cooking for the future

When the bundles of vegetables, herbs and greens arrive from the CSA I quickly plan out what will be eaten during the week and what will need to be frozen or pickled. Washing, trimming and packaging the food takes about an hour. When I think of it I can feel the vaguely ribbed bodies of the carrots as I rub the dirt and stringy side roots away. The big collard greens collect little pearls of water and feel like fans between my thumb and forefinger.

I always wanted to learn the whole language of fans as used in the courts of Louis IVX. I want to learn to communicate silently sometimes so that I can get full and ripe like a potato, underground. I think about strange things like that as I was the muddy water down the drain.

Cooking is something my daughter never asks me not to do unless it's a spicy, pungeunt recipe. While I'm standing in the kitchen she has easy access to me. We chat as she moves back and forth from her bedroom to the kitchen table which is the center of our school. A few months ago she cooked her own scrambled eggs for the first time. Her excitement was equal to times when she's climbed a giant rock at Joshua Tree or found a beautiful shell at the beach.

The kitchen is a special place for us.