Seattle Home Inspector's Blog

     Sometimes things are not always what they seem.  Take for example cutting vegetables.  Some methods of cooking and food preparation are taken to the level of "spiritual experience"----almost like a religious ritual for some.  And by some ways of thinking it is true----but perhaps no more than should be accorded any aspect of our lives.

     Sometimes the things that are "attached" to the way foods are prepared would lead one to believe that if one did not adhere to these rituals, the foods would turn into poison, or cause mutations in our offspring.  While some foods might be "poison" and can have things in them that might cause mutations, that is not what we are discussing here.  Everyone knows that if life were only possible if you ate what the Surgeon General says to eat, there would not be a child anywhere that would grow into an adult.  It is clear to me that children are somewhat "epiphytic," in that they are able to turn even the most absurd things they put in their mouths into flesh and bones----to the point of having to conclude that nourishment must be coming from thin air.

     I love to cook.

     I am the cook in our house----although now my sweetie is no longer in danger of starving to death when I go away for a few days.   Her days of popcorn and canned tuna are long gone.

     I have given a lot of thought to how some of these rituals around cooking may have come to be.  Rituals usually have a kernel of truth about them----they are usually the result of some "actual" need at some earlier point in time.  That need might have been something practical like cutting the carrots in various shapes to solve the problem of the pieces rolling off the cutting board and onto the floor.  It also might have been shear boredom that resulted in creating decorative patterns and elaborate presentations. Creative chefs do the same thing---but this is not ritualistic----it is "alive."

     There are dangers inherent in "over-ritualization" in our lives.  When things don't "look" a certain way (the way we are perhaps used to them looking) we can exhibit symptoms of stress---and dis-ease.  What is supposed to lead to nourishment starts to tear us apart.

     Sometimes if we can demystify the things we have ritualized in our lives, we can actually have an opening to move in a different direction----to make our lives "alive" again. 

     The current economic crisis has, built within it, some ritualized components that will also need to be abandoned or dissembled and re-assembled in new forms before the pendulum swings the other way.  Familiar ways of doing things will need to be scrutinized as to what exists because of "habit" or "religious fervor," and what is actually productive.

     Currently the carrots are rolling onto the floor---

---we better figure out a different way to cut them.

Charles Buell