Weekend Meditation

Perhaps one of the more interesting, creative and exciting things about being a cook is when one thing leads to another and before you know it, almost by accident, you have created something really delicious. Something out of nothing, or nearly nothing. It can begin with an idea, of course, a whispered question in the back of your head (I wonder if… ? Or how would it taste if…?

“The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious.” — Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume Beets are indeed deadly serious, or at least they’re intense, concentrated, rich in color, and unmistakable in their boldness.

It’s early summer and the roses in my yard are in riotous, glorious bloom — almost surreal in their scent and color. The other day the lusty, deep-pink ones were at their absolute peak; when I touched them the petals just fell away. So I brought a few handfuls into the house and left them to dry on my kitchen table, spread out on a plate. No fussy prep here, just a scattering of petals and the gentle summertime air. And time.

I’ll admit that I have a romantic notion of what is often thought of as the European/urban way of shopping, eating and keeping food. This involves owning a very small refrigerator and shopping almost daily for fresh ingredients, often on foot.

When I opened my back door this morning, the first thing I saw sitting on the step was an old pot filled with some just-picked apples, an unexpected gift from my neighbor. Such a small, simple offering but immediately I felt a chrysanthemum of joy blossom in my chest like a tiny firework. A much needed tiny firework chrysanthemum of joy, for the previous day had been a difficult one.

I have a friend who is not that into food. She mostly sees it as fuel, with an occasional concern for some minor preferences (no ketchup, eggs boiled hard, dark German beer). For her, the act of eating falls into the category of basic maintenance, like brushing her teeth or taking a shower. It’s a not very exciting but necessary activity, the kind of thing that can be occasionally skipped if no one is watching. Don’t worry, she has plenty of other passions.

Throughout time and many traditions, the household altar is often placed in the kitchen, the heart of the home and the place from which all activity flows. In some ways, the hearth itself is an altar, centering the household with the offering of food and nourishment, warmth, and a place to gather. In general, we don’t see many home altars these days, which is too bad.

My landlady stopped by this morning to retrieve her mail, which I had been dutifully saving from our drenching late winter rains while she was away in Mexico. In return, she presented me with a gift of a little Oaxacan spoon topped with a carved pink rabbit. The cheerful pink bunny and the arrival of March are just a few of the many reminders that spring, and all the changes it will bring, is not that far off. (Honest. I swear.

There’s a rather large, rather old, but very sweet hound dog in my kitchen right now. She’s making sloppy slobbering noises as she eats her dinner, pushing the thin tin bowl that contains her kibble plus two scoops of wet food and some warm water (to make ‘gravy’) around the kitchen floor. This long legged, floppy-eared, all-nose invasion is a temporary situation. I’m just keeping her around for a few days while her real mom handles some family situations.

Do you or your family have secret recipes? You know, Nonna’s amazing apple cake or that noodle dish or salad dressing whose secrets you will never reveal? Not me! I’m a big fan of sharing the love (and the deliciousness) so I’m more than happy to let you know how I made something or my favorite, magical, transformative ingredient. But I know this is not true for everyone.

I admit that I sometimes I do things kind of half-assed in the kitchen. I’ll throw flowers into a vase without first trimming the stems or fail to thoroughly read a recipe before beginning to make it. I’ll not brown the meat enough for the stew or not measure carefully when careful measuring is called for. The results, while not disasters, are often not as good as they could be. They’re not bad, but they’re not perfect.

We’ve all know and understand that we’re not supposed to cry over spilled milk and yet sometimes we do because sometimes spilled milk sucks, or it’s the last straw in a series of challenges and difficulties that day. Or because we really wanted that milk and now it’s gone.

The winter doldrums have hit hard in my household. We’re bored and uninspired. We’re restless and itchy. We glower at the kale and turnips that not so long ago were sending us into rapture with their funky and surprising sweetness. Seems like all the tangerines are shriveled and bitter and the cabbage may end up as a soccer ball, kicked up and down some back alley, if it’s not careful. It’s a little early for the winter doldrums, which is worrisome.

The word of mindful is trending hard these days so as someone who writes a ‘meditation’ column, I feel it’s important to come out and admit that I’m not a fan of the word. I appreciate the concept and the hard work that is often behind being a mindful person, but the word itself is too easy to grasp in a superficial way and that, unfortunately, is how some people relate to it. Either that or they nervously squirm in their seats in full aversion at the mere mention.

