I am not the most informed person in the world: I find that reading a daily paper depresses me and paralyzes me with all that I don’t know and all that I can’t do about things. I watch Bill Moyers on PBS and occasionally dip into The Newshour. I read a local weekly rag, The East Bay Express, sometimes focusing on the astrology column and the restaurant reviews, although I usually read the cover story. Other than that, I get my news from Facebook updates and a few chosen sources that I subscribe to.
Because of that, I learned about the movie theater shootings in Colorado on Facebook on Friday afternoon. A friend of mine, Deby Dixon, posted a link to a blog she wrote about the brevity of life and the importance of following your dreams while you have time and health because none of us know when our life will be cut short, when our health will fail, when life or death will intervene in some unexpected fashion. Deby wondered if some of the people in Colorado died wishing that they had gotten to some dream of theirs. Deby’s story and her reflections moved me to tears and I asked permission to share it with you. You’ll find her post here, along with some of her photographs: Deby is traveling and photographing the beauty and majesty of our national parks.
What do you do when life smacks you down, when you suffer a loss? You grieve. You tell the story to others. You seek comfort. Perhaps you seek to comfort others. What comforts me in my most dire straits is beauty. Which is not to say that beauty makes me feel all better right way: beauty breaks open the heart, opening it up to the full catastrophe of grief, but beauty also helps you bear having your heart open in its pain. Beauty is a reminder that in the face of loss there are moments of great beauty and tenderness, that we are in this together, that the sun rises even on our worst day, scattering light through the atmosphere. Sometimes it doesn’t seem fair that the sun is shining — how can it be when we have suffered such a blow?
How to deal with a tragedy on a food blog? When you are grieving, it can be hard to eat. But you need to eat. In my hardest times I have found it was easier to eat with other people, that I could eat a few bites in the company of a trusted friend if I could not eat alone. So my recommendation for you this weekend is that you find some way to share a meal with someone else. It could be a version of David Lebovitz’s tomato tart.
You could go to a potluck and bring a loaf of bread, a dessert. a salad. What matters is that you eat with others to ease your hearts and theirs. And that someone puts something beautiful on the table: a vase of flowers, a special tablecloth, a rose from the yard, a silver pitcher, a photo of your best beloved.
After I heard about the shooting in Colorado I spent a few hours sketching my old Harmony guitar that I got from a pawn shop in San Francisco. I listened to music as I worked. The Harmony is beat up, but has a sweet tone: to me it is beautiful. I share it with you and I urge you to look at Deby’s photographs and, possibly, to listen to some music you love, hymns or loud rock and roll — it matters only that you love it.
A simple seasonal dessert we have been eating lately around here is mixed peach and plum crisp. I’ve been making it with fresh Santa Rosa plums (both from the farm box and from my sister-in-law’s tree in Vallejo) and fresh peaches from Frog Hollow Farm. I usually use a Betty Crocker apple crisp recipe for the proportions of the topping ingredients and make the topping with rolled oats, unbleached and whole wheat flours, butter, brown sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon, but a few weeks ago I made a gluten-free version to take to a party: what I did was use more oats and substitute a couple of tablespoons of cornstarch for the flour (Oats are gluten-free if you make sure to buy oats that have not been processed in a facility that also processes wheat and other grains). You can make it either way. I usually make it in an 8″ x 8″ Pyrex pan, but sometimes I double the topping amounts, use more fruit and bake it in a 9″ x 13″ pan.
Gluten-Free Peach and Plum Crisp
Preheat oven to 350.
Slice enough fruit to cover the bottom of an 8″ x 8″ square pan. If you have small plums, it might take a whole bag; if you have average plums, use four or five, plus four or five peaches.
Combine 1 cup gluten-free rolled oats and 2 heaping tablespoons cornstarch.
Add 1/2 cup brown sugar, plus nutmeg and cinnamon to taste.
Cut in 1/3 cup butter.
Sprinkle topping over fruit.
Bake for 35 minutes or until sufficiently browned to suit you.
Serve with creme fraiche, whipped cream, burnt caramel ice cream, or just with a little milk or cream drizzled on top. Share with someone.
For the standard version, use 1/2 cup of flour, 1/2 cup of rolled oats and the same amounts of butter, brown sugar and spices as above and follow the same baking and serving instructions.
A beautifully expressed post my friend – after hearing about the shootings, it truly was as if the sun should not rise. It makes you wonder how someone can truly feel safe in society. Which is why mum says to live everyday instead of treat it as just-another-day 🙂
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
Your mum is wise, CCU!
I like the idea of sharing your food along with your thoughts and laughter and tears. It makes complete sense but sometimes we forget these things and try and lock ourselves away from ‘it’ whatever ‘it’ may be. And I’ve just popped over to Deby’s blog – a beautiful piece of writing, thanks for the link!
Thank you, Claire. I’m so glad you looked at Deby’s post.
Thank you for sharing my post Sharyn, and your thoughts as well. Food is so tied in with our emotions and the Colorado tragedy was a perfect way to illustrate that some might chose to turn to the comfort foods in order to soften the pain. Now, for the peach and plum crisp – how do you suppose it would hold up in the mail? ;~)
Thank you for allowing me to link to your post, Deby. Mailing fruit crisp? Well, I don’t know about that — I’d hate to think what it might look and smell like after a few days in the U.S. mail…
An apt entry, as I experienced a loss today of my old friend Alexander Cockburn. We can never tell when grief may strike. Your thoughts on food were comforting.
I am sorry, Suzanne — I had heard of Alexander’s death (I can’t think of him without thinking about the car with grass growing in it).
