The Inner Eye: Blue Corn, Blue Cheese & the Turning Reed
A Note on Eating Indigo
This week the wheel turns inward: the Third Eye Chakra asks for indigo, and the land turns the same colour - sloes on the blackthorn, late plums, blue cheese veined with midnight. It is also Sharon's pick of the week that leads the table: tlacoyo, Mexico's ancient blue corn street food, blue masa centuries before anyone called it a superfood. Here is this week's indigo table:
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Welcome to Cook in Colour - Series 3
Welcome back to the kitchen. Each week we walk one chakra and one Celtic tree month together, cooking the colour the land is already turning. Series 3 is six weeks deep now: the beetroot of the Root, the papaya of the Sacral, the sweetcorn of the Sun, the peas of the Heart, the butterfly pea of the Voice - and this Sunday the indigo of the Inner Eye, with the ivy handing the month over to the reed and Samhain waiting at the week's end.
The Third Eye Chakra (Ajna)
The Third Eye, Ajna, sits between the brows - the seat of intuition, imagination and quiet knowing. Its element is light, its colour deep indigo, and its seed mantra is AUM. This week's affirmation: I see clearly, inside and out. Indigo foods are rare enough to be treasured: the blue-black skin of the sloe, the violet flesh of a late plum, blue cheese marbled like a night sky, and blue corn - maize's oldest colours, grown in Mexico for thousands of years. The Third Eye asks us to slow down enough to notice them.
This Week's Recipes
Creamed tofu for breakfast: silken tofu blended with frozen blueberries and a small handful of baby spinach into a thick, cold cream, sweetened with maple and a whisper of vanilla. Five minutes and one blender - granola and a fistful of fresh blueberries on top. Get the recipe at myquietkitchen.com.
Blue corn tlacoyos - Sharon's pick, and the oldest blue on this week's table. An oval of blue corn masa, split and filled with black refried beans, then griddled and dressed with queso fresco, red and green salsa and crema: Mexico City street food going back to the Aztecs. Get the recipe at adrianasbestrecipes.com.
Leek, mushroom & blue cheese tart - puff pastry carrying a soft custard of eggs and cream, leeks, garlic and thyme, and a hundred grams of Stilton or Scottish blue cheese, its veining the very colour of the week. Get the recipe at bbc.co.uk/food.
Maple plum & oat crumble - the last plums of the year, halved and roasted with maple syrup under an oaty, cinnamon-warm crumble. Get the recipe at bbcgoodfood.com.
This Week's Brew: Mulled Cider for Samhain Week
The week ends at Samhain's door - summer's end, the old new year, when the cattle came down and the hearth was relit. The drink of that turning has always been the apple's: cider warmed with cinnamon, cloves, star anise and orange, a ladle of honey and - when the night calls for it - a slug of apple brandy. It is the first warm brew of the series: every week until now has been chilled or bottled. From here to spring, the pot stays on the stove. Get the recipe at bbcgoodfood.com.
Cold Soup of the World: Saltibarsciai
Lithuania's saltibarsciai is the most startling cold soup on earth - grated beetroot folded through kefir with cucumber, dill and hard-boiled eggs, a shocking pink-purple bowl served cold with warm potatoes. It is the very colour of a Third Eye week, and one last cold soup before the stove takes over for winter. Get the recipe at allrecipes.com.
Medicinal Herbs in Bloom
Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) is the herb of this exact week: the Samhain dream herb. Its silvery leaves are still harvestable along Edinburgh's waste ground and riverbanks before the hard frosts, and herbalists have stuffed them into dream pillows since before the word herbalist existed - it is the classic oneirogenic plant, taken to deepen dreams and sharpen the inner eye. Named for Artemis, the moon and the wild, it is Third Eye medicine in a leaf.
Chamomile is its gentler companion: the small daisy still flowering in sheltered corners of the city, apple-scented, the world's oldest calming herb. Where mugwort opens the inner eye, chamomile closes the outer one - the pair of them are the whole night's work, a dream pillow and a cup of tea, and both belong to the dark half of the year that begins this week.
What the Land is Offering Right Now
The last week of October is the forager's final rich cut before the dark: sloes black-blue and at their very best after the first frost, rosehips softening on the hedge, hawthorn berries heavy for syrups, the last cooking apples hanging from garden walls, and damsons still in the greengrocer's if not on the tree. After Michaelmas the blackberries are done - folklore holds the devil spat on them - but the blackthorn that carries the sloes is the same family, and its fruit is the colour of the whole month. The year's last berries are its bluest.
Where to Meditate: Third Eye Chakra
The Third Eye asks for two things the city has in plenty: a view, and darkness. Lorna's Sunday immersions continue at the Salisbury Centre - bring the week's affirmation: I see clearly, inside and out. The city's own high eyes: Calton Hill at dusk, with the whole city lit below and the observatory above; Blackford Hill, where the Royal Observatory keeps the city's telescope; the summit of Arthur's Seat for the widest seeing of all; the glasshouses of the Royal Botanic Garden; the quiet of the Water of Leith at Dean Village; and the ivy heart of Chesil's Court, still holding.
Open the interactive map here: https://base44.app/api/apps/6a27cdba7b5432d0b535926a/files/mp/public/6a27cdba7b5432d0b535926a/e50906f20_edinburgh_third_eye_map.html
The Ivy (Gort) hands the month to the Reed (Ngetal)
This is the ivy's last week holding the calendar: Gort ends on 27 October, and on the 28th the reed - Ngetal - takes the month through to 24 November. The ivy's black berries are ripening now for the winter thrushes, and its yellow-green flowers, the bees' last feast, are going over. It has kept the green through three of our weeks; the wall of Chesil's Court still holds its heart. The reed is not a tree either, and honest botany says so: what the calendar calls reed, Edinburgh grows at its ponds - the great reedmace at Blackford Pond and Dunsapie Loch, brown seed heads like torches above the water. Its month is the month of beginnings made ready in the dark - cut, sorted, thatched - and it carries us into Samhain.
A Sacred Table in Indigo
An indigo picnic is a dusk picnic: this is the week to eat on Calton Hill as the lights come on. Tlacoyos wrap and travel well at room temperature; the blue cheese tart bakes in a tin and cuts clean; the plum crumble goes in a jar with a spoon; and the mulled cider travels in a flask, steaming when the dark comes down. Lay it all on indigo cloth if you have it, and watch the city the Third Eye way: from above, unhurried, letting the pattern of it arrive on its own.
Until Next Week
Next Sunday is Samhain itself, and the final week of Series 3: the Crown Chakra, violet and white, on the very night the old year ends. Bring your violet recipes. The Folk Wheel turns. Thank you for cooking in colour with us - Sharon.
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