stories and supper

A friend of mine had this little poster on her Facebook page this morning. It showed up on the heels of a conversation at work last night about the nature of atoms and how much space there is in them. (I didn’t understand everything, but I did listen.) One of my colleagues said, “Atoms are made of mostly nothing.”

Not so with stories.

Over the past two Saturdays, I’ve had the privilege to gather with groups of people in two different area churches to talk about my book. The first was a potluck where we invited people to bring a dish that had a story with it. As we ate, we told the stories: pizza that carried memories of being an AFS exchange student; applesauce flavored with other fruit, as grandma used to do; green tomato relish, from another grandmother; Waldorf salad from childhood; Christmas tamales; Key Lime Pie and memories of the Woolworth lunch counter; mom’s sausage rolls; mom’s biscuits; mom’s bean salad; Nebraskan corn casserole; German muesli; and Italian mushrooms and tomatoes.

We shared the stories with tears and laughter, digesting the love and tenacity with which each of us held those memories. And the humor. One told of sitting in a doctor’s office one day and seeing a magazine with the word “posthumous” on it -- a new word to her: after death. She first confused the word with hummus, so she brought hummus to our meal, saying it reminded her of the way we bring food to one another after a funeral. Post hummus.

The second gathering was over tea, with some snacks, and in the course of our conversation I asked those gathered to talk about what meal time was like growing up, which also led us to talk about what meal times are like now -- what we have held on to and what we have worked to change. Before long, we were talking about much more than food: family dynamics, dreams found and lost, the unexpected turns of life. Once again, we digested the gifts offered to one another and left stronger and feeling more loved, even in the midst of much that remained unsettled and unsure.

Each time I have a chance to hear people tell their stories, I am more convinced that when Jesus said, “As often as you do this . . .” he wasn’t talking about the ritual of Communion as much as he was every time we break bread, together or alone. When we stop to nourish our bodies we must also remember we are nourishing our souls, lest we fail to do so. Every meal from a ham sandwich to a high holy day is a chance to remember, to digest -- again -- the truth that we are wonderfully and uniquely created in the image of God and worthy to be loved.

Let’s eat.

Peace,
Milton

il cuoco della villa

Several years ago, NPR ran a story in which they asked several award winning photographers to describe the best photograph they never took: a moment when they saw the picture and didn’t raise the camera. Then they asked them to tell why they chose to simply hold the image in their respective memories. Most all of them, in one form or another, spoke of coming face to face with the sacredness of the moment called them to be participant rather than observer, which meant they had to put their cameras down and just be.

The Wednesday after Labor Day, Ginger and I joined friends for ten days in Italy. Just to type the sentence feels opulent. Still. We spent two days in Florence as preamble to our true purpose: a week together in a villa in Tuscany. No, we weren’t in a movie. For a week, this was our lives. Our group numbered sixteen in all. The villa was on the outskirts of the town of Lucca, which dates back a millennium. Both town and villa ere surrounded by farms and vineyards and olive groves. Walking the grounds around our temporary home I picked pears and figs. At night we gathered around a large table just outside the kitchen covered by an arbor. And it was good.

I went not only as one of the group but also to be il cuoco della villa -- the chef of the house. My invitation was to create our evening meals out under the stars and arbor, and  to help create a memory. I did my research into Tuscan cooking, brought a few ideas of my own, and learned some new things once we got to town. The menus included risotto with roasted chicken and grilled vegetables, chicken limone, spaghetti bolognese, and chingiale (wild boar) stew with polenta; for dessert we had apple pie with limoncello glaze, tiramisu, and risotto al cioccolato (that’s right -- chocolate risotto). Each afternoon, my designated sous chef, Terry, and anyone else who cared to join us gathered in the kitchen and we cooked and talked and laughed and shared a littler pre-prandial vino rosso. As the sun began to fall behind the trees, the others began to fill the circle of chairs next to the dining table for appetizers, and then somewhere around eight we moved to the table where we stayed long after the food was finished.

When we left to go to Italy, I had plans to blog everyday. Somewhere in the middle of the second afternoon of preparation I thought about those photographers and realized I would write about it someday, but not in real time. My job, if you will, for the week, was to share food with friends in Tuscany and remember everything I could. I was not there to write a book; I was there to cook and incarnate the very things I have written about. “As often as you do this,” Jesus said, “remember,” as he sat around a table with his friends. We have been back a week and those memories seem to just now be ripening into words I can share.

Part of the reticence in writing, I think, comes from the sheer extravagance of the trip. As soon as I write, “I spent a week in a villa in Tuscany,” I feel as though I’ve separated myself somehow. I’m old enough to feel as though Robin Leach should be bellowing it out. That feeling is mostly drowned out by gratitude. Alongside the thankfulness I’ve also returned with some disquietude. The pace of life in Tuscany -- even in the cities -- was kinder and more spacious. The people of Tuscany understand what the word enough means better than I do.

