In my kitchen

I spend a lot of time in my kitchen. It's not a pretty kitchen, nor a big kitchen, and it is not a very streamlined or gracious, or, heavens, even clean space. It has a window at the sink where I watch the hummingbirds dive bomb the kids, the comings and goings of my neighbors, and dogs play in the park across the street. I believe in quick and dirty when it comes to cooking, so I'm not even spending all that much time cooking in there. We don't have a dishwasher, so I am washing dishes at least twice a day, often more. But really, for all the time I do spend standing at that window, wiping down the counter, opening and closing the 60 year old cupboards - it seems worthwhile to ask: what am I doing in there?

Sometimes I feel like my legs have taken root in the linoleum. Sometimes I feel physically stuck in that space, like there are two giant hands at the two doorways batting me back in every time I try to walk out. Wipe down the counter. Soak the nuts. Wash a dish. Refill a water. Recycle the mail. Thaw the fish. Prepare a snack. Move. Easier to accomplish 40 small and quick tasks than take a bite of something bigger and braver.

It takes a conscious, intentional burst of power and movement to break my inertia. I think I linger in there because I like to eat, and I like to cook, and I like how being in my working space can fill me with a sense of duty and satisfaction. But as I said, I don't actually need to spend that much time in there. I hang out in there because it's like my little cave.  My inertia happens to be centered in the kitchen, and I wouldn't call it anything bordering on anxiety or depression, but lately it has felt like a cave where I hide from some of the ferociousness of life.

My heart has taken some hits these past few months. Friends have diverged away from me, my children have challenged me, my own unsettled pieces have asked for some sorting. All pieces of life. All blessings, all lessons, all new. I want a bold, fearless life, and I want an authentic, joyful life, and I want to be brave, and kind, and happy. I want relationships, justice, and connection. In the pursuit of this, I tell my truth, my experience of life: in all its messy beauty. Mostly, perhaps because I look for those things, I get boldness, and justice, and connections in return for truth. But all things have a flip side. And the newest habit I am cultivating is to see that flip side, to let it be what it is, and to just walk the fuck away from it (and then maybe lick my wounds awhile in my cave - old habits die hard).

 
Here is what I have found about telling the truth: you will find your tribe, and then again, you will sometimes stand alone, and you will be taken to task. It's the courage to weather the moments of loneliness, to understand that they are an opportunity to pause and deepen my commitment to goodness, that I am seeking while I stand in that kitchen. It's the strength to know my own heart and let others be. In the sudsy warm water of the sink and in the familiar dance between my stove and sink and counter and in the heft of my knife's handle, I'm asking for sustenance. There is murmuring in the gold glitter-spiked formica, messages about how to carry on, how to be true to myself, how to stay the course. I'm asking for the certainty of routines to carry me through tough feelings and the work of learning new ways to open my heart and capture the life I envision.

I've been derailed at turning points before. I've chosen to ease off and fall back into what is familiar and known because it was safer, or easier, or because I just didn't know how to put one foot in front of another. I see my cumulative hours in the kitchen becoming a sticking point. I don't want to linger too long.This is a story about real time spent in real space, yes, but it's a parable too, a tale of an inner space and time.

We have a fairly efficient system worked out for feeding ourselves. My marketing gets done once a week, sometimes a quick run mid-week. My menu plan goes up after we shop, after we know what the farms are giving us. We buy a steer and hog shares a few times a year and keep a freezer full of meat, and I supplement that with fresh or frozen fish purchases, and occasional pastured chicken, lamb, goat, etc. from local producers. As a family we work together to keep everyone fed and everything tidy. On a rare bad day it falls apart and we eat eggs and bacon for dinner, and on most days it is glue that keeps us moving, and on the very good day it is the highlight of our day. So all this extra time I feel like I am spending in there - it's like I'm hanging out at a crossroads. Comfy and safe in my own digs. There are worse places to muster courage, I suppose.

Planning a weekly menu is an act of faith in this process. It's a necessity, it's part of my job, it insures that everyone eats, everyone participates, that we don't waste gas or time running to the grocery store, that we maintain our wellness and our tiny family rituals by sitting down together in the evening over nourishing food, yada yada yada. But a weekly menu is also this: a call to my creativity, a manifestation of the pride I take in caring for my family, and an assertion of my freedom. If I know what we are eating all week, and if I can work ahead of meal times to keep us fed, then I am free to focus time and energy on things other than our food. Organization generates liberty. Liberty generates time for me to take care of myself. If I choose to spend that time standing in my kitchen watching the world unfold, or standing at my bed folding laundry, or reading blogs, or practicing pull-ups or knitting and frogging and knitting, it doesn't really matter. The creation of temporal space means something. While I pray for courage to move forward and seek ways to link myself with positive and empowering people, dinner's served. The rest is up to me, standing at my kitchen window, a woman in her cave, awaiting a shift within her to settle and speak up.

