food.

i'm curled up on the couch in my room at the guest house, eating my favorite combo (yogurt + fruit + cereal = perfection in endless variety), and reading recipe blogs. food is so awesome. we've had a mixed relationship, and only recently i have really come to love, embrace, and savor the beauty of food. apples. eggplant. tomatoes. peaches. swiss chard. bok choy. black beans. red beans. rice. not to mention cheeses. cherries. and always, chocolate.

each ingredient in a recipe brings its own unique flavor. mixing and matching them takes your tastebuds from one continent to another. like cilantro and its progeny, cumin - so essential to cuisine in latin america, southeast asia, and north africa. go figure.

the best thing, though, is how food so quickly becomes more than just food. a meal prepared for friends becomes the foundation for community-building. friendships are forged through food - whether that's grabbing lunch with a co-worker or grabbing a donut in the parish hall after church. food - it's collection, preaparation, and service - plays a central role in every culture on earth, past or present, and it's hard to deny that mystical bond in the kitchen, as i slice onions like countless women and men have sliced onions, since onions were first discovered/cultivated/eaten.

baking bread is like that, too. there's a slow magic to how the dough rises, a sort of intoxicating goodness in the smell of yeast, and again that connectedness to others through the moment of floury, arm-exhausted satisfaction of finally getting your loaf in the oven.

for the past few weeks, the readings in mass have been from luke's gospel - the section on jesus as the bread of life. it can't be more aptly timed, as the book take this bread by sara miles sort of fell into my lap a week or so ago, thanks to my mom. the book is an intimate look inside the moment/journey of conversion that this irreverent, gay, activist female experiences. it is beautiful in its raw emotion, and part of my soul as well as my intellect resonate strongly with her words. for one of the first times in my life, i realize how absolutely fortunate i am to have been raised with the eucharist. sara's sheer, enthralling hunger for christ's body, despite the way christian faith flies in the face of everything she previously held as truth, challenges me deeply.

i'm still chewing on this (terrible pun, i apologize, but i couldn't resist!), and hopefully will unpack more as i continue reading, but in the meantime, i've got some banana bread to make...