The housekeeper at the villa was a woman named Issa. She was in her sixties, I guess mostly because she said she had a forty-year old daughter. Her eyes sparkled with the same worn vibrancy of the Tuscan sunset and her hospitality was unflappable. She came by the house for a couple of hours each day and we had a chance to ask her some of our questions about life in Lucca and beyond. One day I asked her how to say, “Don’t eat alone.”

“Non mangiare da solo,” she answered.

I wasn’t sure how to explain the blog or why the phrase mattered and I wondered, after seeing the lives lived around us, whether it was an admonition that carried any necessity at all in Tuscan life, which seemed aimed at tables filled with people who were committed to taking time to be together. Almost seven years into this blog and on the eve of a book about what it means to be at the table together, I understand it in ways I have not before.

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: reflection

there are days I lay awake
at night and wonder even
worry about what’s to come
because the future feels

like a past due account and
I have already spent my time
thinking about tomorrow
putting the tense in present

there are nights like this
when I fall asleep holding
on to the day like the last
bite of the meal we shared

where we passed our plates
like forgiveness and let
ourselves love and laugh
like the present were a gift

and we press our fingers
to get every last crumb
and thank God we were
made to be hungry

Peace,
Milton

advent journal: first supper

we have several mangers on our mantle
made of materials from ‘round the world
each a collection of the usual suspects
along with a contingent of livestock

but there’s no food

the magi made the effort to bring
incense and offerings, but not one
covered dish made the journey
the shepherds too were empty handed

on his way out Jesus gathered
his friends and fed them a meal
to remember over and over
every time you eat he said

but for all the angels and alleluias
all the stars and promises
how can it be no one thought
mary and joseph might be hungry

Peace,
Milton

advent journal: penultimate

penultimate

on this tuesday night
we sat around the table
as though we had
all the night we wanted
to eat and drink and
laugh and talk and hope
we even had time for pie

tomorrow night
our prodigal planet
will wander as far
as it ever does from
the light of the sun
and then start back

what a gift that we can
live out a prophetic parable
with pork chops and pecan pie
leaning into the light
even as we head deeper
into the darkness


Peace,
Milton

catching a glimpse

Early Saturday afternoon, after we had spent the morning unpacking the last of the boxes from our move (last August), Ginger and I slipped out of the house for lunch together at a new Cuban sandwich shop that opened only last Thursday in downtown Durham called Old Havana. I had scouted it out on opening day and was ready to return. It was about one-thirty when we walked into a full restaurant. We ordered and found two seats on a couch at the far end of the place that shared a table with two chairs already occupied by a young couple. After a few minutes, we began talking to one another only to find out the woman was in a M. Div/MSW program and the man was a teacher. The commonalties were comforting.

After they left, our order came up and we dove into our sandwiches and the side of roasted plantains, which were worth the trip on their own. As things slowed down in the restaurant, the owner made the rounds of the tables and stopped to see how we were doing. I was effusive about the plantains and he said, “You should try them with some black beans and rice.”

“You have those on the menu?” I asked.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “I’ll get you some.” He returned with a bowl of beans and a plate with more plantains. I wish I had the vocabulary to tell you how good the beans were and how much he was telling the truth about how they even tasted better with the plantains. In between yummy noises, we talked with our mouths full and kept asking questions. “Are you open everyday?”

“We are closed on Sunday,” Roberto said, “for church.” We asked where he went to church and then Ginger identified herself as the pastor at Pilgrim and Roberto smiled and said, kindly, “Welcome, my sister and brother in Christ.”
One of my favorite stories in the gospels the account of Jesus walking with the two men on the road to Emmaus and how they only recognize him after they have sat down to dinner and he breaks the bread. Last Saturday morning, I caught a glimpse of what they must have felt: caught by surprise at the table, overcome by the sacred ordinariness of the Spirit.

Open the eyes of my heart, Lord . . .

Peace,
Milton

shelter

I talked to one guy today
who got tired of construction
and “making the wrong
people rich,” which was as
far as he got before another,
who used to work with an
autistic kid, asked for help –
we were cooking breakfast
together for folks at the shelter
who stood single file for
sausage, oatmeal, and eggs.

As they took their trays,
I wondered what stories
were passing by untold:
the dishwasher in shirt and tie;
the baby in the stroller;
the old man who could not
speak and only growled –
with a smile on his face;
the four men in the back
who ate and never spoke;
the woman serving coffee.

I stood in the middle of
the used book store of life,
where worn copies of great
works seem to be stacked
to go unnoticed that they
might remain unread
and remainders remain
because we’re serving lunch.
“The rice was a little undercooked,”
said one, kindly, “but I loved
the concept of the meal.”

Me, too. I love a table
big enough for food critics
and failures, architects and
addicts, teachers and
turncoats, homeless,
hopeful, left out, left over,
betrayers and betrayed,
where – for a few moments –
every book on the shelf
was dusted off long enough
to be recognized.

