great Author. Most of them had a lot of Home Schooling. They were Tootored or Father taught at home -or- just did their own readings in some great library. They were usually addicted to writing. They usually found it WORK. You have to work at it. So, it has been inspiring, informative for us who want to write poetry and articles for Krsna. Srila Prabhupada is such a genious! He is changing the entire Western history through his books and those who read them!

-Letters to the Editor-

See “Contact/Calendar” at www.JayaRama.US

• Partha-sarthi has 10 soldiers coming to Mangala arati. Rockets explode two blocks from him while he is on his Japa walk and knock him to the ground. He straightens up his clothes. Gets up and continues with his Japa.

• But we complain because we have a headache or a sore throat so we can’t chant. Haw! Ha! Haw!!!

• Radha-Govinda DD sent a nice, negative letter about the Gurukulas in

  India. Well put it in Appendix One. Patraka can translate it if anyone wants it.
• Jagad-bandhu Das has a real nice letter about preaching in Mexico. In Appendix Two
• Advaita Thakura with the devotees travling in Peru did like 79 books in three days. There is no greater austerity and no greater reward. Please, Srila Prabhupada, let us engage in your Sankirtana life after life!!!

• LAD sent really nice report from the VEDAS first festival. Festival of the cow. In Appendix Three.

-GURU-TATTWA-

Some Mataji in

Chile was supposed to send a letter from the Junta approving her as a formal Aspirant. Who was that? We never got the letter and then your name disappears from whatever insane record keeping we have!!!

-PIGGY’S PARTING PEARLS –

Wandering Miscreants - We, Monkey, keep sending off our Diarys to random and reasoned victims. A real thick one went to Srinivasa and the Nataraja en

Boise. Another is going to Viveck in Baltimore. Piggy will try to start extracting and posting them.

Uncle Gismo - We have improved the Menus and their content at the Web Site. Click on the main menu first before going to the sub-menus. In our Menu you can find nice pocket fortnightly calendar that we are using.

- REAL HOT-LINKS

Oscar leading sheep

http://iskcon.com/culture/visual_arts/index.html

So many nice images to use for Sankirtana!!!

http://jaar.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/full/lfm102?ijkey=ZJzYqej7SK3vqzQ&keytype=ref

Maha-saumya Prabhu (Dr. Gresset) Review of Burke Rochford’s new books, “Hare Krishna Transformed”

http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=1mWUkefVmOs

Spanish - Rupanuga (Narahari Ji) Contemplaciones en BG Parte II. Le gusta?

www.Rupa.com

HpS Dallas Lectures

www.iskcondesiretree.com

Chowpatti ISKCON. Listen to Lectures by H. H. Maha-nidhi Swami

http://www.expelledthemovie.com/video.php

Intelligent Design Source

Appendicitis

Appendix ONE

Please Don’t Send your Children to India

BY: RADHA GOVINDA

Feb 13, INDIA (SUN) — I would like to give a few comments about sending our children to live in India. I have lived in India for more than 15 years and from my own experience, India is not a place to send children to for living or studying. In fact, India is not a place westerners should plan to spend long periods of time in or to retire in. It is a third world country with extremely high crime levels. The criminal justice system does not exist here. Police are completely inept and corrupt. There really is no reason that children should be sent to this country to live, unless you want to ruin their lives. I cannot even imagine which sane adult would send 10 year old kids to study in a gurukula in India. It is insane and needs to be stopped.

For the record (those who have lived there will know exactly what I am talking about) Vrindavan is one of the more dangerous areas in India. There have been a number of devotee murders there over the years. This isn’t the first time it has happened. The entire city is run by criminal gangs, and there have been shoot-outs all over the place. There are gangs who daily rob cars at gunpoint on the way to Govardhan and other outlying villages. The police don’t do anything about it because they get their cut from the gangs.

Once you step out of the “civilized” area of Vrindavan you are in some backward town where anything can happen. It might as well be Afghanistan with the number of Muslims around you. The uneducated people in these villages have no respect for human life, and on top of it they hate the westerners. In the front they smile and talk nice, and behind they all hate you with your money, fancy buildings, a/c cars and high lifestyles. If you don’t know that the locals hate the westerners, then you haven’t lived there or don’t understand the language. They only see you as a big dollar sign. If they could get the money by robbing you they would happily do it.

The type of criminal activities that go on throughout Vrindavan and Mathura can’t even be described. Anything you can imagine is going on there, in fact that’s the specialty of these places. It doesn’t happen there like “it happens everywhere”. We are talking about a super concentrated criminal environment, where nearly every temple is a brothel and every person a gangster. The temples and maths are all run by criminals, and they show Deities just to add a few more gold rings to their fingers. All the shops in Loi bazar have to pay their monthly taxes to the gangs. If you buy a house from someone in Vrindavan, congratulations: you will most likely have to buy it a second time from one of the gang leaders who claims it as his property.

