thank you notes (k)(2)
i’m thankful for the fact that i don’t own a microwave, which i only ever miss when i need to reheat leftovers. so i’m usually forced to choose between either eating them cold or transforming them into a different dish in such a way that doesn’t overcook them. most frequently my cold leftovers find their way into an omelet or a frittata, both egg dishes that can accept almost any uneaten food once chopped up. i’m thankful for my resourcefulness in the kitchen. i’m thankful for my friend’s dad, an excellent chef, who once complimented me by saying he can always tell how talented a person might be at cooking by the way they wash dishes, which i was doing at the time in order to be a good guest in my friend’s home. i’m thankful that he taught his daughter and me how to make traditional ravioli, each stuffed with a spinach and ricotta filling and carefully pinched closed. i’m thankful that he let us drink campari with freshly squeezed orange juice, which was peppery and sweet and perfect. i’m thankful that i’ve never been able to enjoy campari in any other drink.
despite not having the energy to do anything creative to my leftover meatloaf, i’m thankful that eating it right out of the takeout box wasn’t too disappointing, even though it didn’t pull apart as nicely as it had the night before, and had lost its juiciness. i’m thankful that although i think of myself as a vegetarian, i have a longstanding love of hearty, all-american meat dishes that are umami-savory and remain a source of comfort for me when i’m feeling upset or uprooted. i’m thankful that american cuisine as a whole is delightfully lowbrow, very unpretentious, and the kind of food that “sticks to your ribs,” as my mom would say. i’m thankful that the most quintessential american dishes are things that you might find at a baseball game (hot dogs, popcorn) or a roadside diner (cheeseburger, apple pie) or are something a cowboy might eat out on the range (chili, bacon and eggs). i’m thankful that american food is often best made with the cheapest, most widely available ingredients and never tastes quite as good when elevated, kind of like how organic ketchup and artisan sodas just make you wish you were having heinz and coke instead. i’m thankful that my vegetarianism is not so prescriptive that i can’t allow myself some feel-good meatloaf when i really need something to stick to my ribs.
i am thankful for ram dass’s writings on the nature of desire, even though his highly gendered conceptualization of it is a rather off-putting relic of the seventies. i’m thankful for his frankness about coming to terms with his own “oral trip” around eating and drinking and sex and even nail-biting, and that beginning to view consumption as an act of consecration centers the food itself rather than the endless eating of it. that it’s important to stop viewing what you have and what you see and what you want as potentially being “the big ice cream cone in the sky,” an eternal ice cream cone. i’m thankful for this evocative analogy which really drives home the point that even getting exactly what you want leads to suffering because you’ll always eventually lose it. i’m thankful to be reminded that the ice cream always melts.
i’m thankful for the difficulty of distinguishing between what i want and what will make me happy, which are not the same thing. i’m thankful for this period of self-imposed detachment, during which i am allowing all of my ice cream to melt away in order to figure out (as ram dass puts it) where i’m not; to see what sticks. i’m thankful for the opportunity to turn my attention towards consecrating all of my acts: washing each dish the way each needs to be washed; making each ravioli the way each needs to be made. i’m thankful for understanding how the two are related.
- k (5/15/16).
despite not having the energy to do anything creative to my leftover meatloaf, i’m thankful that eating it right out of the takeout box wasn’t too disappointing, even though it didn’t pull apart as nicely as it had the night before, and had lost its juiciness. i’m thankful that although i think of myself as a vegetarian, i have a longstanding love of hearty, all-american meat dishes that are umami-savory and remain a source of comfort for me when i’m feeling upset or uprooted. i’m thankful that american cuisine as a whole is delightfully lowbrow, very unpretentious, and the kind of food that “sticks to your ribs,” as my mom would say. i’m thankful that the most quintessential american dishes are things that you might find at a baseball game (hot dogs, popcorn) or a roadside diner (cheeseburger, apple pie) or are something a cowboy might eat out on the range (chili, bacon and eggs). i’m thankful that american food is often best made with the cheapest, most widely available ingredients and never tastes quite as good when elevated, kind of like how organic ketchup and artisan sodas just make you wish you were having heinz and coke instead. i’m thankful that my vegetarianism is not so prescriptive that i can’t allow myself some feel-good meatloaf when i really need something to stick to my ribs.
i am thankful for ram dass’s writings on the nature of desire, even though his highly gendered conceptualization of it is a rather off-putting relic of the seventies. i’m thankful for his frankness about coming to terms with his own “oral trip” around eating and drinking and sex and even nail-biting, and that beginning to view consumption as an act of consecration centers the food itself rather than the endless eating of it. that it’s important to stop viewing what you have and what you see and what you want as potentially being “the big ice cream cone in the sky,” an eternal ice cream cone. i’m thankful for this evocative analogy which really drives home the point that even getting exactly what you want leads to suffering because you’ll always eventually lose it. i’m thankful to be reminded that the ice cream always melts.
i’m thankful for the difficulty of distinguishing between what i want and what will make me happy, which are not the same thing. i’m thankful for this period of self-imposed detachment, during which i am allowing all of my ice cream to melt away in order to figure out (as ram dass puts it) where i’m not; to see what sticks. i’m thankful for the opportunity to turn my attention towards consecrating all of my acts: washing each dish the way each needs to be washed; making each ravioli the way each needs to be made. i’m thankful for understanding how the two are related.
- k (5/15/16).
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