Posted by Elizabeth

I didn’t like the movie Jerry Maguire. Tom Cruise as a sports agent?  That obnoxious precocious little boy with the Coke-bottle glasses who talked incessantly about how much the human brain weighed?  Puh-leeze.  And when Tom told squinty-eyed Rene , “You complete me,” I didn’t want to swoon.  I wanted to puke.  Despite its failings, I love the first moments of the film, when Jerry, in the throes of a personal crisis, decides to create a manifesto, outlining his professional philosophy.  What better way to confront a crisis than by affirming your beliefs?  When I worked as a career counselor and a client came to me in the midst of a life transition, uncertain as to their next steps, I would typically advise them to start with what they know, even if it didn’t feel like much.

If counselors are good at one thing, it’s ignoring their own advice.  For months I’ve been caught in the clutches of an identity crisis, ambivalent about how best to move forward.  I have dreams where I’m holding two identification cards, unsure of which one I want to use.  I have dreams about food dancing – literally dancing in a produce chorus line – through my sleep.  Because this isn’t an ordinary crisis.  It’s a food identity crisis.  What has kept me up at nights, tossing and turning in my bed, has been a struggle to determine what food means to me in my life.  I know, I know:  this sound completely ludicrous!  But there are only two passions that have persisted throughout the life of this change-a-holic:  writing is one, food is the other.

With lettuce from my garden

To say I love food, in all of its manifestations, is an understatement.  I am interested in how it’s grown, produced, marketed, politicized, cooked, served, and eaten.  But most importantly, I’m concerned with how it’s enjoyed and savored. For me – and I know I am going to lose a few readers here – food is a spiritual experience.  My intent is not blasphemy.  I don’t see God when I ladle fresh spring pea soup into a terrine.  And it’s not about cleansing or detoxifying the body to reach greater realms of spiritual alignment.  No, in my mind, food should not be an exercise in deprivation, but a pleasureful experience that nourishes not just one’s body but one’s soul. I am not advocating gluttony, nor developing unhealthy habits.  To eat soulfully is quite the opposite.  It involves, above all else, intention and moderation.  If my mother taught me one thing about my relationship to food, it is this:  I’d rather have a small amount of something very, very good than a plateful of junk.

Nikki's Evidence

I’d like us, as a culture, to begin thinking about food as a soul-ful experience.  Rather than trying to fit myself into predetermined dietary categories, as I’ve done in the past, I am going to begin thinking about what I eat and cook as soul food. Some of the happiest moments in my life involve eating joyfully.  When I recently visited my friend, Nikki, in Oregon, she commented that the photos in which I look happiest are those in which some delicious meal has just been placed before me.  I have been known to hum my way through dinner, to clap my hands exuberantly when a dessert that looks more like art than food is presented, or to saunter through a farmer’s market in a strange city just for fun. Food nourishes my soul more than most things in this world, and represents one of the rare instances in which I am living completely in the moment.

One of Inci's incredibly soul-ful meals

The experiences in which I feel most connected to my food – and, by extension, my soul –are those times in which it’s evident that my food has been prepared and presented with care and thought.  One of the most memorable experiences of my life involved staying with my friend Ismail’s parents in Istanbul, Turkey.  His mother, Inci, took tremendous pride in her cooking, carefully preparing menus, shopping regularly in neighborhood markets for fresh produce, and presenting food fit for a king.  While the fare was traditional Turkish home cooking, without an ounce of pretension, I felt like royalty.  And I know that Inci’s food tasted so good because she put her soul into it.  What I learned from Inci is that there may be no everyday ritual more regular than eating, which we can choose to engage in thoughtlessly or with reverence and respect.  How can food heal our spirit?  By making eating a joyful ritual, we slow down and form a relationship with our food, our eating companions, and ourselves, wherein we are conscious of the everyday experience.  “All eating is communion, feeding the soul as well as the body,” says Thomas Moore in Care of the Soul. By eating well we are caring for our souls, and while my attitudes toward food have changed over the years, my fervent belief in eating with meaning has remained a constant. 

Heidi on my recent visit to Las Vegas, where we planned our time around fabulous meals

A few weeks ago I was talking with my dear friend, Heidi, my de facto life coach, about this very topic.  When I visited an astrologer in India last September, he impressed upon me that I needed to develop a spiritual practice, which I’ve been struggling to do ever since.  “Have you ever considered,” quipped Heidi, “that food is your spiritual practice?”   I feel most aligned with the universe when I am working with food.  I am my mother’s daughter, working through my deepest problems in the kitchen.  Is it possible, then, that my countertops are altars, my aprons robes, my cookbooks spiritual texts?  Last night I woke up in a sweat, the final moments of a dream reverberating through my brain.  “It’s not just about the tomatoes,” a voice yelled at me through the din of my dream life, a message I can only fathom having something to do with needing to express a deeper connection to food than is obvious on the surface.  And the only way I’m going to work through this identity crisis is through taking my own advice, starting with what I know, and developing my manifesto.  You can consider this Chapter One.

What feeds your soul?