The summer I graduated from high school, I left home with Van. We climbed into my gold Jeep the day after commencement and headed west. My dad was reluctant, sure I was making a wrong turn. We fought about it a lot in the months leading up to graduation. He wanted me to start college right away, but I was 17 and the whole world was on the other end of that cross-country ride.

Van and I spent most of the summer in Boulder, Colorado with a houseload of deadheads who hung around making gazpacho and getting stoned and watching their saltwater fish tank. Van’s boyfriend, Joe, lived there between Dead tours, and they let us crash whenever.

It was a sweltering summer and we were outside as much as possible. We would finish up a day-long hike, take a nap by the river, then climb barefoot into whatever ragtag vehicle was on hand and drive countless hours to various music festivals and Dead shows.

One June day, we pulled up to a campsite outside of Sandstone Amphitheater in Bonner Springs, Kansas. Rolling into our spot, we ground to a dry, croaky stop. Van hopped out and walked across the grassy field to find Joe. I gathered a few things, and was going to roam and find friends, but as I closed the back gate of the Jeep, a smoky, garlicky smell kindled a different need in me. It was the kind of smell that permeates the outdoors, making an ill-defined spot in the woods seem like a homey cottage. I peeked at the campsite next to ours, and saw a man stirring a big enameled pot with a wooden spoon.

He was shaggy, but muscular with no shirt. He held devil sticks tucked under the arm that wasn’t stirring, and his eyes were content in a way I had not seen in many of the restless, searching people around. A four-year-old boy circled him with a toy airplane.

His big camping pot teetered over a fire pit, and when he put the spoon down, he plopped onto a Mexican blanket at his feet and grabbed the boy, tickling him. That’s when he noticed me standing there. He smiled. The air was heavy with the pungent smell of campfire mixed with an earthy, heady aroma of garlic and beans. I smiled back.

The boy walked over to me.

“We were soaking the beans in the night,” he said. “In the other night tomorrow.”

“Last night?” I asked.

He grabbed my hand and walked me over.

Their tent was neat and small. Ripped up jeans and mini-sized t-shirts hung over a makeshift clothesline. The boy had big, brown, delighted eyes and he jubilantly relayed their whole cooking process to me. They had slept in two sleeping bags with the pot of beans pushed safely to the corner of the tent until morning, at which time, the boy—Xaviar was his name—helped his dad (John?) drain the beans, and they threw them back in the pot, covered them with fresh water, smashed a few cloves of garlic and added salt. Then they sat back to wait for the pot to boil and they played kites or frisbee or hacky sack while the beans cooked. They went over to stir them together once in a while.

As the afternoon teetered on, others straggled into their circle, drawn in either by the smell or by the child.

After about an hour, maybe more, John finally scooped out a bowl of beans and handed it to Xaviar, then to anyone hanging around who wanted some. He handed me a tin bowl that had a big dent on the side. The beans were salty and warm, creamy in the simple, intoxicating broth they had made for themselves. I missed home a little, but in the way that home is sometimes an elusive place inside of yourself that you long to access.

Someone ran up with a plate. He’d heard someone was giving out beans and he was hungry. John spooned some out for him while Xaviar finished the last bite in his bowl and handed it back to John.

“Hey brother,” the voice came from behind me. I put my spoon down and swiveled around. “Is this your kid?”

It seemed that a few people sitting in the circle around John and Xaviar’s camp were wondering the same thing. People got quiet. It seemed, for a second, John didn’t know what to say.

“He’s his own kid, man.” John laughed. “I just get to hang out with him for a while.”

My own dad and I were in the midst of one of our steepest lessons about autonomy and the importance of untethered familial bonds. This father and son pair seemed to master something we were just beginning to grasp.

I wish there were some way to thank John (if John was in fact, even his name) for the two important things I learned that lazy summer afternoon in a grassy lot in Kansas. I would thank him, first, for teaching me the patience and simplicity it takes to make a great pot of beans. Also, intertwined with every bubbling pot of cannelinis or black beans or kidneys I put on the table for my family is a reminder of another lesson I absorbed that day: We’re our own people, we just get to hang out here for a while.