You have touched my heart again with your words. Death does indeed sit on our shoulder and until we recognize this in our guts we don’t live fully. Mortality is a hard meal to digest…
“Mortality is a hard meal to digest.” That sounds like the opening line of a poem.
or the closing line!…
The shootings really made me wonder- is it safe to go anywhere anymore? It is a scary thought. I live in India and over the past few years we have seen our share of violence, and every time I go to a mall or theatre and see so many happy families around, I just wonder WHAT the perpetrators of violence get by disrupting normal people who are just carrying on and living life.
I guess the greatest teaching is that nothing is safe, Meenakshi — as John reminds us (comment above) we are all mortal. I can imagine that being able to take someone’s life gives one a fleeting moment of power. It’s not my way, though.
It really just made me stop in my tracks, that shooting was unbelievable. In June we had a similar shooting in the Eatons Centre down town. One person was killed (a gang hit) but several were injured. A woman from Colorado narrowly escaped only to be shot in the head in that movie theatre three weeks later. It’s a scarey story, enunciating even more the brevity of life. http://www.nationalpost.com/m/wp/news/blog.html?b=news.nationalpost.com/2012/07/20/aspiring-sportscaster-jessica-ghawi-killed-in-colorado-shooting-narrowly-missed-toronto-eaton-centre-gunfire
Plums are in season, this is a lovely dessert.
I just read your link, Eva. I don’t know what to say about that. I guess the most merciful thing is that she died with someone tending to her.
I was touched by that as well, Sharyn. It’s not a pretty world we live in.
Hopped over to Deby’s and was truly touched by her writing and photos. We never know what tomorrow will bring. Thanks also for sharing your thoughts and fruit crisp.
Thanks for visiting Deby’s site — it was a touching post: made me tear up.
Thanks, Sharyn, for this post and for referring me to Deby’s.
You are welcome, John. That was a lovely blog she wrote.
Thanks for introducing us to Deby and her piece of writing is beautiful.
You are welcome, BAM.
Debys post is beautiful. I’m also glad for the introduction. I have not yet had a period of great, powerful or protracted grief, but even the short durations have been overwhelming. I have walked very closely with friends who have seemingly only known grief in the past decade, and it is that communal staying close and sharing even the smallest of pleasures that helps us each hold center! I cannot mentally compute the level of sadness that permeates the world and national news daily, let alone this past Friday. I have to turn it all off, too, and for me, music and getting outdoors is helpful, otherwise I run the risk of becoming too fearful. As always, you provide such a good direction in which to take these troubled thoughts, Sharyn. Debra
I’m so glad you enjoyed Deby’s post, Debra — I thought it was exceptionally good. And thank you for your kind words as well.
It always seems cruel that the world goes on without being blessed with the presence of a lost loved one. This was a moving tribute to those lost..
Your gluten-free crust is intriguing.. as you know I’ve been experimenting with a few gluten-free recipes and find it is usually a win or lose situation. It’s great to find a crust that’s a winner!!
The gluten-free version was just fine — I think it’s because the original version only calls for a half cup of flour so you are not having to replace at lot. I like really simple crisp toppings, but you could also put in ground almonds or other nuts.
A great tribute and a great reminder. I hope in time that the families of the shooting victims can find some comfort and beauty in the time they shared with their loved ones, as well as find some peace in living with the tragedy.
I was away this weekend sharing time and meals with my mom, a surprise trip, so am just back catching up on posts. Your crisp sounds delicious and comforting. I’ll have to go and check out Deby’s site, and thanks for your words and for the link to her post as well.
You are welcome, Betsy. I hope you had a good visit with your Mom. Deby’s site is worth a visit and her post about the Colorado murders and her life is beautiful.
People do not appreciate plums enough in my book! So nice to see a dessert highlighting them!
Plums are not my favorite, Tiffany, but I like them mixed with other things — I just made a peach, plum and corn salsa that was terrific.
I just read Eva’s link as well – That is just… I’m at a loss for words, and that’s not even talking about the “main story” here. I’m not a spiritual person, I don’t believe in some divine intervention or “big plan” – I just find it so incredible… tragically incredible, that someone can escape death in a gun-violence related crime and then get shot a few weeks later. So many people… the vast majority of people… will go their whole lives not having their lives threatened like this, and somehow, for some reason, it happens twice to the same unfortunate soul… it just boggles my mind.
It puts me in mind of fate, Charles, which the Greeks believed you could not avoid.
Beautiful post. When someone died in my old neighborhood, people took covered dishes to the house for the family. At my church, we always had a meal for the family and their out-of-town relatives. After visiting the cemetery on Memorial Day we had a family get together. Food has long been a way of sharing love and grief.
Yes, you are right, Bob. In many traditions, people bring food to the bereaved. This is both to relieve them of their day-to-day responsibilities and to encourage them to eat, if only a little.
Beautiful paintings and crisp.
Such a tragic event. I still can’t believe it.
Thanks, Melissa. I know.
One of my best friends lost their mam this week and I was thinking how can I help? What can I offer? I’m thinking of baking some bread and biscuits for the family as something to help comfort the soul. Beautiful post Sharyn as always and particularly poignant. Thank you.
Dear Lauren,
I am so sorry for your loss and that of your friend. Love each other.
Thank you.
I bet this crisp is delicious…I love peach crisp but have never tried it with some plums thrown in! 🙂
It’s pretty good, Christina — adds a little acid pop and some beautiful color. Someone just gave us some cherry plums, so I’m about to do it again.