Peace,
Milton

dinner time

After another wonderful Friday Night Dinner, I offer these words of hope and thanks.

dinner time

at the end of the day
when the day’s had its way
and we sit at the table together
there is something profound
in being gathered around
to give thanks for both table and tether

bring your joy and your pain
and let’s gather again
our sustenance lies in our sharing
yes the rite of our meals
makes a thin place that’s real
and grows bonds quite resistant to tearing

Peace,
Milton

sunday sonnet #3

I had a church-less weekend since Sunday was my turn
to stay at home with Reuben, who is ailing;
I planted in the garden and gave the beds a turn
While he sat and snored and set the “z”s a-sailing.

I was not there to stand in line to taste the Bread and Cup,
the food that’s fed the faithful across time;
but today I shared a meal with friends we'd gathered up,
and found our supper sacred and sublime.

“Remember me as often as you do this,” we repeat
in our ritual of worship and redemption;
but the Body is re-membered most every time we eat
when we share the meal with focus and intention.

After sharing food with friends, there is this that must be said:
‘tis no surprise they recognized him in the breaking of the bread.

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: re-reading our lives

Today was the first day of the week that I have not had to go from school to the Duke restaurant. Instead, I came home to cook dinner. OK, first I took a basketball nap, meaning I dozed off watching first round games of the NCAA Men’s Tournament, and then I went grocery shopping, and then I cooked dinner. Around our table tonight were Cherry, Diane, and Julie, each one of whom we have known since she was sixteen, though they each marked that age in different years. Julie, our former foster daughter, is visiting from Boston, so I made Chicken Broccoli Ziti, her favorite, and the five of us sat around the table for three or four hours telling stories that moved through time as though it were a big old house with rooms of memories that could be explored at will.

I received my weekly email today from the Utne Reader, one of the things in my life that allows me to get caught off guard, to find a link to an article about “The Fine Art of Re-reading Books” written by Richard O’Mara. In the middle of it he writes of a recalled memory brought to light by his re-reading:

Why, I asked myself, had I not retrieved these memories before? Why had I let them lie there, darkened by the decades that had fallen over them like soot? My mind, or the office within it responsible for organizing and filing memories, apparently decided to lock away those recollections for good. It took the late Herr Remarque to spring them. That these memories had nothing to do with the book itself suggests that anything buried deep in the brain, when dredged up, can have clinging to it things that have nothing to do with the object recovered.

The article caught my eye because I am re-reading A Passage to India because one of my friends at the Durham restaurant wanted to read it. The last time I read it, I was teaching British Literature at Winchester High School, and I am finding the faces and questions of my students between the lines as I work my way down the page. When I was asked to teach the class, I asked my department head if I could do something other than start at Beowulf and march down through the years. When she said yes, I gravitated to colonial and post-colonial literature because it was what I knew experientially from my days in Africa and it was the literature that moved me. I knew from experience that offering literature that didn’t move me was to offer my students a corpse of a class: we would find no life there. That first year I went from Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (still one of my favorites) to Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart to Forster to Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country, moving from colonialism to the days of independence, from separation to the first attempts at friendship across the divides caused by imperialism and conquest.

Ginger, Cherry, Diane, and Julie were all a part of my life in those days, though none of them was in the class or reading the books. As O’Mara said, I find the memories of the days we spent together stuck to the pages as I read again of Mrs. Moore and Adela Quested:

They had made such a romantic voyage across the Mediterranean and through the sands of Egypt to the harbour of Bombay, to find only a gridiron of bungalows at the end of it. But she did not take the disappointment as seriously as Miss Quested, for the reason that she was forty years older, and had learnt that Life never gives us what we want at the moment that we consider appropriate. Adventures do occur, but not punctually. (23)

The five of us around the table tonight, eating and drinking and talking, took me back to any number of Thursday nights at our home in Charlestown. For several years we had Thursday Night Dinners for whoever wanted to come. If you came once, you had a place card; once you had the card, you always had an invitation. You just had to call by noon on Wednesday to let us know you were coming. The number varied, but the experience was the same: long after we had finished eating we sat around the table talking and laughing and making memories, just as we did tonight. Yet, we didn’t sit down tonight to recreate something that happened years ago. We re-read our lives together and fell into the stream of memory and meaning that remains as present as it does past.

An author puts words to page because he or she can do no other, I suppose, trusting that answering the call to art is a worthwhile response, even if that response feels somewhat feeble and futile. How could the story of an old woman in India be a response to the British colonial enterprise? I don’t know how to answer that question with anything other than I am reading the book again, eighty-five years later.

Wait. I have one more answer. The story is as significant as our supper tonight. On this seventh anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War, in the middle of the struggle for healthcare reform, in the silence and struggle that followed earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, in the middle of the change and grief and sorrow and hope that mark our own lives, we sat down for dinner together. We sat down with all of those who once gathered around the table in Charlestown, with the memories of our shared existence, and with the understanding that whenever the adventure presents itself we will be ready to remind one another to take the risk.

