The Slow Life in the Kitchen

My love affair with food and its preparation started when I was a small child, watching my Mom prepare three meals a day and endless snacks.  No matter how ordinary the day, she always set the table with a tablecloth, cloth napkins, Fiesta Ware dishes, with salad plates and all the proper silverware. We'd gather every morning and evening over breakfast and dinner, sharing stories of our days, and weaving together the stories of our lives.

Today when I walk into my kitchen, I am not alone.  We bring our fathers and mothers and kitchen tables, and every meal we have ever eaten.  When my father sat down at the table, he saw his childhood meals from his German mother, and my Norwegian mother saw all of the meals from her youth growing up on a North Dakota farm.  My step-grandmother taught me how to make perfect pie crust, and how to grown an organic garden.  From these experiences, I learned to thrill over a perfect red tomato, to savor the smell of cutting onions, and the aroma of spaghetti sauce simmered for hours over a low heat. I learned to see every meal as an offering of some sort, meant to please and nourish those around me.

Every time I walk into my kitchen, I bring all of this with me. In the simple acts of cooking and eating, we are creating and continuing the stories that are our lives.