Making Food

Making food connects me to Earth. It reminds me of my need to survive through nourishment. Making food is chemistry and artistry and experience all rolled up into a room with fire and smells. Spitting tempura batter sizzles smells throughout my kitchen as I plop each chicken piece into the hot oil. Making food is time consuming and exhausting. Chopping five ingredients to bring together a beautiful coleslaw, heating the dressing to boil and pouring over the greens to cook them lightly in the bowl. Tossing. Vinegar wafting up through the sugar smells, running over each vegetable piece and locking in flavor for the tongue to savor. The scent of sourdough comes from my upstairs where it is warming on a heating pad and filling my house with aroma. Soon I will spill it out with more flour and it will become a bread or pancakes that digest easily and make others smile. That is often what making food is all about. Giving love to others. Saying you love them and showing it through taking the time to make something amazing on the tongue, tantalizing to the spirit and awakening in the soul. Nutritious collection of Earth's treasures I have brought here to feed you. Mixing and combining, freezing and cooking and kneading and chopping. Quietly I listen in my head as I work for the health that comes, the joy that comes, the art that is revealed.

Those who make our food are easily overlooked. They often toil some place hidden from view. Many times I have put on a party only to spend most of it in the kitchen preparing dishes to make my guests happy. Daily I serve my family food that will keep them well, like an umbrella of my love following them everywhere they will go that day. I know it isn't seen as powerful to be a woman at home, making food. It isn't respected and often isn't paid work. But when I thrust my hands into the warm soil of my spring garden and smell life through Earth's love, I don't care. I was born for this tilling and feeding and watering and growing. I was born to care and nurture souls and lives. I am not a rock star and do not wear expensive clothes. I am not seeking fame nor fortune. I am only waiting for that sound from my loved ones that means so much to me. "Mmmmmmm, this is amazingly delicious." All is quiet as they take it in. My work, my love, my cooking.

Lost During the Holidays

When you have no family, the holidays can be tough. I use to have a family but my parents' long, drawn out divorce brought that divisiveness to the whole family and we scattered. I refuse to be "friends" with a brother who is told it's okay to call me a "money grabbing bitch." Every holiday season we go spend time with my husbands' lovely family, lots of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. His mother, the matriarch, still alive at 91 and all her clan running around happily enjoying the fun. Every year, for years, I've been lucky to get to share in on this family which I married into, but it isn't my family. My grown children come and celebrate with us, having no children yet of their own, and we feel like family. But they will not ever be parents which leaves us in a perpetual relationship of being the parents. My adult children won't learn the lessons that having a child teaches. They will not come to the exhaustive understanding of the sacrifice we made to raise them and how much we loved them. They are good kids and great people, but they are not in the family way unless they are with us. They bring us no grandchildren. And we are okay with that since we raised our children to be free-thinkers and to step outside of the box. But it is hard and the holidays always leaves me feeling lost in it.

I remember as a child going to my Dad's parents' house on Christmas Eve and all my cousins would be there. Cathy was a year younger than me and we'd instantly connect and become the best of friends within minutes. Living in S. California allowed us to go outside during the holidays and run around. We played games out in the leaves and then came in and sat around my grandparents' huge dining room table and ate amazing food prepared by their full-time help. Santa Claus always appeared later in the evening, frightening the littler ones and bringing presents to calm their fears. I remember the awesome strangeness of having the actual Santa in their living room, alive, talking to us. We felt very special. And I had a brother and sister who, at the end of all the presents at Grandma and Grandpa's house, would climb into the backseat of the car with me, and we'd talk about how exciting it was to still have Christmas morning upon us. We were in ecstasy. My parents seem to love each other, but then they also were disconnected and that disconnect only got bigger as we got older. When I was 24, they finally divorced, creating the largest divorce file in Benton County history as they fought over money and who had it and who owed it and how much and why weren't they paying?? My sister was other-needs and just turned 16 when my dad moved out. I was a single mother at the time, with a newborn and trying to go to school. My dad turned off the electricity to the house my mom and sister were living in by not paying the bill. My mother had never supported herself financially before, and my dad was ruthlessly mean when he left, although I think he'd say he was broke. Always his excuse. He let the small amount of taxes due on the house go unpaid and the house was foreclosed upon, forcing my mother and sister to move out. Our holidays were no longer joyful, but a tug-of-war over who was going where and who did what when. Broken. So if you have a large family get-together over the holidays, remember, there may be some people there really struggling. People put on their best face and walk into difficult situations at Christmas/Hanukkah time. They smile, they love, they converse, but inside some may be struggling just to get through the day. Kindness goes so far. Reach out and see clearly who is around you. Happy holidays.