KitchenCosmologyNourishing Engagement with the Living Universe

"Flavors call out to me. I don’t mean out of the blue, but I love to taste things. It’s a way of knowing, a way of meeting, also a way of dissolving this too, too solid world. When I taste I go somewhere else, a world without crowds and stress, just you and me, and all the time in the world. I focus when I put something in my mouth. Something inside me melts. I am transported and completely still."  ~ Ed Brown, Tomato Blessings and Radish Teachings

"Putting food into our mouths is clearly one of the most intimate things we do. That stuff is going to become flesh and bone, thought and dream. I wouldn’t want to get intimate with just anything. "  ~ Ed Brown, Tomato Blessings and Radish Teachings

Seduced by Cabbage

Food speaks to me. It seduces me into creating with it. Last month, I stood in the walk-in cooler at Laguna Farm, taking my weekly delivery out of its bin and packing it in my cloth bag to carry home. The round heavy weight of cabbage, the silky lengths of leek, leafy chard, the earthy quality of carrots, a hint of dirt still clinging to their beautiful long bodies. It was raining outside and slowly the thought of soup entered my mind. Perhaps white beans, the smoky flavor of sausage. I didn’t take it any farther, just let the idea of soup and white beans, smoky sausage and cabbage swirl in my mind.

When I arrived home, I went to put some white beans on to soak, but all we had were kidney beans so onto the stove they went. I threw a little oregano into the pot, some salt and a bay leaf and let them simmer. The sausage we had was chicken pesto. I sautéed the leeks with five or six cloves of garlic until the vegetables were soft and glistening. In went the sausage, removed from its casing. When it was browned, I added some tiny round turnips and four or five of the carrots, peeled and chopped. I kept stirring and letting the creation call itself into existence. I had only a vague idea of the finished product. A pinch of crushed red chili flakes. I stirred some more, added water and some good quality instant stock powder I keep on hand. The soup began to simmer. I coarsely shredded the cabbage and threw it in the pot. The soup simmered some more.

About half an hour later, I walked into the kitchen and my eye caught a bag of tiny shell pasta. . . in went a scant cup of it. I tasted the soup and added a bit more salt, a dash of red wine vinegar, a touch of tamari. The flavors brightened and deepened. Suddenly, the jar of julienned sun-dried tomatoes waiting in the fridge came to me. A few of them joined the party. The soup simmered and thickened. When the pasta was al dente, I turned it off and let it sit so everything could come to know one another.

When I stood in the barn at Laguna Farm, I had no picture of this end result. I touched the food, looked at it, held it. I let it speak to me of the day, the rain, the earthiness and hominess of leeks and cabbage, carrots and turnips. Dinner created itself.

This experience happens to me more and more often. Instead of thinking in an abstract way about what to make, looking at recipes, and then heading off to the store to purchase the required ingredients, the thought of what to make grows out of my unique relationship with the food.

                I think of my friend Andy who I work with. Andy is a chef. He’s also a photographer, a jazz pianist and a long-time backpacker. When Andy and I meet, we meet in a particular way that is unique, that is a very particular intersection between who Andy is and who I am. Andy meets his friend Trevor, a musician, in a totally different way than he meets me.

                I bring myself to food in a way that is unique to me – not a better way than anyone else or a worse way, simply my unique way. This way that I meet food is shaped by my likes and dislikes, by all of my past experiences with food, and most importantly by who I am at a specific moment in time.  There is no way to predict how the food and I will meet. But in a particular moment, the fullness of who I am meets the food and it speaks to me, calls to me, in a certain way.

                At the farmer’s market recently I bought beets and fennel, kale, artichokes, carrots and potatoes. Why these vegetables and not the chard, zucchini or tomatoes? I don’t know the answer, I only know that when I saw these foods I wanted to take them home with me. Something in me, in my beingness in that moment, was drawn to these foods.

When we meet food in this way, we meet it with all of who we are at a certain point in time. We meet it with the limitations of what we can conceive of. We meet it with our bodies and their needs and cravings. We meet it with our emotional selves and our longing to feel loved. We meet it with all the ways that we embrace and reject ourselves.

How do you meet food? For the next day, notice what you bring to the food, what you think about, long for, crave. And notice, too, what the food brings to you. What food draws you, how does it speak to you, what does it give you? As you bring your attention to food in your life, and to your unique way of meeting it, you will become more and more attuned to your self and your body. You will notice more, and open more to what is already there that has gone unrecognized.

My relationship with food is unique, ever changing, particular in each unfolding moment. So is yours.  And no one else can tell you what is right for you. It is only by paying attention to your own experience that you will begin to find your  way with food. Experiment. Don’t be afraid to try things. And then notice what happens, and what you discover that you love.