Meaty Bohemian menu for the week of October 23rd

Sunday:
Roasted leeks, cod, and bacon with lime (inspired by Jamie Oliver)
Roasted beets and fennel
Arugula salad with shallot dressing

Monday:
Roasted Tomato Ginger Soup (this time with mint)
Pan-fried strips of steak dredged in Garam Masala
Roasted kabocha squash

Tuesday:
Pan seared Thai-style salmon on a bed of arugula (from Everyday Paleo book)
Roasted Brussel sprouts with bacon and shallots

Wednesday:
Pan-fried liver
Grated beets in balsamic dressing
Sauted beet greens with garlic
Roasted sweet potatoes

Thursday:
All-day pot roast with pastured ham-hock and grass-fed chuck, garlic, winter squash, and root vegetables

Friday:
Hamburger lettuce wraps
Sweet potato fries
Kale salad
(this is the meal we eat at least once a week. If any of these other meals fails for whatever reason, this one graciously steps in and is loved by all)

Saturday:
Roasted chicken with broccoli
Kale salad
Roasted sweet potatoes

Notice my terrible affinity for roasted vegetables? I just can't seem to stop myself these days. It all started with the roasted broccoli and it has been a slippery slope. The best thing about roasting vegetables is that I'll do several sheets of vegetables over the course of an afternoon and save them for meals later in the week. The sweet potatoes, as I have mentioned before, get heavy play in this house. Sometimes I wonder if my children aren't slightly orange.

More to think about while I stand in my kitchen and wait to manifest super magic powers. Or maybe I just need to start drinking coffee again.
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How do you you propel yourself forward? And what do you do while you are hanging out in your cave?

Family recipes

We have a new baby in the family, a teeny tiny very precious nephew, and we made the trek to Southern California this weekend to meet him. A sort of spontaneous family reunion generated at out arrival. It was warm (emotionally, and weather-wise) and sweet to see our children so loved and enjoyed, and miraculous to hold a brand new baby and see my sister flourish as a new mother, and relaxing to let go of weekend chores and activities and just revel in being a family- not just a nuclear family but an extended family that grows, changes, and comes together to honor similarities, despite differences.

I don't think I'm unique in feeling like the family lone wolf, the outlander. So many people feel this way. Having babies of my own has softened the sting of feeling so singular in my own family of origin. Growing wiser, and the empathy that evolves from parenting...all that has probably helped, too. The more I pad my own tiny nest here in this house, the tighter I weave the connections to Jeff and our little ones, the more the sharpness of feeling, well, misplaced while growing up, softens. I know my place now. I get to decide where I belong.

I look to the work of building my family. I look to the connections, the commonalities. I'm not so interested in the differences these days. Common ground is sometimes a tiny isthmus requiring forgiveness, presence, and a true desire to be loving. Love begets love. I return, I return, I return, to this family I came from, and then I return to the family I belong to, and I see that I possess, as a daily choice, power and kindness, and the small children in my care teach me daily to make choices that will grow that power, that will feed the kindness. When I am loving to them, I call all the wolves to the circle. Nobody needs to be alone.

Part of this care is the nights we spend together at the table. When I make a family recipe, I sense that I am cooking with ghosts, my own memories, my own imaginings, incantations that connect me to the future that I feed and the past that has made me. I want my food infused with love. I seek the power and the kindness of memories. I seek to feed my family with the hope of honest delight in each other. The table is a place where we all can find common ground.

With the last okra of the season, I made this for my family tonight. Jeff didn't make it home in time for dinner. Benen and I sat the table; he and Gemma and I, and two dolls that had been the focus of their play most of the afternoon, the five of us sat down and I dished out bowls of this unassuming Greek peasant dish. (The kind of dish, by the way, where silence falls when it is served. because everyone is busy slurping away and enjoying).  By a slight of maternal magic, my mother married into a Greek family and handed all these Greek dishes to me. It is her Greek cooking that infuses mine, and she doesn't carry a drop of Greek blood in her veins. I consider it part of that alchemy of nurturing - out of desire to connect and preserve traditions, my mother cooked for us. My turn now. I explained to Benen that Grandma taught me to make this, and that before her, Grandpa's mama might have made him something like this. I wasn't sure he followed the tale, until I heard him explaining the lineage to his daddy later this evening while Jeff sat and ate. I know he went to bed tonight feeling nourished and connected to his family. The kitchen and the table worked their magic.

