An Everlasting Meal

Several months ago I happened upon a book called An Everlasting Meal, Cooking with Economy and Grace by Tamar Adler. I'm not sure where I first heard about it, but it's on 2 of my “want to read” lists. I read the book in bite-sized pieces over a couple of weeks and almost immediately started reading it again. It's wonderful, so I thought I should let you know about it.

I love this book and think it will end up living on my kitchen counter. It's well-written, practical and funny. Yes, it's a cookbook. But, no, it's not what you're thinking. There are some recipes, but it's mostly an ode to cooking and food. It's a book length letter, encouraging us that we too can make beautiful, delicious and thrifty things to eat when we're hungry.

In the foreward, Alice Waters (who is called the mother of American food and opened her restaurant, Chez Panisse, the year I was born) in speaking of the author says, “She is teaching people not just how to cook but how to love to cook.”

Tamar Adler suggests amazingly simple cooking, like the kind you do without a recipe, throwing whatever you have in the cupboard and crisper together, stiring and tasting along the way, until something delicious pops out. In fact, in a chapter called “How to Catch Your Tail” she says, “Or do the most sensible thing that you can in most kitchens at most times, which is put the tail ends of everything in a pot, season it well with salt, add a bit of cubed potato and some butter, and simmer it until it is all tender.” I love that she wants me to use what I have. I love that she's a big proponent of using salt, not to make things salty, but to make whatever you're cooking taste good. And, I love that she makes me think I can cook as she does.

Last night I made meatballs for dinner. They had 24 ingredients. They were delicious, if spicy, but 24 ingredients, seriously? Cooking doesn't have to be that complicated to be good. At the beginning of her book in a chapter appropriately called “How to Begin,” Adler recounts reading a fast-and-easy cooking magazine with recipes for “boil-and-toss pasta” and “last-minute omelets.” She says, “All pasta is 'boil and toss',” and “There's plain deceit in hawking 'last-minute' omelets. Omelets happen almost instantly, no matter what you do to speed them up or slow them down. Suggesting there are special 'last-minute' ones is akin to selling tips for breathing air more rapidly – if you have an egg, you have a meal that needs but a quick tap to be cracked open.”

Regarding the title, An Everlasting Meal, Adler refers to one meals' endings leading logically into the next. She cites fried rice and vegetable soup as examples. Upon thinking about this I realized that some of my favorite foods are made from the “leftovers”. Fried rice is one example, but my grandmother's cornbread dressing was originally made from leftover biscuits and cornbread. These stale scraps were broken apart, mixed with chicken stock, celery and onions, spooned into a pan and baked. It's one of the most delicious things you will ever eat. Adler says, “But cooking is best approached from wherever you find yourself when you are hungry, and should extend long past the end of the page. There should be serving, and also eating, and storing away what's left; there should be looking at a meals' remainders with interest and imagining all the good things they will become. I have tried to include more of that and fewer teaspoons and tablespoons and cups.”

All of this encouragement has had a rather profound effect on my attitude toward cooking. Though I've always enjoyed being in the kitchen, I admit that I don't cook like Adler suggests. I may sometimes begin with a lot of something that needs to be cooked, but then I go in search of a recipe, put ingredients on my grocery list and plan that meal into our week. But, since reading An Everlasting Meal, I'll put more things like rice and good olive oil, crusty bread and eggs on my list because, Adler says, you can make a meal out of that. I wish I could sit on a stool in Tamar's kitchen and watch her cook. I'm sure she would feed me delicious things to eat served on little toasts, rubbed with garlic. She seems fond of little toasts.

My notes from An Everlasting Meal so far!

Though I started writing this with a spoonful of canned frosting in my hand and I fed my family frozen pizza last week, I have high hopes for making better use of the produce that will soon roll in from our CSA or farm co-op. On Wednesdays when our delivery arrives, I'm going to start boiling a big pot of water and turn the oven on high. I'm going to start cooking our good stuff so meals for the week will already have begun. Tamar makes me think I can actually do it. Whether I fold those vegetables into rice or tuck them into omelets, I believe (I BELIEVE!) we'll end up eating them all. With simple directions like this, we can't go wrong: “All cooked vegetables, whether boiled or roasted, become wonderful salads. They need only a handful of toasted nuts, chopped fresh herbs, a few vinegar-soaked onions, and a sharp vinaigrette. It's really all most food ever needs. The combination may be the universe's only reliable youth serum.” Who doesn't want that?!

But, maybe the most influential and beautiful part of this book is the connection Adler makes between eating well and living well. Illustrating this is her chapter (yes, chapter!) about grits. If I didn't love her before, I certainly do now. Adler says that a 1952 Charleston newspaper declared that grits could make peace. She says, “...it's true that we all fight less when we eat well, which an abundance of grits guarantees. The paper was also right because grits...are vehicles for butter, cream, and cheese, and most tempers can be at least a little cooled by large quantities of those.”

Maybe I should feed my twin boys grits more often? I don't know about making peace with grits, but I will say that I once fed the pickiest boy on earth my grits casserole. Drew ate seconds happily, never knowing exactly what they were. This same boy wrinkled his nose at a turkey sandwich on homemade bread. So, maybe I was making peace after all.

Again, Alice Waters writes, “An Everlasting Meal is an important work about living fully, responsibly, and well, and gently reveals Tamar's philosophy that what we eat and how we eat it is inextricably linked to our happiness.”

