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Homemade

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I just realized something. I didn’t even know I was missing these pieces, this peace. I had dinner at a friend’s house and got a little overwhelmed. She invited us over for a home-cooked meal and it nourished me in my soul as well as my body.

We’ve been meeting with these friends like this once a month or so for about a year or so. Sometimes it is planned and sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes we are lucky to get 24 hours notice that we are invited. I feel a bit awkward that it isn’t reciprocal, these invitations.

Our house is small and messy. Sometimes there isn’t enough room for even two in our house. I bought the house when I was single thinking I’d stay that way. One of the people helping me move ended up moving in. He was the one I’d been waiting for but I didn’t realize it.

While I love him, I don’t love his stuff and it gets in the way of my neatnik tendencies. In short, I’m embarrassed to have people over without a huge push to relocate a lot of stuff. I’m grateful our friends understand and we try to even things out by bringing over food if we can -cooked vegetables, salad fixings, dessert. It never seems like enough. It never seems that we are equal in our contributions. They almost always provide the main dish. They almost always provide more than we are able to. In part it is because of the very impromptu nature of these invitations.

A whim, a new recipe, a realization for a desire for company – whatever the reason, we sometimes don’t have time to prepare something special for four. That, coupled with the fact that these gatherings almost never happen at our house make the relationship a bit lopsided in terms of reciprocity. They clean their house for company, and we can’t.

I felt overwhelmed this evening eating homemade chicken marsala made from scratch. Everything we had was from scratch, like usual. I noticed I was being filled in an unexpected way. It was more than my stomach that was being satisfied – it was my soul as well.

My Mom didn’t cook from scratch unless company came over – and that happened about as often as holidays. It didn’t happen on holidays mind you. This is just to say it was rare to see anyone at the table other than my parents and my brother. Therefore it was rare to see homemade food at the table as well.

Our meals usually were from the freezer, not from scratch. Our basic needs were being met like that – basically. We got enough to get by. Even the environment the food was cooked in was less than ideal when I was growing up. Both my parents smoked two packs of cigarettes a day. That, coupled with the fact that our dog was paper trained – and the papers were in the kitchen – created a less than ideal environment for healthy food production. Secondhand smoke and dog poop aren’t the smells you want wafting in the air intermingling with your dinner entrée.

I realized tonight that I was having a piece of me restored and I didn’t even know I was missing. I’d grown up minus this part I needed without even realizing it.

I was missing the simple honesty of a meal cooked and offered with love. Rather than a meal cooked to fill a need, this meal was extra. It filled more than my daily requirement of the USDA suggested amounts of protein, carbohydrates, and vitamin C. There is no place in the nutritional requirements label for love.

Maybe that was the problem. All those meals from boxes were cooked following the instructions but there was no instruction for love. My Mom didn’t learn to put in that ingredient because it wasn’t in the box. And I didn’t know that I grown up deficient in that basic building block. It is like I had rickets or scurvy but it wasn’t vitamin D or C I was missing.

Homemade, made not just in a house but in a home makes the difference. And what makes a home a home? Intention, focus, individuality, being awake are starters. Sure, frozen pizza can be “homemade” with awareness and mindfulness. Add some shredded Parmesan cheese and some Italian herbs and yours is uniquely yours and not the same as every other box pizza. And even “homemade” can be blasé if made without feeling or focus. We have to put a little extra into our food and into everything if we want them to be real.

In Hebrew the word is kavanah, which is a bit like focus, a bit like intention. We need to pray with kavanah at a minimum but really we need to live with it. And that’s part of it. With kavanah, the meal becomes a vehicle for nourishment of the soul. With kavanah, the prayer becomes a vehicle for transforming not just the self but also the world.

Healing through food – personally, generationally

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I come from a long line of women who had an adversarial relationship with food. My Mom learned how to cook from her Mom, who cooked for a man with an ulcer. My father’s mother never learned how to cook. Her Mom married a wealthy man, who thought it was beneath him to have a wife who cooked. My father’s Dad thought the same thing. They didn’t quite make enough money for a maid who cooked, but they did make enough money to eat out. For every meal.

My Mom only really cooked when company came over. She had a few recipes that she would trot out, like prize winning horses. There was chicken rosemary, and steak Diane, and Italian braised beef. It was tasty, but belied the reality of our everyday existence. Cold cereal for breakfast. A plain sandwich on white bread for lunch. Bland, brown meals at supper.

