LIFESTYLE
SIMPLE, HEALING,
COOKING ENERGY BY MICHELLE SKALLY DOILNEY (SHE/HER)
I
t started with my co-worker Sera. December deadlines smashed into holiday expectations, life a mash-up of thin Minnesota nice on the outside and messy mess on the inside. Snow slush both ways in work traffic, slacks over long underwear over nylons to keep warm in joyless custard-colored cubicles. Twentythree years ago, Sera stopped by my workstation with a Bell jar in her hand. Then, my life changed. Bright orange behind glass, lid capped in checked gingham. She wished me Happy Holidays and gave me the jar, index card attached with a curled red ribbon. “This is my family’s favorite Turkish recipe,” she told me, her dimpled smile bringing me out of my email fog. “It’s so easy,” she said. “It’ll warm and soothe you.” She didn’t ask me to try it, to report back. She just turned her sunshine-self back into the fluorescent hallway, back to 47,000 tests (yes, 47,000) she’d written to make or break the software we worked on together with our team. I looked closer. Lentils. Lentil soup recipe. As a vegetarian, I should have danced in my 5x7 space. But I didn’t like lentils, not at all. Love and respect for Sera outweighed my lentil-aversion. Within two weeks, I made the recipe. I fell in love with red lentils. I’ve cooked this soup hundreds of times. Wintertime warmth, summertime simplicity, under-the-weather comfort, and especially when I felt too tired to forage in the fridge for food. At some point, I let go of the recipe and made it from experience and from my
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heart. I modified it to different dietary needs of my diners. I made extra batches to give away when I couldn’t find words. Sera didn’t just share her family recipe with me, she shared the soul of the soup, adding me to this generational lineage. The tree of Turkish Mercimek now had my branch rooted up through the trunk, sharing the recipe and soup as often as I could. Soup still connects me to Sera, her family, generations before her, and now to the people I’ve fed into this culinary forest.
We bring ourselves to a communal cooking forest. When we pay true attention, we’re no longer sitting separately under shade or sunshine, we are alive and connected. Food is food. But it is also energy. Not just energy according to nutritional charts on the sides of packages, but energy we radiate as we cook, as we plate, as we
bring silverware towards our faces. How do you deepen a recipe and turn food into nourishment for body and soul? How do you do that if what cooking time you have is also time you use to think about how much ingredients cost, will they eat it, why did I say that today, did I forget to text back, are the stains on my clothes obvious or can I wear them again? Even, who am I, like really? My experiences and teachings from Himalayan cooking classes I took truly taught me how to make food. My teachers taught me to attend to food as I prepped and cooked. “Attend” means being in the moment, focusing on food with whatever calm one finds. To calm further, I shoosh my mind by breathing deeply through my nostrils from my belly. Let go of what just happened or what might happen next. If I cut onions, all I do is cut onions. If I sort rocks out of dry rice, I feel rice with my skin, making sure nothing would crack my teachers’ teeth. I don’t have to be happy or perfect, I only mind the food and mind my mind. I learned to chop, stir, and serve with compassion. I didn’t realize the power of this prep until I ate at restaurants where cooks argued, words and energy spilling into food and people. It took me many meals before I connected the people prepping food to how I felt when I ate it. After decades of cooking, lessons, and eating, I know WE are the main ingredient. How you feel and what you think while you prepare food affects body, mind, heart, soul. Yet, no pressure! If you go in many directions when cooking (which includes pulling pre-prepped food together), just breathe and refocus when you remember. Working on this article, I realized I always did my best when cooking for others. I was blind about making food for and caring for myself. I thank Sera for opening my heart to this healing soup. I thank this writing process for showing me I am just as important as any person I feed. Energy is energy. Open your mind and heart to the many levels. Infuse love as you feed yourself and others, even if the phone chirps while you’re stirring the pot. +
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