This And That

Spices, pulled pork “debris,” and living seasonally

Journal: 7 January, 2025, morning.

From The Palace Cafe this morning:

“The definition of comfort food - Cochon De Lait Potato Pie made with pulled pork debris, whipped potato, wilted spinach, aged red Leicester cheese and onion gravy.”

“…pulled pork *debris*…”

I love the ingenuity (honesty?) of food writers. 😁

Good morning to all of you out there on this chilly Tuesday. We followed the time honored custom of Ohioans last night: we put the big pot of sauce out on the screened porch to cool and keep until this morning because the refrigerator was too full to hold it and it was colder outside than the refrigerator would have been anyway. Later this morning I will divvy it up and freeze it unless Tom intervenes. He would willingly eat it all week but it’s wonderfully satisfying to have good food waiting in the freezer. That’s why we like to cook big amounts: cook once, eat many times. Or you can share with friends, which is always fun.

I’m thinking about spices this morning. Standing in the pantry, looking at the wall spice rack, I see cloves, coriander, curry powder, fennel seed, smoked paprika, cumin, cayenne pepper, turmeric, white pepper, cardamom, herbs de province, anise, paprika, Greek seasoning, chili powder, Hungarian hot paprika, thyme, sage, cream of tartar, allspice, tarragon, crushed red pepper, nutmeg, ginger, red pepper, mustard seed, ground super fine mustard seed, gumbo filet, cinnamon, cilantro, dill weed, bay leaves, oregano, and basil.

Spices, loved and treasured for ages. The Silk Road, the Spice Route, ancient and full of mystery and riches. What I keep so casually in the pantry was once highly coveted and expensive and difficult to obtain. Used mostly for special occasions, if at all.

We can grow our own fresh herbs, some more easily than others (I always have a pot of Basil) and we can harvest and hang them to dry and preserve them for the long winters’ meals, and that’s tremendously satisfying for some of us, so much more so than picking a container off the shelf at H-E-B. Most of us are nowhere near the beginnings of the food chain and most of us are perfectly fine with that.

Growing up I rarely ate any processed food. Almost everything we ate was “from scratch,” grown in our own garden. My grandmother churned butter and formed and shaped it in a little wooden butter mold and the finished butter turned out of the mold had a flower impression in it. Someone thought that creating a little beauty in such a utilitarian object was a good idea and I do love that.

“What we obtain too easily we do not value.” I read that somewhere and it stuck with me.

As a child I once witnessed the dispatching of a chicken for the pot and I couldn’t bear to think about eating chicken for a long, long time. I still think about that. We all want to enjoy food but we don’t all want to be instrumental and involved in what’s required to get it to the table. We just want to walk up, sit down, and eat. What does that say about us?

I’m wandering here. I do that a lot. Loosely connected thoughts that go here and there.

Spices. Variety. Richness. The food chain. Our natural world. This living planet that we inhabit, that we are just one small part of, our Spaceship Earth. Our home.

I have never thought that such separation from nature, the natural world, is a good thing. I love living seasonally. Most of our daily lives ignore that, and it’s jarring to the senses and to what our bodies want to naturally do. I think nature always rules in the end though, being impervious to our arbitrary manmade rules.

Still with me here? I’m glad you are. There doesn’t necessarily have to be a tidy finish to these ramblings. Sometimes (okay, often) I just like to think about stuff and let my mind go where it will. And this is certainly that. 🙂

Thanks for sitting in.

#journalingalife