In my house, we set the table last night, as on any given night:

I stand over a boiling pot, checking pasta for doneness when the phone rings. Last minute, I invite neighbors over; they’ll be here in 15 minutes. Deckard asks for a snack and upon hearing for the fourth time that he doesn’t need a snack because we’re about to eat, he runs out the front door to see if friends can play. I call him back in because we’re about to eat. I smell something burning and run back in. Amelia is quietly finishing a note to the fairies, when Deckard runs back in and slams into her chair. They start to argue.

Anticipating a knock-down drag-out, I decide the bread is warmed through enough and call everyone in for dinner. Gregg rushes through one last email. Then one very last email.

Hurriedly, we work to lay out the baby artichokes with buttered pasta. Amelia grabs the shaved fennel and spring carrot sticks, popping one in her mouth on the way to the table. Deckard scatters napkins across the table and Amelia moves them just so. Our friends arrive.

Somehow, we all make our way to the table and start digging in. I look around—really look around—for the first time in hours. The house is a jumbled mess, but this tableful of smiling faces– the people I’m closest to– makes me shrug it off and smile myself. I see them all laughing and stuffing things into their mouths that I had held in my hand’s that very morning at the market. I think about the farmer who raised those artichokes and how he’s such a smart ass. He always makes me smirk. Deckard puts an artichoke to his lips and wrinkles his nose, hands it to me. Our neighbor tells a story about the first time she tried an artichoke. I drift out of the conversation, remembering a certain artichoke on a rainy afternoon in Rome.

Sometimes it’s hard to untangle all these moments of tasting food from the people with whom we dine. As hard as it is to make it happen sometimes, meals are our best reason to slow down with the people around us.

Most of us share tables with a few people. Things happen there. Conversations take place. Deals are worked out. Life persists. Friendships are fabricated. There is hard science that suggests we actually become more social while we are eating. Seriously, our brains strive to connect with other people when we sit down to share a meal.

So, shouldn’t it follow that how we garner and prepare our food reflects how we share time with the people in our lives?

Some people are our rocks and our comforts. Some people delight us in a way that makes us think differently. Some make us laugh. Some people know how to incite adventure. Some thrill us to take a risk. And some do a little of all of this.

For me, mealtimes delight my senses and bring family and friends together. Also, I like to feel the juxtaposition of emptiness and fullness, and to recognize that “full” and “empty” have many layers that have nothing to do with putting food in our bellies, per se, but have everything to do with filling the spaces in our lives and in our days.

I’m thankful for the quotidian indulgence. What is mealtime for you?

Lynne Curry has always considered herself a locavore, but her food choices changed drastically when she moved from the Washington coast to a grassland ranching community called Wallowa in Eastern Oregon. Near the coast, she had eaten mostly vegetarian, with some fresh fish now and then. But in Wallowa she found that eating responsibly and supporting her local community meant buying and eating grassland beef (in large “shares”). Drawing on prior culinary experience from stints working in several high-end Pacific Northwest restaurants such as The Herb Farm and Willows Inn, Curry created recipes for every cut of meat on the cow.

With her first cookbook, Pure Beef: An Essential Guide to Artisan Meat with Recipes for Every Cut, Curry shares those recipes. She also suggests reaching into the freezer and grabbing whatever cut comes to hand, then paging through her book for a recipe. We caught up with Curry recently to hear about her decision to write the book and the lessons she’s learned along the way.

Q. When did you realize you wanted to write this particular cookbook?

A. I always knew I wanted to do a book, but when I saw an article in TIME magazine about cow-pooling, I knew it was this one. It was the first thing I had seen outside of my community that reflected the relevance of this topic back to me.

But many articles about grass-fed beef only go so far, and then leave you hanging. To make this a viable choice, people need to know how to apply cooking methods.

Q. The book is so comprehensive, covering everything from how grass becomes beef to the basics of butchery. Can you talk about your research process?

A. One of the main things I wanted to do was make sure I could understand and interpret scientific research for consumers without adding to the contention about food choices.

I had an amazing cohort of primary sources, such as Bob Dickson, a leading meat scientist in Oregon; I talked extensively to Cory Carman of Carman Ranch about her ranching practices; on the nutrition front, I consulted with Dr. Lauren Gwin at the American Grassfed Association. I also talked to people at the Niche Meat Processors Assistance Network.

