Lord,
when you send the rain,
think about it, please,
a little?
Do
not get carried away
by the sound of falling water,
the marvelous light
on the falling water.
I
am beneath that water.
It falls with great force
and the light
Blinds
me to the light.
-Untitled from 'Jimmy's Blues and Other Poems' by James Baldwin
Delivery menu for Monday, 12/10- please have orders in by Saturday 12/8
Broth:
Smoky Tea Broth (vegan)- garlic, ginger, cloves, shiitakes and star anise among the spicy others-- all languishing in an amber colored broth brimming lush with the hillside smoke of Lapsang Souchon tea. A really sexy and cozy little elixir to sip with hot sauce + lemon for breakfast, or dip buttery toast with vegemite... or pour over rice and veggies. It's your world, fill it with pleasures of your nuanced curation!
Chicken with Cilantro, Ginger + Jalapeño- bright, spicy green and good. Sunny day flavors full of heat and fortitude for the last few weeks before Solstice comes and the light starts growing again. Ain't no stopping Nancy!
Soup of the Week:
Winter Squash with Coconut Milk, Lime, Ginger + Miso (vegan)- a real beauty from one of my original kitchen moms, Deborah Madison. The early 2000's almost killed me on squash soup due to the ubiquity of tediously puréed butternut squash and I don't do soup to squash very often. HOW. Ever. This is a spicy sexy dreamy little potage the color of gold and the flavor of many centuries of human migration and lifetimes in the fields and kitchens and sunlit struggles for safety and sovereignty. Imagine getting off a bus with no heat and a busted window halfway down the aisle that had been trudging over some blizzard whipped highway for hours while the couple behind you argued and the baby in front of you cried and the tag on your lady drawers keeps digging into your waist but you can't reach to adjust it because there really no room to move. You get off this bus and someone you love is waiting for you with a hug that lets your shoulders down, there is a warm, dry car to ride in, a great playlist for the 30 minute drive to somewhere with more love and a thermos full of spicy, creamy, gingery, tart and sweet soup that smells like the night market in Chang Rai that time when you were in love and wintering along the Mekong. You have some soup made by love and you remember everything is always changing. Soup like that, added to the menu on a new moon in Sagittarius. Let's go.
We will be making one more delivery in 2018 before we put our hair up to deep clean the kitchen, streamline the pantry and find all the missing jar lids. Then we are taking a break to organize our dreams. We will be back in January.
Heading out the door on 2018 with a bag full of ideas and a list of great questions.
Spotify sent an email to let me know which songs I listened to the most in 2018- there is a whole mess of magic from Slum Village, Janet Jackson, Eric Dolphy (we would have worn out the tape of 'Live at the Five Spot'!), Mos Def, Madlib and Luther Vandross (sis!) as well as the love songs that are everything from Fania and I can certainly tell I went on a real vacation because bachata.
It is a list of damn good songs.
The very top spot was weighted by hours of time in the car with a troop of 11 year olds- we learned every syllable of Belcalis Almanzar's fire + Bad Bunny's first verse on 'I Like It' because we listened to it one million hundred times and now I hope it has a wonderful vacation and stays rich.
Outside the summer camp commuter soundtrack, the number one spot was gloriously occupied by 'Ah-Ah/O- No' via Héctor Lavoe + Uncle Willie.
I mean. Love is real. #wontstopever
Looking over the summary of songs made my relationship with the year so much lighter.
The world is hurting and we are complicit in a number of ways and it hurts to witness and it is overwhelming and hard to stay focused on what to do each day to help.
In my sector, I had what felt like a mostly shitty year (there was a very amazing vacation that changed EVERYthing, I will not forget!) of illness, disappointment in people I kept close, internet creepers, super bad hair weeks, pretty upsetting surprises from lovers and what felt like a huge amount of professional drifting and social isolation- with confusion and an assload of depression to slow motion ride shottie around the parking lot in the wake of all that.
It just felt hard and lonely. *line forms over here, lady*
I coped unhealthily in a number of ways - you know! - but I also took some that love and longing and need to connect into the kitchen, 'Take it to the stovetop!' .... and I definitely could have taken it to yoga class more and the Blarney Stone less. All the same, we did take it to the kitchen with the intention of alchemy and offering nourishment.
This playlist is like, we did a LOT of cooking with a lot of GOOD music. This playlist is like, 'It wasn't all bullshit, Ma.'
We made nourishing broths, belly-hugging soups and one very dank loaf of faux-caccia that reminded me how much I love baking sometimes.
And there was so much really, really good music that mostly ignored and shimmied around my roster of existential maladies. Denial is a playlist.
Making all these vats of spicy, garlicky, minerally good goodness has been a blessed counterpoint, a cool breeze for a hot mess of a moment in time and a true gift in each of my weeks that was healing and heart-filling.
Cooking has always kept me sane, grounded and alive. Being in the kitchen for Neblina's this year has been a really lucky break. Thank you.
I hope each week you've been able to feel the love put into every order. It was a ritual on behalf of getting over to walk in that kitchen every Sunday.
Refusing to wallow, I made a point of getting right in my breath and my space before each session. I burned palo santo and put together a playlist so the vibes got high while the water, heat and gifts from the earth became new things to eat. I went in determined to make something good.
Thank you each of you who have ordered, supported, told a friend about and shared our soups and broths. Bone water gang! You have made my little dreams finally break ground and I am so excited to see what the hell this will be.
Thank you.
This end of year gimmick from a streaming service has brought me a moment of genuine thanks to give. Giving thanks for the greatness of good people, for the ability and privilege to share ourselves and our good things, our good luck to be able to eat when we are hungry, the miracle a safe home with a working kitchen.... and for all the music.
Thank you for being a part of it, you really saved my ass this year and I can't wait to see what we build in the coming tomorrows.
For the Love,
K
