String Bean Meditations

Yesterday morning I got in a swim before our SLATER PARK PAWTUCKET PARADE performance and I even had a few moments to rinse and decapitate my big bag of string beans so I could make a garlic stir fry when we came home hungry. As I was doing this chore I realized it was a perfect calming and meditative activity. My friend Sally was occupying my thoughts. Sally Larrick is an excellent cook weaver musician photographer and a Buddhist. She has the ultimate meditations in the kitchen approach to making food. She one made a pecan pie starting with picking and shelling the pecans, and making the crust from scratch. She also makes etouffe a French New Orleans shrimp butter sauce that she fed me over brown rice. Her husband made their gorgeous oak kitchen table. She is a weaver by trade and she dyes the wool before threading the loom. She may even chase down and shear the sheep. She can sing and play upright bass and she can sew anything from a bolt of fabric. She once made a fold up foam rubber couch-chair-bed. I slept in when I visited. She's made a bathrobe a dress shirt and a gorgeous blouse.

The String beans cooked with my simmered all day garbanzo beans and sauteed garlic were amazing over rice for supper at ten PM. Food is healing.