fasting, or not

According to one authority, to fast means:

1.a. intr. To abstain from food, or to restrict oneself to a meagre diet, either as a religious observance or as a ceremonial expression of grief.

b. with mention of the kind of spare diet permitted. Const. on; †formerly also in, to, with, and quasi-trans. in phrase to fast bread and water.

2.a. gen. To go without food. †Also (contextually) to go without drink. Const. from.

b. Irish Hist. to fast against, upon (a person): said with reference to the custom of sitting without food or drink at the door of a debtor, or any person who refused to satisfy some lawful demand.

c. quasi-trans. in various nonce-uses.

d. trans. To cause to fast or be without food.

3. trans. To pass (time) fasting; to keep or observe (a day, etc.) as a time of abstinence. Also, to fast out. Obs.

According to another trustworthy authority: “The Church defines this [fasting] as one meal a day, and two smaller meals which if added together would not exceed the main meal in quantity. Such fasting is obligatory on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. The fast is broken by eating between meals and by drinks which could be considered food (milk shakes, but not milk). Alcoholic beverages do not break the fast; however, they seem contrary to the spirit of doing penance.” The Church doesn’t approve of liquid dinners, though this article rightly points out that while there are guidelines for fasting during Lent, there isn’t a cookie cutter mold or one right way to do it. The practice is contextual, not absolute; “good fasting” will look differently from person to person. If you’re wondering whether you’re doing it right, I like this baseline rule: “If you feel as if you are cheating, you probably are.” Guilt is a powerful, revealing thing.

Last year, I observed Lent for the first time by giving up processed foods. I wrote a few entries on the experience, which ended up being a mixed bag. It got off to a rough start, as Lent apparently started before I realized it had. But I valued the opportunity to re-establish some of the connective tissue between myself and the natural products I consumed, and I was grateful for the excuse to struggle with what “processed foods” means in the first place. In the end, though, I questioned the idea of “giving up” something in favor of the inverse notion of “giving toward,” and wondered whether framing my Lenten resolution around the latter would have led to a more fulfilling, less frustrating experience.

At any rate, I’ve decided not to abstain from anything this season, and will content myself to continue pursuing the paths of mindfulness, happiness, and creative expression that I’ve recently discovered. In reflection, I think a lot of my life thus far has involved abstinence of sorts, and I’m willfully shunning that mindset for the time being. So, bring on the Girl Scout cookies — I have 18 years worth of catching up to do.

One meal, one person: who would you choose?

For me, certainly not George Washington. In light of this article I read last week, I’d be too disturbed thinking about what was going on inside his mouth. But that got me wondering what historical figure I would most want to have a meal with. Certainly it would have to be someone who enjoys food: perhaps a hedonistic French monarch (he would be hosting, of course); or maybe Napoleon, if he could spare a moment from taking over the world; or someone who could teach me a thing or two while we ate, someone like Brillat-Savarin or Claude Levi-Strauss. Confucius would be a good bet to have an enlightening repast with; Buddha, too, and based on his girth, I’m sure he could keep up with me. If I had to choose a contemporary food network celeb, I’d be tempted to go with the ever good-natured Ina Garten; it’d be tough, though, since Ted Allen and Alton Brown both tickle the nerd in me. (Jeffrey Steingarten does not.) One could not be blamed for wanting to wine and dine leaders like Obama, inventors like Thomas Edison, luminaries like Steve Jobs, artists like Michelangelo or Monet. Ah, the possibilities..though, as long as my dining companion was someone with whom I could eat without abandon, have a good laugh and a meaningful conversation, it wouldn’t matter what worldly accomplishments s/he brought to the table. It could just as well be someone history did not remember.

If you could have an intimate meal with one person (or character), who would it be?

p.s. – some more presidential food facts for your feeding pleasure.

Hot or not?*

Definitely hot. Who else rocks post-40 like that? He’s in good company with Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt. And Classy McClass, of course:

examiner.com

The above NYT article profiles a model who walked away from the industry and turned instead to a life of yoga and ayurvedic health. Ayurveda sounds similar to Chinese traditional medicine (and other Eastern health traditions, I imagine) in that it categorizes foods as “hot” and “cold” based on amorphous “essential properties.” He recently wrote a book entitled, The Guru in You, in which ginger and ghee are praised, while oil and microwaves are given handsome’s thumbs down. “Now and then Mr. Alborzian drinks a teacup full of ghee, or rubs a dab of it inside his nostrils.” Sexy.

