Food as Medicine

One of the problems with posting on this blog, is that I often don't have the time or patience to take a picture of whatever it is i am cooking or describing to post on the blog, so therefore i don't write at all. strange, but there you have it. For example, I just made Baerlauch (wild garlic or ramps) butter and pesto in my beautiful mortar and pestle which i received for my birthday last year. In the pesto I put Wild garlic, basil olive oil leftover from a bottle I made last year that I had put greek basil from my garden into for two months of steeping before storing, an aged goat's cheese called Geissenpeter that is made about half an hour from here, salt, pepper, walnuts from an Abbey near Bamberg that we bought last December, and some anchovies that I brought back from the states last year when we visited in October. We'll eat with pasta this week- either spinach pasta that i make or store bought- and sun-dried tomatoes from a friend's garden. Beautiful dark green, a small jar of gold full of things connected to place or memory or person. And I did not take any pictures to give you. Maybe I will of the meal that I make later on in the week.

Food is becoming not only an art medium and creative outlet, but also a medicine over the last two months. Another reason I have not been writing is because I have been reading so much and learning so much and cooking in new ways, or in ways I already knew but did not do too much of. Having Rosacea and a bunch of digestive issues, food allergies, and probably some adrenal exhaustion from the 8 years at the Buddhist center and the move to another country, I finally decided to stop the eating whatever I want diet, although I have really enjoyed it, and move to the eating what is good for my body so I can thrive diet. Which, except for holidays and social events, I enjoy more. And it is a slow process, figuring out what is good for me and what isn't, what will heal my gut and my face and what won't. And I would say I am only about a third of the way there. As a part of my herbal studies, food as medicine, as a friend wrote to me this morning, is becoming a large part of how I work with plants. It is for sure the way in which I am the most competent. And slowly incorporating plants into food, tea, vinegar and oil, is a way that I can easily pass on information and learnings to others. ANd it is always an individual process of what works and what doesn't, what feeds and what challenges beyond capability.

Most of the herbal teachers I have read so far (about 20) agree that food and diet are a huge aspect of working with herbs and a traditional method of healing. That in fact, if a person has a diet that is not nourishing them, and even more so if it is a diet that is actually harming them, herbs will be little if no use in healing whatever it is that a person sees as "wrong" about them. Which is, of course, a whole other topic for another time. Food is a spiritual experience, a connection and communion with plant, animal, place and people. That is why the image, for example, of the last supper or of the weekly church ritual of sharing bread and wine is so powerful for people. That is why every feast day is called exactly that, a day of a feast. It is difficult to go to an easter meal and say, no, I don't eat sugar, chocolate (unless it is raw), bread, gluten, cow's millk, processed foods, oils except for olive and animal fats, and could I please have a big bowl of vegetables? Which is why I only have problems with my "diet" when I am with people who don't eat the way I do. Culture is steeped in the history, ritual, tradition, and practice of preparing and eating certain foods and avoiding others. And I am, yet again, out of the box of the (German) culture. Which is not new. And it is a challenge to explain, no I am not dieting, I am eating for my health. I know it is probably delicious, but I choose not to eat it. I am happy to smell it and I take pleasure from your enjoying it. I know that I am giving up hundreds of recipes from Julia Child's cookbook. I know that I am cleaving whole sections of european cuisine out of my repetoire. I know. and I'll live. In fact, the whole point is to live better, live healthier, live whole in my own being.

It is a strange act of courage to stand apart from the tidal wave of a culture's eating traditions. No bread? WHAT do you eat? And there is a also a small amount of ego in there who thinks she knows better, it is true, but mostly it is the willingness to finally take care of my own self and my own body and my own me, which seems to be the next onion layer in the ever ongoing lesson of how-to-be-a-grown-up-and-get-over-my-etc. SO, in celebrating that when we were in Italy last week, I bought myself two dresses (i have never done that before) one for the spring/fall made of wool and silk, designed and hand sewn by an italian woman in a little shop that I was in, and one for summer- with huge prints of red poppies all over a white background, marilyn monroe style with a tie in the back of the neck. and that one i will definitely post a picture of!