Pachycadia. I don't think that is a word but it came to mind. Perhaps it means falling into rhythm with elephants.
As I take a swig of now cold coffee from the Indian print cup that I got at a thrift store during the fall fashion period of 2012 that I thought of as "the thing where indian prints are in fashion temporarily," I realize that I spent 2012 unconsciously. No food consciousness is not an ordinary state for me. I typically recall and capture food with emotions naturally just as I typically capture dreams in the morning and analyze them as I awake. This year was one of the most sedentary and lethargic in that aspect.
Turning backward I begin to think of the food. I think of the tiny kitchen that I don't feel comfortable in and I realize that Suzanne's kitchen(in the house we rent) is very small and in some sense probably inspires an anxiety that forces one to cram food into one's mouth.
There were noteworthy moments connected to food.
Great meals of 2012 revisited:
1) Pozole with Alexis, Sam, Stephanie, Sean, Joseph. I made a broth and took hominy, lettuce, fried tortilla strips, fresh lime, fresh jalapeño, chicken off of bone, avocado, and radish. I was happy to serve up these dishes to friends with a big bunch of flowers on the table.
2) I placed two cups of tequila under and vase of flowers on the day of the dead. There they sat evaporating, while the flowers slowly lost their carnation, marigold, simple zinnia orange in the way time slowly takes from the essence of any living thing and lets it melt away.
3) A tomato crust soup with John and William. Two unlikely companions, the 1st and the 8th of my siblings rode bikes up from fells Point to get their Alpaca wool socks from our mother. John studies Political Theory at University of Dallas. I hadn't really spoken to him since his divorce. He was much better. William had started riding in the past year and lost 2/3 of his body weight. He lives in Massachusetts. But the two of them rode in bitter wind. As they arrived I cooked garlic in oil with a new garam masala i had crushed in my new mortar. I added tomato crush, leeks, and some left over spiral ham and more pepper and salt. I sauteed the leftover stale french bread from the christmas party and served the tomato leek soup with the croutons on top with the remainder of cold weather thyme from my garden while we sat talking briefly. A delight.
4) New Years day. Rula served Mansuf on her huge platter with tons of chicken cooked in yoghurt over rice. We sat with Tod, Kristen Forbes, Dave, Pablo, and friends of Pablo with children. Some drank wine. Later we played music and read I Ching. I brought paper and twine and calligraphy pens to record the I Ching readings for people and I rolled them with twine and green colored Indian paper.
5) This has been the year of cupcakes. Celeste has been a baking fiend. We made so many cupcakes together. But her birthday I promised to have a tea party. I bought a little cake from Hamilton Bakery, one with a yellow flower on top. We sang happy birthday, and I took down the pretty porcelin music box that plays happy birthday tune, and had a tea party in the little butterfly teacups. I read her a fancy nancy story about a tea party and she was delighted.
6) On our anniversary we had planned to eat thanksgiving dinner at 4 with Joe's parents and cousins. This was not exactly a romantic idea. I had prepared cranberry sauce, salad, and more. But I also prepared a chocolate peanut butter cake. Still, the idea of sharing the cake and the romantic moment with a couple that embodies the worst feeling I can have about what happens to marriages, was dulling, Also, Erica, Joes' cousin wanted a Tarot reading. That would mean our anniversary would be about time at a place where my mother-in-law- often tries to place us sitting apart, or discourages our romanticism. Her way of saying "your husband" or "your wife" drains it of what feels good. So I dreaded going. Luckily we talked about it, arrived late, and then went and sat by the fire at Todd's house with Matt, Dina, and another couple. We had cake, tequila, and played music.
I shall continue to think on this year with fond recollections. Celeste's second year of life blending into her third.
There was much wine. There was not enough raw food.
But there was a deepening of love, many, many oranges, clementines, apples, cups of coffee...
We began 2013 talking, drinking a real poppy bottle of sparkling. We had grapes, and toasted Celeste who got into the spirit with a cup of ginger-ale.
Fondly I recall the New Years dinner in Mexico 2007-2008 with the vasquez-gomez when we were first married by Lorena's father. We ate grapes in the hallway after the goat baracoa, and then they married us. Late into the evening our last night there we danced in the bones of the house they were building. Somehow I know we have another life down in Mexico with another realm of food and dreams. I hope to go this year, with Celeste.
