Since 2010 carried the tiny ember of the notion of this cookbook cooking with spirit. It started when a friend of mine who lived in Knoxville Maryland was making sure that I was going to bring one of my rice dishes to the potluck at her home. We met up usually once or twice a month anywhere from 6 to 30 people at her home in the barn. And she said there was something special about the food that she felt like life into her body when she would eat it and could I explain to her how I cooked it. And I said well when I am adding in the herb thyme I smell it I feel it in my fingers and I'm standing with it in the garden under the sun I feel the parts list of the earth core of the night and the refreshment of the rain.
And I feel the heat of the fire and I feel my ancestors gatherd around the fire I feel the warmth the fire at night some standing over the stove by the burner. And I feel the health of the weight of the pan in my hand as I draw it up to the stove and I can hear the clanking and the hammer and the metals is this pan was forged long ago.
That rice meal that I made and brought and brought such delight to Gabby as she was eating and sharing her delight with others and just imagine a conversation going around from person to person just kind of makes the spiral of people that are drawn into conversation that starts with this woman's joy of the experience of a bite of food. Gabby was a very capable person in the kitchen and she can whip out food and pastries and baked items like it was nobody's business. But what caught her attention was that sense of life entering her body and fusing her body with life.
That rice dinner that I brought the day that she called me and asked about how I made the meal would be the last meal I ever made for Gabby. She was in her third and what would be final bout with breast cancer Gabby died about two weeks after we all gather and shared food.
Her question got inside me maybe someone like the way the food guide inside of her and that became the spark the idea for this book cooking with spirit.
To bring in all the very pieces that can become conversations that connect people to their place where their waitress or waiter recognizes them cause them by their name and sit them down and it's like friends in a restaurant. And maybe for some people the chef comes out stops by their table they share some conversation and a laugh.
This book can meet people where ever they are on the culinary journey and I can bring them in and fold them into the mix where wooden spoon folds flour salt and baking powder Springs and then round and round to the bowl of life in there connected to the community and a farmer and maybe a blacksmith a potter a bake or a glass blower. Perhaps they start an annual dinner in their local community center where they their whole family gathers in cooks for two days and Osemele for anybody that comes for free for community, belonging or however the Sprit moves them.
In a time in my life were most words escape me this is the essence of the spark I carry you want to connect with others to bring this to life to bring life into people and to bring people to each other and to mind themselves. Not as consumers but is human beings who give thanks for what they have appreciate the effort that came before them in the plant seeds for the future generations to live on.
Jeremy inspired me to want to know more about my local mushroom wild crafters, making homemade root beer, and smoking beets. You got me interested in foods that I did not like interested in a way to see them in a new light to become curious to experiment and to become in relationship with them and myself
