You must know this about me to really understand my passion for food and the importance that it plays in my traditions. The creating and keeping of tradition is what creates a "sacred" life. Here's why:
"In imitating the exemplary acts of a god or of a mythic hero, or simply by recounting their adventures, the man of an archaic society detaches himself from profane time and magically re-enters the Great Time, the sacred time." -Mircea Eliade.
What I mean to say is by living a life of ritual where one returns again and again to the past in a cyclical manner there is a connection of the present with what has gone on before. It is the process of
remembering. It is my goal to fill my life with as many rituals and traditions as possible. This includes creating "Theme Nights" as well as learning Grandma Thayne's shortbread recipe...to make the shortbread just like she did decades ago (while wearing her apron that I "borrowed" from my mom), to gather around feasts for special holidays like I did with my cousins as we were growing up. To go back to these moments over and over again is to remember where I came from...to remember who I am.
Below are some other interesting Eliade statements:
"...an object or an act becomes real only insofar as I imitates or repeats archtype. Thus, reality is acquired solely through repetition or participation; everything which lacks an exemplary model is 'meaningless', i.e., it lacks reality.""A sacrifice, for example, not only exactly reproduces the initial sacrifice revealed by a god ab origine, at the beginning of time, it also takes place at the same primordial mythical moment; in other words, every sacrifice repeats the initial sacrifice and coincides with it."
"Just as profane space is abolished by the symbolism of the Center, which projects any temple, palace, or building into the same central point of mythical space, so any meaningful act performed by archaic man, any real act, i.e., any repetition of an archetypal gesture, suspends duration, abolishes profane time, and participates in mythical time."
Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return, pg. 34-36
The loot from the Woodland Farmer's Market: figs, apricots, beets, green tomatoes, big beef tomatoes, early girl tomatoes, ambrosia cantaloupe, grapefruit, and corn on the cob.
figs, fried green tomatoes, corn on the cob, and...
Ambrosia cantaloupe with vanilla bean ice cream for dessert. The ambrosia has 30% more natural sugars than a typical store-bought cantaloupe...which is why we ate it for dessert.
