Sea salt from Peloponese Greece. Pulvoron from Goldilocks California. Crackers from Korea. Ingredients from home that somehow make us feel a little less far away from the smells and flavors of the kitchens we grew up in.
Last week, a sudden burst of gratitude came over me while Maria and I were making dinner in her flat. We were making baked salmon and broccoli. She opened a plastic coke bottle full of olive oil and started pouring it over the fish. It was olive oil from Greece that she brought back with her over Christmas. Then she opened a cardboard box full of sea salt, dried and hand picked by her dad off the beaches of Peloponese, and sprinkled it over the salmon. Just as food cooked by a loved one tastes so much better than food you cook on your own, so does food made with ingredients from home. Even though I haven’t met Maria’s parents, somehow our meal that night felt like it was made with their love. It reminded me of warm nights in my Mom’s kitchen, the stove bursting with steam and flavors, the room noisy with conversation.
Food is such an enabler of love and togetherness in families and between friends. It is the bedrock of social interaction in many cultures and an instant ice breaker between guests. It’s an expression of love unique to all others – food takes time, it takes care, it takes meticulous planning and work. The best meals can’t be bought in stores or restaurants – recipes must be perfected over time, passed down from grandmothers and mothers, mastered over many rainy Sundays in small family kitchens.
The Dalai Lama once said, “Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon”. They’re one in the same. =)
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