Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.

There's something very satisfying about making your own food. I don't eat out a whole lot in the Burque but at the same time, I don't do a whole lot of "cooking" either. I do a great deal of assembling... you know: sandwich making, quesadilla building, can opening, mac and cheese stirring. I love to cook but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to cook an entire lasagna for just little ol' me. And we all know how I hate left overs!

Anyhoo, as I was saying, there is something deeply satisfying about going to the grocery store and wandering through the produce aisle, picking up strange and unfamiliar fruits and vegetables, buying beautiful cuts of meat or poultry and then taking the whole lot home and throwing everything into a pot to simmer. The making and enjoying of food is something that is soothing and familiar to me. I grew up in a house where we ate dinner together every night. When all of us kids where living outside of the state, we planned our trips home based on what we wanted to eat. My family still gathers and bonds over meals so food has always been something supremely joyful to me. Good food meant home and family and love and laughter.

One of my favorite books is Like Water for Chocolate and it's a book I recommend to anyone who loves food and cooking as much as I do. The book suggests that whatever emotional state you are in while cooking will have its effect on the food, good or bad. My favorite scene depicts the novel's heroine Tita crying into the cake batter she makes for her sister's wedding to the man she loves. Tita's tears fall into the cake and infuse the cake with a sense of loss and longing so intense that every wedding guest who eats the cake is so overcome with these feelings, they leave the wedding crying or vomiting from the great losses of love that each person has felt.

Cooking food for another person, in my opinion, goes far beyond just feeding an appetite. Taking the time to roast a chicken, braise a stew, or bake a batch of cookies says "I care about you enough to make something for you with my own hands, the hard way, the long way because you deserve more for dinner or lunch or breakfast than something that comes out of a can or the microwave." As silly as it sounds, it's a tangible bit of proof that you are cared about.

I have an inherent trust for people who can cook or bake. It says to me that these folks understand the way the world works and what the human body needs to survive. In my experience, people who can't cook cannot take care of themselves let alone another person. You don't even have to have an extensive repertoire or exceptional knife skills! You don't even have to be very good! You just have to have desire to nourish yourself and others.

So to everyone who reads this blog, I urge you to head out to the store and wander around those aisles looking for some strange and foreign ingredients. Take your cart past the box dinners and frozen food because I can guarantee that you can make you own pizza or mac and cheese or meatloaf or whatever and that it'll cost about the same and be exponentially more satisfying because you made it with your own hands. So get out there, start cooking and enjoy the fruits of your labors.