One of the best resources for me was from Union of Concerned Scientists. They did a report about grass-fed beef called Greener Pastures. It helped me put the pieces together. Anyone making choices about what kind of beef to eat should read it.

Q. I liked the moment in the book when you describe being vegetarian and eating beef that was offered to you in Guatemala. You say you weren’t consciously thinking about right versus wrong, but it plays into your overall food choices. Do you think that sense of pleasure spurred you to look for a humane way to eat meat?

A. In that moment, I was completely pulled out of my own context. This 80-year-old woman unexpectedly handed me some beef, and it was an amazing gesture. Everything else faded and the flavor of this meat was in Technicolor. My true confession is that I stopped eating red meat because I didn’t like it, but I loved that beef! It wasn’t until later that I realized what I had in Guatemala was grass-fed.

My commitment is to eat local, and to eat the best quality food available. My choice to eat meat only came from being in a foodshed where this is an available food source. Once I moved here and saw how the animals were raised and saw the whole lifecycle, I felt okay about making this choice.

Q. Pure Beef is obviously a cookbook all about beef, but do you think Americans should be eating more beef?

A. Exactly the opposite. I think we need to be eating less. With this book, I wanted to model a way for people to integrate meat in a holistic way.

In the book, I decided to do whole meals, rather than single recipes. I wanted to show alternatives to each person eating a whole steak. The portion sizes in my book are smaller, and the meat is integrated into a whole meal with a lot of produce.

Q. How do you feel that small-scale ranching addresses some of the problems of food waste?

A. There is attention to usability built into the ranching system. It comes from a rural tradition of taking advantage of available resources and putting things back into the cycle.

Q.There are so many voices out there talking about the best way to feed the planet. How do you square meat-eating with those questions?

A. This is such a hard topic for us right now. I don’t believe we can have a healthy, well-rounded ecosystem completely without meat, but the decision to eat meat is intimate and complex. I wanted to make a book free of judgment for people who already made their choices, and give them the tools for those choices to be fulfilling and pleasurable.

Q. Any recipes that gave you a challenge?

A. I found short ribs to be a challenge. They are always different — some are really fatty, some have a smaller proportion of meat. I finally landed on a ginger-glazed short rib that I’m proud to share. As I talked about earlier, I tested all these recipes with grass-fed beef, so these recipes really are tailored to this kind of meat.

Q. Do you have a favorite recipe in the book?

A. That’s like asking a mother which of her children is her favorite! I love steak and a salad, so the T-bone with fennel-radicchio relish and olive oil flatbread fits my style nicely.

Originally published on Grist.org on May 22, 2012

I go crazy for this stuff. It’s just the right kind of heat, plus it’s packed with toasty cumin. Strictly speaking, it’s not authentic to add tomato paste, but I do it anyway. I got the idea from this guy in this drool-worthy cookbook. My harissa comes together easily and makes the whole kitchen fragrant, ready for my family to dig in.

-4 teaspoons whole cumin
-½ teaspoon coriander seeds
-½ teaspoon caraway seeds
-½ teaspoon cayenne powder (or more if you like a lot of heat)
-1 ½ teaspoons sweet Hungarian paprika
-6 cloves garlic, minced
-2 teaspoons tomato paste
-4 teaspoons lemon juice
-4 teaspoons salt
-pinch of sugar
-½ cup olive oil

First things first, get out that little, black dusty pan that looks frumpy, but toasts your spices to perfection (any pan will do, really). Measure the cumin, coriander, and caraway into the pan and turn the heat on medium-high. Agitate and swirl the pan so that the spices toast evenly. Don’t walk away because a magical transformation is about to occur and if you’re not paying attention, it will sneak right by and leave those spices a burnt mess.

The cumin, at first, will flirt with this notion of aroma and throw a musky scent into the room. Cumin smells, to me, like a person who has just been outside running in the fresh air and sunshine. You might imagine a certain someone—whose smell drives you wild—walking through the door, trailing a smile and electrifying scent. Coriander throws a citrusy floral scent into the mix, and caraway will keep a pragmatic undertone. Keep swirling that pan. The aromas will get stronger and stronger and mix together until they are intoxicating. This is the very moment to pull the pan off the heat and put the seeds in a bowl, then sit staring in wonder. How could something so little have so much to say?

