I was invited by my daughter Yukyo (Emily) to join a potluck at Dharma Rain Zen Center in Portland on December 26.  There was a catch, of course.  A delicious meal of vegan dishes was served for the dozen or so monastery members plus myself, but then we were put to work shelling, by hand, three or four bushels of dried corn  from the monastery gardens.  It will ultimately be ground into cornmeal for polenta and other dishes.  We also shelled several varieties of dried beans for monastery meals over winter.  Buying cornmeal and dried beans is easier,  but this was a post holiday social experience.  [Photos Max Vollmer, Click on any image to enlarge]

Besides shelling corn, I ground one of the corn varieties into corn meal using a hand crank grinder.  Two passes through the grinder did the job.  Needless to say there are machines that will do this, but the meal was worth working for.