The Muse came...but she looked a lot like Julie and Paul.

Don’t you just adore the Julie/Julia Project?  Every time I read her latest blog entry I want to run into the kitchen and cook something French.  I’m spared by the fact I have no butter and extremely little red meat in this house – nips the urge in the bud straight away.  No Cotes de Porc Poelee here any time soon. 

Julie shared a very important article in the Guardian by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto; the author attributes rampant obesity in western cultures to the depressing isolation and the mechanistic practices of fast food and cooking today.  I agree, the joy of food has been replaced with the business of food. 

And while I agree that the communal ritual of eating has been supplanted, it’s been replaced by new rituals – eating on the run to save time, eating with strangers in a strange place.  These don’t have to be toxic rituals, but they are so because of our lack of consciousness.

It’s not as if other people don’t have the same issues we have – look at Asians and how they eat.  Street vendors abound; one can reasonably expect to eat frequently with other than family members, out side of the home.  What’s different?  The type of food, the personal investment in non-franchise businesses, the concept of neighborhood eateries (everybody knows your name).

Does this sound familiar?  It’s the way we used to eat in the not-too-distant past.  We could count on the Blue Plate Special at the corner café, served by the owner or family member; we’d see our friends there, too.  This was an extension of our family – it was our clan enclave.  The food was plenty fast – if you’ve been the 20^th car in the drive-thru lane at McDonald’s at 5:30 pm any weekday, you know with certainty the Blue Plate Special was faster. 

And healthier – it was the same food we cooked at home, just not at home.  After a day of working, shopping, cleaning, whatever, who’d want to whip up meatloaf and mashed potatoes with carrots and tossed salad?  Simply head for the café.  It wasn’t that deep-fried-smothered-in-special-sauces-extra-carbos-on-the-side crap that passes for a meal at a fast food place.

There are other places that still honor this – look at the French paradox of health, and tell me it’s just the red wine at work.  In Paris one can find little bistros in every neighborhood, expect to eat cheek-and-jowl family style with strangers; the difference is the concept of extended family, and the dining.  No running out the door with a hastily prepared Brochette de Poulet.  If you are in a hurry, you’ll find a simple piece of hand-made pain rustique or baguette and fromage will tide you over. 

Oh god, for a breakfast of pain au chocolat and a café grande…I remember vividly during my last visit to Paris while having just such a breakfast at the corner café, witnessing the quintessential quick breakfast.  The barrista was a master of his profession; the petite woman had only entered the periphery of his vision and already he had loaded the coffee machine and was steaming a shot of espresso.  The patroness stepped up to the counter (looking like a sparrow alighting on the edge of the bar), placing her francs on the counter as he set the espresso in front of her.  She tossed back the still-steaming espresso and nodded only slightly, and lit off to the nearest Metro entrance.  He knew, she knew, words unspoken, unnecessary.  No extra foam, no fat bagel with cream cheese, no muffin-wich.  It was the purest, simplest of speedy breakfasts.  Had she wanted more, the fresh croissaints (sans ham, egg, cheese) and still-warm pain au chocolat rested in a basket on the counter.  I’m certain the barrista would have plated it and had it waiting for her if this was her ritual. 

The way we eat, what eat, is implicated in our morbidity; Fernandez-Arnesto also indicts cooking at large.  True enough – food untouched by human hands is unloved by human hands.  It’s creative spirit that makes food communion, makes it something more than a portion of calories to be subsumed.  The creative spirit yields at both a meal’s inception and its partaking.  Ethno-psychologist Clarissa Pinkola-Estes wrote in Women Who Run With Wolves that western cultural was toxic (to women, in this text) because it removed them from the act of creation, stifled their expression of spirit.  Pinkola-Estes prescribes gardening, getting one’s hands in the earth, as a method of detoxification.  Truly, it’s not just the stress-relief one receives, but the renewal of the creative spirit through the nurturing of soil and plants.  It’s incredibly primal, this need to nurture, to create, its purgative effects.

And being primal, it’s good for the gander as well as the goose.  Both men and women need this nurturing, non-judgmental creative outlet.  As an example: Paul Hinrichs’ engaging food projects express his incredible intensity  and energy that most likely cannot be expressed through his day-to-day work.  Apartment-bound, our friends and co-bloggers Julie and Paul can chop away with abandon and create, not being able to get to a patch of soil to dig and plant and reap.  Julie won’t need pottery classes across town or an appointment at the kiln; Paul won’t need a collection of high specialized tools he can’t use for any other reason, won’t need lessons with a pro.  They can express their own individuality, even as they use others recipes to render their creativity – no two people will ever make the same dish exactly the same way, when left to their own resources and devices.  There something so cathartic about slicing, dicing, chopping away, purging the day’s cares with being in that present act of cooking.

Their efforts transform food, to the bread of communion.  I cannot picture having anything to eat created by either Julie or Paul that would not generate dialogue, a sharing of techniques, a discourse of great food and great cooks.  Creation is found here at the receiving end, as well as at the beginning.  In contrast, we don’t discuss fast food technique – if anything, we may share the occasional horror story about the latest toxic episode at the last McWendyKing we visited, as a warning to others.

Paul’s recent blog shares how simple life used to be, the sharing of creation through the exchange of recipes.  It was tactile, immediate, minimalist – only the essential communicated, no vertical marketing, no website ratings, no cross-promotion, no banner ads.  Just a simple 3x5 card with the essentials, the seed of a creative experience expressed in pen, presented by hand.  Yet another example of communion we’ve lost.

Try it, next time you’ve had a particularly stressful day.  Invite a friend over, crack a bottle of a nice red wine or squeeze yourself some fresh juice, peel and chop, braise and grill away.  Eat the results together with conversation.  Share the recipes.  It’s my prescription to you for detoxification.

11:08:12 AM    comment []

Diatribe interrupted...where was I, before I lasped off…??

I’ve been sitting here off and on for more than a day, trying to wrap my words around my frustration over US foreign policy and the REAL challenges that lay ahead.  It’s too simply too big, daunting.  I really need to grit out something about this, but it may just have to wait until the Muse grants me clarity.

In the mean time, I’m staying present in the moment, hoping a little Zen will help the Muse.  Presently, it’s laundry day. 

Writing anything right now, even drivel, sounds more appealing than laundry.  But the kids need clean socks more than you need more blog pap.

9:36:05 AM    comment []