I have picked up cooking again.   I took a break — I mean a really long, long break but I’m back, and I am finding it so completely relaxing and pleasurable to focus on feeding my boys.    I’m not quite sure what jump started it, a mix of things I think.   I watched great friends cooking in France with such ease and was reminded of why I loved it.    I keep telling you how much the produce on this Island means to me, but it’s true, I look forward to these ingredients all year.  I also was reminded of this passion which had been dampened in the chaos of life after writing a little piece on my time with Alice Waters last spring.

Last, I have a reading from my cousin’s wedding stuck in my head (it was at the beginning of this month).   Simple, amusing and true, it has stuck with me.  I’m sure that many of you have read it or heard it but just in case, here it is:

  Most of what I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten.  Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandpile at Sunday school.

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These are the things I learned:

Share everything.
Play fair.
Don’t hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.

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Live a balanced life –
Learn some and think some
And draw and paint and sing and dance
And play and work everyday some.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out into the world,
Watch out for traffic,
Hold hands and stick together.
Be aware of wonder. 

— Robert Fulghum

I bring it up in the context of this post because it seems particularly relevant:  the importance of simple pleasures, doing something just because, doing things with love, supporting neighbors, and the earth, and farmers, and friends, and soaking up the delights of this life, delicious food, company, singing and dancing.   So many of these things happen in or around the kitchen,  and so I am planning to spend some more time in there.  With love, xx

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(And for those of you who were anticipating a pie and were given a poem instead, here is an easy one for crumble — I love blueberries and peaches xxx)