what to cook when the world is burning

I'm in my vegetarian slop era, it's better than it sounds

This week, I’m sharing something new. A meditation on cooking for regulating our nervous system. Especially when things feel excruciatingly, impossibly hard.

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I LOVE the cover.

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When my nervous system deregulates, I find it challenging beyond belief to cook nourishing foods. In fact when all shit hits the proverbial fan, I lean into the ample stash of Lipton Onion Soup mix that I keep in my basement, and pull together some creme fraiche and said soup for dipping potato chips. Either that, or a homemade stovetop popcorn.

It’s anything other than elegant or nourishing. But it does the trick for ‘quick food’ and it feeds a deep, tender longing for simpler times that lies within me.

Since the fires in LA began raging, my entire system has been hyper alert. On edge. Teetering. I have watched on, in horror, as a place I have called home was ravaged to it’s edges. I have colleagues upon colleagues who have lost their homes. Clients. Friends. They are in the dozens.

And I sit here in France just staring in abject horror. Fires. Fascism. It’s just…a lot right now. And I know you’re likely feeling it too.

But amid all of this, I have to stay grounded somehow.

I’m in the middle of planning a book tour.
I am in the middle of opening a restaurant in a foreign land.
The government that I know in my home is tip toeing ever so un-gracefully (full stop, this is sarcasm, it is anything but graceful) into fascism, and the government that now governs my day to day is following suit ever steadily in some strange turn of events that I am still perplexed by.

It is in these moments that I must stop.

I must take a moment.

I must actually, for the love of all things holy, feed myself. And those that I love. Even when it feels nigh impossible.

When I am in these moments, I flee to my pantry. To stare. To ponder. To evoke a bit of love. To see what calls to me in a moment of floundering.

I know in my pantry I have chickpeas, this is my go-to ‘I am too upset to cook, but I need some nourishment’ trick. It’s something I have always done, I always keep 4-6 cans of chickpeas as my ‘just in case’ meal. I also keep lentils, in various colors for the same reason.

But chickpeas are my versatile staring place, especially when cooking feels hard.

Once I realize it is time for a vegetarian dish with chickpeas as it’s foundation, I need to decide my colorway. Chickpeas are colorless in essence, and provide a raw linen canvas fit for a beginning. I find that treating food like a strange painting works wonders in moments like this. I survey my pantry and fridge to see what jumps out at me for a sauce base. Red is a sauce filled with tomatoes (canned or fresh, it matters not) and red peppers? Green? Spinach and fresh herbs Orange? Sweet potatoes, turmeric, orange bell pepper.

I pick a color based on the paints I have in my arsenal that day. I have little in my pantry and fridge. But I do have spinach and herbs on the brink of destruction. Today, my palette is green. I pick through the herbs, place whatever I have (no matter ratio) into a blender. Today it is chervil, parsley, tarragon, dill, cilantro, and some chives. I pick the leaves off that haven’t given up the ghost…yet…and into the blender they go.

The spinach is large leafed and heavy veined, I initially bought it for juicing. We’re past that point now, there remains but a pittance of what I purchased that is edible, I have once again let a bag of green wither under my watch. I pull what can be salvaged from the bag, and it joins the herbs. I grab a can of white beans, for protein, heft, and creaminess…I wanted coconut milk but I have run dry. Drain and rinse, and add to the pot. (I saved the water/aqua faba from the beans).

I pause for a moment on the sauce, I’ll have time to finish it once the base begings.

I grab a cast iron casserole, enameled. Likely my lavender gray Staub, a few quarts large. I’ll drizzle in some olive oil, and heat it until it shimmers. While it heats, I slice (not dice) some onion finely. I want diversity of flavor, size, and color on these alliums. I think wistfully about how beautiful some leeks would serve here, but succomb to the only onion I have left.

I add the onion to my pot and return to my sauce.

A bit of vinegar for brightness, a smattering of salt for seasoning, a garlic clove or two, some water to thin out the sauce so it blends easily. If I had yogurt, it would join here too. But white beans will have to do. I taste, I adjust, I play. It is bright and earthy and delicious.

My onions color, and I add my drained chickpeas to the pot. I brown my chickpeas juuuust a pit. I double check for more green paints in my fridge and freezer, and find frozen peas and snap peas. They will do.

My sauce joins my chickpeas, and peas. I simmer for a moment. A hit of cream, because I have it not, because it’s needed.

A bit more salt, a bit of thyme leaves, a hit of lime juice, a quick stir. This is the moment of meditation, attempting to find the balance of what works and what doesn’t. Not perfection, just…balance.

I ladle the mess into a bowl and tuck in.

Tomorrow is another day.
And today, this nourishment is what I can muster.
Today, this is my offering to myself and my family.
And it is more than enough.
It is plenty.