Mealtime Isolation or Invitation?

For a year I ate a vegan diet - one with no dairy products, no animal products, and as little processed food as possible. While I no longer stick to that way of eating there were several things I learned of great importance:
- The regular eating habits of the most of the Western World are appallingly damaging and we choose to remain ignorant to the way we abuse our bodies and minds this way.
- When one eats a "special diet" it also become socially isolating.
- How powerfully the table is meant to bring equality and comfort and signify sacredness thereby levelling what could isolate and separate us. It is a place to come with our differences and specific needs so they can be honored and celebrated.

In a recent conversation I heard of someone who has, for health reasons, had to go on a very restricted diet. Not only have they felt socially isolated because no one knows what to create to make them feel comfortable and allow them to participate at the sacred table, but no one around them feels able to help them.

So this morning I am sitting here wondering how many people would love to have some ideas to create sensual savoury meals with the foods that are healthy for them? I have offered to create dishes for them and realize this is challenge I love - creating beauty where it seemingly is barren. Allowing the sensuousness and colour and texture of the feast to be restored to those whose heart is in pain. To allow them to be drawn again to the healing of the table - returning from the isolation they experience.

Just one more way I see that the "sensual table" is the place of healing.

Uniqueness as a Part of Soul Restoration

The soul, the essence of each person, holds who we are. Yet the soul is also the place of deep and lasting wounding, the inner most place that seems to heal slowest and be most sensitive to confusion.

In a recent discussion, concerning some confusion and chaos surrounding us, it was clear that many of us feel as if our soul is getting lost. The essence of who we really are is becoming clouded which plays out in ways that are difficult to understand and deal with. One ends up feeling crappy most of the time! Energy is stolen from the heart for giving and instead being horded in the inner cave of survival. Dignity is robbed from our soul and is often replaced with contempt. Not the place I want to live from, yet a place my soul goes when threatened and refusing to surrender to the thief.

Henri Nouwen writes about “guarding our souls”: The great danger of the turmoil of the end-time in which we live is losing our souls. Losing our souls means losing touch with our centre, our true call in life, our mission, our spiritual task. Losing our soul means becoming so distracted by and preoccupied with all that is happening around us that we end up fragmented, confused, and erratic.”

What I find fascinating is the dichotomy of this statement. When the soul is guarded and protected, the surrounding rush of life seems to draw me to a place of life, of alertness, of finding the mystery and wonder that is held, seen, and participated in. Yet when one is pulled in many directions and seems to be fragmented, then that rush of life seems to have an implosive effect – falling apart from the inside out.

“The pressures of religious conformity and political correctness in our culture bring us face-to-face with what Johannes Metz called the ‘poverty of uniqueness’, writes Brennan Manning. He states that the ‘poverty of uniqueness’ is “the call of Jesus to stand utterly alone when the only alternative is to cut a deal at the price of one’s integrity. It is a lonely yes to the whispers of our true self, a clinging to our core identity when companionship and community support are withheld.” (pg 136 Abba’s Child)

This lost and found see-saw our souls seem to oscillate on is surely not the way we were designed to live and yet somehow we have learned to adapt to this unnatural way of life.

Metz’s quote is percolating inside me – what a tragedy that our uniqueness becomes lost in conformity rather than found and celebrated from the inside out.

What's For Dinner?

You know those dilemmas when you are driving home, you are really hungry, you know what you want to eat but either it isn’t in your pantry, fridge or freezer or you just want to sit, order and be served. Last night was one of those dilemmas on my drive home. I had been working outside for the last three days at work – the kitchen is being renovated and it is mass chaos so I chose to convey the bark mulch from the front of the property to the back. Hence my hunger as I drove home last night – really wanting to have a steak!

This coastal community has few good places to eat and a good steak is impossible to find – it is just as easy to cook one at home. So here is a quick and easy, tasty meat and potatoes meal:

1 rib steak
2 Yukon gold potatoes
Organic spinach and cherry tomatoes

The potatoes are boiled with sliced garlic and make sure lots of salt is in your water. Leaving the skin on is just fine. When soft and tender and drained add in 1 tbsp of butter and 1 tbsp of blue cheese and mash everything together. Great tangy rich mashed potatoes!

Rub both sides of the steak with sea salt, white pepper and oregano. Melt a touch of butter and olive oil in a cast iron skillet till very hot. Heat your oven to 350.00. Seer the steak until really golden and sealed then flip over and coat the cooked side with grainy Dijon mustard. Seer the other side and then place in the oven for 10 minutes. This will be medium rare.

Toss your fresh spinach and halved cherry tomatoes, toss with olive oil and balsamic and add crumbled blue cheese and white pepper.

This meal is ready in 30 minutes. And the atmosphere is home, music is your own, and settling into an easy chair with a good back after eating is bliss!

Epicurean Quotes

"We may live without poetry, music and art;
we may live without conscience and live without heart;
We may live without friends; we may live without books;
But civilized man cannot live without cooks."
Owen Meredith

"I detest minginess, cheating on quality...anything over-cooked, over-herbed, over-sauced, over elaborate. Nothing can go very far wrong at the table as long as there is honest bread, butter, olive oil, a generous spirit, lively appetites and attention to what we are eating."
Sybille Bedford