Friday afternoon
...the pure child-like intensity of it…it’s just a box, but I dance around the kitchen because it contains my spice order from Penzeys. There is minced onion and garlic and parsley…tenderness and sweetness plucked from nature, dried and preserved until cooking will bring it back to life…as old as human nature itself, driving joy, passion, lust, trade, exploration, exploitation and conquest throughout its history in the world. But my unabashed joy is not false or tainted with the instant gratification of consumerism. It is me finding a vacuum that has been created by the absence of simple daily pleasures due to the recent nature of things. It is me inhaling a memory…and the anticipation of creating new ones…of taste, of family pleasure, of growing seasons, of the miracle of the human body filtered through our senses. And what else is in the box?...Penzeys first cookbook, a jewel of a book in any category, not just cooking…and still more…their usual generosity of throwing in a free sample jar of one of their spices is multiplied by three…and it happens to be all of my favorite spice, Tuscan Sunset. As I begin to read about the Penzey family in the book, I would like them to know how much they lightened my day with just a box…
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