The article ends on this note:

Doesn’t such an intensity of dietary awareness prevent him from just enjoying food?

“Food has now become a burden to us,” he said. “A lot of people don’t look forward to life anymore. They just look forward to food. People tell me, ‘But I love food.’ And I tell them, ‘You can’t love something that owns you.’ ”

–

Though it’s not for me, I admire Alborzian’s choice to pursue such a rigorously ascetic lifestyle. In general, I’m touched by people who lead mindful lives, especially since setting that same goal for myself and quickly realizing how difficult it is to make mindfulness a way of life. To be mindful for an hour or two each day, for a meal or a meditation session, is where to start, I think, but reaching the point of having woven mindfulness into the fabric of one’s existence is something altogether different. I wonder if in initial periods of mindfulness, the sort of awareness that’s being developed creates some sense of repression that seeks release in the form of you “letting yourself go”; and as one’s mindfulness matures, that counter-urge gradually dissolves (though I doubt it ever disappears). Rather than viewing mindfulness as hard and perhaps stressful, your consciousness begins to seek out that level of awareness as a lifeline for peace and happiness. Cultivating mindfulness seems pretty similar to marathon training in this light: an exercise in transforming the resting heart rate of one’s consciousness.

Alborzian’s last comment skirts the question, but I see his point. I would modify it by saying that you can love something that owns you, but that such a relationship isn’t a healthy or sustainable or, indeed, a loving one.

*Thanks to A for sending me this article.

Thoughts on Kitchen Confidential

Having finally, triumphantly, finished Middlemarch, I decided to read something lighter for a break from the heavy duty stuff.  Kitchen Confidential was the first book I thought of, and given my natural interests in books, food, and the restaurant industry, I’m surprised I didn’t check it out earlier.  Once I started reading, I barely stopped until I was finished, feeling compelled to continue even in an intoxicated, spicy nacho-ed out state.  The last book I remember devouring this voraciously was Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code.  While not a suspense thriller, it is nevertheless thrilling in the sense that it often invokes horror and disgust.  I think KC borrows a lot conceptually from Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London. Both are composed of experiences of and reflections on life on the margins.  Both find great, rich material in the characters and circumstances the authors encounter, and for both, description is key: infusing details with vitality and significance, whether it is the size of a rat or the flavor of fresh pasta.  They also share a similar, straightforward narrative style, not nonchalant, just no bullshit.

For Bourdain, life as he knows it seems to start with the taste of his first raw oyster in France, which opens up a lifetime of adventure, chaos, and belonging.  His tales are entertaining, and for a food-interested person, the specificity with which he discusses dishes and ingredients is an added bonus.  But the book really is about his journey of self-discovery — and in all its fucked-up craziness, there are, one must concede, discernible slivers of inspiration, ambition, and passion.  And aside from his excessive fondness for the phrase “such as it was,” the book is inoffensively written, even lyrical at times, as when he compares the innumerable, overlapping scars on his hands to layers of an ancient city.  One of my favorite parts of the book is when he discusses the kind of bantering that filled the kitchens where he worked.  Vulgar would be a timid way to describe the kitchen talk he describes.  Every other word is “dick” or “fuck,” usually followed by [insert minority of choice].  But, he points out, the verbal spewing really is only chatter, a sort of patois — in the kitchen, as long as you can hold your own, it doesn’t matter what you be, who you are, your criminal record, your citizenship status, your sex preferences — all that matters is that you can do your job.  Chances are, everyone around you is a misfit, too, as arguably only a misfit would willingly endure the hellish quality of life that comes with working the line.  A misfit, or someone demented enough to follow a dream.

