Food Glorious Food!

I have been reading Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver this week. I don't have time to do a review while I am madly working on the project for Hermanacita mentioned below, but I mention it because it shifted my mood tonight.

I came home in a stinky mood, made all the more stinky by the lack of anything in the house with which (I love writing "with which"...feels so literary), anyway stinkier due to lack of anything with which to make a proper meal and the fact that I would again be making dinner on my own due to husbando's grad school deadlines. (I'm supportive of supporting grad school deadlines, but hunger makes me cranky.) Needless to say, I wasn't feeling very happy about all the stinking WORK side of food. Where is my grocery fairy and personal chef anyway??? (I suspect on permanent vacay with the dish fairy and my in-house maid! Rude!)

However, I remembered (as I was slogging through the first part of the work I "had" to do anyway), a part of the book where she talks about the nurturing side of cooking. She says, "Cooking is definitely one of the things we do for fun around here. When I am in a blue mood I head for the kitchen...From the ground up, everything about nourishment steadies my soul." That was what I needed after all, a little nourishment. And by the end of it, I actually did feel better! I had a DELICIOUS and beautiful (so many colors!) bean salad made from a friend's recipe, yummy garlic toasted tortillas, time to catch up with Husbando and a full & happy tummy. Isn't food great?!?

Makes me think of the most multi-level-nourishing food I've had lately...bread made with my grandma and Hermanacita as a requested "homemaking skills" lesson, topped with raspberry jam of berries from my other grandparents' garden and made by my uncle....All hauled across the country in various carry-on and checked bags this summer. Oh my, what a treat!

That's Grandma with Hermanacita with the fruits of our (really mostly master-teacher Grandma's) labors....all in front of the Fourth of July quilt she recently made. I love my family!

Happy eating all!