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Now on to this week’s musings…
I was cutting wood for my van earlier this week and found myself struggling to believe that I am making progress, struggling to hold onto the knowledge that my productive hibernation and slow unfurling are working. For a moment, as I carefully measured and cut and sanded, it all felt impossibly slow and futile. The van, once again, felt like an impossible uphill struggle that never seems to get any closer to completion and that I want desperately to see finished.
Days of rain slip by and all I’ve managed is to paint some wood white. It doesn’t feel like I am building a home. But I am, and I have to keep believing. It is when I stop believing in the power of my small steps that I become froze and progress stops.
The wood I was cutting is for the kitchen unit. It will form cupboards and hold up the kitchen side, house the sink and the drinking tap. They are some of the most important pieces of wood I have cut so far.
Long-time readers of A Nomadic Rose will know how important the kitchen it to me. The design of the kitchen has been central to everything. Buying my oven remains one of the best moments in my van build. The spice rack was one of the first things I completed, and the first colour brought into my space.
The kitchen is the heart, the hearth, the centre of this tiny home.
The day after cutting wood and feeling hopeless I woke to Pancake Day. The religious origins of Pancake Day, Shrove Tuesday, don’t have any spiritual significance to me. But Pancake Day, as in the day in which the food is celebrated and consumed, does have significance. As Lauren said in her message to me that day, “Happy our Favourite Festival Day.”
Pancakes are easily in my top three favourite foods of all time, whether that be French crepes or American Pancakes, I adore them. I eat them regularly, refusing to restrict myself to one day a year. But on Pancake Day I happily munch on them from breakfast through to supper.
Laurens message got me thinking. Samhain, or Halloween, is my favourite festival of the year. But Pancake Day is certainly important to me. It is up there with the Summer and Winter Solstice, with Xmas, with family birthdays as a day that must not be missed. That was made very evident when I was genuinely surprised yesterday to realise it was Valentine’s Day.
Pancake Day and my frustration with my van build seemed to merge into one on Tuesday, the humble pancake managing to completely shift my mood. As I enjoyed the day, I pondered the importance of food in spiritual belief, in celebrations, in festivals and holidays. Treats and pumpkins for Halloween, roasts at Christmas, food fried in oil at Hanukkah. So many important moments in our calendars are marked as much by what we create in our kitchens as by the prayers we might offer to our gods.
As I work to realign my life with the seasons and the natural world, I have embraced foraged foods, learning about what is available in the hedgerows and woodlands as a door into changing my life.
For me Pancake Day is a day spent in and out of the kitchen, small bursts of heat, oil and batter, cheese and spinach, lemon and sugar, marking the progress of the day. Each pancake empties the mixing bowl, and each one makes me happier (and fuller).
My van build is currently being undertaken in similar small bursts, and the eventual empty bowl on Tuesday reminded me that I am making progress. It takes longer than eat my way through a day of Pancakes, and is significantly more complicated, but it is happening in much the same way.
And it will result in a kitchen from which pancakes and latkes, roasts and cakes, foraged specialities and experiments will mark the celebrations and seasons of my calendar. Pancakes have always been a joyous food to me, they are filled with memories of friends and family, and now they have restored my faith in my process of productive hibernation. Who knew flour, eggs, and milk could do so much.
What’s your favourite food holiday? I’d love to hear about it. And speaking of food, paid subscribers can read on for a newly invented vegan chocolate and sloe berry ice cream recipe in the latest Adventures in the Kitchen.
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