Glorious Food

"Bread is as spiritual as human life gets. Rumi wrote, ‘Be a well-baked loaf.’ Loaves are made to be eaten, to be buttered, and shared. Rumi is saying to be of service, to be delicious and give life." ~Anne Lamott

Not only am I an emotional eater, I am an emotional baker as well. When I was really stressed in college I would bake chocolate pies (I can remember making two during one particularly stressful week). The day I decided to break up with my boyfriend I made a loaf of cheddar cheese bread. Last summer when I was living at home my parents were surprised to come back to the house one day and find that I had baked a loaf of bread; I needed to bake that bread. I don’t know what it is, but there is something comforting about the measuring and the stirring and the sifting that demands my full attention and allows me to relax.

I also like the fact that when I’m baking, I get to do things my way. (My college roommates called me the "Kitchen Nazi.") I love to make messes, and I have been known to make some huge ones in the kitchen (while mentally sorting out some colossal ones in my life). I also cook by smell. I don’t depend as much on a timer to tell me when something is done as by the smell coming out of the kitchen. Hey, it usually works.

I love food, too. I love the making and the presentation and especially the eating of it. I love that you can take some pretty run-of-the-mill ingredients and come up with something completely different. There is something spiritual about getting something great out of some things that aren’t at all special.

I love that food conveys emotion, can say something romantic or comforting or just that you care. In the South, when someone dies, we go sit with the family and we take a casserole. When my Mom is sick, she only wants to eat the foods her mother used to cook for her when she was sick as a child: beans and rice and red Jell-O.

I love the history passed down in certain dishes. When I make peach cobbler, I want to make it like my great-grandmother did. (Of course she didn’t use a recipe, but my grandmother and I have found one that we think is pretty close.) When I make tortillas, I want to make them like my best friend’s mom does, not from some white woman’s "well researched" recipe.

It occurs to me now that I also might find baking comforting because it allows me to have control. I get to choose how much of what goes in where and when the thing comes out of the oven. I get to have the ultimate say in something, regardless of how out of control the rest of my life feels.

So I think I’ll make some bread tonight. Probably a nice white loaf (my dad won’t eat wheat). And then I think I’ll make Peach French Toast out of it. Or maybe I’ll make some fried pies. I found a pretty good recipe for them in the family cookbook. Actually, I’ll probably end up making all of the above. Hungry?