If you have a mortar & pestle, you’re in for a treat. If not, find some other way of grinding. A designated coffee mill works great. That said, I highly recommend a mortar & pestle, which adds two minutes to this whole transaction, but somehow captures the aroma more purely because you’re standing over the bowl putting your muscle into its release.

Okay, now that we have the seeds crushed, add the cayenne, paprika, minced garlic, tomato paste, lemon juice, salt, and sugar. When all is mixed well, add the olive oil and let the mixture rest for about a half hour at room temperature. The smell in your kitchen will be so good, you’ll just have to close your eyes for a moment and be happy to be alive.

After a half hour, the harissa can be used immediately, or stored in the fridge for an indeterminate amount of time. Mine has never lasted more than about a week and half, in which time it tastes as good as the day I made it. I’m guessing you could keep this stuff for quite some time. In other words, if I found it hiding in the back of my fridge after a month, I’d consider it time to make some poached eggs and cous cous. Enjoy!

At the grocery store, there are more choices than ever before — organic, local, rBST-free, pasteurized, ultra-pasteurized, even lactose-free. Each of these comes with pluses and minuses. But there’s another choice out there, one you can’t get at grocery stores (at least not in this state), and the debates surrounding it are growing louder and, quite frankly, more confusing, every year. We’re talking about raw milk.

Next time you reach for a carton, picture this: a big, sterile facility with the constant hum of heated pipes carrying hundreds of gallons of milk from dozens of grain-fed herds to humongous vats. The milk gets superheated, separated and centrifuged. In a world that increasingly cares about the source of its food supply, a world where it’s becoming more and more common to buy meat and vegetables directly from the farmer, milk still resides in the industrialized shadows. Many say this is a necessary evil, since raw milk can carry bacteria that can cause food-borne illnesses, which are especially dangerous for those with compromised immune systems. But a growing contingent of people — millions in the United States alone — would argue the benefits far outweigh the risks.

Taya Lindley, a licensed acupuncturist in Portland, is one of them. She researched different types of diets for her family and found herself leaning more toward small-scale,
unprocessed foods. The switch to buying raw milk from grass-fed cows was a natural progression, she says, with the added bonus that her family would be getting “good fat, enzymes and proteins that aren’t in pasteurized milk from grain-fed cows.”

To the people who say there is too much risk involved, she insists that if you get milk from the best possible source, the risk is minimal. “At some point we have to base our food choices on instinct,” she says. “Yes. There is a small risk of contamination, but I make informed decisions about a lot of the things my family eats.”

Milk is rich in calcium, protein, vitamins, minerals and beneficial bacteria that produce important enzymes. Proponents of raw milk — like advocates of other raw foods — say the unheated stuff has more of these nutrients because they haven’t been destroyed or diminished in the heating process. They also say raw milk is easier to digest because the enzymes needed to digest lactose and casein haven’t been killed in the pasteurization process.

Also very important, say proponents, is that raw milk usually comes from cows that graze on grass, which gives the milk more omega-3s and three times the amount of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) than that from grain-fed animals. Early but promising evidence shows natural forms of CLA can reduce cancer risks.

There’s also a subjective side as to why raw milk has a growing fan base. First, there’s the taste. Many people seek out raw milk because it’s creamier, sweeter and has a better texture — especially milk from Jersey cows. It adds far more depth to cheese, yogurt and dairy-based desserts than traditional milk.

They also appreciate its tradition as a wholesome, unadulterated food humans have relied on since at least 6000 B.C., and it makes them feel connected to their local farmers.

“There is a lot of trust that goes on between you and the farmer,” says Tressa Yellig, chef and owner of Salt, Fire & Time in Northwest Portland. “Buying this milk puts us back in the food system by participating in the life cycle. You are actually connected to the food itself, where it comes from, how much goes into making it.”

Yellig has long been dedicated to whole, natural foods, opening her self-described “traditional foods general store” three years ago. She says if she were legally permitted, she would sell only raw milk. She has been drinking it for six years and says the benefits far outweigh the risks, which she says are minimal when the milk comes from healthy, well-managed cows.
“Raw milk isn’t dangerous as long as you start out with a good product,” says Yellig. “The risk is in human interaction.”

