Sunday Collection 13

This week’s collection is about nourishment. From our first moments of life when we are breastfed (or not) nourishment is bound up for us in issues of comfort, sensuality, connection.

In the West, we eat far more than we should, we eat meat from animals raised in appalling conditions and vegetables and grains smothered with chemicals. In other countries people starve. (Well in fact in Western countries poor people go hungry as well, just not on the same apocalyptic scale.)

Our religions are bound up in rituals and laws around food: what we can and can’t eat and drink, breaking bread together. When we share food with true friends, it is a sacramental act, whether intended that way or not. One of the most beautiful aspects of Jewish observance is the day-to-day and cyclical observation of faith in the home though food and ritual. As Christians, we have largely lost that.

Anyway, enough of what I think, let’s move on to the treasures I’ve found this week.

Christine writes movingly about Africa and includes a wonderful recipe. I am determined to make this dish although I will probably substitute pork or tofu as I don’t eat chicken.

One of my guilty habits is really good quality coffee. There are lots of issues around the growing of coffee – fair trade, land use etc. I’ve recently found a specialist blog called Coffee and Conservation and this post about sustainable coffee is well worth reading.

And a good cup of coffee would go really well with Milton’s new breakfast invention, Pineapple Cornbread. I have to try that one.

For our main course, perhaps we should try the salmon and cous cous recipe that Jo at Soul Food has adapted. Sounds wonderful.

There’s a really funny scene in Sleepless in Seattle where the newly-dating-again Tom Hanks thinks “Tiramisu” is some new sexual technique that’s going to be expected of him. You’ll be happy to hear that this wonderful example at The Traveller’s Lunchbox is of Tiramisu, not technique.

I was doing some random surfing for recipes and found il Cavoletto di bruxelles. I have absolutely no idea what any of it actually says, but isn’t the whole website completely stunningly gorgeous? Only someone based in Rome could make the horrible brussels sprout look cool.

And finally, one of my favourite comfort foods is lasagne. I found this video on YouTube that hits the mark. Have a blessed week, everyone.