Devotees read about Vrindavan from the Krishna book, and then they visit expecting things to be like that. This is kaliyuga and things are corrupted. Nearly 100 years ago, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura said he couldn’t find a single Vaishnava in the whole of Vrindavan. What do you think you will find there today? And what do you think your 10 year old kid is going to find there?

If you send your children to stay there you are just destroying their life. Put them in a good school in their home country and let them get a proper education. When they grow up they can visit India on their own choice. If you think they are going to find something spiritual in Vrindavan at the gurukula you are sadly mistaken. They are going to learn how to cuss in Hindi, how to take bhang and smoke ganja, how to hang out with low life criminal vrajavasis and go to prostitutes. That’s what happens when you send a young western kid to live alone in a third world country. Add to that the chance that they are going to be molested, and you have really done them a favor.

Stop thinking that spiritual purity exists in some special “holy place” in India. There is nothing that you can find here that you can’t find in your local ISKCON temple. In fact there are so many negative things here that make your local ISKCON temple a much better choice. Those of you who visit Vrindavan for short periods of time will think I am crazy. But those who have lived there longer will know exactly what I am speaking about. India is not a mystical land of spirituality. Today India is rotting with corruption, 90% of the people eat meat, most of the Hindus now eat beef which is sold publicly everywhere, 99% of the people have never touched a Bhagavad Gita or any Hindu scripture, women will be harassed and molested anywhere they go in the street, people are uneducated and have no respect for others rights, and at any moment a mob can form to beat you because you looked at the wrong person. Welcome to U.P., where the shake down is considered a legitimate business profession. Please do not send your children here.

Appendix Two

Letter from Jagad Bandhu. Mexico

Dear Guru Maharaja PAMHO AGTSP! Here are some news : one week after you left Mexico, His Holiness Bhaktibushan Swami came to Mexico for a couple of days. We had a program over, maharaja was happy to be here in Xochimilco! He gave a good class on varna asrama system! he talked about Grihasta asrama especially, he said that we should make home programs, and he also mention that we should not worry about expending money, because Krishana would provide more good things for a grihasta.

Then, Bhakta Tito played his reggae music, maharaja was jumping in ecstasy as a teenager!

Also we did the kermes program together with Astashaki mata, I prepared donoughts!! they were delicious, next time you will have a go!!!!! we will tell you later how much money we collected for ghy for their Lordships!! mata Tungavidya’s husband cooked tacos, Astashaki’s husband prepared sweet bread and otehr matajies prepared , corn cobs , nectar and tamales!! it a was successful program, we may do it again soon!

I also helped in the abisheka of Lord Nitiananda!! it was a good festival! I prayed to Lord Nitiananda, to please let me continue being a devotee , no matter if I am fallen or stupid sometimes, but I want to continue enjoying this nectar that Srila Prabhupada gave us!!!

jaya Srila Prabhupada!!!!!!!!!!!!

your most fallen disciple,

jagat Bandhu Jagannatha Swami dasa…..

*thank you for your unlimited mercy!!!!!!

Appendix Three

VEDAS Festival Report

Hare Krsna, dear Maharaj,

Paoho, AGTSP and you!!!

Festival of the Cow was a success! Many people, many visitors. We started with a excellent class by Jiva sakti prabhu. It was an evangelic lady with all her family. She was extatic, she was enjoying every programme. She was very interested in the nice conference by P. Rupanuga. She enjoyed and praised the prasadam (Two subjis, one with cheese, the other with milk, a first class sweet rice prepared by Bta Eduardo More. Then in the feria, different classes of fruted yogurt, lassis, pizzas, papa a la huancaína, based on cheese and milk; butter, ghee from the stable, rasagulas, sandesh, burfis fom the pujari, etc) served with lots of love by Candra muki, Patraka, Krisna karmini, Goura gadhadara. Then she was delighted by the bhajans by Ramananda, Jaganatha, Radha ramana, Isvara, etc. Krsna Karmini led a very active and funny children programme and this lady was participating like the other kids, chantin, juming, dancing. It was a fantastic day. We invested like 300 soles and the sunday feast 160 soles. VEDAS at least was refunded. Sunday feast lost like 100 soles, but it was great anyway. We have to develop more this finantial thing but the preaching was fantastic. The booklet came on nice, thanks M. Rohini, and Abhirama and Laksmana in the edition. We put a cow from Chocas Alta! The booklet was our base.

Well, VEDAS is still finding his character. Now we are less but we want to go on.