I left the table filled and ready for adventure, whenever it shows up.

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: thirty-seven times

Abel spent the afternoon
prepping the vegetable plate:
slicing shiitakes and scallions,
reducing the risotto, and
spreading the mixture on
sheet pans to let it cool.
Then he enlisted me to make
the rice balls and roll them
in Japanese breadcrumbs.
He cut sweet potatoes,
blanched greens, and
roasted garlic to make
the cream sauce.

The thirty-seven people
who ordered the dish were
offered both a visual and
culinary treat: the sauté
of spinach and sweets
on one side of the plate;
the small swatch of sauce
creating a bed for the three
golden crusted arancini;
the last ladle of cream
draped across the top,
with a sprinkle of scallions.

But only those relegated to
the kitchen were fortunate
enough to see how tenderly
Abel stacked the sauté;
how he nestled the small orbs
on their side of the plate as
though they were as fragile
as they were flavorful;
and the affection with which
he baptized them with the
puree of garlic and goat cheese;
the smile that sent the dish
to the diners. Thirty-seven times.

Peace,
Milton

dinner music

I was reading Donald Miller’s blog – Part 2 of a great duo of posts on “Living a Memorable Life,” this one on making memorable scenes – and I was particularly struck by his discussion of the power of a detail: change a the power of a scene by changing the setting. Sometimes a seemingly small detail can alter the whole experience.

Ginger and I have owned three homes, and in each one the kitchen has played a central role. Well, let me rephrase that. In our two homes in Massachusetts, the kitchen was the central room to our story in many ways. Because of my work schedule in Durham, dinnertime has not been what we are accustomed to. Actually, for the most part, dinnertime has not been, and we both miss it severely and are determined it will not always be so. We like each other too much to not share our meals, and we like the home it creates and the people that gather around our table. But, because of life as it is right now, the kitchen in our home has not found its place, if you will, in our story. And then Ginger and her mother changed one detail: they gave me an under the cabinet CD player/radio for the room. Both our kitchens before had music, and I have missed it.

The unit was sold out over Christmas and was delivered today. Needless to say, I installed it today and then went scrounging through my CDs for some music to cook and eat by, since Duke has not resumed classes and I had the night off. I got to cook dinner for the two of us – and to sing along as I did. There’s hope for this little kitchen all because of one detail: we are going to create some memorable scenes here as well, I can feel it.

Tonight, I offer a music sampler of some of the soundtrack of our evening, hoping they help to tune your heart towards memory making.

First, Jackson Browne singing “These Days.”



Mary Chapin-Carpenter: “Why Walk When You Can Fly”



I love this guy’s voice: Ray Montagne’s “Trouble”



A dip back into the Eighties: Lone Justice singing “Shelter”



I’ll let Jackson close things out: “For a Dancer”



On this day of the Feast of Epiphany, I’ll close with a quote from Twelfth Night (which was last night): “If music be the food of love, play on.”

Indeed.

Peace,
Milton

advent journal: suppertime

Who would think a single motion
could carry multiple meanings.
I spend my days stirring the soup,
measuring out the corn meal,
making sure everyone eats well;
it is good and honest work.

Tonight I stood over the soup
in the warm light of our kitchen,
carried by the scent of cornbread
in the oven, the scuttle of schnauzers
at my feet, pouring more of myself
into the recipe than usual.

Jesus spent his days feeding people,
yet, when he broke bread with
friends, his chosen family, gathered
in a small room like our kitchen,
he called them to remember --
to never forget what a meal meant.

It’s easy, you know, to forget,
to let food be only fuel for function.
Supper, tonight, was an end not
the means; now, washing clean
the bowls, I am put back together,
remembered in our simple supper.

Peace,
Milton

a handmade life

“It’s what’s inside the words,” she said;
“Inside heart there’s an ear and there’s art.”

After reading, I couldn’t help but look
for words among the bread and vegetables
that made up our simple supper last night,
both of us finally home after days
that felt longer than the time passed.
I couldn’t find God in the green beans,
or love in the tomatoes; no fun in foccacia;
not enough meal to make meaning.
But that's not the last word, is it?

The tomatoes tasted like the smile
of the brown baby at the farmer’s market;
the crisp sweet corn spelled summer
without letters; and the bread,
dipped in the olive oil we keep
for special occasions, was leavened
and flavored by all the suppers
we have shared together, fed
by the mystery in the mundane:
another day in our handmade life.