The other day I was standing on a chair in front of my very full cupboards, trying to find room to stash some of the gifts I’d received over the holidays. Naturally, I got to thinking about stuff, about all the endless piles of stuff, all the many, many things, in my life. Now, I know there’s a high value placed on being clutter-free and minimal these days.

Last June my neighbors and I gathered buckets of green walnuts from the enormous old walnut tree that anchors the far southeast corner of our property. Armed with sharp sturdy knives and 3-liter cardboard boxes of Syrah and bottles of cheap vodka, we set out on a mission for the future: to bring warmth and cheer to our winter’s hibernation by shoring up our supplies of homemade vin de noix and nocino.

That beautiful packet of nougat pictured above is my inspiration for today’s post. The nougat is a gift from a neighbor, left on her kitchen table as a thank you for stopping in to feed her cat this coming week. I really love nougat. I love how its smooth chewy texture is studded with the crunch of nuts. I love the slight whiff of rosewater and the way it melts in my mouth. I love the pretty stripes of pale pastel colors and the French label on the package.

It was nearing closing time at the farmers’ market last weekend. I was I buying a bottle of olive oil from a young farmer and she offered me two small pomegranates along with my change. They were knobbly things, scarred and dusty. Some had even burst their seams in places, spilling out their gorgeous ruby arils. ‘Do you want these pomegranates? They look funny but they taste wonderful.’ I said yes, with great enthusiasm. Yes, yes, yes! And so she handed me three more.

The weather last Tuesday was beautiful and perfect, one of those early autumn days with indigo skies and crisp, crackling leaves blowing around in the gutters. Outside my kitchen window, the sun was out in full but its texture was thinning and it had shifted to a lower, autumnal position. I could see my neighbor optimistically and cheerfully planting fall flowers and winter greens in our shared garden.

Cooking is a transformation process. With nothing more than a knife, a vessel, a little time, and perhaps some sort of flame, we turn piles of vegetables, grains, fruits, and proteins into dinner. We turn the raw into the cooked and the unpalatable into the delicious. Just how delicious depends on a lot of factors but certainly the skill and talent of the cook play into it. Ingredients, too. Transformation is a big deal.

The other day, a friend said to me that one of the most important things cooking can teach us is restraint. That we come into cooking like toddlers in a fingerprinting session, unable to control ourselves from using all the colors and painting everything in sight. But hopefully, over time, we learn when to hold back and apply the less-is-more rule. He was commenting on the dinner he had attended the night before at the house of a new cook. “It was delicious,” he said.

What the crow dropped.I leaned over to peer at the exploded mess. It was a walnut, broken out of its green case to reveal the newly-formed nut within. Glancing up again, I confirmed that the caw belonged to a member of a flock of crows (a murder of crows!) that had recently descended on the enormous walnut tree that occupies a corner of our property.

Yesterday I ate a tomato, just a tomato, for lunch. It was a gorgeous Black Cherokee about the size of my fist, perfectly ripe and a deep, red-purple color. I cut it into thick slices, put it on a plate and added just a drizzle of olive oil, a pinch of crunchy salt and a flicker of black pepper. I sat outside in the partial shade of my apartment’s courtyard and ate it with a knife and fork as if it were a steak.

There was a time when having people over meant a lot of advanced planning on my part. I cleaned, I shopped, I cooked, I added special decorating touches to the bathroom. Everything needed to be planned, polished, and perfected. From the light over the dining room table down to my toenails, it needed to shine. (I blame Martha Stewart but that’s another post.) These days, I can still launch a fancy fete now and again, but more often than not, my entertaining is much simpler. And sloppier.

You’re perfect just as you are … and you could use a little improvement. — Shunryu Suzuki Roshi Here’s a koan: is life about improvement or acceptance? Should we keep striving to be better, to achieve our goals, always refining and improving ourselves? Or should we accept who and what we are, own it and celebrate it, and realize that it’s actually enough? Like all good koans, both choices are are right and both are wrong.

Although I have several basil plants growing in my garden and in various pots on my back porch, I bought home a huge bunch from the farmers market the other day. Even in that open air, cacophonous market atmosphere, the intense smell of this basil hit me from 6 feet away and stopped me in my tracks. Vigorous and spicy, its leaves were thick and hardy, almost leather-like.