I spent some time recently sitting on the living room floor, surrounded by piles and file, blissfully sorting. I was finally willing and able to show a little love to my recipe collection and give it a little better order. I have recipes scribbled on bits of paper, torn from newspapers and magazines, printed from blogs, and received from friends and family on index cards. Some of them I’ve never tried and turns out I’m no longer interested, some are old friends I’d forgotten about, some look delectable and I can’t wait to try them out (now that I’ve unearthed them and know where they are!). I came across menus, mine as well as a few written in Owen’s childhood hand; a note from Tex telling Seth to “help himself to pumpkin bread” before doing chores, reminding me how much Owen and I used to cook together, and how much Seth loved that pumpkin bread! (Neither son lives with us anymore: Seth is 25 and Owen, 22).
So much love and thought went into feeding the family all those years, all of us contributing in one way or another, all of us making room for each other’s likes and dislikes, passions, requests, willingness to experiment. I found little clutches of recipes we took with us on summer vacation and cooked at my parents’ house in Missoula, including the following lovely recipe for French lavender lemonade (which came on an invitation to a friend’s wedding, many, many years ago).
Ask Tex, ask anyone, I absolutely have a problem with stacks of paper. I’m a packrat and I hold on to things and I think I might need them again some day even though I know perfectly well that what is actually almost probably going to happen is they’ll disappear and I’ll forget about them. Had I tossed all my recipes, which I did sometimes think about doing when the prospect of sorting through them felt too daunting, that would have been fine – I wouldn’t have known or missed what I couldn’t remember. But I do love to cook, and I knew there would be useful stuff in there, and eventually the time and space came around to where I could spread everything out and take a look.
I’ve loved a good sorting project since I was a kid (back then it was usually my comic book collection that got organized), and this one really was meaningful. Along with the above, I found recipes sent to me by Tex’s mom when we first started dating, exuding a sweet, old-fashioned “take care of my baby” vibe: “Tex loves this salad!” My aunt hand copied her mom’s recipes and sent them to me on index cards. There were lots of recipes I made up, too, like “Hippie Cauliflower Soup” and “Lamb Stew Tex Thought Was Really Good.” I sorted through were decades of nourishment.
My cream puffs, my succulent and savory beloveds, how do you feed yourself, your family, your friends, body or soul? It doesn’t have to be food. Perhaps it’s letters or cards or sweaters you knit or art you make, conversations tendered, hugs on tap. It’s endless, the care we give each other, and I know you have your own special something and somethings. Settle in for a moment today in the knowledge and appreciation of your good and generous heart.
You feed the world, you heal the world.
Femme Love Heal World.
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French Lavender Lemonade
This refreshing rosy-colored lemonade is perfumed with just a hint of the sweetness and floral scent of French lavender.
Lavender Infusion:
2 ½ cups water
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
¼ cup fresh French lavender leaves, coarsely chopped
To make the lavender insusion, combine the water and sugar in a medium saucepan. Bring the water to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Add the lavender and remove from the heat. Cover and let the infusion cool to room temperature. Strain and discard the lavender.
Lemonade:
2 ½ cups water
1 cup strained freshly squeezed lemon juice
Granulated sugar, to taste
Ice cubes
6-8 sprigs of fresh lavender, for garnish
Pour the infusion into a glass pitcher and add the water and lemon juice. Stir well, adding additional sugar is desired. Refrigerate until chilled. Just before serving, stir the lemonade again and fill the pitcher with ice. Pour into chilled glasses and garnish each serving with a sprig of lavender. Serves 6-8.
–1995 Rosalind Creasy and Carole Saville, from Herbs: A Country Garden Cookbook.
At the Total Femme, my intention is to post three times a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy-Dingy Wednesday on Wednesday, and Femme Friday on Friday. Rather than play catch-up in a stressful fashion on those weeks when life prevents posting, I have decided to just move gaily forward: if I miss a Monday, the next post will be on Wednesday, and so on. Thank you, little bottle of antibiotics for inspiring me in this! (“…if it’s almost time for the next dose, skip the missed dose and continue your regular dosing schedule. Don’t take a double dose to make up for a missed one.”) And…as I go through graduate school and life life life, I will post as I am able, Mabel.
The Total Femme 