Good food makes me happy.

We ate lunch out today, at a Thai restaurant that just recently opened in our town. It was a wonderful experience -- the food was well prepared, well seasoned, and well presented, the service was great and the atmosphere was pleasing.

The food. Fresh well treated ingredients, carefully cooked and with every flavour just right to sing in the mouth. The classic Thai trio of sweet sour and salty was in full play.

Good food is a pleasure in it's own right, but the happiness it gives me goes beyond the pleasure of the physical. I enjoy understanding my food - knowing why the broccoli is that particular shade of pure brilliant emerald green, why the tiny clams are ruffled along the edges, why they are tiny. I enjoy seeing high quality ingredients cooked with care and respect so that they shine with their own qualities.

To know my food, and to know that it is well cooked, and that the person cooking it knew it, and knew how to cook it well, and did so.

Good food makes me happy.

On Today

Today my daughter called me from the other room to come look at the "most beautiful sunset I ever saw".

Today my daughter and I sat and talked together while watching the sun set.

Today we sat at the table all together for lunch, said a blessing over our food, and ate and talked together.

Today I organized all the tea in my tea cupboard, and put out the tea bags in a colourful wicker basket on the counter.

Today is a good day.

The Contradiction of the Orange.

This time of year I bake with oranges a lot. Oranges are in season, plump and juicy and fragrant. I enjoy the meditative chopping of orange peel for candying, and the spray of oil from the peel of a fresh orange. I love the taste. And the scent of an orange stuck with cloves hanging over the stove...

Oranges fulfill my winter need for sunniness, glowing in the glass bowl on the table, perfuming my kitchen, swirling zesty through the center of the saffron orange sweet buns on Yule morning.

It bemuses and pleases me that this sun-ripe citrus is at its best in the darkest coldest times. It is a coincidence of place and palate that never fails to make me smile.

On Today

Today I have created some order out of some chaos. Today I have read poetry to my daughter. Today I have filled my kitchen with the scent of oranges and cranberries as I bake. Today I have rested. Today I have knit, making progress on a hat that will warm my husband in the cold.

Today is a good day.