Peace,
Milton

seasons

we mark our seasons with changes
new menus for lunch and dinner
it’s the way we say goodbye
to strawberries and hello
to the tomatoes, who
show up only for summer

the blueberries are coming in
and both sweet corn and
sweet onions; this is the
season of vegetables,
and – oh, yes – peaches
but only for a short while

I can say with some certainty
I am not a vegetable
look at my calendar:
there is no sense of season
each week looks like the other
not that much changes

As I walk in my garden
and return, my hands
smelling like basil and sage,
I wonder how I grow and
ripen -- or if I do
without some season-ing

Peace,
Milton

I can hear music

The end of my shift yesterday marked the first time in eleven days (and thirteen shifts) that I had a day off to look forward to. In fact, if I count the hours from the time I got off work until I have to go back tomorrow afternoon, I had forty-eight of them to do with as I pleased. Treasure, I tell you. Pure gold.

The landscape of my leisure has led me from one gathering to another; I have traversed my city finding friends. (Ginger’s out of town.) Last night, I sat on the porch of Parker and Otis listening to bluegrass music and sharing wine and cheese (thanks, Cherry) as I watched this little girl who was wearing a bow as big as her face dance with total abandon. She was awesome. Then there was the little guy standing next to his mom at the cash register when I went in to get more food who had azure blue eyes as big as quarters and wanted me to see the candy-filled car he had found while his mom was shopping. When she saw the car she spoke to him in German and I thought, “Man, this kid is three and already speaks more languages than I do.”

I got home about eight-thirty to feed pups and spend some time with them, but I had a promise to keep. One of the servers I work with at the restaurant also tends bar at The Green Room, a pool hall across the parking lot from our eating establishment and as we have left work for the last several days he has said, “Come by and let me buy you a beer.” So, about ten o’clock I walked the block to the bar and gladly accepted a Shiner Bock. Another person from the restaurant came in looking for someone to shoot pool and, since I had the next day off, I was happy to oblige.

This is no ordinary pool hall. It is a Durham institution, going back to Prohibition, and has this sign posted on the front door:

No
-- misbehaving
-- drinks on tables
-- beverages in or out
-- facist regimes
-- poor sportsmanship

And they welcome pets. There were three large dogs, unleashed and inquisitive, working the room the whole time I was there. The setting was completely different from the folks on the porch and yet, when I sat back and watched the groups of people playing pool and shuffleboard, or just sitting at the bar, the dynamic was the same: they had come to be together.

I got up this morning and took Ella, our youngest Schnauzer and lover of ALL people, to the Durham Farmers’ Market. She loves seeing all the people and dogs that gather to buy and sell everything from local produce to baked goods to chocolate. I let her make her rounds and then asked her to wait in the car while I bought some food. I’ve gotten to know a few people there. Some are suppliers for our restaurant. One woman sold me most of the heirloom tomato plants in my garden. Another makes awesome cheese. One of the guys I work with at the catering kitchen helps out one of the artisan bakers and made the lamb chorizo in the homemade empanadas (don’t think I didn’t bring that home for lunch). I bought some fresh ground pork and kielbasa from a young girl (working with her mom) who had all the confidence of a young Broadway star and appeared to love all the people as much as Ella.

I brought Ella home and wandered back downtown for the Bimbe Cultural Arts Festival, one of Durham’s traditions I have not yet participated in. Again, people were gathered together, this time around African dance and drumming and, of course food, which ran more along the festival and carnival menu than ethnic. I saw the Only Burger truck and my decision was made. Brian, the owner, is someone I had met previously, so he and I had a nice chat as his crew made my burger. I went back over to the stage area and shared a table with five elderly women who were happy to let me sit down, mostly because they wanted to know where I got my burger.

My morning shopping set me to imagining dinner (and this new recipe) once I got back home from the festival, which set me to whom I might gather around my dinner table. After all, this blog is called “Don’t Eat Alone.” I called Lori and Terry and they joined me for dinner. And a good time was had by all.

Tomorrow, in the hours I have left before I go back to work, I’ll head to church where, once more, I will be with a group of intentional gatherers, people I mean to be with. My peeps, as the kids say. (Those crazy kids.) Thank God.

In our work-a-day world, it’s far too easy to believe that the rhythm of life is akin to the opening verse of Jackson Browne’s “The Pretender”:

I’m going to rent myself a house
in the shade of the freeway
I’m going to pack my lunch in the morning
and go to work each day
and when the evening rolls around
I’ll go back home and lay my body down
and when the morning light comes streaming in
I’ll get up and to it again
amen

Amen, translated, means, “So be it.” Well, no. (Which is actually Browne’s point, as well, I might add.) The melodies that rolled out of the mandolins on the porch at P & O and the beat of the drums in downtown Durham sing a different song, as does the jukebox at The Green Room and the couple playing and singing on the grass at the farmers’ market and the hymns we will sing in the morning, and it is a gathering song. If we listen to our hearts and the rhythm of all creation (rocks crying out, trees applauding) the song we know best is one rich in harmonies, one that calls us together in whatever groups we can gather, for whatever reason we can imagine.

Now – amen. So be it.

