food is a doorway....

...pick your passion- mine is food- and use it as your doorway...it's a doorway into understanding the world you live in- getting inside of people, places, and cultures....eating is the most prevalent shared activity that happens to every single living being on earth. you cannot live without eating and drinking. -lynne rossetto kasper


i will proudly admit that i make dinner nearly every night that my daughter is with me. in our house we take playtime, nap time, and eating very seriously. i love watching my daughter out of the corner of my eye, peeking from behind me to see what exactly is going on with that marinated chicken. i love it when she sneaks handful after handful of the perfectly julienne peppers that are sitting on the cutting board. i love that she secretly eats the organic butter straight-up, hold the bread. mostly i love watching her eat. the way she dives into her gorgonzola mashed potatoes. how she disregards her spoon altogether when she is power eating peas. i have even seen her eat whole cucumbers as though they were apples.

last night adalin was leaning on the open fridge door, pondering its contents, before declaring the need for a snack. the contents of our fridge vary, but last night there was a bowl of freshly made cookie dough waiting to be baked. i imagined addie diving in face first. instead she reached for cheese. food is a doorway into understanding the world in which we live. food helps people connect. without food, my daughter and i would not spend an hour or so every night hassling each other as dinner was being prepared. i would never have guessed that cheese would be the snack choice of a hungry 3 year old, when cookie dough was readily available. i would never know about gooey geysers, unicorns that eat rainbows, or penguino the penguin over our dinner time chats. in our busy lives, filled with busy days, i highly suggest indulging in food. not just food, but also the process of preparing it. think of italian mamas making homemade pasta as they sit around drinking table wine and relentlessly gossip and laugh. these are the moments. live them.