Nothing was ever fresh. Nothing was ever from scratch. Cooking was something you did, like a duty. Perhaps she thought the same about cooking that she did about sex. She told me that sex was a wife’s duty. It was once a week, like clockwork. No spontaneity, no fun, and no love. Not really. Food was the same way.

If we are what we eat, then what are we if what we eat isn’t that much? I’m not talking about quantity, but quality. Eating wasn’t ever fun in my house when I was growing up. We ate at the dinner table, but it was a quiet affair. Well, quiet except for my father’s loud slurping. He ate greedily and ravenously. It wasn’t out of a love for food. It was about eating quickly and piggishly. If I didn’t eat fast enough he would start to eye my food and ask if I was done yet. He wanted what was on my plate. He’d had a full serving and wanted more. He was willing to try to take away my nourishment to feed his insatiable appetite.

He was like that with a lot of things. He smoked two packs of cigarettes a day. He drank coffee nonstop. He ate whatever and whenever, without regard to actual hunger. He ate out of an addiction. What he was hungry for wasn’t to be found on a plate, but he didn’t know that. I didn’t know it either. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t have the words for it then.

When our grandmother (his mother) would send Christmas money, he would expect my Mom to give him her share. We each got separate checks from her. He never asked me for my check. I guess he thought asking me for my food was enough.

Food is life. We have to eat to live. But not only in what we eat but how we eat are we shaped. Every cell of our body is composed of the minerals and vitamins that are in the food we eat. So if you eat better food, you are improving your body cell by cell.

I realized this while I was baking banana bread today. I make it every week now. It is part of our breakfast nourishment at our house. Instead of eating a banana each, we eat a slice of banana bread. This works out better for many reasons. A whole banana is just too much sugar. I always felt a little spacey after eating one, but there isn’t a good way of saving half a banana. Having a slice of banana bread does the trick nicely. Plus, we are saving money. One loaf of banana bread uses four bananas, and lasts us a week. If we both eat a banana a day for a week, that is fourteen bananas. Flour is cheap. Bananas aren’t.

Somehow in the middle of my mixing and blending today, I decided to dedicate this loaf to my grandmothers. I decided to heal them, through me. I decided that the legacy of being afraid of cooking, of thinking it is something only poor people do, is gone.

Cooking as an empowering act.

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I’ve come to see cooking not as a chore but as a truly artistic and creative act. It is so empowering to feed myself.

It is amazing to know that the majority of the prepared foods we have in our refrigerator at home were prepared by me. Hummus. Pesto. Banana bread. My green breakfast drink. Even dessert – all prepared by me. From scratch, and organic as much as possible.

How did we as a society get so far away from this? We all used toprepare our own foods. Large grocery stores are a new phenomenon. Sure, there were greengrocers. They had fruits and vegetables. Then there might also be a local baker. Baking bread takes a long time and is hot work. In some villages in Greece it is common for women to prepare their bread but then take it to the baker to get it cooked. They return later to pick it up.

But we used to all know where our food came from, and what was in it. We used to all know, because we made it ourselves. In some cases we knew because we grew it ourselves too.

In getting away from making our own food, we’ve gotten away from ourselves. We’ve given away a part of ourselves. We are what we eat after all. If we don’t know what we eat, then what are we?

There are so many foods with ingredients in them that we can’t even pronounce. They are more chemical than real. One of my favorite examples is this.

lime1

If you have to tell me it is a real lime, then it isn’t. Real limes don’t need labels.

lime2

Look at all the preservatives. It isn’t hard to buy a real lime and to take the juice out of it. Of course it has preservatives. This is the only way it will last from the production plant to your house. As Michael Pollan says in his book “Food Rules”, eat plants, not food made in plants.

It takes some time, sure. It can be done. I work 40 hours a week, and I had no cooking experience, and I can do it. Take it step by step. Pick one thing you like to eat that is prepared, and learn how to make it. You can get a book from the library, or watch a video on YouTube, or you can ask a friend who knows. Or you can experiment and figure it out on your own. That is fun too.

The more you make for yourself, the healthier and happier you will be.

Zero

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Zero calories. Fat free. Gluten free.

This doesn’t mean it is healthy. Look at the label. It can have healthy claims and be totally devoid of nutrition. So what if it has no calories if it also has no vitamins or minerals?

I remember one time when I was working at the craft store in Chattanooga. We got in a shipment of pottery that was packed in these new cellulose packing peanuts. The owner of the store got really excited and said they were edible. He started eating them like they were cheese puffs. Just because something is edible doesn’t mean you should eat it.