Kota me Bamia (Chicken with Okra)

1 young pastured chicken, cut into 6 pieces (I divide it into breasts, thigh and leg left together, backbone, wings. I press the breasts flat with my hand to the same thickness of the thighs to help even cooking).
Salt and pepper (currently obsessed with pink sea salt)
4 large shallots or a medium sweet red onion, chopped fine
1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup red wine
14 oz. chopped tomatoes (I can mine in balsamic vinegar and include the vinegar)
2 medium bay leaves
1 pound okra (choose small pods)

Generously salt and pepper the chicken on both sides. Heat the oil over medium high heat in a dutch oven and brown the chicken in the oil, in batches to avoid crowding the pan, about 10 minutes per side, until skin is crisp and golden. Remove chicken to a bowl, turn heat down to medium, add shallots and fry gently until soft. Add bay leaf and wine, bring to boil, scrape brown pieces off pan into sauce, add tomatoes, then place chicken over sauce, pouring in any juices that accumulated in the bowl. Season with pepper. Cover partially and cook at a strong simmer for 15 minutes. Prepare okra by wiping each pod gently with a clean dishcloth and slicing the stems off.  At 15 minute mark, add okra to top of stew and cover completely, simmering for an additional 8 minutes. Turn heat off, remove lid, season to taste.

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What do you bring to the table that connects you to the past? How do you link it to your future?

Building health (and soup)

Lemon balm and red onions from the garden

For such health-conscious people, we seem to spend a lot of time with illness. I think part of this is the natural cycle of young childhood - building immunity through exploring our community! (and its germs) - and part of this is a deeper lesson, a lesson in accepting life on its terms, rather than mine. I can't think of a month this year where someone didn't have a cold, or an arthritis flare, or a pulled muscle. Some weeks my days seem a blur of snot, vomit, fevers, and tears. Small things, blessings really (especially since we, like most families, have had a few big things), but still - blips.

Perfect health seems an illusion - I care for myself and my family not because I expect to cheat death, but I do expect to cheat suffering. And meanwhile, I tweak my back heaving a 53 lb. kettle-bell with poor form and...I suffer. And the kids suffer, because I suffer, and Jeff suffers, because I go to bed with a muscle relaxer the minute he comes home...and I am starting to understand that those intentions of perfect health are misplaced, that I am missing the point.

Perhaps what is really in order for me is a different vision of what health means. Accepting that children get colds, that people have chronic illnesses, and that bodies put to the test will inevitably break down at some point - but then writing the rest of the story, that we can recover, that we can change expectations and live with discomfort, that we are not in charge, not in charge, not in charge.

Chris Kresser is one of my favorite online resources for information about nutrition, health, and a holistic approach to living a balanced, thoughtful life. His post last week "There's more to health than food, and more to life than health" dove-tailed with my recent quiet reflections in a perfect synergy. Kresser points out in his article that he has observed that people are pretty good at working on their strong points - but that we all possess some degree of blind spot in our lives that limits us from experiencing optimal health.

I think the definition of optimal health is different from person to person - as it should be - but to me, this means so much more than a body that functions well and supports my activities. It means, more than anything, that I possess a mindset that allows me to live with ease and joy. It means having an emotional life that is gracious in experiencing ups and downs, and it means that I am available for intimate, enriching relationships with other people. It means that I can look beyond myself and consider my health as confluent with the health of my family, community, and Earth. It means that I respect the ecology of my mental and physical being in relation to others, sentient and otherwise.

He challenges his readers to consider where their blind spots might be, and what they might do to strengthen those links in their chain of health. He writes:
A better approach, of course, would be to focus our efforts on the strengthening the weak link. But that is much, much harder to do. Why? Because it usually requires us to step out of our concept of self and challenge our very identity. It asks us to grow and evolve and shine the light of awareness into the dark corners of our psyche. This isn’t something that happens overnight. It’s not as simple as popping a pill or eliminating nightshades from our diet. It’s a life’s work.

Without consciously acknowledging it, this has been the signature of my journey these last three years - illuminating the dark spots, rather than shunning them, and finding ways to change - not so that the darkness recedes, but so that it is less foreboding, less controlling over me.