Along the road, Bourdain also offers insider tips on restaurant dining –i.e., what not to order (seafood on Mondays, steak well-done), what things are pre-cooked or rip-offs ($8 garlic bread)– and hates on many a food celebrity.  It appears that the likes of Sandra Lee and Guy Fieri are a plain embarrassment to food culture, criticized perhaps for taking food too lightly, in his eyes.  Part of me agrees that food lacks meaning, or something like gravitas — and I, too, abhor Sandra Lee’s food personality, though for different reasons.  But surely we can’t all exalt food the way he and his brethren do, and can ill-afford to, in terms of time or money or emotional investment.  In recent weeks I’ve been wary of the extent to which I prioritize food, even idolize it, I suspect, and regular readers will probably have intuited the effects of this recognition on my blogging output.  It’s sad but true that for most people, many waking hours are spent trying to realize, and then maintain, a balanced appreciation for it, an appreciation that is susceptible to the cyclical and seasonal nature of our lives.  For those of you who identify with what I’m saying, know that you’re not alone, and that acknowledging the struggle is not an admission of defeat, that we are all, like Bourdain, on our own twisted paths of self-discovery.

“Kill all your darlings”

I’ve spent nearly all of my free time for the past two weeks writing a short story that will soon be workshopped in my fiction class.  When I was in secondary school, and maybe even through my freshman year of college, I associated “good writing” with extravagant rhetorical flourishes, fine turns of phrase, and basically stringing together the largest polysyllabic words I could fit side by side, sentence after sentence, page after page.  I don’t know when exactly I realized that these occurrences are no more an indication of good writing than an essay’s word count or a clean spelling & grammar check.  I am fond of that version of my writerly self and see her as an essential step in my personal development; plus, I learned some big and interesting words during those years, words like “antediluvian” and “peregrination.” Those were the years I truly discovered an appreciation and a passion for words themselves. In the thrill of this discovery, I inevitably used some of them more than I should have and certainly in places where they didn’t belong.  But that period of toying with different words — using them incorrectly, inappropriately, testing them out, trying them on — that period enabled me to begin cultivating a stinginess with language, something I now believe is inherent to good writing. I’m finding it ever true for myself that writing is, in the end, about reducing: stripping sentences bare, down to the bone, before crafting the various muscles and organs with surgical precision, taking care to trim every ounce of fat (that is, excess) that might creep into the equation.

I just started reading Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose (thanks for letting me borrow it, HH). In the first chapter, she writes, “For any writer, the ability to look at a sentence and see what’s superfluous, what can be altered, revised, expanded, and, especially, cut, is essential.  It’s satisfying to see that sentence shrink, snap into place, and ultimately emerge in a more polished form: clear, economical, sharp.”

Here’s another excerpt, this one from my class handbook, Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft: “Perhaps the most famous piece of advice to the rewriter is William Faulkner’s ‘kill all your darlings.’  When you are carried away with the purple of your prose, the music of your alliteration, the hilarity of your wit, the profundity of your insights, then chances are you are having a better time writing than the reader will have reading…Just tell the story.  The style will follow of itself if you just tell the story.”*

I don’t tend to do much editing when I write blog posts.  This forum is informal and not the place to “put every word on trial,” as Prose’s friend put it.  Since blogging is a sort of storytelling, I at least try to write in  engaging, vivid, and clear terms.  That itself takes time and a not insignificant amount of editing as I go along.  But my primary focus as TLG is not to write well, though I hope that occasionally happens.  These words are not going to be published or evaluated.  Of course I think (sometimes a lot) about what I write, and I do aim to project a certain writing style.  But once a post is done, it’s done.  I rarely return to one unless I notice grammatical or blatant errors.  Blogging is a form of stress-relief, and I don’t want the burden or challenge of perfecting my writing here.

But I suppose I am saying that clarity and reduction are at the forefront of my mind, and not only at the level of language.  I’m sure we all go through these phases of recognition when we realize our lives aren’t working.  I’ve stumbled into that dull, nagging sensation that something is wrong or off or missing.  When I get this feeling, I usually discover that the solution involves some degree of simplification.  I’m a minimalist by nature, so simplifying can be complicated.  But even so, it’s clear to me that sometimes I need to be less, want less, have less (often in combination with needing, being, wanting something different) in order to experience greater fulfillment.

