On food.

I’m reading a book right now, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver about her family’s one-year experiment in eating only local food. It’s really very interesting, and also has recipes and helpful tips and links interspersed throughout. But I just read this passage yesterday about the importance of food in the family life, “When I’m cooking, I find myself inhabiting the emotional companionship of the person who taught me how to make a particular dish, or with whom I used to cook it.”

I’ve been thinking about this…and tonight was presented with an odd realization. Food is in fact a very important part of my life. I take pride in what I eat and what I cook and I strive to make most of my food from scratch and buy as close to local produce and meats as I can. But tonight I was eating Chile con Carne, which I made myself from scratch and thought about it in reference to this quote. It was my ex-boyfriend who taught me how to make it. We must have made it together dozens and dozens of times. It was one of our staples. And indeed, when I make those foods that he taught me to make I do think of him. I thought how strange it was that I was eating his food still; despite being so far removed form his and his family’s life, I am eating his grandmother’s chile. How odd it is to retain that connection to someone.

I thought about it further and realized that I don’t have those memories from my childhood. Food and cooking was never the centerpiece of my family. Until I met my ex I didn’t think I could cook. I thought I was terrible at it. Then I found out I just hadn’t ever learned. The extent of my cooking as a child was to chop the tomatoes to put on the salad, or to slice the pickles for the hamburgers, or dump the cranberry sauce out of the jar. Thanksgivings as a teen I was given the job of making the green bean casserole. But that was really the extent of it. When I started getting into cooking from scratch my mom and my grandmother would always balk at me and say, “You know you can buy that already made. You don’t have to make it from scratch.”

It was my ex who taught me how to cook. He taught me to love doing things the long way, in all aspects of my life. To walk or bike instead of driving, to chop with an axe, to plant things and watch them grow, to tend a garden, to start a fire, to make beer from scratch, he pushed me to learn to bake with my hands. And he is also the person who has hands down hurt me the most in my life. I will still break down and cry if I think about it. And it’s been years. And I have to admit I am very bittersweet about always having to remember him when I make guacamole, enchiladas, chile, fry an egg, make hash browns, or even just sauté garlic and onion.

*This is not chile con carne. I think it is French Lentil Soup. But it's good either way!