That’s why even farmers who produce raw milk think it’s dangerous to suggest that all raw milk is necessarily healthier and safer than their pasteurized brethren.

“You have to manage the whole process differently,” says Charlotte Smith, an Oregon farmer who keeps three Jersey cows rotating on her St. Paul pasture all year. “You have to manage everything from the soil to the grasses to the cleanliness of the milking parlor to the immediate cooling of the milk.”
Smith runs her farm as a holistic entity. She ensures a steady supply of her cows’ intended food — grass —by not allowing them to stay long enough in one pasture to overgraze it. They’re rotated every few days and followed by chickens that scratch around and disperse the manure, helping it become fertilizer. In the three years she’s been doing this, she says the soil on her farm has improved tenfold.

This kind of milk comes at a cost. It’s usually between $11 and $14 per gallon and will keep for seven to 10 days. This is laughably expensive to some but reflects the food issues we face today — it costs a lot more to produce nonindustrialized foods in a sustainable way.

Finding milk in its purest form is a commitment. If you want it, you’ll need to visit a few farms that are doing this big job on a small scale. You’ll need to ask questions and tour farms. In short, you’ll have to be engaged in the process. After all, making informed food choices is what this is about, and in the end, we think that’s really good for you.

Defining pasteurization:

Pasteurization is the process of heating milk and cooling it in rapid succession to reduce the amount of pathogens. For many years, the process involved heating milk to 145 degrees and keeping it there for 30 minutes — a method that can be duplicated in a home kitchen if you want to buy raw milk but are apprehensive of the risks.

This old-school process is benign to the structure of milk compared with the more common methods today. Most milk labeled “pasteurized” is treated by heating milk to 161 degrees for 15 to 20 seconds in a method called “high temperature, short time” (HTST). Ultra-pasteurized milk, which includes many organic brands, is treated with the ultra-high temperature (UHT) method, which heats milk to 275 degrees for at least one second.

These processes are popular because they give milk a longer shelf life. In the case of UHT processing, the milk can be stored unrefrigerated for six to nine months in an unopened aseptic carton. On the flip side, these processes have been proven to alter the structure of the protein molecules in milk, particularly in the case of UHT processing. This is why ultra-pasteurized milk cannot be turned into cheese and ultra-pasteurized cream doesn’t whip as well without added stabilizers. Raw milk advocates also claim that these altered proteins can be as bad for our bodies as trans-fatty acids.

What is homogenization?

Homogenization is the process of crushing fat particles in milk, which changes their size and emulsion capabilities. This process forces the cream layer to stay suspended in milk. Some critics claim that homogenization is even more damaging to the integrity of milk than pasteurization. The heating of milk has been a part of its production for a long time, but the ability to change the fat particle is an industrial process.

How to find pastured raw milk

Farmers who choose to produce raw milk can’t advertise. This means that you have to do research to find a farm that produces the highest quality milk. A good place to start is realmilk.com, a database that lists farms by state. From there, call around and ask a few of the questions below. Definitely visit the farms that look most interesting to you. Look for fresh, healthy grass that is not overgrazed. The cows should look clean and content. These farms shouldn’t have a strong odor or look overrun, and the farmer should be completely transparent with his or her practices. If you sense that isn’t the case, go elsewhere. Here are a few questions to ask:

● How often are your cows out on pasture? (They should spend the majority of their time on verdant, clean-smelling green pasture, not on hard-packed dirt.)

● Do you rotate the cows to different areas of the pasture? If so, how often? (The farmer should keep the animals off the grazed pasture long enough for the forage to grow back and the manure to become fertilizer.)

● Do you supplement the cows with any kind of grain? If so, how much of their overall diet is grain-based supplement? (Most likely, the animals will need some kind of supplementation, but many proponents of milk from grass-fed cows believe the amount should be no more than 1 percent of their overall body weight).

● Do you use a feed that contains GMO corn or soy? (The answer should be no. In fact, it’s best if the farmer avoids corn and soy altogether, as these are likely to be GMO and are much harder on the animals than grains such as oats and barley, which more closely mimic foraged grains.)

