We’re not sure if we’re coming or going.
But this is what’s for dinner.
When we arrive to our destination in the van, it’s not yet clear to me whether we’ve just left or just arrived.
Is home the place that we’re returning to?
Or the spirit of flexibility and openness resident in this little rolling apartment?
We’re doing our best to find little routines, tools, rituals to make it both — to feel at home in the world wherever we are. Having the exact same pillows on the bed in the van and the apartment. A duplicate toiletry kit so you never forget your favorite lotion. That pair of flip flops that just lives behind the seat because it would be so disappointing to ARRIVE and realize that they were left in the other place. And, for me, opening up the teeny tiny pantry and finding ingredients that are exciting, simple, easy to combine to make something that warms our bellies and grounds us down.
To feel that we’re returning to ourselves no matter where we go – that’s the goal. In her recent book, “Always Home,” Fanny Singer talks about the “Coming Home Pasta” that her mother (Alice Waters) would make when they returned home from France, a little bit jet-lagged, a lot exhausted, and truly hungry. The pasta was and is a simple meal of whatever was in the pantry to help them sow their roots.
This little bowl is our Coming Home pasta, and it serves the very same purpose, though the ingredients are deeply different. It’s the thing that we pull together, even with only a few minutes, even in a very dark desert, it goes well with wine or beer or whatever is in the fridge, and it hits the spot every time, reminding us to settle in — wherever we are.
The key to this recipe is, of course, a well-stocked pantry. Most of the things living in the tiny van pantry probably aren’t that surprising: a jar of ghee, some almond butter, a bottle of olive oil, some raw honey, salt and pepper, sleeves of pasta, a few varieties of rice and lentils, a jar of granola and oats too.
But there are a few things that may surprise you, and they’re the things that really make this dish shine in my opinion. Tinned mussels, which are highly convenient when you’re in the middle of nowhere with limited fuel to cook meat, but also are supremely delicious when you’re in a brick-and-mortar house. A stash of my favorite spices including the smoked red pepper flakes that get sprinkled in at the end here. A few crunchy options – sesame seeds, hemp seeds, cacao nibs, etc.
There’s also a little pouch of toasted nori seaweed, so important in crumbling over the top of pretty much everything. I’ve been crumbling up some nori, adding a bit of toasted sesame seed and a pinch of the smoked red pepper flakes to make a “homemade furikake” and it’s delicious no this dish. It will be equally tasty sprinkled everywhere my heart desires when I get back to Boulder too.
That, along with a bit of pasta, and a bunch of kale (even if wilty from the bottom of the crisper,) a clove of garlic and we have a dinner.
Indeed. Put down the bowl of superfoods for a moment and hear me out on this one. While all of those light, fresh foods are exceptional for our bodies in a spring season, they aren’t always exactly what our bodies want and need.
Our environments, and lifestyles, are truly what dictate what we need to nourish ourselves. These are the two lenses we must look through in order to navigate the vast landscape of super-food options available to us…pasta being one of them (gasp!)
Ayurvedic wisdom suggests that when our lives are swirling with activity, thoughts, movement and travel, we can balance ourselves – inside and out – by choosing to eat something that is of the opposite quality. This makes sense if you’ve ever had a big travel day and crave a burger, or a busy emotional day and crave a big bowl of ice cream or a slice of cake. These are sweet, soothing foods that have slow, dense qualities. Like a comforting, sweet blanket….that you eat.
Pasta isn’t quite like these. But pasta is made of grains which are sweet in taste. Sweet tastes are dense, and wheat in particular is gooey and heavy — which is wonderful for us in moderation.
In this dish, I combine the lightness and bitterness of kale to counteract the heaviness of the grains. The effect on our bodies – and our psyche, is a lighter blanket being wrapped around our bellies and our senses. I brighten it with a squeeze of lemon, which helps us to digest the grains, and a bit of pungent smoked pepper flakes to stoke our digestive fire. So we get to reap all of the benefits of a cozy bowl of pasta, without waking up with a belly full in the morning.
The recipe below is scaled for two people and provides just enough for a modest dinner, perfect for a travel day, a busy day, a day when you had lots of movement or exercise, or just a day when you need to feel back in your own body again.
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