About two weeks ago, a miracle came into my life, suddenly, as miracles often do.
I was offered an opportunity to join a group of Intentional Creativity sisters, none of whom I’d ever met in person, on a retreat to Florence, Italy. (Or, Firenza, if you prefer, which means City of Flowers.)
There was much hustling and bustling at our house, and a considerable amount of counting on fingers and toes, to make this whole adventure possible.
An adventure known as a “retreat” designed for encountering the wisdom of the Holy Mother.
We are painting, of course. Or we will be on Saturday, having seen some of the stunning spiritual, artistic, and cultural sites of Florence on Friday, and walked through the amazing city enough for my knees to not-so-gently remind me that I might be pushing my luck just a bit.
There was a great deal of soul-feeding going on.
There has also been a bit of body-feeding going on, which, when done really well, is soul-feeding as well.
First, let me admit that virtually my entire grasp of the French and Italian languages comes from watching Food Network. (Which is totally inadequate in airports!) Fortunately, we are blessed with the super-historian and magnificent Chef Jonathan McCloud among us!
We have, it seems, arrived in one of the local food capitols of the world. Balsamic vinegar, olives, wines, stunning black tomatoes, fabulous bitter greens. Local cheeses and olive oil practically flowing from the fountains.
And, perhaps most amazingly of all for one who has been largely grain free for a couple of years, pasta.
Well, duh! I mean, we’re in Italy.
This, however, is no big box store, back-home pasta. According to Jonathan, it is made silky and delicate, from locally grown wheat which is naturally low in gluten (gluten not being a major structural necessity for pasta as it is, say, bread) and grown as it has been through the centuries without genetic modifying and chemical this and that to keep it from spoiling.
You don’t have to keep it from spoiling when you make it and serve it the same day!
Last night, handmade tagliatelle, simply dressed with local fennel and onions, a smidge of crushed pistachio nuts and divine olive oil, beside an abundance of green salad blessed with local balsamic vinegar, all with the slightest tang of real, local, raw milk cheese.
And as we ate, we told stories. Stories of our first recollections of The Holy Mother. Stories which, in their wild diversity, brought us closer into community, as good stories and good food have always done.
Despite some technical challenges, I’ll have more stories and more images, I’m sure.
For this moment let me say that I completely get that most of you, for a great many postmodern, first world reasons, will not be whipping up some homemade pasta for dinner tonight.
I do believe, though, that it matters deeply for us to know both our food traditions and our stories and our images. To touch the spiritual base of all our peoples when we can.
Not legalistically. Not to prove, as Shiloh Sophia would remind us, that we are believers (or grandmothers!) enough.
But to be fed, deeply and cosmically, of who we are so that we might more intentionally choose what makes us whole and share it with the ones we love.
With blessings, and just a spot of stove envy, from Italia!
Growing tomatoes has been a bit more of a challenge in a 21st Century, Metro Atlanta suburb than I remember it being when I was a kid.
