Contemplative Recipes: Spring
meandering springtime
it is early May when
a small herd of five Jersey cows
walk from the barn and out towards their first taste of spring grass.
fill up her cup
We stood at the stove together, my guest and I, peering into a pot of bubbling soup.
Vegetables rinsed, chopped and layered in together, the conversation flowed easily, anchored down in moments of pausing, sensing the ingredients and their evolution before us.
A quiet settled in.
Contemplative Recipes: Summer
food is story.
with feet barely on the ground
me and the dairy farmer and his family
stand on tiptoes to reach for cherries
hanging from bowed branches
above us.
cooking for the courageous
Let me tell you about a kick-ass woman I’ve been lucky to meet, whose voice I hear first across the telephone line, frail, 90 years old, and quiet. She invites me into her home for tea and here we are seated at her kitchen table and she looks into my eyes and tells me how hungry she is.
I look around the apartment and see empty cupboards. Empty fridge. Empty chairs at her kitchen table and I think to myself, yes, yes, she is very hungry. And I am taken by a feeling of sadness as I watch her speak her story, energy and body pulled by the inevitable trajectory of end of life, expedited by a deep, all-pervasive, persistent hunger. She can not cook like she used to. She can not get to the grocery store like she used to. And she is tired, of course by the weight of time and unavoidable pain of being alone and being malnourished. She looks into my eyes and tells me this and she is courageous to me. And I love her.