Peace,
Milton

P. S. -- An added bonus. Here's Jackson Browne talking about the song and singing it.

eat, play, love

Ginger and I spent the day in Chicago on Friday.

We’ve been planning it for some time. April 21st will mark our nineteenth wedding anniversary and the 23rd the twenty-first birthday of Scott, our nephew who is in school just outside of Chicago, so a joint celebration seemed appropriate. Add to the mix that we had some frequent flyer miles to get us to the Windy City, we had never been to Wrigley Field, and the Cubs had an afternoon game and everything seemed to come together.

We were out of the house about six thirty yesterday morning, and in the air by eight. At nine o’clock Central Daylight Time, we were on the ground in Chicago; soon afterwards, we were in the car and headed downtown. After a stop lakeside to get a wonderful view of the city, we went to the Art Institute of Chicago and wandered through everything from amazing photographs, Impressionists, and a good helping of the Hudson River School before we found our way out on to Michigan Avenue and lunch at the Hard Rock Café (a tradition because Ginger and I were engaged at the Hard Rock in Dallas). After lunch, Scott drove us to Wrigleyville and the three of us found our way into the ballpark. I wanted to go to Wrigley because it, like Fenway, is one of the great old parks in baseball and I wanted to see the Cubs play because they, like the Red Sox, know a great deal about hope and heartbreak. The Cubbies came from behind in the bottom of the eighth and then hung on to beat the Cardinals 8-7 and make everybody’s day.

My favorite moment was after the final out. Scott, Ginger, and I knew we had to leave the park at four o’clock to give ourselves time to eat and get to the airport; the Cubs were kind enough to get the game-ending double play at 3:58. We started to move to the aisles and no one else budged. They were all standing and cheering, but they weren’t going anywhere. Music began playing and people still stayed in their places like they were waiting until the postlude ended after worship. Then they began singing along. It took me a minute to get what they were singing:

Go, Cubs, go
Go, Cubs, go
Hey, Chicago, what do you say?
The Cubs are going to win today

When I got home last night, I looked up the song (to find the video at the end of this post) and recognized the voice as Steve Goodman, the man who wrote “The City of New Orleans” and “You Never Even Call Me By My Name,” among other things. Goodman died of leukemia in this thirties (1984) and the song has lived on, alongside of the Cubs’ hopes to one day win the World Series. In the fading light of a magnificent spring day in Chicago, we got to brush up against the history and hope that drives the team and the city, and they got to be a part of an indelible family memory for Ginger, Scott, and me.

On the plane ride home, I began reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love. (Great read, by the way.) The first section of the book takes place in Italy, where she went, as she says, to do things: to eat and learn to speak Italian. In one of her conversations – with a guy named Luca Spaghetti – he told her about two Italian expressions:

• il bel far niente – the beauty of doing nothing
• l’arte d’arrangiarsi – the art of making something out of nothing

Of the second expression she continues the definition:

The art of turning a few simple ingredients into a feast, or a few gathered friends into a festival. Anyone with a talent for happiness can do this, not only the rich. (62)

I don’t know if plane tickets and Cubs tickets and the chance to see this painting count as simple ingredients, but I do know the chance to eat and play and love with our nephew and with one another made for one of the best days of my life. For many, many years to come we will say to one another, “Remember our day in Chicago?”

And we will remember what it was like to walk together, to see the paintings together, to eat together, all of it adding up to help us remember what it means to be family in the best sense of the word.



Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: cooking with love

Part of my job everyday is to make soup. For our lunch buffet for the faculty at Duke we always have two soups (one of which is vegetarian) and the selection changes daily. On Fridays,, we always serve New England Clam Chowder, but the rest of the week is wide open. One of the favorites of the past few days was Chickpea, Garlic, and Spinach.

This is an even bigger soup week because the Durham restaurant is taking part in Empty Bowls, a fundraiser for Urban Ministries of Durham (UMD). The idea is cool. Thirty bucks buys you a ticket in and a hand made ceramic bowl. Around the room are several local restaurants serving soup. You can fill your bowl as many times as you like and your money goes to feed others in our city who are hungry. Since the kitchen at the Durham restaurant is about the size of a beverage napkin, I offered to make one of the soups at Duke and she took me up on it and even gave me a choice of the soup I wanted to make. When I read the email message out loud to Ginger she said, “Make the corn chowder.”

I’ve made a lot of corn chowder – even posted a couple of recipes here and here and here – but I’ve rarely made it the same way twice. I know what I want in it, but I’m still tweaking the recipe. What I do know is I need corn, celery, potatoes, red peppers, roasted jalapenos, black beans, vegetable stock, cream, and cumin. I’m making it without onions so Ginger can eat it (she’s allergic to onions).

This afternoon I peeled enough potatoes to fill two five gallon containers, cut a whole case of corn off the cob and soaked the beans. Tonight, I made a vegetable stock including the corn cobs to sweeten it up a bit. Tomorrow I will dice celery, and potatoes, cook the beans, and begin to bring the soup together. I’ll do my best to come up with a recipe. First I have to come up with ten gallons of chowder.

