Paella Mandala

Wolfgang Puck has said, “Don’t worry about making mistakes in the kitchen. The biggest mistake you can make when you entertain is not spending enough time with your friends.” Ain’t it the truth? I just had one of the best times entertaining with dinner and it was because so much of the preparation was done in advance. But there is something about hard preparation that also makes the time enjoyable. The cook gets to show off, the guests get to feel like they are valued enough to “go all out for” and there’s nothing better than enjoying the delicious fruits of one’s labor.

This most recent event started with cornbread. I was trying a new recipe of cranberry almond cornbread and thought I would use it for the dinner if it turned out to be good. Something Spanish seemed like it would go well: tapas (in this case potato/egg frittata cut in cubes), sangria, white gazpacho, paella (all from Great Gatherings) and, for dessert, fresh fruit from a place called Edible Arrangements.

I made four trips to various stores looking for ingredients (saffron is hard to find and in NJ the grocery stores do not have wine or liquor) and I like to meander and take my time when I am shopping for a special meal. I find chopping fresh vegetables and herbs to be therapeutic. I feel powerful doing battle with flames and oils. When cooking I feel creative and a bit like an orchestra conductor even though there is no one in the kitchen but me. The paella especially has so many steps to create that it almost feels like sweeping away a mandala as I watch it being served.

All told, I ended up putting in about 8 hours of preparation for this most recent meal and I don’t begrudge any of that time spent. The evening glowed and I got to spend every minute of it with my friends. Oh, and the cornbread? It was swapped for cheese biscuits.

Float For Me

Isn’t it remarkable how self-recrimination, or the lack of it, can make such a difference in our ability to cope and succeed in life? Think of Disney’s Dumbo buying into the recrimination of his peers who saw his ears as freakish. And think again of his soaring accomplishments once he discarded those views and perceived himself as capriciously capable.

What if, rather than having huge ears Dumbo was subject to hearing voices? Would he have had any hope of freeing himself from the recriminations that convinced him that he was crazy? Could there be any magic feather that he could grasp onto that would allow him accept the voices and even use them for his advantage?

Years ago, a friend of mine, who was highly intelligent and a vice president in a global corporation, confessed to me that she was under constant pressure to ignore the never-ending chatter in her head making it hard for her to hear the voices of flesh-and-blood people around her. I came upon her once in a walkway between the train station and the office. She was facing a window, going through her brief case. I stopped to say ‘hi’ and got a very vague response that left me thinking as I walked away that she really hadn’t recognized me.

I was convinced that she was so distracted as to not be able to switch from her voices to our present situation. I believe she was able to succeed in life because she came to accept the voices as something that “were there” and she moved on. Had she had less strength of character, I am sure she would have dissolved in helplessness, convinced that she was crazy. I am sure, too, that had she sought professional help she would have been diagnosed as schizophrenic and herculean, but futile, attempts would have been made to rid her of her voices, driving her even further into helplessness.

Recent studies have begun to show that there may be a significant number of persons who hear voices who are not “crazy” and that there are a significant number of schizophrenics that could benefit by being taught to live with their voices while treating other of their more debilitating symptoms. Perhaps if we gave such feathers to these voice-hearers we would find that they are muses and poets and oracles with a place in our society.

In her book Visits From The Seventh, the poet Sarah Arvio says of in a dialogue with her voices ’We’ve got you to stand for us.’ And I have you, I said, to float for me.