There are plenty of snacks that are being sold in pre-portioned packs, usually 100 calories. Partly this is because we have no idea what a proper portion is, and we are gluttons. We’ll eat the entire bag of chips or cookies in one sitting without thinking twice about it. So we need limits. But so what if it is 100 calories, when is 100 calories of nothing? Empty calories fill you up fast and don’t leave any room for actual food.

Something can be gluten free or kosher or organic or any other health buzz word and be high in cholesterol or fat or salt. It can be totally devoid of fiber and nutrients.

I’ve never understood why someone would pick an “energy bar” when they can just eat an Apple and some almonds instead. You’ll get the same results with no preservatives and no packaging, and a lot cheaper.

We are being deceived. We are being tricked. We no longer know what food is, and how to cook it. We are letting corporations make our food. To paraphrase Michael Pollan in “Food Rules”, our food comes from plants, and isn’t plants.

I have relatives who put out bowls of apples for decoration, rather than for eating. Then they realize that the apples go bad, so they have to buy more. Then they decide to buy fake ones. Only in America would we decorate with fake food. Meanwhile people are dying of malnutrition across the country and across the world.

All you can eat doesn’t mean all you should eat. Sure, you want to get your money’s worth when you go to a buffet, but if you overeat, you’ll pay for it in more than money. That dozen doughnuts costs less than a half dozen, but how long will it take you to burn off those calories? So, really, it costs more.

Southern fried pride

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More meat, less vegetables – that’s the Southern way. More obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, that is also the Southern way. It is as if we make it a cultural thing to be fat. It is as if we are proud of how out of shape we are.

We are proud of our fried food and our fatback and our meat-centric meals. We have made our stunningly unhealthy food an essential part of our culture. To drop the food is to deny our Southernness. It is time to redefine what it means to be Southern, because right now it means that we are killing ourselves.

There is a certain amount of shaming that occurs for those who take care of themselves. I’ve been told “you suck” for my efforts to get in shape – like this is a game of musical chairs and I got the last one. Just because I’ve decided to get healthy doesn’t mean that others can’t. There is room for us all.

This isn’t the only time I’ve gotten attitude for getting healthy. I wonder how many people decide to quit because of this social shaming. The weird part is when people say “Oh, you’re still skinny.” Of course I am. I’m still exercising and eating well. I want to say “Oh, you’re still fat.” But that isn’t nice.

It isn’t easy to get healthy. There are a lot of adjustments. There is a lot I’ve given up. I don’t have anywhere near the time I used to have to read. I don’t like exercising, but I like how I feel afterwards. I’m not a fan of having to think before everything I eat as to whether it is healthy or not, but I like how my clothes fit and how clear headed I am.

This isn’t a whim. This is a lifestyle change. I decided I wanted to live a long healthy life. I decided to be intentional about my health. I quit a lot of bad things and started doing a lot of good things. Plus, I don’t have any children, so nobody is going to be around to take care of me when I get older. So I have to do it myself.

In the South, we don’t have any idea what “normal” looks like. We see someone who weighs 200 pounds and we think he is just fat. No – that is obese. Then we see someone who is 300 pounds, but because she is larger than us, we think we are fine.

Nope. We are all out of shape.

We’ve come to think of “exercise” as a dirty word. We see it as a punishment. We see it like physical therapy – it is something you do for a little while, under doctor’s orders, and then you can quit.

How have we gotten so far off the path?

We act like eating whatever we want is our cultural right. We’ve clawed our way to the top of the food chain and we are going to prove it by taking ourselves to our graves.

We act like being lazy is a good thing. We act like we’ve proven we are number one by the fact that we can sit around all day. We don’t have to work all day long, finding or harvesting our food. We don’t have to walk three miles with a bucket on our heads to bring water back. We don’t have to walk four miles one way with no shoes to go to school.

Maybe it would be a good idea if we did these things.

Then maybe we wouldn’t take them for granted.

I’ve noticed that parents from foreign countries consistently get educational books for their children. They work really hard with them to get them to work hard on their education. Meanwhile, American parents let their kids get whatever they want. They get comic books and cartoons.

Consequently, the ESL kids consistently do better than the American kids. Children who were born into an English-speaking family consistently read and think at a lower level than children who are born into other families. It is because of the parents. The foreign parents don’t let the kids pick what they are going to read. These parents expect their kids to work hard and they don’t take “I don’t want to” for an answer.

I wonder how much of our Southern Fried Pride comes from habit? I knew a guy who was at least 500 pounds. His skin was grey, he was so unhealthy. He said that everybody in his family was as large as he was. I have a strong suspicion it has more to do with what is in their recipe books than what is in their genes.

Our pride is killing us.