Church Camp

We were sitting at the dining room table; my mom, dad, sister, grandmother, even my high school boyfriend was there. So, it's odd that I decided to bring up church camp.

I was a senior in high school and had about 5 summers of church camp under my belt. Of those, I could remember one being fun. This coming summer wouldn't be. It was just a week, but still. I didn't really want to spend a precious week of my summer vacation with people I didn't fit in with.

So, I should have chosen a better time to say, “I don't think I want to go to church camp this summer.” My sweet grandmother said, “You need to go your senior year.” And, that was the end of it. No one asked me later if I really didn't want to go. No one wanted me to explain why I might not want to be there. It was just assumed that I would go. And, I don't remember pushing the issue or bringing it up again.

I love Hargis, where we went to camp. I feel particularly close to God there and it's one of the most beautiful places on earth; the lake, the cross on the mountaintop, the winding road that seems to never end leading into the camp. If I could have just been there alone, or with my friends from school, it would have been perfect. But, I went with people I hardly knew, faces vaguely familiar from years past, a couple of friends from my home church, but no one I was particularly close to.

 

Photo from Hargis Christian Retreat Facebook Page

Most people attended with a group. They “belonged” simply because they were part of a circle within the larger group of campers. I didn't feel that. Even the years that another kid or two came from Lanett First Christian with me, I didn't feel any confidence and not much closeness.

All those other campers were less than friendly. No one was outwardly mean, they just had jokes they all knew and friends they all had in common. They watched the same TV shows and listened to the same music. Their pastors and youth pastors accompanied them the week of camp as counselors and they talked about what was going on back home. They didn't reach out to include others. They were content in their own little group.

This wasn't a promising beginning for someone who would eventually be a camp counselor. But, I was, repeatedly, and I loved it. Then, I WAS part of a group, the counselor group. I fit in. I felt valued and important.

At that point, I was very concerned with making sure all the campers felt included. I wanted them to have fun. I wanted them to want to come back. I wonder if they did.

My sister and I were counselors together for two summers. That was really special. We still laugh about the poor little boy who fell out of his canoe (or was tipped out) in just 2 feet of water. He had a life vest on and was holding on to his canoe. But, just a few yards from shore, he was terrified. We came running to his aid when we heard a voice ring out, “Help me sweet Jesus!” After trying to get his attention to tell him to just stand up, my sister and I both had to catch our breath from laughing so hard. We may have collapsed on the dock for a while listening to his continuing pleas and crying with laughter. He was perfectly all right. Wonder if he ever went back to camp?

For years I craved a “family camp” experience for my little family and finally got it when we lived in Nebraska.

Victory Road Evangelical Free Church had a longstanding tradition of escaping to a camp the weekend after school started. It was wonderful. Water, a huge blob thing that sent tiny people hurtling into the air then plunging into the lake, an open air church service Sunday morning, the guys making breakfast and lots of time for talking and games. It was low key, relaxing and sweet. I loved that. I was with friends.

It's funny, isn't it, that we search for an ideal. In my case, I'm willing to get knocked down then head back in for round 2 because I'm convinced that it will be better next time. Though camp wasn't ideal when I was in junior high or high school, I still had this inkling that it could be. I guess that's why I went back as a counselor more than once. It's like I was saying to the world, “Come on y'all. We can do better than this!”

Truth be told, I still do this. I still ache when someone says they feel like they don't belong. My first reaction is to think, “That's not right. We can fix this. Who do I need to call? What do I need to do? Come on, y'all. We can do better than this!”

I guess we all want to belong, to fit in. But, we'll never be completely satisfied this side of Heaven, will we? There will always be that spot in us that's sightly out of step, slightly homesick, slightly lonely. 

The Fun Year At Camp

Last year during Lent I intentionally listened to Keep Making Me by Sidewalk Prophets every day. 40 days in a row. It was my prayer, my offering, my desire to belong wholly to the Lord. The last verse of the song goes like this:

Make me lonely
So I can be Yours
‘Til I want no one
More than You, Lord
‘Cause in the darkness
I know You will hold me
Make me lonely

I didn't want to pray that. I didn't really even want to think about it. One day during that Lent, I confessed this to my kids. “I don't want God to make me lonely. That's hard. I don't think I'm “there”.” My wise son, Davis, said, “Yeah, but that's how it's supposed to be.” We're supposed to want no one more than God. And, at some point, we're supposed to be mature enough to ask God to help us get there, no matter what it takes.

I'm not that mature yet. It still hurts to think about those lonely church camp weeks. It still hurts when I think of others hurting too.

That last week of church camp, just after a triumphant graduation from high school, was still lonely. I found a fairly easy place with some girls from another church who didn't quite fit in either. But, I can't remember one of their names. Not one. And, I'm sure they don't remember my name either.

Am I glad I went? I guess. I like to complete stuff, to not give up. And, I think it made me a better counselor, more empathetic. But, what I really want for myself and for you is more of those Nebraska Family Camp weekends and less of those lonely high school church camp times. More of Heaven, less of earth.

I'm too idealistic, I know, I know.  But, I'll keep dusting myself off and heading back into the ring to fight for it. I'll be a bit banged up, but it's what I was made to do.

Come on y'all. We can do better than this!