IN THE KITCHEN is a monthly inquiry into food and cooking — tastes, plates, reflections on food and creativity, and recipes. Bring these with you into your own mornings, days, evenings, kitchens, and pair these with a journal.
A storm rolls through on a Monday midday bringing green skies, threat of tornado, and walls of rain. Within hours, the sky cleared again, like tears that pass through, and bring relief in the way of their wake. When grief arrives it blows through suddenly, too, replete with a wash of feeling, eroding, for a moment, some sense of dry ground. As the storm and the shock clear, to a glass jar I add herbs, hot water, and time— patience laden with lemon balm, motherwort, tulsi and hibiscus.
Summer expands eager. Squash blossoms appear overnight, and leaves stretch wide, and we are asked to root down in strength so as to expand ourselves and grow higher. Vaster, too—as in the view seen from the endless lake, the sunset that stretches out peach-toned and bright. Take a bite of cucumber with dill, swirl potatoes to cool, rained down with ribbons of mint. Let the season’s taste be felt through you.
July came and coated the earth in rain. Smoke painted itself into lungs, minds, and horizons for a few days. To sit upright in life is to learn to be like all that grows, full in the sense of trust and stillness. From this still place the herbs, the fruit, the trees, and tender growing leaves take form, finding opening in the steadfastness of sun. Storms rise, peak, and fade—and still, endurance of sun comes, burning off clouds into clear skies. Below, a recipe for tea, a balm to hold the heart, and a chocolate coconut pudding.