● What are your practices if one of your cows gets mastitis? (Mastitis is an infection of the udder and happens frequently in milking animals. You should expect the farmer to treat this as you would treat an infection in yourself. While the cow is convalescing, they should keep the milk from this animal separate and out of the milk supply.)

● Can I visit your milking parlor? (The answer should be yes. Your farmer should be transparent and be able to answer any of your questions openly.)

● How do you sterilize your bottles? (They should use safe food-handling practices. It’s best if they have a devoted dishwasher just for milking jars, and the jars should be well-sanitized.)

● How quickly do you chill the milk after milking? (It should be chilled to below 37 degrees immediately. Ideally, this should happen in an ice-water bath to cool the milk as quickly as possible. Not only is this safest, but it also extends the life of the milk.)

● When I get milk from you, am I getting that day’s milk? (It’s best to get that day’s milk or milk from the day before. This milk will last seven to 10 days, but you should always be getting your milk as fresh as possible.)

There is a moment of weighty silence after the movie has ended. This fierce moment that punctures that so-called “suspension of disbelief” and lands us with a thud back into a dark, cold room. The lights haven’t come back on, and it is a terrible, wonderful moment where you are alone with your simmering thoughts.

In the dark theater, I hear you bite down on a piece of popcorn from the bottom of the bag. I turn around to the sight of your plump lips closing around a stubborn, half-popped, salty kernel. It resists you, but finally gives up in a crackling heap.

I know the sound well because it’s usually the one I’m making.

The sound of you, a stranger, biting on a raw kernel, causes me to think of the third Cassavetes film I saw. I was 19 and living in Hungary, and the theater near the Opera House was playing a week of Cassavetes. I had seen Shadows by myself earlier in the week, then Killing of a Chinese Bookie the next day. On Thursday, I slipped out of a raucous, after-work drinking affair to catch the 9:30 showing of A Woman Under the Influence. Somebody—he reminds me a little of you—followed me out.

He couldn’t bear another shot of Pálinka. He needed more smokes. He didn’t want to get in another conversation with Iren from the desk. Besides, he’d been wanting to see Cassavetes. When we got onto the crowded subway car, Hungarian men, sour with sweat and cheap gasoline-canister wine, pressed against us and we moved closer together. He grabbed my hand, and held it all the way to the Oktogon stop.

Dark silence in the theater that day was excruciating. A small carton of popcorn sat in my lap, but remained there, uneaten. The piercing sound in the dark theater of kernels caving loudly and crumpling under the crush of my teeth was intolerable. Every time he moved, I hoped he might take my hand again. He smelled faintly of snow and bitter peach pits that lingered from the alcohol. As the untethering of Gena Rowlands came before us on screen, he slumped further down into his chair. When he looked at me, his eyes looked sorrowful. Even in the dark, I saw the little brown spot punctuating his ice-blue eyes. When we left the theater, he asked if I’d go with him to visit his girlfriend near the Astoria. Her name was Adrienne, and she had been working second shift as barmaid. I had seen her once, ruddy cheeks and tousled hair.

We walked up to her together, and her impenetrable brown eyes made me nervous. He looked at her with an expression that could have been hatred or desire. I couldn’t tell the difference. They started an immediate fight where she shattered into a million shards of anger and hurt. He accused her of fooling around with the bartender, and became ever-more distant. It was the middle of winter, but the room was steamy with the pipe furnaces pulsing and sweating. I backed away, meeting his eyes.

When I got home, I pulled out my carton of popcorn in the dark and finished eating it, alone. It seemed that each once-hardened kernel had taken a terrible risk bursting forth into these starchy, flowering maidens. Only then to disintegrate back into sheaths of leftover hull, wedging themselves into the hidden spaces of my teeth. I was annoyed with them stuck there, too salty on my tongue, but I couldn’t stop taking bites for their creamy disintegrating texture and their bitter floral overtones. Bite after bite, I swallowed them down wondering why so many exquisite things in life end up being so frustrating, too.

It seems strange that I should be gone for so long, then come back to you with popcorn. But that’s where I find myself. Such is the stuff that busy lives are made of.