I was telling Abel about the event and the soup last night and he began to wave his hand as if to stop me.

“My sister, she makes this soup. This is a very important soup. It is very hard to make.” He began to describe how her sister created her soup and then he said, “You know not just anyone can make this soup. It is a special soup. My sister, she says if an angry person is around her when she is making this soup, then the soup will break. Sometimes she and my mother say no one can come around while they are making this soup so that no one will ruin it.”

Abel talks a lot about his sister’s cooking. He is from a family of cooks, but it seems when the family wants to feel like family, she’s the one who takes over in the kitchen. He beams when he talks about her.

In the novel (and movie) Like Water for Chocolate, there’s a batch of beans that gets made by an angry cook and pretty soon everyone is throwing up. One of the consistent themes of the story is the emotions of the cook go out through her hands and into her food, making her feelings seem almost contagious.

I think she’s on to something.

You build a soup the way you build a life, I suppose, adding ingredients as you go, changing the recipe, and adding in the flavors around you. What Abel’s sister knows is some of the flavors add themselves. Be careful, then, what or who gets near the soup. As I finish the soup tomorrow, I will be around Billy, the daytime chef, who cracks me up; Mauricio, Abel’s nephew who is equally good at smiling and working hard; Jorge, our unflappable dishwasher; Abel; and Tony, our evening dishwasher, who understands very little English and seems to be soaking up everything around him.

This is going to be a good soup.

I’ve still had Communion on my mind today. As I reflected on Abel’s words, I also thought about Paul’s admonition to make sure your heart was clear before you sat down for the Lord’s Supper. If something is wrong between you and someone else, go fix it and then come back to the Table; don’t let it poison the meal because the Supper is more than a stop along the way or a ritual worth repeating; the meal is the point. If we can’t come to the Table together, then we can’t come together.

One of the soups I made today was chili. We will serve it Thursday or Friday, because a good chili needs to sit for a couple of days. I’m a good chili maker (here’s one of my recipes) and the staff at Duke looks forward to it. As Billy was leaving to go home, he said, “I’m taking home some of that damn good chili, Milt. That’s it: a grilled cheese and this damn chili. And then I’m gonna take a nap.”

As he was ladling it into a container he said, “What’s your wife’s name? Ginger?” answering his own question. “I’ll bet that’s why she married you, Milt. You made chili and she said, ‘Damn, I can’t let this guy go.’” And then he laughed his laugh that must have improved all the soups in a ten-mile radius.

I came home tonight to a request from the one who digs my chili for a tuna sandwich. The Ginger version is a grilled tuna and cheese sandwich. Though I cook for a living and am known professionally as a chef, I remember who I am when I’m cooking for Ginger. Those that walked with Jesus on the road to Emmaus sat down with him at supper and recognized him when he broke the bread. Here in our house, it’s a reverse experience: I recognize myself when I cook for the woman I love.

And she says to tell Billy he’s right.

Peace,
Milton

lenten journal: edible art

Some years ago, Ginger and I were in Paris and we attached ourselves to edge of a tour group walking through Notre Dame Cathedral, mostly because I wanted to pick up a few more pieces of useless facts and information to store in my brain. The guide was talking about the stained glass windows when we walked up, pointing first to the North Rose window that dated back to the original construction in the thirteenth century. She then pointed to the South Rose window and said. “This, however, is the new window,” she said, “which were installed in the fifteen hundreds.”

The new window was older than most anything of historical significance -- even in Boston, where we lived at the time. Good art has staying power.

For Christmas, my chef gave me an absolutely gorgeous cookbook – a work of art on its own terms – called Pork and Sons. Besides offering some amazing recipes, the book is beautiful because it is the story of a family’s relationship to food – pork, in particular – and because of the incredible images of the dishes described.

In my business, we think about how the food looks almost as much as how it tastes. Presentation is a big part of the picture, which is why (I have to keep telling Ginger) that we sprinkle “all that green stuff” on top of the dish before we serve it. I want the plate to offer a visual invitation even before you bite into it. Even in the heat of the dinner rush, we work hard to make sure the plates look good, to create edible art, which is intended not to last. The whole point of our preparation is for the customer to deconstruct and devour the dish. If we do our work well, when the evening ends the room is empty, as are our pans, and we have nothing to show for our work except the knowledge that we sent folks home full.

Of course, they will wake up hungry again tomorrow.

As much as I like making beautiful food, the memories of meals that hang like portraits in the gallery of my mind don’t revolve around what was on the plate as much as who was around the table. As Vanier says, “Food and love are linked closely” (35).