I think it is pretty apparent, to anyone who has lived an intentional lifestyle for any period of time, that habitual changes in the mechanics of living - food, sleep, and exercise- can bring about profound results. Honoring our bodies with nourishing foods, testing physical limits with movement, allowing for adequate rest, questioning behavioral relationships to potential excesses like alcohol, sugar, and caffeine, and seeking gentle, wise therapies for our less-than-perfect bodies when they need help are graspable steps that anyone with a desire for change can wrap their minds around and implement in daily life. These are hard things to change, yes, when we discuss the fact that as adults many of us are trying to rewire 30+ years of habit, but their physicality makes them literal and knowable, and their is more than adequate support, in many communities, for people who want to make these sorts of changes. What I choose to put in my mouth to nourish my body becomes an exercise in cognitive retraining, but the reward system is pretty clear to me: looser pants, stronger legs, better sleep, clearer skin.

And then the real work begins.
living. Not hiding, not weariness, not treading water. Health is really digging in, and opening up to the full experience of being alive.

Meanwhile, while I cast the lantern on my dark places - my anger, my need for discipline, my fears, the relationships that break my heart and that I hope to heal - I nurse my fantasy of a cold-free autumn and winter. I load dinner up with garlic and ginger, put fermented cod liver oil in the daily smoothies, brew nettle tea, limit our sugar and make sure we get a lot of sleep. I'm best friends with my neti pot and we wash a lot of hands in this house. I make soup, I knit, I look for tiny spots of joy in the rolling uniformity of our days, and seek to remember that I am not in charge, not in charge, not in charge.

Roasted Tomato Ginger Soup (inspired here)

Even my super-taster little boy loves this. Tomatoes will grow through October here and our neighbor has been bringing me large bags every week from her parents' property, but I dare say that this would be fine with roasted and frozen tomatoes, too. When I roast tomatoes I don't bother seeding or skinning them - they slip out of their skins easily after roasting, and I blend the soup enough that seeds are not an issue. I usually use bone broths in my soups - the easiest way to get started making bone broths is to save all the bones, raw and cooked, from your weekly cooking in quart freezer bags - I have one labeled fish, one labeled beef, chicken, lamb, etc. - and when the bag is full I place the bones in the slow cooker, add a tablespoon or two if raw cider vinegar, cover the bones with filtered water and leave to cook for 24 hours. I strain the broth and fat into quart jars, refrigerate overnight, scoop the fat off to reserve for cooking (this is my lazy way of rendering tallow) and freeze the broth for use as needed. But in lieu of bone broth, water works well, too. I'm hard pressed after being spoiled by bone broths to feel much affection for stocks sold in the store, but I won't stop you.
We serve this with some home-cultured creme fraiche on top for those who like dairy. I've also stirred coconut milk into it, but I think it's pretty perfect as is.

5 lbs. tomatoes, tops sliced off, halved (enough to cover a large baking sheet)
Olive oil (or coconut oil)
Sea salt and pepper to taste
A few sprigs of a woody herb, such as thyme, rosemary or oregano
2-3 shallots or 1 medium red onion, diced
5 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1 nub of ginger, peeled, about 1"x1" square, roughly chopped
2 ribs of celery, diced
1 bunch carrots (about 1/2 lb), peeled and diced
1 bunch of fresh, leafy herbs (such as cilantro, parsley, mint, lemon balm or basil), woody stems removed
1 quart bone broth or filtered water

Preheat oven to 400 F. Place the tomatoes on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil, and season generously with salt, pepper, and woody herbs. Roast until they start to char slightly on the edges - 30 to 40 minutes depending on the size of the tomatoes. I do this step a few days ahead when I am roasting other veggies and store the roasted tomatoes, skin on, in a glass container in the fridge. If you want to skin them, they will scoop right out of their skins once roasted. Discard the herbs.
In a large pot, heat a generous glug of olive oil or coconut oil over medium heat. When oil spatters if tested with a drop of water, add shallot (or onion), garlic, and ginger. Saute over medium heat until onion is soft and translucent, stirring occasionally, keeping heat low enough to prevent browning. Add celery, carrots, and leafy herbs, stir to coat with oil, add tomatoes and broth. Bring to a boil and then reduce to simmer and partially cover. Cook at quiet simmer for 20-30 minutes, until all vegetables yield easily to being pierced with a fork, then blend with immersion blender or in a standing blender. Adjust salt and pepper.
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What is included in your vision of health?