This is the path of donation cooking - use (in a safe and sanitary fashion) whatever is donated in a spirit of gratitude and with the hope that it will make a tasty and satisfying meal for all who are hungry and come to our soup kitchen.
I was talking to B, an aboriginal architect, about my practices and feelings while serving my clients. How I feel honoured to be serving some people, my pleasure and pride in making tasty dishes with whatever I am given, my looking inward whenever I feel impatience with others (often it is part of my self that I do not own), and the feeling that I and my clients are both on journeys. He spoke of native ways of greeting strangers and inviting them home. He spoke of Frank Loyd Wright:
The building as architecture is born out of the heart of man, permanent consort to the ground, comrade to the trees, true reflection of man in the realm of his own spirit.Then we spoke of relationship between people and between people and nature as opposed to conflict.
I thought of all the elements that go into a soup. They begin as separate entities. Then through techniques of cutting, the application of heat, the interplay of opposites (e.g. sweet and sour) and the passage of time they become a team. Their individuality is balanced and enhanced through association. In the end they become a poem on the tongue and a song of grace in the heart.
