OK HI!
I have been bad! It has been two weeks. I am sorry! I will be honest: between life en général plus Yoga School (which actually has taken over my entire life, thank God) I have barely had a moment to stop and think.
Today, I have a day off and am sitting in the park, against a tree. Always starts out very comfortable, then a little less. Let’s see if it gets more comfortable.
WOOD
Is the Traditional Chinese Medicine Element that represents Spring. I’ve known that for a little while, but it hit home when a classmate of mine came to me in my dream and told me “You’re too watery! Use wood for absorption.” What a fun dream! Nice of her to visit.
In ancient China, seasons were observed as reflections and refractions of the cosmos. We can see our bodies, then, as tiny mirrors of the same things. In Spring, what happens? Trees grow, winding their way out and up. Animals bop around. Blossoms open up and release pollen. Humans… get activated! More cocktails outside, more commotion, more kissing.
Each organ in the body connects to an element, and the Wood organs are Liver and Gallbladder. Liver is all about organization and discernment; what do we filter, and how?
I am such a humble student here and don’t know even an ounce of as much as I wish. If this sounds esoteric or like lots of info to process, I learned a lot from this book, this book, this book, this insta , this icon (she’s so cool), and this doctor. And going to acupuncture, which I have gone to for a decade now, which tbh changed my entire life and perspective on the way that bodies work.
When I think about the expanse of knowledge and information that is out there around the more mysterious intricacies of our physicality, I feel like the Ice Age squirrel with his nut (you guys know what I am talking about??). So amazed at the places something can go, so euphoric to hold onto whatever I get.
SQUIRREL BRAIN
Spring usually meets me with the dual desire to both clean out the cobwebs and also to fling myself into social abyss.
This Spring somehow feels a little bit different. Perhaps I am learning some adult restraint (lol probably not) and perhaps there are too many projects that require energy, reminding me that time is fixed. Either way, I’ve been getting more sleep. Until recently (probably my iconic Summer stomach infection tbh) my approach to food was very CELEBRATE GOOD TIMES COME ON. Particularly in plating, I was going for a level of decadence that felt sensual and fantastical. A night on the town!
This celebration felt almost radical (and still does, in a world that feels so disembodied and punitive when it comes to sensory delights). But I am not really in a phase of drizzling honey seductively on cheese, or guanciale on peaches at the moment.
Instead, I’ve realized… I’m in a new phase.
Less drippy, less indulgent. More… TREE.
WTF Does She Mean?
Branches reach out. A mess of leaves. The weird smells that come from a tree, right before it blossoms. The many intricate, concentric patterns that happen, undulating unto themselves, decorating a tree’s trunk. Messy and sappy. Verdant, even if it doesn’t look it.
I recently noticed that I’ve been taking fewer pictures of food I make. This is mostly because I just… don’t think the food has looked that good! The colors have been weird! Sure, I could adjust to make it look cuter, but we’ve already gone into the aesthetic compromises of flat fashion and honestly the creative urge hasn’t really moved me.
Instead, I’ll be cooking to the new Lana album and plating something that possesses a color that I haven’t quite seen before. This one, I was plating for an event and was kind of like… oh! Not a great color! I would by lying if I said I didn’t panic. Too yellow and too light a green. I actually felt so self-conscious, like I had fucked up and made gross food.
But it was so delicious! (polenta/salsa verde/cruciferous veg can’t go wrong). Once again, one must accept the mysterious ways that the universe operates.
I had to be like the Liver and take a look at my own filtration biases. What did I usually aesthetically filter out that might have actually been valuable? I had, perhaps mistakenly, filtered out some colors that might long have served me.
Realism Over the Romantic
Remember when we were talking about tablescape trends and I was like: I use too many edible blossoms! First of all, that’s so true. Second of all, what if the next moment is food that looks earthy? Grounded, messy, scattered, growing? Weird colors that are actually more normal than we even realize?
And I don’t mean this in the sense of, ugly produce and being quirky for loving an apple even if it’s weird-shaped! I also don’t mean cottagecore like super perfect cakes in a field of daisies.
I mean it in some sense of Realism. At a certain point, we’re getting down to brass tacks. These colors are coming because I’m likely cooking with ingredients that I didn’t employ so much before. Mostly, I’m testing how to make healthy stuff taste good and be fun. This means employing a different Palette1
Nutritional yeast adds a yellow quality to blankness. Chlorophyll looks crazy! Smoothies are goopy and sometimes beautifully-roasted vegetables look like split pea soup. And then split pea soup looks like a murky pond. I think David Zilber (former head of fermentation at Noma) is really amazing at looking at food this way (look at the Bread Rocks he found!) . Cafe Cecelia is also very this vibe. I also couldn’t help but notice that even Ms. Roman was also recently plating earthy little messes.
It doesn’t feel to me like an accident that realism came after romanticism, Italian naturalism after idealism. Naturalism shares with Romanticism a belief that the actual is important not in itself but what it can reveal about the nature of a larger reality. A bit of relief, really, to let things look like themselves. It’s funny — the more I let these foods look the way they do, the better they seem to taste. :)
OK! Thank you! Eat green things (even if the color is not that cute), watch Love is Blind so that we can talk about it, and thank your liver for all its hard work <3
if you haven’t yet, it is very fun to see how Palate and Palette are different words :)