Again, your blessing to carry on,

your servants,

Radharani Darshan

Krishna Culture Fest - The Hidden Glories of India

Krishna Culture Fest - The Hidden Glories of India 26-27/1/2008 has been finished on 26-27/1/2008 at the Jockey Club Auditorium in Polytechnic University Hong Kong. And they are (Maharaja)Indradyumna Swami with about 20 devotees from the troupe of performers who perform in Poland.

Intelligent‎...

Found it extremely re-revolutionary, in the sense that there still may be a chance to further promote complete knowledge and also benefit our society in general. Please view for yourselves and if this subject matter is not what you desire, please let me know and I won't forward this type of info to you.

My friend Stephen Knapp forwarded this trailer, Click here...

Thank you for your Valuable time,

sincerely,

CChas D Lind

(aka: ccd)

Shoots, Roots and Leaves

By: Kurma das

Relax, I’m not about to tell you one of those risque jokes about the panda with the sub-machine gun who walked into a bar. This is a serious posting (’yeah, sure’, I hear you say).

No, I mean it.

Archana from Singapore wrote me this morning:

“I just bought fresh bamboo shoots from the supermarket. How do I cook it? I heard some contain cyanide and have to be leached out? Can you please explain how this is done.”

My reply:

Yes, you are correct about the cyanide. Here’s some information from the Australian Department of Public Health:

“What are bamboo shoots? - Bamboo shoots are a traditional component of Asian cuisine. Fresh bamboo shoots are cut, the outer leaves are peeled away and any fibrous tissue at the base is trimmed. They are sourced from the underground stems of the bamboo plant. There are many species of bamboo, of which only a small number are used as food.

Where do bamboo shoots come from? - Most of the bamboo shoots imported into Australia and New Zealand come from China, Taiwan, Thailand and other South East Asian countries.

Are raw or fresh bamboo shoots safe to eat? - Bamboo shoots are safe to eat providing that they are prepared properly.

Fresh bamboo shoots that have not undergone any processing can be a potential public health and safety risk due to the presence of cyanogenic glycosides. This can lead to hydrogen cyanide exposure and its related toxicity.

How do I make bamboo shoots safe to eat? - Fresh bamboo shoots should be sliced in half lengthwise, the outer leaves peeled away and any fibrous tissue at the base trimmed. It should then be thinly sliced into strips and boiled in lightly salted water for eight to ten minutes.

The most common preparation involves boiling the shoots in stocks, soups or salted water for use in assorted dishes.”

Source…

The Lord Built a Temple as a Prank

Utah Krishnas

Last week America’s largest Indian weekly, India Abroad, came out with an article about Westerners who perform service, like pujas, for the Indian community. It was entitled “Mantras with an Accent.” Arthur Pais was the author.

On the first page this photo appeared of Caru Das performing a wedding in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, with text that commenced thusly, “When Salt Lake City businessman Mahesh Shah and his wife Bhavna recently wanted their home blessed, they called Caru Das to perform the puja. It wasn’t that there were no Indian Hindus in the Utah city but the Shah couple has known the Hare Krishna priest for many years. Besides, they had also invited American business associates to the ceremony. And Das could translate the prayers into English…..”

Later, inside its own box, this story and photo appeared, with the Title, “The Lord built a Temple as a Prank.”

Whatever made the Hare Krishna movement build a Hindu temple in the midst of Mormon dominated Utah?

“The Lord built a temple here just to show He could do it. Caru Das, the president of the temple, has often said, “He did it as a prank.”

The temple is situated about 60 miles south of the Salt Lake Mormon Temple. It has been around for more than ten years, but the Hare Krishna set up their community nearly two decades ago in the temple area.

“For a split second, you might wonder if you were in a faraway country like India,” wrote Religion and Ethics Weekly recently. “What you have here is the very first traditional Hare Krishna temple built in the USA.”

It added: “Ten years ago when the Hare Krishnas first proposed building a temple on a hill in a county which was over 95 per cent Mormon, you could imagine the overall reaction here. It could be best described as disbelief.”

“They believe in reincarnation and are vegetarians,” a Mormon leader told a local newspaper recently. “But despite their difference, Mormons discovered they and the Hare Krishnas have many values in common.”

Caru Das says many Mormon leaders supported the temple and even gave cash donations because they admired the Hare Krishna emphasis on celibacy before marriage and the eschewing of tobacco and alcohol. Those are Mormon concerns too.

Today the temple attracts thousands of non Hindus to its religious and non religious events like the annual Festival of India.

Caru Das is in demand in the Indian community to conduct pujas. “Strictly speaking, I should be doing only the Vaishnava pujas,” he says with a gentle laugh. “But I do all kinds of pujas including the Gayatri and Shiva Ratri pujas. For these pujas not only get money for the temple but also give me a chance to inject some thoughts about Vaishnava deities and traditions.”

