Cauliflower sheet salad, wrapped (as I'd like to be)
Adapted recipe from "Flavours of Freedom: Vegan Recipes for Palestine"
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Lately, my meals have not been particularly inspired. I’ve not been spending much time in the kitchen at all and have largely been persisting on a very globally diverse array of frozen dumplings and noodles, two delightful food groups of which I’m grateful.
Right now I don’t want to be cooking. I don’t want to be writing. I don’t want to be doing anything besides crying, really, and mourning all the big bad shit that’s going on that always seems to be going on.
On the other side of the world, people are dying. People are losing their homes. Their non-human companions. Their olive trees.
At home, people are dying. People are losing their homes and city counsellors are voting to reject affordable housing projects.
And while these big violences unfold, at least three of my neighbourhood squirrels have died the past few months. I’ve seen their little bodies resting on the side of roads. I’ve cried for these little lives too and then felt badly for it. “They’re just squirrels” and then cried some more because nothing is ever just anything and it always seems to be that kind of thinking that enables violence across all scales.
I know it’s not helpful or useful to be a bruised and tender peach. I know that’s not what’s needed right now nor is it ever how big change is made. Yet, it’s really fucked up that living in this world requires such dedicated vigilance and force to the point where softness and mourning and grief for anything and everything feels like inaction, feels wrong.
Like I said, I’ve not spent much time in the kitchen lately. Thanks to a subscriber though, I was made aware of an ebook called “Flavours of Freedom: Vegan Recipes for Palestine” which features 28 recipes + an original essay by vegans from around the world. 100% of the profits (purchase price minus the PayPal processing fee) are donated to Palestine Children´s Relief Fund + Sulala Animal Rescue. It’s $10 if you’re able and interested.
I adapted one of the Palestinian recipes—the Cauliflower sheet salad— to account for my lack of fresh pomegranates, and to make it more substantial as a stand-alone meal.
Instead of fresh pomegranates, I opted for a pomegranate molasses. To accommodate my hunger, I slathered pita in hummus, added extra pistachios, more of the tahini-lemon sauce and wrapped the salad up in a nice little yeasty hug.
I cried while I cooked. It did nothing. And also it was a reminder that I can cry and cut. Cry and hope. Cry and mix. Cry and transform one thing into something else on a tiny tiny scale.