Buoyancy

With all due respect to those who for health reasons cannot partake, food lacks flavor without salt. I’ve used salt often, both sea and kosher, in the kitchen over the last month. Salt also helps us to float in the ocean. This last week I’ve been with family and friends at the beach. We’ve shared some good time around table and wonderful seafood. I’ve also enjoyed playing daily with my boys in the sand and the surf.

This morning the water was clear and calm with low, rolling waves. For a few moments I found myself floating, thinking about sabbatical. Floating requires a dose of both balance and relaxation, mixed with an open yet quiet attentiveness to one’s surroundings. Rising and falling with the waves as they come. It’s something of an out-of-body experience, a oneness not often found.

Sabbatical has for me in many ways encompassed these very same elements. I’m thankful to have had this time at the beach and the opportunity to reflect on sabbatical while floating at sea.

Peace…

In the Kitchen

So…what have I been up to?

Working in the kitchen daily, slicing mushrooms – buttons, criminis, Buna shimejis, oysters, & shitakes, peeling and deveining shrimp, cutting red peppers, picking herbs, slicing lemons, peeling roasted red peppers, chopping garlic, picking braised rabbit and chicken, pitting olives, prepping mirepoix (diced carrots, celery and onions), shaving and grating Parmesan, squeezing fresh lemon juice, peeling soft boiled farm eggs, cubing avocados, cutting cherry tomatoes, sharpening my knives, picking lump crabmeat, reducing stock, sautéing mushrooms, preparing garden bites with homemade pimento cheese on celery and baby cucumbers, baking cornbread, slicing carpaccio, making arugula salad, roasting red and fingerling potatoes, pan frying salmon cakes, plating stone ground baked grits, prepping baked oysters, frying soft shell crabs in tempura batter, stacking Friture de la Mer, prepping tuile cups for ice cream, caramelizing crème brûlées, frying apple pies, making strawberry milkshakes, breaking down the slicer, cleaning my station, visiting the farmers, learning a lot, getting a taste here and there of some amazing food, savoring a cold beer or two after a long day’s work and essentially enjoying the company of the people who work the kitchen at Highlands Bar and Grill.

Bon Appetit and Peace…

Providence

Providence is not a word we often use in our daily vocabulary. Divine providence rings more familiar. From within providence emerges the verb provide, a word with which we can associate…to provide, to provide for.

Food is intimately related to providence. The many hands that work to provide the food that graces our tables. The food over which we say “grace.” Is it not Grace itself that provides life and its sustenance?

In his look at the spirituality and ethics of eating, Shannon Jung suggests two poles around which biblical themes of food and eating concentrate: delighting and sharing. I offer a few reflections about the first of these two and will save a deeper look at sharing for another post.

Until a few days ago I had never seen a group of grown men delight over the beauty of squash blossoms. It is truly a joy to be able to work in the kitchen of Highlands Bar and Grill and to see a passion for food seldom experienced. We regularly receive fresh seafood from the Gulf of Mexico. “What beautiful shrimp!” “Did you see this Mahi Mahi?” From local farmers we receive elegant squash blossoms, bold arugula and tender baby leeks. Marbled pork shoulders and creamy goat cheese from North Alabama grace our kitchen. Providence.

From where does your food come? Ultimately from Divine Providence, and along the way many hands and hearts join to carry your sustenance from field to table. Perhaps we should start with recognizing and appreciating all those who make our daily bread possible. Then, how can we become more local with our food and at the same time more aware of our role in the international food economy? Read about Slow Food here in our country. Get involved by supporting local and regional farmers and producers.

Food is big business, and not just in terms of dollars and cents. We are experiencing the rise of an international food crisis about which as Christians we can’t be complacent. Table was central to Christ’s ministry. Images of feasting are pervasive in Scripture. I’ll leave you with one to consider God’s intention for humankind and our sustenance. An image of Divine Providence…

On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken. It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the LORD for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. (Isaiah 25:6-9)

Peace...

Back in Birmingham

Everything is so green! While in Mendoza, Tamara and I often commented on the vegetation. It was beautiful, yet so different. Mendoza is arid and dry, and it was fall there. When we returned to Alabama a week ago, it was anything but arid and dry, and it is spring here. Our yard was approaching a jungle-like character, and the greens are varied and lush.

This past week has been one of many transitions - fall to spring, Argentina to Alabama, Spanish to English, South to North, just to name a few. Tamara had to dive right back into her residency at the hospital less than 24 hours after our arrival. The kids are back in school now, and they've both enjoyed reuniting with friends here in Birmingham.

I've begun this second stage of my sabbatical journey and am in my first week in the kitchen at Highlands Bar and Grill. They have a wonderful team assembled, and everyone has been so gracious to make room for me there. I'm learning a lot, on my feet a lot and hope I can help at least a little.

I've also begun my second stage of sabbatical reading, and I had no idea how pertinent these readings would be at this time. The international food situation was a pressing topic in Argentina, and the morning we returned it was fodder for conversation here also. The first in my reads about food is Food for Life: The Spirituality and Ethics of Eating by L. Shannon Jung.

Jung contends (and I agree) that "food and eating are important avenues toward understanding God's presence in the world." He talks about our hunger, our bodies, the gift of food and the importance of both enjoying and sharing it. Might be worth the read.

I'll end with a couple of thoughts from Jung's opening chapter (before I head off to the kitchen). "My fear is that the foundational meaning of eating and drinking may be lost, both the experience of eating and also what Christians understand about food when they say grace or celebrate the Eucharist... Celebrating the Lord's Supper is an invitation into Jesus' death and resurrection. It is no coincidence that this invitation comes at the table that meets our deepest hunger. This table also celebrates our ability to give - to live out to some extent the gracious giving-ness of God - and thus express hope for the world."

Peace...