Cebollas Sucias

When I see dirt on onions, I get crazy! That dirt is proof. Proof that these are living things, born of the earth. They have not been scrubbed and sanitized for store life. They are real and rustic. Dirty food for a dirty soul.  I think French onion soup, and the happiness it will bring, which in turn makes me think chicken stock, because that’s how I make my onion soup, which means I need ten backs and fifteen feet, and suddenly I am overcome with a sense of purpose and relief because I know that for at least a few hours life will make sense, and time will be my friend as it reduces fluid into flavor.

All kinds of cooking and food shopping please me, and I will travel great distances for that certain ingredient, listening to my 1940s satellite radio station, and feeling a bit absurd that I have braved Los Angeles traffic, heading miles to a farmer’s market ‘cause I don’t want to buy thyme at Ralph’s. Thyme for god’s sakes! Just an herb. Just a small squawk in a chorus of flavor. But why would I buy that creepy little plastic box under fluorescent lights when I can be outdoors, and reach into a woven basket of fresh picked herbs? Why shouldn’t I squander an hour to be at one with the pre-industrial glories of procurement? So what that I’ve fouled the air with carbon dioxide, I can’t help it. I’m a maniac, and being a maven soothes me. But I was trying to talk about something else, what the hell was it-- Oh that’s right, I was trying to get to the joys of reduction.

Reduction is heaven. The increasing of intensity by the reducing of mass. The process thrills me. Whether one is editing a movie or manuscript or cooking a pot of beans— To decrease the existing in order to increase the remaining. That is a Shamanic act. This is why homemade stock is so satisfying. Not just because it’s so much better than that bullshit in the box, but because you actually get to be in relationship with the wisdom of time. Yes, it can take hours, but shortcuts don’t save time, they distort it.

To make a large batch of chicken stock is to have a project. And you don’t have to know anything. The chicken knows. The onions know. The garlic knows. The garlic knows itself better than you ever will. You will be lucky to be as truly yourself five times in your life as that head of garlic is unless you’re Thelonious Monk.

Good cooking is like being a coach, not a player. The ingredients are the players. You just got to fill out the line-up card and make a couple of strategic decisions. Like maybe sautéing the backs and feet and herbs and onions before you add the water or maybe you’re using a little white wine in your stock. But that’s it. Your real job is to just get out of the way. To be in relationship with mystical forces, not to be a mystical force. That is the secret of life. Or maybe the secret is that being in relationship to mystical forces is being a mystical force.

I’d rather cook than write. I like words, I do. I like to make them leap and lunge, do pirouettes. Knew I wanted to play with them the first time I heard Dr. Seuss, and the rhythm surged up in me like the spirit of God surges up in the preacher to be.  I read Fox in Socks and thought I want to do that. I want to sculpt with sound and meaning, want to sweep and be swept away by the rushing river of rhyme, and I did, I shot those rapids, and felt the spray in my face. But I’d still rather cook. That is my haven and retreat. It is where I go when nothing works. When I need a little “not me” time. Cooking is how I pray, how I find my way back home.