The hardest thing about restaurant work for me is I don’t get to talk to most of the people who eat my food. I do make a point of getting out in the dining room several times during the course of service, but I don’t get to meet most folks. One student comes in a couple of times a week with her boyfriend and orders the same thing. She gets the Roasted Chicken Marsala, but asks for only the sides of mashed potatoes and vegetables, and butternut squash on top. I have the squash on hand to sauté and serve, so I make the dish. After about the third time, I took the plate to the table myself and said, “I need to put a face with this food.” We had a nice chat and got acquainted a bit. Now when she comes in, the server simply comes into the kitchen and says, “Megna’s here,” and I know what to cook.

For now, the incidental contact will have to do; I pray it will not always be so.

I think I have spent a lot of my life praying it will not always be so – related to any number of things; I feel as though I’ve lived on the cusp of things, mostly moving and rarely feeling settled. That’s why, I suppose, these words of Henri Nouwen tucked away in my readings found me tonight:

When you pray, you profess that you are not God and that you wouldn’t want to be, that you haven’t reached your goal yet, and that you never will reach it in this life, that you constantly stretch our your hands and wait for the gift which gives new life. This attitude is difficult because it makes you vulnerable. (118)

When the artisans set the glass in the windows at Notre Dame, they knew they were building a house of worship. The building took so long to complete that the ones who started the construction were not the ones who completed the cathedral; it took almost two centuries. Whether working on the intricacies of the Rose windows, or stacking the stones for the walls, I can’t imagine any of them found it easy to grasp an image of what they were building together other than some abstract idea of a church. Once finished, it has continued to be a work in progress, requiring restoration and rebuilding due to the damage done by the wear and tear of the following centuries. Though the edifice stands as one of the most recognizable building in Paris, its art is not so much different than my nightly offerings: neither is ever completed.

We share one other thing in common (at least I hope we do): for all our effort to create something beautiful, the art itself is not the point. A restaurant is not a bad metaphor for church because the idea is to incarnate two of Jesus’ invitations: “Come and see,” and “Take and eat.” We spend a lot of energy in church making sure things are “right,” which is not all wrong, yet we have to check ourselves to make sure we have not lost sight of our calling to make a place for everyone – particularly for those who live at the margins of life.

In every kitchen where I have worked, the only person who has a meal prepared for them everyday is the dishwasher, the one at the bottom of the ladder. Regardless of how busy we are or whatever else is going on, we take time to feed the guy stuck at the dish machine. It doesn’t make his job any easier, I suppose, but it lets him know he is regarded and cared for. He’s one of us.

And it’s my favorite meal to make everyday.

Peace,
Milton

dinner conversations

I’m not sure what it is – the pie, the lazy day, my thankful state of mind and heart, the fact that other blogs are posting poems – but I have landed on a couple of great poems this week. Today’s offering comes from another one of my favorites, Mary Oliver. I have posted her poetry previously here, here, and here. I found this one as the Thanksgiving Day post at The Writer’s Almanac.

Winter and the Nuthatch
Mary Oliver

Once or twice and maybe again, who knows,
the timid nuthatch will come to me
if I stand still, with something good to eat in my hand.
The first time he did it
he landed smack on his belly, as though
the legs wouldn't cooperate. The next time
he was bolder. Then he became absolutely
wild about those walnuts.

But there was a morning I came late and, guess what,
the nuthatch was flying into a stranger's hand.
To speak plainly, I felt betrayed.
I wanted to say: Mister,
that nuthatch and I have a relationship.
It took hours of standing in the snow
before he would drop from the tree and trust my fingers.
But I didn't say anything.
Nobody owns the sky or the trees.
Nobody owns the hearts of birds.
Still, being human and partial therefore to my own
successes—
though not resentful of others fashioning theirs—

I'll come tomorrow, I believe, quite early.

This semester we have worked hard to get the restaurant at Duke off the ground. Part of that work for me, besides cooking, has been to get out into the dining room and make some sort of connections with the students who come to eat. I’m pretty good with names, so, over the course of the last couple of months, I’ve managed to remember the names of thirty students or so who are regulars and they know my name (since I’m wearing a name tag.) Reading this poem reminded me that acquaintance and allegiance are not the same things. The connection between us looks different from each side. They are customers to me – people I want to like the food and the place and come back; I am a cook at their college.

I am planting roots here and they are passing through.

When I was born, the population of the world was about 2.8 billion people. The world population clock says four billion people have joined our ranks while I’ve been on the planet and it won’t be long before we top 7 billion folks finding their way around the world. Even Kevin Bacon can’t be connected to all of them. The sheer immensity of our population feeds the sense of wonder that grows in me as I read Oliver’s words and imagine the little bird coming down to land on her finger for food, creating a moment in which the enormity of the universe is distilled in the preciseness of the moment. In like manner, the incidental contact that happens over dinner between the students and me carries the same sense of wonder that we could find each other in a world of seven billion people, even for a moment. Still, being human, I think many of those moments are lost on us. We don’t realize our brush with eternity in passing conversation over dinner.

And, thank God, some days we do.

Peace,
Milton