This tomato sauce is for those times when you are compelled to rise up against the superfluous in your life.

Fruit: before a meal, after, or during?

When I was growing up, fruit was always something my family ate after dinner: apples, oranges, grapes, strawberries, asian pears.  My dad is partial to bananas, my mom to grapefruit, and I can’t recall my brother taking the initiative to eat a piece of fruit.  But I never really thought of eating fruit before a main course, or incorporating it into a tapas-like dish or appetizer.  It is a sensible idea, though– varied, nutritious, delicious, fruit doesn’t fill you up but abates the appetite.  This salad, or a salad of mixed greens dressed with strawberries and feta, or pear and goat cheese, or maybe a chilled cantaloupe soup, or for a main course, pairing fruit with your meat dishes to lighten and liven them up (chicken and mango, pork chops and citrus)– can boost and add some spark to your daily fruit consumption.  A ripened fruit in its raw, natural state can be a sublime culinary experience, and what I will always come back to at the end of the day.  But with the dawn of spring, I’m starting to think how to take better advantage of the season’s bounty, and novelty is key.  Plus, finding other ways of eating fruit gives you a chance to more fully appreciate it in its raw form — how texture changes as it’s cooked, how its flavor enhances other ingredients.  I also spotted this simple strawberry fro yo recipe that I’m itching to try, especially now that the weather is warming up. Happy Easter weekend!

Lent: stumbling to the finish line

A couple nights ago I had a slice of cake that, while fresh-baked, must have contained at least one processed ingredient.  I also recognized in retrospect that my restaurant dinner that same night (a seafood curry) probably also contained processed food, even though it was served inside a splendid ripe coconut.  I’ve decided to finish out the week before Easter, but am definitely conceding that I am dragging two weary legs to this year’s Lenten finish line.

Nevertheless, I’m thankful for the chance to reflect on this challenge, and challenging it definitely was.  Even now, I don’t think I’ve fully grasped what exactly I was giving up (which makes me think: what the heck was I doing this whole time?).  Given what I normally eat, foregoing meat would have been much easier than processed foods, and it would also have been easier in terms of defining what can/cannot be consumed.  It seems pretty obvious what “counts as” meat and what doesn’t, at least on the more unprocessed end of the food spectrum.  Whether Spam is real meat, I would not know.  However, my sense also was that giving up meat would have been a less rewarding/edifying choice as well, so that’s why I went the unprocessed foods route.

It’s relatively clear that some foods are unprocessed (fresh fruits and vegs, farm-fresh eggs), and conversely, that some are processed into oblivion (I’ll hate on Spam again).  The trouble arose in defining the foodstuffs in between; and considering that most (75%?  90%?) of what constitutes food in the modern diet exists in that fuzzy gray middle, I was constantly forced to calculate the kosher quotient of what I was about to eat.  Where was one to draw a line that was both significant and sustainable– i.e., what was that magic kosher quotient number?  I don’t know.  I was able to establish some useful criteria (no preservatives being key), but even then, I always came across food that I couldn’t categorically define, even by the no preservatives dictum.  I was trying to draw my line on the fly, and the line squiggled all over the board.

A friend’s brief post on her own experience raised a good question I think bears repeating: can, and should, our seasons of Lent be defined not by “giving up” but by “giving toward” something?  Or perhaps there’s a connection between the two that suggests they complement each other, that in fact, one cannot be done without taking into account the other.  I’m left thinking if I would feel more positively about this whole thing if I had focused less on self-deprivation and more on the giving that could stem from it.

TLG signs up for Boston Organics deliveries

Since moving to Cambridge in October, I had been considering signing up for a farm share.  However, they all looked too intimidating to me, both in price (starting around $350, most around $400-500) and sheer quantity of food.  I wasn’t sure how cost-effective it would be for me, a single person feeding mostly just myself, to get a box of produce every week.  I had visions of dumping rotting potato after potato, artichoke after artichoke, green after green after green, into the rubbish bin.  A never-ending parade of unused produce.  In addition, most CSAs ask that you pick up your produce at the farm or at some predetermined store location.  I don’t have a car and don’t fancy biking with a crate balanced on my knees, another reason why I veered away from signing up.  When all is said and done, $350 might be a bargain for a season’s worth of fresh food, but I think I’m right to assume that such an arrangement does not make logistical sense for a household of uno.

