Dinner, a Semi-Complete List: Part Five
After Sarah Ruhl's essay "On Interruptions"
What if I list what it takes to get dinner on the table? Not simply the cooking. That’s where you find me again. (Read Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four.)
Sarah Ruhl’s book 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write is one of my favorites, especially the opening essay “On Interruptions.” I return to it when I need to remember this: “At the end of the day, writing has very little to do with writing, and much to do with life. And life, by definition, is not an intrusion.”
Eat leftover oatmeal with peanut butter for a haphazard breakfast.
Fill the sink with lemons and oranges from my neighbor’s and mother-in-law’s trees, rub them with coarse salt. Then with baking soda. Rinse it all off and let dry in a colander. Slice the citrus as thinly as my dull blade allows.
(I’m following a smattering of recipes generously shared in the Tomato Tomato Discord by Cary,
, and , respectively: Link 1, Link 2, Link 3)Remind myself to find the knife sharpener in the back of the cupboard. (But I don’t write the reminder down and we shall see what happens.)
Fill wide mouthed jars with the sliced lemons and oranges mixed with almost equal parts sugar. Wipe up the orange juice from the counter and the floor.
Let it rest for two days and two nights.
Search online marketplaces for canning jars. Then look at a restaurant supply store.
Drive down roads lined with blooming bougainvillea spilling over the fences.
Stop by the second hand store while my daughter’s in tutoring and look for jars. Find instead: two picture frames, one wicker trash can to go under my desk, one book about crocheting to give to a friend, one pair of Converse for my son. I didn’t buy the wall candle sconce but regret it. My home decor could use a touch of the baroque.
Drive home along the same route I drive three days a week, passing some of the same folks asking for money or food on the street corners. When the red light hits at the right moment and I'm in the right lane, I hand people food from my van window. My younger kids ask me what their signs say every time, and every time I read the signs out loud: “Hungry” “No house” “Need money” “No drugs, no booze, still no job.” My seven-year-old talks about buying people homes, setting up a grocery stand, bringing coolers with us everywhere. I listen and nod, agreeing over and over, everyone should have enough food, there is enough food for everyone, we need to do what we can for other people. This is part of how I unlearn the skepticism I was raised with that made me distrust people asking for money, made me think people should go to organizations not ask another person on the street walking or driving. Each drive, each child-driven conversation filled with confusion and sadness over people being hungry, de-scales me. I’m trying to keep my compassion as raw as possible.
Once home, make salsa with canned tomatoes and fresh peppers. We eat pinto bean and cheese burritos for lunch.
Write in my Notes app about “food scarcity” – it sounds like the food was afraid and made itself scarce, like a spooked cat. But there’s enough food to feed everyone if the system worked differently, if people ate differently. The lack I see is something different than mere, objective ‘scarcity.’
Stir the orange and lemon syrup. Roast sunchokes. Steam beets. Pick slimy beet leaves out of the good leaves.
There is little food in today’s dinner because it’s Good Friday. A day I’ve observed as solemn since my parents started going to Mass again when I was around six. Time rushes, an observance plucks a day from the blur.
What do I remember about this observance from years past? An ache for meaning. Eating plain, meatless meals. My brothers and I being extra giggly as our mom instructed us to be quiet. Sometimes going to Stations of the Cross or watching The Miracle Maker, but pausing it after the crucifixion scene.
Strain the orange and lemon slices from the syrup into a squeeze bottle. Slice the sugar-soaked segments, spread them on a quarter-sheet pan, and put them in the freezer. Imagine making citrus cakes when the orange trees are barren. Say a quick prayer the electricity grid stays reliable so that this preservation can come to fruition.
Stir a spoonful of syrupy orange and lemon pieces into a glass of cold water and add a dash of salt. My skin is still salty from being outside early in the day when the sun was punishing. Sit outside on my old iron bench and watch hummingbirds flit around the yellow fuzz of the blooming Palo Verdes. Sip the orange-lemon water. Take in the purple-black sky and the dry air, and sit a while with everything.
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