Tags

Personal (16) Rving (8)

Friday, February 6, 2015

Why I Like To Cook So Much

I've been wanting to write on here lately and I had no idea, no sudden inspiration of what to write about. So I asked some of my friends and I got a question about my favorite subject! (warning: this will be rambling and lovey-dovey).

 Why Do You Like To Cook?

First let me talk about some of my ideas and philosophies about food.

To me, food is the most important part of our lives and I think that we should treat it accordingly. I believe that food is the glue to any culture, the way to learn about people, to connect with others, to take care of oneself, to show love to another person, to do ANYTHING you need food. We die without it! Mealtimes shouldn't just be a time to keep oneself from dying, they should be a time to enjoy the senses of taste, smell and sight and to focus on how lucky we are as humans to be able to enjoy food. It should be a time to sit down, take a rest and be kind to your body. Eating should be a time to talk to your family and friends and bond. Eating should be a time to focus on making our bodies and souls healthy and happy. 

Look at some of the European countries. In some places, everyday in the afternoon the people still close businesses spend hours bonding and eating beautiful, fresh, healthy food. They make food a priority. They've been doing it for hundreds of years and look how healthy and happy they seem to be. I think that is so beautiful and important.

There are foods all throughout history that are only made specifically for particular events. In Greece they make a beautiful braided bread on Easter called Tsoureki and in Crete, they make a gorgeous decorated bread that is given to a new couple on their wedding day (don't get me started on the importance of bread; I'll save that for another time). Also, in some places in Greece, when you have a guest over you offer them what's called Spoon Sweets. It's a spoonful of some kind of fruit preserve or sometimes a vanilla nougat that you serve with black coffee and a glass of water. (I have a really awesome Greek cookbook that I read a while back that really inspired me on this subject in particular.)

  There are special traditional dishes all over the world. And to think about how cool it is that people in these traditional cultures have been making these specialties for hundreds of years! When I find a recipe from long ago and recreate it, all of the sudden I can taste, smell and experience what people ate years ago in the past! What a way to connect to history!

 But look how we eat in America, in our modern western culture. We have poisoned our food. We fry stuff to the point of no return, we scarf it down with no ceremony or thought for our poor bodies, we consume individually instead of eating communally as a tribe.  And look how unhappy, sick and lonely we are. Mostly people of my generation don't even know how to cook the most basic meals. It's not their fault; they were never taught by their parents as children.  But where along the way did we, as a society, lose such a valuable and basic skill, left helpless in the knowledge of how to care for our most basic needs?

You go Mom!
Both of my parents know how to cook (and are really good at it!) so I've grown up watching and learning from them my whole life. They've always included me in the kitchen: Mom making homemade spanakopita while nursing me with one arm, Dad telling me the secret ingredient to his Special Sauce when I was little, baking chocolate chip cookies with the recipe off the back of the chocolate chip bag with my Dad and my brother when Mom was out for the day.

I started making dinner once a week when I was around 9 with Thane (aged 4-ish helping me). It was just super basic tacos (cook the meat, heat up a can of beans, eat the whole can of black olives before dinner, grate the cheese) but I think that was really important in helping along my love of food. I now make dinners most days of the week and do a majority of the cooking/baking and I love it. Being able to feed my family with a hot meal from scratch makes me feel really powerful and fulfilled. Feeding people is how I show my love for them.

Ironically, much of the cultural richness I just described is not available to me at all, which maybe adds to the allure of it all. We want most what we can't have, right? I have a plethora of food allergies and auto-immune issues (along with most of my family) so we now can only eat what we've prepared ourselves. We can't ever eat out or buy pre-made packaged foods without a high risk of us getting sick or having some reaction. It can be pretty annoying sometimes, especially when it comes to socializing with people. I can't just go out and eat lunch or get coffee and pastries with a friend. I have to bring my own food, which for some reason makes things uncomfortable, even though it really shouldn't.

Which leads to my last installment of Why I Like To Cook So Much.

Since I have such a hard time eating out and actually loving what I love so much about sharing food, it's inspired me to want to fix it. I want to create a place where people who have the same problem as me can have a safe place to bring their friends and have food to eat and not have to worry about getting sick. I want to create a place where people who have new allergies and are drowning in trying to suddenly learn how to cook so they don't become sick can come and get help and be taught how to cook and how to take care of themselves in a warm, loving environment. I want to create a community based on bonding over allergy-friendly food where everyone is invited, not just people who can eat food without worrying over allergic reactions. I want to run my own Teahouse/coffeehouse/bakery that will be full of foods and treats safe for every possible combination of allergies, and delicious enough for people without allergies to enjoy, too. I want to make it more than just a place to eat though, I want to create a space where new mamas can come and nurse their babies and feel like the ones being pampered for a change. I want to create a space where young people can hang out and meet over a cup of tea and cookies, play music, read poetry or share other artsy skills. I want to create a place where you can come in groups and knit and book-club or plan a flash mob or anything. I want to be the owner of the store who knows everybody's name and what their daily order is before they even get there. I want to be the aunt-like owner who can help anyone with any problem whether it be with food, or your garden, or a lost stitch, or a fussy baby (I'll have little bowls of soft treats for the baby to play with while you talk to your friend!) I like to imagine being surrounded by a lot of babies, I can't help it. :) I want to have random acts of kindness start in my community that spread to a nation-wide act of kindness. I want to run it with my whole family and teach my children how to cook and be kind to people and bring them up in that kind of safe, generous, beautiful community where they have lots of grandparents and aunts and uncles and friends always there to support them. I want to create a really cool, safe, magical community.

 My only problem is I want to give everything away for free, and what I have planned is going to cost a lot of money. What I need to do is win the lottery!

The bright side of having so many allergies and food issues myself is that i has given me (and my mom) a lot of experience and practice for helping other people someday. We're becoming quite the experts in food allergies and how to deal with them!

It felt so good to write that all out! I hope to be able to cook for YOU one day!
Me, age 3, cookie decorating practice. 

No comments:

Post a Comment