So I got very excited when a friend told me about Boston Organics.  They have flexible arrangements (you can order boxes of various sizes, with varying proportions of fruit:veg, to be delivered every week or every other week) at more than reasonable prices for organic produce, and they deliver to your doorstep.  If you want, you can also note any produce you NEVER want.  Look at this adorable bike they use to make short-range deliveries!  Anyway, I’m most pleased that I can now have fresh delicious pesticide-free foodstuffs without having to plan trips to the grocery store twice a week.  I love food shopping, but that often means it is time-consuming and distracting, and replete with temptation to spend more and buy more than I can reasonably consume.  Like today, I went intending just to buy almonds and almond extract to make cookies for Passover, and I ended up with 2 lbs of green du puy lentils and a bottle of molasses.  I’ve also heard promising stories from others about how having veg/fruit shares has enabled them to expand their cooking horizons.  Good stuff– I am psyched!  First delivery is next week.

Lent: Day 15

Hit the two week mark today.  As with most commitments, it has now evolved into a struggle not just to do, but to be mindful of the reasons I am doing.  Staying away from the obvious processed foods has become easier — no chocolate for 2 weeks is what I am most impressed with, and I realized I didnt really craved boxed cookies to begin with. There is just something so much more alluring and, well, real, about the fresh ones. My consumption of sweets has plummeted, and fruit has become the natural substitute. I recently regained an appreciation for bosc pears, which I prefer to most apples, as it turns out. I want to try baking with them sometime soon. They seem pretty similar to Asian pears, which are also so good. When I was young, my family would go out to Brooklyn to visit my cousins and my aunt would almost always greet us with a plate of Asian pears, cut up and ready to be devoured. And there were almost always more waiting in the wings.

But God knows I have not been perfect.  Far from it, and some days I also realize I have eaten things in the past that I should not have, and should have known that I should not have had I stopped to think about it.  Like any pizza that is not made with fresh cheese, which is 99% of the pizza out there.  Love Pinnochio’s but their cheese is not kicking and screaming.  So yes, no pizza not made with fresh cheese from hereon out.  I suppose one could argue that cheese, the product, is by definition a processed food, since it requires handling and altering to make.  But no unnatural ingredients need be added to make cheese (though preserving its shelf life is a different story), so what is done to it enhances and elevates the natural goodness of milk.  From my pov, what is done to milk to make cheese amounts to taking the original ingredient and creating another edible form of itself — the latter still being a wholly natural product, in its unpreserved state.  Same argument I would apply to olives.

Some days I catch myself saying no to food without remembering why, and such an action becomes pointless when that happens. The whole point is embedded in the why, and if I forget that, then I might as well eat that chocolate with the almonds and toffee bits, or ben and jerry’s chunky monkey. The challenge to forgo food for a purpose, that is tricky. I can see why sometimes vegetarians lose sight of why they don’t eat meat, and become so accustomed to doing it that eventually it loses significance. The lifestyle is no longer a gesture of defiance or resistance or a statement. I find that a sad place to be and I can see myself trickling toward that, and it is difficult to actively recall one’s motives. Some philosopher said man is his desires, but I think we can just as easily be our habits. In fact, that might be the more predominant state of existence, complacency. It’s a bitch to live for something.

Lent: Day 6

I think I’ve been holding up well. I really enjoy discussing my commitment with others because it gives me a chance to think more about and better articulate what I am doing. For one, I’ve realized that processed does not equal preserved. So canning, dehydrating, pickling, freezing and other such forms of preservation that do not involve processing food with unnatural ingredients are kosher. In fact, I admire the way us humans have resourcefully discovered such diverse forms of preserving food. There is nothing wrong with finding ways to make food last longer, as long as the food isn’t zapped with non-food in the process. Eating fresh, raw food may be the ultimate ideal, and maybe it’s something to strive for, but it’s not the regimen that would keep me happiest and most fulfilled. I think most people would agree with me on that.