Sometimes feeding your soul
looks like feeding others
gathering a coven of sacred women
to share the bounty of high summer,
and the burdens on your mind.
A Monday in July can feel
like a certain Thursday in November
if you give of yourself,
invest in, embody a recipe,
stand in a warm kitchen for hours
stirring Lahori cholay down
to the perfect texture;
pitting your way through
an orchard of stone fruit,
dicing a battalion of carrots,
poaching chicken in heavy cream
before chiffonading tarragon
and tossing in freshly-roasted walnuts.
It looks like pouring injera batter
onto hot pan until spongey magic arises.
Straining spaghetti for a chilled noodle salad.
Like tossing legumes and peppers with herbs
to bring your Low Country caviar to life.
For our Goddess hostess, it means:
squeezing five cooked recipes
into a Sunday night,
then a Monday morning,
and one more at lunchtime.
Blooming saffron in hot water
before lacquering a salmon
with the golden broth.
Preparing the celebratory tahdig,
two ways, arranging the prized,
crisped sheets from the pan bottom
atop mounds of steaming rice.
Laying the table with finery:
platinum-rimmed porcelain
and the polished silver.
Fluffing a field of pillows
lighting the candles,
adjusting the napkins just so.
The sun falls low across the trees,
car lights flicker on mailboxes.
The doorbell rings;
arms raise for hugs around hefty platters.
Your dish nestles in among the rest,
setting the scene for a kindred meal.
And now, separate offerings are one.
We each share the highlights
of our gifts of history, of taste:
the spice composition,
the preparation intricacies,
the caveats on "caviar."
Bone china Weeble-wobbles on knees,
forks clink on clutched goblets.
And now the communion begins:
Within this circle,
we explore ourselves.
We ask ourselves:
What is Old for you?
What is New?
How do you hold these truths?
Who are you, now?
How are you, truly?
What can we share,
in this moment,
to be of service?
We reveal, we observe,
we process, we wonder.
We praise those not with us,
we cheer to sisterhood,
to lived experience as
employees, bosses,
mothers, daughters, guardians,
each individuals
now part of something bigger.
And as we proceed,
we turn from chittering laughs
to chest-concussive tears.
Why are our daughters like this?
Why do our mothers do that?
Am I my mother? Are you?
We question,
probe with a soft lens,
unfold the answers;
hold the lessons in our hearts
like we palm our emptying plates.
Our long-awaited feast,
a delight of found kinship,
is a practice that feeds all senses.
By the time the hour calls
for a samovar roiling, foretelling
the arrival of glasses of tea
and crème caramel in goblets,
we have marinated and rested.
We have sliced and seasoned
we have scooped and cupped
and poured ourselves
into the space between us,
a new recipe of our collective design.
Bellies full, hearts mended,
we go into the dark humid night
our shoulders lighter,
our souls massaged.
Like crushed mint
steeped in our neuroses,
we depart this place
with missions clearer,
our palate,
and our minds,
cleansed.
