It's a given I'd start cleaning out the closets when I should be preparing for these last few weeks of classes. But there's something so satisfying about dropping that ancient pressure cooker --- or fake mink collar so beloved by my most flamboyant grandmother --- right into the thrift store box.
Even better are the treasures lost beneath piles and piles of ... stuff. Stuff from dead relatives, forgotten vacations, past lives. A strip of embroidered and beaded cloth wrapped in yellowed tissue and labeled by my grandmother as my mother's first sewing. Plastic boxes filled with tiny seashells. Pocket sized Masonic texts with crumbling black covers.
And memories --- including this:
Somebody call for the doctor, I think I'm sick
Ain't had my medicine in over a week
My mind's fine but my body feels weak
Call the doctor, I think I'm sick
See, while alls y'alls were slam dancing, pogoing, discoing, salsaing or doing fancy footwork for rapt audiences of thousands on the stage of the Met, alls we alls were prostrate ... flat on our backs ... barely moving.
For us, verging on comatose local hero J. J. Cale was The Man.
I mean, not to diss other local heroes, especially those with good hair, like Tommy Wildcat, who actually lives pretty darned close to me.
But J. J.'s special, despite losing the Battle of Good Hair. J. J. exemplifies a way of being and doing which has nothing to do with expertise and cell phones and Blackberries and Celebrity Chefs and "let me tell you how to do it."
J. J.'s the original slow cooker. J. J. was doing Slow Food before there was even a Slow Food.
Slow Food
Just in case you've spent the past few years living under a rock, the Slow Food movement is an international phenomenon dedicated to freeing us from The Fastlane, The Machine and The Hamster Wheel, in part through rededicating ourselves to the sensual life.
Oh my puritan ears! The sensual life? For shame!
Well, not so fast. If you read their website, you'll find their manifesto, which states:
A firm defense of quiet material pleasure is the only way to oppose the universal folly of Fast Life.
May suitable doses of guaranteed sensual pleasure and slow, long-lasting enjoyment preserve us from the contagion of the multitude who mistake frenzy for efficiency.
Our defense should begin at the table with Slow Food.
Let us rediscover the flavors and savors of regional cooking and banish the degrading effects of Fast Food.
In the name of productivity, Fast Life has changed our way of being and threatens our environment and our landscapes. So Slow Food is now the only truly progressive answer.
The Slow Food movement celebrates biodiversity, local and homegrown foods, community, slo-o-o-o-owness and, of course, dinner.
It's about jumping off the hamster wheel --- or refusing to get on it in the first place. It's about chopping your own onions and growing your own thyme and enjoying yourself while you do it.
It's about those crisp autumn days when it's just cold enough to fire up the wood stove --- or crockpot --- and putting a nice pot of something on to cook ... for hours. And hours. Adding a pinch here, a dash there.
It's about coming home in the evening after a day spent out in the first sunny, cold day of the season, and sharing a big bowl of homemade venison stew --- or chicken and dumplings --- or vegetable beef soup with friends and family while the sun goes down.
It's about collapsing on the sofas when it's all said and done to sit and digest and talk --- or not talk --- and just enjoy being.
It's the ultimate prehistoric pre-Texanian invasion Okie way of life.
It has nothing to do with making it all complicated, although it can be if you want it to be.
It's about K.I.S.S.
You know --- something like this:
Homemade vegetable stew, made with buffalo:
Buffalo (chuck or arm roast, or stew meat)
Onion, and lots of it (I prefer sweet yellow onion)
Tomatoes (canned will do, especially home canned)
Green beans (this is one situation when I prefer canned, but fresh are great)
White potatoes
Bay, fresh thyme, freshly ground black pepper
Put meat and chopped onion in crockpot or covered pot. Don't add water or other liquid. The goal is a nice, rich, thick, brown broth, not a thin stock.
To make the broth, don't use meat from Wal-Mart or other commercial outfits because (in addition to everything else) they inject it with a solution which will mess it all up.
Allow it to cook several hours, or until meat is starting to fall apart.
Add tomatoes --- if you use canned, add the liquid, too. Otherwise, I just throw whole tomatoes from my freezer in --- but I'm not terribly bothered by seeds and skin --- YMMV.
Add green beans. Once again, if you use canned, toss liquid in with it.
And finally, add one or two diced potatoes.
Toss in some bay and fresh thyme, or seasoning of your choice. Maybe some garlic --- maybe not. Put lid back on. Cook for several more hours.
Serve however you want.
Beginner's Mind
Becoming Slow Foodish doesn't mean abandoning civilization and living on fruits and berries.
More than anything, it's about abandoning control and understanding we're a part of something. We delude ourselves when we insist it's our inherent right as Murkans to assert our dominion over all things, and when we dedicate ourselves to this dominion --- asserting our dominance over everything from our SOs to other countries to the ingredients in our kitchens.
Maybe it's that delusion which makes us so crazy. Maybe there is no pyramid of existence of which we represent the pinnacle.
Maybe our belief that we are the best and the brightest and the fastest and everyone should listen to us dammit is the problem.
Maybe if we gave it up, we'd stop mangling ourselves and everything around us with our mania.
Maybe if we cooked and lived like there is no such thing as a perfect Alice B. Toklas tart or saffron souffle --- maybe if we'd just enjoy what we have instead of reaching for the stars! --- well, except for astronauts and physicists and such --- maybe our hamster wheels and machines would crumble before our eyes like Mordor.
But maybe not.
Whatever, cooking and living are better with a beginner's mind, with all its possibilities, unlike the expert's. Life is better when you no longer compare it with the bizarre scenarios of television, all those things we're supposed to be.
That's what J. J.'s about. That's what Slow Food's about. That's Beginner's Mind.
So where's your mind? And what are you having for dinner?
Addendum: Yes, I'm still on South Beach. Yes, it's going swimmingly!