Though many Mormons welcomed the small Hare Krishna congregation, how difficult was it for him when some Hare Krishna congregations faced charges of corruption and child molestation?

“It’s interesting that hardly any of that appeared in the Utah newspapers, like the Salt Lake Tribune or the Deseret News,” he says. “Though UPI and Reuters sent out the articles, for some reason the local papers did not print them. I would like to think it is because we have been so proactive in Utah and generated so much good press (eight major festival a year for 15 years, 30,000 tours given per annum, donated thousands to New York firefighters after 9/11, more to Katrina victims, as well as to Sri Lanka after the tsunami) that they simply preferred not to.”

“That’s what I would like to believe, but it may be we got lucky,” he continued. “Even if they had printed the stories, many tens of thousands of people have been here for tours and festivals, have had a truly positive experience of us, and could assess things in perspective.”

On his blog, Caru Das wrote last year how Shiva Ratri is always a well attended event at the temple. “I estimate 600 people came and went during the three hour festivities,” he wrote. “There was a mix of 30 per cent Indians and 70 per cent Westerners. I noticed not only Western college age kids, but maybe 10 per cent of the crowd were older grandparents, many of whom stayed the whole time.”

He is proud of the fact that Indian Hindu families have supported the temple with passion, and there are many families that come for the festivals and the pujas year after year. “Jai Krishna, Pragna and her friends did a great job on the chanting last year which varied between Om Namo Shivaya and Hare Krishna,” he recalled. “Dinesh and Kalpana Patel attended, and gave their annual donation of $ 2,000.00, which they have done for Shiva Ratri the last three years.”

As much as many Hindus from India seek him out especially when the services are to be conducted in English or there is a need for English translation, has he felt that he may be considered an “outsider?”

“There are the ‘half full’ and the ‘half empty’ people,” he said. “The ‘half full’ people say, ‘Isn’t it wonderful that these Westerners have taken up the Bhagavad Gita and Sanatan Dharma to the point many of them have become genuine saddhus and gurus.’ The ‘half empty’ people can think only that these did not take a ‘brahmin’ birth and cannot pronounce all the Sanskrit words exactly.

“To the ‘half empty’ people who avoid ISKCON devotees, my reaction is, ‘Your loss.” I have been fortunate for the last 38 years to have had the ‘half full’ people as my dear friends, confidants, mentors, and sponsors.”

Source…

Dukka

By: Kurma das

Fran from Redland Bay in Queensland, Australia writes:

“Hey Kurma, where have you been? I read your blog every day and missed your stuff. Anyway, tell me, do you have a recipe for Dukkah?

My reply: Thanks for asking. Things have been busy here on the home front, but nothing earth-shatteringly bloggable, although I did prepare a stunning batch of lime marmalade this morning.

Here’s the recipe (not for the marmalade):

Egyptian Crumbly Spice & Nut Dip (Dukkah)

Dukkah is a loose, coarsely-ground mixture of sesame seeds, hazelnuts and aromatic cumin and coriander. It is delicious eaten on oil-dunked bread for breakfast, or as a snack. It has of late started appearing quite regularly on restaurant menus as an appetizer, hence its inclusion in this chapter.

Variants of dukkah are found all over the Middle East, and this version is from Egypt. It is a very personal and individual mixture that varies from one family to another; hence no two versions are exactly the same.

The important thing to remember about dukkah is that it should be dry and crumbly. It is easy to over-grind the ingredients, especially the nuts, which makes the mixture too oily. To prevent this, cool the ingredients after roasting, then proceed slowly. Makes about 2½ cups.

½ cup hazelnuts ¾ cup sesame seeds ½ cup coriander seeds ½ cup cumin seeds 1 teaspoon salt ½ teaspoon pepper olive oil and crusty bread for serving

Preheat the oven to 180? C / 350° F.

Roast the hazelnuts on an oven tray for about 15 minutes, or until fragrant. Remove them from the oven, and when a little cool, rub away as much of the brown skin from the nuts as you can.

Toast the sesame seeds in a heavy frying pan over moderate heat, stirring often, for about 4 minutes, or until golden brown and aromatic. Empty the toasted seeds into a bowl. Toast the coriander seeds in a similar manner for about 2-3 minutes. Repeat for the cumin, toasting for about 2 minutes.

Pound the seeds and nuts using a mortar and pestle, or whiz them in a spice or coffee grinder. The mixture should be dry and crumbly, not oily. Combine the crushed nuts and seeds with the salt and pepper.

Serve as a dip with olive oil and crusty bread.

Note: The mixture will keep in a sealed container for many weeks.

Source…