Besides, I have yet to meet a day that can’t be improved by a big, buttery bowl of popcorn. It’s not the same kind of cure that, say, a pot of tomato sauce can dole out, but popcorn takes such little effort, and it’s the kind of merriment you can wedge between school pick-up and endless errands. Not to mention, it makes a pretty good companion when your husband is out of town and you collapse on the couch to watch Mad Men. Popcorn can fit squarely into any part of the day, and I won’t let a week go by that doesn’t see at least one batch.

Here’s how I do it:

Put a generous slick of oil in the bottom of a pot and throw in three kernels. I do this solely because that’s what my mom did. It isn’t entirely clear whether it’s a necessary step or just a relic from my childhood, but I love this part of the process. For a brief moment, each time I make popcorn, my mom is forcing me to listen and smell and take a breath before the three chubby kernels explode. At that point, I lift the lid and fill the bottom of the pot with sunny yellow kernels that sizzle and dance in the oil the minute they hit the heat.

Popcorn is so satisfying that way. They make their own party.

First, a few kernels burst alive in their creamy debutante organza and start dancing. Soon, all those boisterous kernels are laughing and crowding together, cheerily filling your pot. If the kernels seem to be sputtering, shake and agitate the pan a little. They’ll wake up. When the popped kernels are having so much fun they start pushing the lid off the pot, remove from the heat and gather them in the largest bowl you can find. In my kitchen it’s an oversized, stainless steel bowl that takes both arms to wrap the circumference. I like to make popcorn in the biggest batches I can muster.

I douse it in real melted butter, watching the golden liquid trickle into all the cracks and crevices. A quick sprinkling of garlic powder rounds it out, then sweet paprika, grey salt, and if you’re feeling especially festive, a generous grating of parmesan cheese, as well.

Don’t feel like you have to measure any of this. Popcorn really is like a good party—the less you try, the better it seems to turn out. Rely instead on your own superior taste and high spirits. Your day will thank you for it.

Do not hurry. Do not Rest.
Goethe

These words hang over my desk in hand-written scrawl on a tiny brown notecard. I’m looking at them now, as I do often. Somewhere in the balance of those two simple clauses is a perfect moment of calm. Sigh.

Hurrying always backfires on me. I get caught in a tizzy and this hurrying alter-ego takes over. She does things like stomp around as she tensely rushes the kids out the door in the morning, chiding them to put shoes on faster, threatening how late we’ll all be if they don’t HURRY THIS MOMENT. Then we arrive at school with all these unruffled families ambling down the street. I glance toward the front door of the school and realize, in horror, the first bell hasn’t even chimed yet.

“Mommy, how come we’re hurrying because we’re late, and then we’re early?” If only I had remembered Goethe.

This phrase comes in most handy when I’m sitting at the computer pecking away and that small voice in my head starts in. It stomps around in my consciousness doing that same thing I was doing to my kids. You’re never going to get all this done, it screams. Hurry up and get there.

This afternoon when the small voice piped in, I decided to go make lunch instead of listening to its constant, high-pitched chatter. I had been wanting to try my hand at a kale salad a friend made us one night. It had a heady aroma and a tangy topnote that lingered just long enough to keep me going back for more.

Harissa was the first ingredient on the recipe she had clipped for me, and I almost tucked the recipe back in the box for another day. I don’t keep store-bought harrisa around. Oh well.

But wait, didn’t I used to make spinach & egg soup with harissa? And didn’t that recipe call for a few spices crushed together with garlic and lemon juice? I grabbed the mortar & pestle off the shelf. With half a thought that I should hurry back to work, I decided to give this a try.

Next out of the cabinet was a petite, patina-worn black steel pan I use for toasting spices. Soon, the edges of the spices started to brown and a faint whisper crackled as the smell of cumin hung in the air. I closed my eyes. Just closed them and took it all in. It wasn’t until I reopened them that I realized I had been suspended in that perfect balance for a brief, blissful moment.

Reset.

I started peeling garlic and juicing lemons and measuring out bright red and yellow powders. The mortar nestled it all together, and I grabbed the pestle to feel it give under my weight, crushing and breaking and releasing fragrance right there before me. I started to daydream. The floral, yet corporeal fragrance of cumin and garlic, a love affair that was certainly meant to be, filled the kitchen and went to my head. It was almost like my senses had whisked my psyche off to Marrakech for a long retreat. In those few moments, passion crept back into my day and I was about to eat it for lunch. Not hurrying and not resting.

