On Nourishing

Tyler and Aly by Nirav Patel

AMAZING mini tacos photo by Nirav Patel

photo of pregnant me, eating those mini tacos, also by Nirav Patel

This summer we went up to Healdsburg for Aly and Tyler’s wedding. As you can see above, it was a seriously beautiful day.  What you can't see is the warm, squishy love I felt the entire time. Those guys are solid gold, and they know how to make a girl feel loved - even at their own wedding. As I ate The Most Delicious Mini-Tacos Ever Made, I thought of this article by the fine people at roomforty, which Aly and I talked about a few months before her wedding.

So many aspects of an event serve to elevate the host or guest of honor, but food is the one aspect that truly nourishes the guest. Food is where you return the favor. Food is where you nurture those that came to celebrate you. 

Aly and Tyler totally nailed it. Those tacos made me feel SUPER loved. I wish I were eating fifteen of those babies right now. Omg.

britt

Family Pictures

Every Thanksgiving my grandpa Stokes brings out old pictures of our relatives, and he tells us a few stories. It’s a tradition I look forward to every year. Lately I’ve been thinking about Thanksgiving during my first year of law school in the context of this amazing article. Waiting for dinner to start, I picked up one of the photo albums and flipped through pictures of my grandparents camping with their siblings, my uncles in the bathtub, my parents’ wedding. I was overwhelmed by a feeling of belonging in a family narrative, even though I was only in a handful pictures (in which I always seemed to be wearing baggy overalls and acne).

I’ve been thinking about how I can teach our wee babe what it means to be part of our Perry Family. I want him to see that his life is tied to a much bigger heritage, filled with farmers, explorers, and good, kind people. Family pictures, I hope, will be a big part of that education. So, to that end:

• A few weeks ago I ordered a book through Artifact Uprising. We picked our favorite pictures from the last big vacation that Chris and I took before we become a family of three. The pictures above are from our hike to the top of Mount Slemish. The book itself is nothing special, but I hope it will be a good little book for little hands. 
• This week I narrowed down pictures from our wedding for a small wedding album, and I'm planning to order a Kolo album when their 11x14 albums get back into stock. We also got an 8x10 of my favorite picture from our wedding to hang up in the house. 
• Since we’ll have a little more time with our families this Christmas (yay for paternity leave), I’m hoping to spend time going through our family scrapbooks so that I can bring back copies of my favorite pictures of our siblings, our parents, and our grandparents. Hopefully we'll have enough to put together a simple photo album and frame a few for around the house.

britt

Gathering for Thanksgiving

This is Chris and my brother, Spencer, on Thanksgiving 2011 - the day Chris met my family for the first time. 

Back when I thought I was a philosophy major, I took a class called Philosophy of Food. One of my favorite discussions was on Albert Borgmann’s “focal practice” theory. To give an oversimplified summary, focal practices are things like reading, playing instruments, exploring nature, gardening, and – here is the topical one – the family feast.

I spent this week re-reading my favorite sections of Borgmann’s books, and his language on eating together is some of the most beautiful stuff I’ve ever read. He talks about the gathering power of the family feast. Grandmother, father, sister, child – all come together at a particular moment to invest in the family. We gather ingredients, memories, culinary and social skills, and then we literally and symbolically nourish each other. Obviously it is a huge investment of time and resources, but once the investment is made, there are extraordinary payoffs.

In the warmth of these focal celebrations we are grounded to our past and surrounded by the people we hope to be with us in the future. Our lives become oriented, and an almost reverential sentiment arises. Borgmann says, “When reality and community conspire in this way, divinity descends.” It’s graceful and genuine and, sure, it seems like a lofty goal for a regular Thursday night, but there’s one Thursday every year where this glamorized form of dining really shines: Thanksgiving.

And so Thanksgiving dinner is what I’m thankful for this year. I'm thankful for the countless scoops of mashed potatoes, the steamed up kitchen windows, the orange shag carpet, and my Grandpa's tearful prayers over the food and his posterity. I'm thankful for those cherished Thursday nights that have long-since faded to the place where beautiful memories go to live.

britt

p.s. This is the first Thanksgiving dinner (ever) that I won't be eating at my Grandma's house. So. Indulge a little cheese, please.

Apples & Autumn Rituals

In my first year of law school, my property professor held a review session on a reading day, and she brought us snacks as a peace offering for that extra morning of class. That was the first time I had Gravenstein apple juice from Berkeley Bowl. Since then, I’ve made a special trip over to the East Bay each year to pick up a gallon or two of autumn-in-a-jug.

Pumpkins seem to be the internet darling when it comes to autumn treats, but my favorite has always been apples. Every November that I can remember, my dad drove to Payson, Utah to buy an entire trailer-full of apples to take back to Idaho. That drive home – with hundreds of apples in tow – is a cherished family ritual, a ceremony of fall. It signals the transition from the harvest of summer’s bounty to the preparations for winter’s holiday season.

I think that’s why I make the effort to get to Berkeley Bowl every year: it is a way for me to continue the tradition even though I am away from my family. This year, we shared our Gravenstein apple juice over a weekend dinner with friends, and we made caramel cider syrup for our Sunday brunch. Today, I drink it in the perfect stillness of a golden October morning, and reflect on autumns past.

britt

p.s. blah blah, I’m always so serious now. Whatever. Go to Berkeley Bowl - it is food paradise. And buy this juice. Tell me all about it.

Generous Host

On Sunday, one of our best friends invited us over for dinner. We love eating at his place because he is a food wizard, and we often end up cooking some part of our meal with a blowtorch (this time it was sous-vide burgers). We call him Farmer Brown because he has a beautiful garden, and every time we’re over, he’ll quietly ask us if we could use a few eggplants or if we would like to take home orange cherry tomatoes that are practically luminescent.

This week I’ve been thinking about generosity as an inherent part of hospitality – and I saw that in action on Sunday. There was more than enough for us to eat, yet no ostentation. He pulled out all the stops for our visit, but appeared wholly unburdened by the occasion. Most of all, his demeanor and conversation made us feel like our time together was a genuine pleasure for him personally.

And if I could grow up to be anything, I’d like to be like that; I’d like to be a generous host.

britt

Invincible Summer

Potatoes for Sunday's pot roast

I know everyone is in back-to-school mode. I know. But for the first time since I was a wee babe, I'm not going back to school. And yesterday before church, Chris and I woke up early and walked barefoot into the kitchen to get a pot roast ready for lunch. He cut up the onions while I stood at the sink peeling carrots, and I felt the lightness of summer as I looked out our window into the quiet morning.

Since May I have been daydreaming about that idyllic summer of youth. Where, if you want to, you can read all the Sherlock Holmes stories. You could camp every weekend. Or pick raspberries with your family and make jam every single night. The world is filled with wonder and old friends. Courtesy of the California Bar Examination, my summer 2013 resembled “summer” in no way, but now I’m going to take my Librarian White skin into the sunlight, and cram an entire summer into the month of August.

I’m most excited about finally having the luxury of spending quality time to gather together the people and ingredients and places that I love. It’s finally time to invite our friends over for dinner, have movie marathons, and take a kayak down the river.

It’s time to make the most of being together again.

britt