Last night as we ate dinner my husband remarked that it was all homemade. Yes, I had cooked and composed while he grilled, but what he meant was that every ingredient, except the seasonings and Italian olive oil and parmesan cheese, was locally produced. From the Hutterite grown potatoes, boiled and smashed, then mottled pink with a sauté of chopped beet greens and garlic scapes from our bi-weekly CSA bag of freshly harvested vegetables, and topped with a grating of that Italian cheese; to the grilled “cowboy” thick-cut pork chops purchased from our local butcher and CSA drop-off, smeared with a piquant carrot-top chimichurri; to the salad of brilliant green leaf lettuce and dark wild arugula, topped with cherry tomatoes and cucumbers, dressed in a light vineagrette. Every mouthful bursting with colour, alive with freshness, deeply satisfying.
Several years ago I won the big prize of a basket of locally produced good for the night’s best tweet, “live local with love.” Since, it’s become my slogan and hashtag for supporting local producers, artists, entrepreneurs and efforts. During the pandemic, it’s become the basis for choices and decisions to spend our resources of time, energy and money on these local mainstays, hopefully to ensure their current and future livelihood.
Last week, when a member of the CSA Facebook community mentioned the smallness that week’s harvest, I took a moment to kindly reply:
“Purchasing this CSA means helping “share” the risks that our producers take on for us. Bringing that risk to my doorstep, not having it anonymously “out there.” Sometimes that might mean abundance in the bag, other times it might mean fallow. Regardless, I am surprised, delighted, curious and appreciative. And I feel good knowing I am, in a very small way, doing what I can to say thank you, that what you (and other local producers we support) do matters a great deal. I notice your efforts. I care.“
Yesterday, walking Annie, I enjoyed a spontaneous conversation with a couple walking their dog. From across the street he recognized Annie and asked if sometimes we rode her off a bicycle. Yes, that’s my husband’s way of exercising both him and her, and that she, as have all our dogs, love the pull and rigor of it. One thing led to another and we started talking about life in these pandemic days, how we were coping, the gratitude for the companionship of our aging dogs, theirs, twelve years, ours ten. Then we talked food and the pleasure we take from its sourcing and preparation. Wine and meat, bagels and bread, cheese and fruit, we flitted on the surface, landing lightly on where to find, how to make, what to enjoy.
Bidding them a good day, I reveled in the sweetness of this brief encounter with strangers, who like me, love their dog, good food, and wine. I savored the knowing that cooking has been a main source of creative expression and consolation these many weeks. I felt the love for my Oma whose presence watches over me as I cook with utensils from her kitchen, shipped off to me years ago in her meticulously wrapped “care packages,” and with whom I pulled my first carrots from the warmth of her garden during cherieshed childhood summers spent at her home in New York state. And for a few moments, I welcomed back the grief of missing her, and of being unable to share a lovingly prepared homemade meal with friends, as now so much depends on weather to cooperate to be safe.
And in it all, choosing to hold up one of the things I mused on last time:
“When you learn to make things with your hands,
Toko-pa Turner, Belonging, 2017
you begin to awaken an awareness of
the beauty and value of things in your life.
Handmaking teaches us about slowness:
the antidote to brevity and efficiency.
It shows us, through the patience of our own hands,
what goes into a thing.
When we put those long efforts into bringing beauty into the world,
we are honouring that which made us by creating
as we have been created.
We are taught to respect the slow, attentive piecing together
of the life we yearn for.”
With much kindness and more love, dear friends.
A Wabi Sabi Life 