I developed this chocolate pudding recipe in opposition to those wasteful, vapidly-flavored little cups that always tempt my kids. They see those damn things and practically go into beggar’s hysterics. IMHO, buying them is basically the equivalent of paying good money for chocolate(ish)-tinged puddlewater emulsified with motor oil. What a culinary sham. Not to mention the landfill hoarders those little cups become. I said as much to Amelia (Hello soapbox middle-class white lady in the middle of Target!), and she rolled her eyes: “Then why don’t you just make some that’s better?!?” Duh?

I, of course, marched home and started measuring ingredients.

I decided to shun the use of any ingredient that would make this pudding more volatile to lunchbox conditions. An egg yolk or two would add richness, but I was also afraid it would add a stink-factor that I’d rather not send my kids to school with. I tried at least four variations and finally landed on this one. My goal was to make something that was rich enough for me (I am she of the chocolate mousse childhood, after all), but would also fulfill my kids’ vanilla-heavy, stand on the spoon, chocolate pudding cup fantasy. And of course, I wanted this recipe to be easy. Something you could throw together the night before and have ready for the lunchbox in the morning.

Note: I tested this recipe with regular ol’ terrible sugar here, but you can use whatever kind you want. For one batch, I was out of sugar and had some unrefined maple sugar sitting around. It added a different flavor dimension, but I put it in little cups and the lunchboxes all came back totally empty. Success!

Has anyone noticed how custardy this site is becoming? If chocolate lunchbox pudding isn’t your thing, you could always follow my instructions for crème fraiche panna cotta, chocolate mousse, or crème brûlée.

For this lentil recipe, I decided to keep it simple so the heady flavor of the beans could really shine. Resist the urge to clutter the recipe with too many herbs or spices, which would make it a totally different kind of soup. Here, you need only a Parmesan rind, that nubby end of cheese that most people throw away. Next time you spend good money for real Parmeggiano-Reggiano, keep the rind and store it in the freezer for later use.

-3 tablespoons olive oil
-1 whole yellow onion, minced
-2 teaspoons salt
-2 carrots, diced
-2 celery stalks, diced
-3 cloves garlic, minced
-1 lb. Lentils Du Puy (also called French lentils)
-28-ounce can whole peeled tomatoes
-2 quarts water
-Parmesan rind (you could use a few tablespoons of the cheese if a rind is unavailable)
-bay leaf
-salt and pepper to taste
-Red wine vinegar (optional)
-Parmesan cheese for garnish

In a large Dutch oven, heat olive oil and sautée the onion and ½ teaspoon of salt over medium heat until it starts to lose its raw smell. Add the carrots and celery and cook, stirring occasionally, until all the vegetables start to take on a golden color, about 10 minutes. As the vegetables start to lose water, their song will be a mellow hum, rather than the hiss they make when you first put them in. That’s the moment to add the garlic and give a good stir. All of a sudden, the garlic will reach up and charm you into its sensual embrace and you’ll feel like you just want to run off with the garlic then and there, but focus here. You need to finish raising these beans and water into a fabulous soup. It’ll be worth it.

Add the lentils and stir around until they look slick with olive oil. Add the can of tomatoes– juices and all, water, Parmesan rind, bay leaf and the remainder of salt. Bring to a brisk boil and then immediately turn it down to simmer. Cook on low for about a half hour until the lentils are plump and soft. When done, turn the heat off and let the soup sit on the stovetop for about an hour before reheating to serve. Alternatively, you could refrigerate for up to a week and serve at a later time. When you reheat, check the seasonings and adjust with salt, pepper and a drop or two of red wine vinegar if you wish. Enjoy!

Note: Don’t skip the resting phase of making this soup. It really will have more depth and taste creamier after the flavors have lived together for a while. A lot of cooks have discovered this anecdotally, but I swear I read a scientific explanation for it. For the life of me, I can’t find it anywhere, but if you happen to have an article where Cook’s Illustrated explains why soups and stews taste better the next day, will you send it my way?