It has been a minute. Or several.
I've been thinking a lot about social media this week as I watch people react to the shooting of nineteen students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School. People need an outlet, and I get that...but I increasingly despair about how empty it all feels. Sometimes it is just preaching to the choir with some sort of acerbic or biting meme that finds a way to amplify our emotions. Sometimes it is directing our energy toward arguing about gun control or mental health with a few people online. I've never been a single-issue voter, but I also realized that I haven't been monitoring gun control votes very carefully, outside of when it comes time to vote for a candidate. So I looked up the information and there were a few surprises, and some questions, but not many. I made a few donations. And I cooked.
What does cooking have to do with tragedy? Not a whole lot---at least as it happens in my kitchen. I'm not World Central Kitchen. I'm just a home cook who has found an avenue for self-care and stabilizing her mental health. So, that's important.
I sometimes cringe at that Leonard Bernstein quote that gets floated out in the social media ether every time some sort of tragedy occurs: "This will be our reply to violence, to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before." I dislike it precisely because, as a musician, I DO understand it. It takes my innate sense of guilt and rubs salt into it. I don't believe that beauty and art are THE reply to violence, but certainly I feel they are fundamental to combatting evil in the world. I don't like the reductive nature of that quote (although that's true of pretty much any quote), and it also doesn't speak to the personal costs of that intensity and devotion that I see in my students every day. They work hard enough without having to shoulder an expectation that their art will be our reply to violence in the world.
But this is a cooking blog, I know. But I was thinking about this quote because as I went to post my dinner on Instagram last night, I felt that same emptiness. Posting the picture of Colu Henry's "Smoky and Spicy Shrimp with Anchovy Butter and Fregola" seemed self-indulgent, but also inadequate. That's why I'm writing here. I needed to think about these feelings.
Last week I told two friends that "cooking is my therapy." As someone who has been in actual therapy, I don't say that lightly, and I generally group flippant references to therapy in the same category as "adulting" defined as paying one's bills or being a generally responsible human being. But I thought a bit more about that statement last night and realized that cooking has become an important avenue for me in several ways. First, there is cooking for Community Cooks. I attended a free knife skills class on Wednesday night, and our Executive Director spoke about how one of our partners, Friday Café, was finally able to resume community meals inside after a long hiatus due to the pandemic. The team I lead cooks for the Somerville Homeless Coalition, and I take care in preparing my dish for them, knowing that a "meal" can be so much more than just food for unhoused people. It can give them energy for a next step, or simply another day, in ways that I can only imagine.
But then there's the simple meal I prepare for just me and my husband. When I do it right, I allow myself the time to think about each ingredient, where it came from, what it represents. As I sautéed shrimp in an extraordinary amount of butter last night, I thought of my paternal grandmother and her famous shrimp scampi, and how somehow her joy of cooking was passed down to me, via my father, even though I was long resistant to it. As I watched the anchovies dissolve, I thought about my childhood years of loathing anchovies on general principle (never having tried them). As I adjusted the broth amount and cooking time to accommodate my choice of orzo instead of fregola, I thought about how it was not so long ago that cooking felt like just one more thing I wasn't good at because I was still victimized by perfectionism and keeping up with some imaginary Joneses. With all of this comes a centering--one that I also cultivate through daily meditation. That centering also helps me remember that I can also be decentered and it is ok, as long as I find my way back.
So, in the act of cooking, I access the nurturer in me. The person who cares deeply about the world and the people in it. It is not the whole story, but it is part of the story. If I can nurture myself, my family, or a group of strangers, I can find the strength to do more and to devote more energy to doing more. I'm not sure what that looks like at any given moment, but I know I am grateful for the food and act of cooking that sustains me so that I can be the best version of myself to do the work that is before me.
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| "Smoky and Spicy Shrimp with Anchovy Butter and Fregola" (Colu Cooks: Easy Fancy Food, 110) |
And that recipe? FIVE STARS.
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