Women Who Cook

I've mentioned before that I'm a woman who cooks. When my dear friend Lyn's mother was dying, I can't tell you how many baked zitis I made, filled with cheese and love trying to fill the cracks forming in our hearts as she slipped further and further away. When Celeste's water broke at 1 am when she was only 28 weeks  pregnant and she ended up in the hospital for a month, I baked muffins, made spaghetti and delivered food to her daily to keep those babies growing on something other than bad hospital food. 

When the shit hits the fan, this mama hits the kitchen. I'm not a gourmet cook, I don't make fancy food that you can't pronounce. I like simple healthy comfort foods that fill the belly, feed the mind and nourish the soul. I love to make soups, and lasagnas and fresh baked bread. I love knowing that someone with an aching back, a weepy heart or a challenged soul will have one less thing to think about. 

Amazingly, I am lucky enough to live in a community of women who cook. Babies are born, and meal trains are started. A family is struck with the flu and our community rallies to keep them fed. Someone's little boy needs brain surgery and before they are home from the hospital the freezer is stocked and the kitchen is cleaned. This is a community to love and be loved in. 

Sometimes I am lucky enough to be on the receiving end of such love and cooking. This morning a beautiful, kind, and loving friend (who endured her own painful and grief filled summer) delivered this:

beautiful, delicious, delectable nectarine galette. Nectarines are my most favorite fruit, and this, is quite a treat. With this beautiful baked plate of love was a poem, and perfectly describes why I am a Woman Who Cooks. 

Women Who Cook

Anita Skeen

When, this incredible thing, the principal of the junior high,

surprised by a blast from an M-1A rifle, slumps

a few feet from his office door, or the woman

out jogging in the Saturday morning snow, jubilant

as confetti, gets beaten and raped, or the son

does not recover from the ache in his side, we are left,

hands fumbling in pockets for more

than just words.

The doorbell rings. A woman appears, offering
an aluminum pan wrapped in foil. I wanted to make something
chocolate, she says, but there isn't anything chocolate 
I can make really well. A later hour, another ring:
She made you these rolls, he says, extending the sack 
like a drowned cat. Still later, a glass dish
held out like a crystal ball: We had this extra ham,
she says. We thought you could use it now.

I remember February's worst blizzard since 1912
when my grandmother, who made cornbread when Stevie's mother
did not return from the trip and the blackberry cobbler
when Earle stayed down in the mine, chose
to die. A four wheel drive took the body
and brought beans. Friends plowed through snow
with potato salad and stew. Wherever I turned,
I was handed a dish. My hands steamed for days.

Some of us women still bake, she says, when we don't know
what else to do. I take the butterscotch pie, meringue
frothy and deep as that February snow, and turn toward the kitchen,
thinking of women who turn on their stoves, take town their bowls. 
I lift this gift, this tangible sorrow, to the shelf.
Right now, in this town, a woman beats eggs, each stroke
a blow against something out there, something
only a neighbor away. 

There is grace in the small things of life. (51/365)

1. A kiss placed perfectly where it hurts, or where you wish love to grow.
2. Nectarine galette delivered with words of heartbreaking wisdom and truth 
3. Forging friendships from the strangest of connections, including random blogs
4. Butter filled crust 
5. Patience, faith and hope. (not necessarily in that order) 

Comments

[megan]

thank you, thank you, bite my cookie.

[Michelle]

Completely beautiful :)