Jumping for joy in the kitchen

My good friend Andrew has his own blog: www.andrewaltenburg.com, and I encourage everyone to read it. His perspective on things is honest, and he's a good writer. And from time to time, he encourages reader participation. Last year, he had one where he asked people to write in with what makes them "jump for joy." It was wonderful. So many different perspectives on what makes people just forget they're adults and literally "jump for joy." I remember I wrote about how much seeing newborn baby animals makes me jump for joy. Still does.

Well, he's asked us to do it again. And this time, my answer was a little deeper.

Cooking makes me jump for joy. Or, more precisely, cooking for the people I love makes me jump for joy. I quote MFK Fisher a lot, and one of my favorite of her quotes is "there is more than a communion of bodies when bread is broken and wine is drunk."

Mrs. Fisher GOT IT. And if you read her works (and if you haven't, you should start immediately), you see it all over everything she ever wrote. She's an idol. And when she died, I think I wept for a week. She understood that, when you get past all the anthropology of blackmail and reward with cooking and feeding people, ultimately, cooking is an act of love, it's an act of unification, it's an act of saying "thank you." As I wrote in my blog for Andrew, when I cook a meal for people, if you look up, sometimes, you will see me just put my fork down and look at the table, taking in the picture of my friends enjoying each others' company, my company, and ultimately, the food. When that happens, the food actually becomes quite incidental to what is going on: the making of a "community," however temporary that may be. Sometimes, the "community" of that meal goes on. New friendships are forged. Old ones are strengthened. And sometimes it's just for those few hours. But it's all good. If you can make people smile, and enjoy themselves for a little bit of time (because let's face it. Living is a tough job), you've done the ultimate good deed.

And yes, I DO jump for joy. I don't do it in public because I would get embarrassed. But again, if you hear a thud sometimes, it's me in the kitchen. Or the bathroom, literally jumping in the air, and pumping a fist, because "IT WORKED. They're talking to each other, they like the food, everything is good."

Sometimes it happens easier than others, and sometimes it doesn't happen. But it usually does. And it will if you go into it with an open mind and a willingness to accept that this is your role: people who cook are in a sense "clowns," because clowns can make people really feel good. And that's what we do as cooks. Whether it's for ourselves, for one special person, or for a whole bunch. Knowing you have the ability, the power, to change the way people look at things for a little while, is a very frightening, awesome (in the true sense of the word), realization that you have to get.

Treat the power with respect, but also treat it with joy and love. JUMP about it, sing about it, get someone else to cook. Spread the joy. There isn't enough of it around.