What do I feel like eating tonight? Shall I drop by the grocery store for it, or go out? That is a game I’ve often played in my life, a modern game common in developed countries because we have so many choices, so much food, so many restaurants. It hasn’t been proven, though, that the game of what-do-I-feel-like-right-now makes us any happier than, say, our great-grandparents were. They made a daily default decision that they felt like eating what they had in the kitchen. It made them resourceful cooks. Also less overweight than we are.
Saturday morning at 6:35 I kissed Thor good-bye as he left for a week-long trip. Then, sauntering through the kitchen, I marveled at the wide variety of food on hand, though nothing ready-made. I spied many odds and ends of food that, I became convinced, secretly wanted to pair with each other. And I decided on a new game, a game based on how much food was already in my kitchen, whether or not I ‘felt like’ that food. I decided to play a week-long game of Let’s Not Go To The Grocery Store. You know how I love to play games. It also helped that Thor is the grocery shopper in our household (I am the gardener and somewhat clumsy keeper of chickens).
Saturday evening I took the bus (the beloved bus) home from visiting my friend Vicki, and strode into the empty house with all the vigor of a hungry woman on a mission. I peeled and chopped a nice, big red onion and chopped two potatoes without peeling them. I sautéed the onion while precooking the potatoes in the microwave (sautéing sounds much classier than frying, don’t you agree?). The final harvest of our green and red peppers provided color and a little spicy heat, added at the same time as the potatoes. Two of my homegrown eggs, scrambled, rounded out the meal. Sunday morning I had the leftovers for breakfast before walking over to choir practice prior to church (beloved church. I know you’re surprised a liberal woman in Portland, Oregon, loves church. Myself, I’m surprised that more people don’t love church. It’s so joyful.)
Sunday I made enchilada casserole and took it, with a container of leftover quinoa, to share with friends, who supplied the green salad and white wine. Community makes food taste better. Yesterday I had peanut butter toast for breakfast and I brought, you guessed it, leftover casserole with me to work for lunch. My refrigerator shelves are still spilling with beets and carrots, largely due to our membership with a local farm and their ability to grow oversized vegetables faster than we can cook them.
As Colleen pointed out in response to my tips on not gaining weight over the holidays, we don’t have to have excess in order to have abundance. What we have already got can often enchant us.
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- Confession: I Love Church
- Choosing Our Changes
- Spiritual But Not Religious? Tell Me More.
- Back To Church And Crossing Over
- Chickens Bring People Together
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I agree its great to use what you’ve got in cooking, its my problem with cookbooks, why should i go out and buy ingredient A for this recipe when I’m unlikely to use it again until the next time I make this recipe….
As for church, I do think the joyfulness depends rather on the church, I’ve been to many joyful church services but I’ve also been to some where the idea of joy had probably not crossed the mind of anyone there for a very long time….