Family in the kitchen

Percy, my Persimmon miracle

As part of my New Year’s resolution to “embrace fear”, I bought a KitchenAid Mixer and it came last Thursday.  It’s persimmon colored and it’s beautiful.  Jesús and I opened it at his house, and I have dreams of the kitchen I’ll have someday in my very own home where this lovely thing that emanates joy sits on the counter and is a part of the beauty and authenticity of my future kitchen’s heart and soul.

Percy is inside!

Last Saturday, I decided to make dulce de leche sandwich cookies, courtesy of Joy the Baker (love her, want to be her when I grow up).  It was in response to the gloomy place I was in after my niece and nephew’s birthday party, also last Saturday.  See, there are times when I believe I am really different from the rest of my family.  As I’m searching for an authentic life filled with real joy and, well, authenticity, at times I feel the questioning eyes of my parents and siblings about why I’m not settling down, why I’m continuing my education, collecting education debt up the yang, instead of just getting a job and being satisfied with the fact that we don’t like work, we work so that we can afford this life.  I express this not as judgment but with a deep and profound love for my family.  The kind of love that makes me continue to try to fit in, to gain their acceptance, to be understood all the time.  It’s a love that at times is frantic and unhealthy.  I would do anything for them; they are an unbelievably important part of my life, good and bad.  I love them and sometimes I allow myself to be hurt by them.

At the party, I struggled in an environment of children absorbed in excess and entitlement (not my niece and nephew, and yes I am biased) and I couldn’t see myself as one among the parents.  I couldn’t see my life being this (please forgive me for passing judgment here…).  And I was exhausted and hurt by watching all of this around me.  I’m still not entirely sure why I took it so personally; maybe it’s because my sisters-in-law are two of my best friends in life and I know they aren’t this either.  At any rate, there are elements in this of wanting to feel accepted and wanting to have my own space where I’m not just preaching the life I believe in, but living it as well.  In that moment, I didn’t feel like I could live the way I want to, I’m not sure why.

However, I came back to Jesús’ house and after a little cry and a good talk with this amazing man (I’m so lucky), I decided I wanted to make dulce de leche sandwich cookies for my first experience on my persimmon KitchenAid Mixer!  Supplies in hand, as I tied my brightly colored apron around me and washed my new (and bright!) mixer’s instruments, I began to feel like myself again.  Here, in the kitchen, I can create authenticity in the form of delicious food for others.  I can get my hands dirty, in the natural elements that are gifts to us; I can reconnect with what is important in life:  sustenance, nurturing goodness, and the way your spirit (my spirit, anyone’s spirit) is filled when we smell the warm and inviting scents creeping out of the oven and transforming a house into an ambiance of home.  Humans seek authentic connections and relationships and what better place than in the kitchen, over the gift of food.

Preparation

We are together on this one

I think I chose these dulce de leche sandwich cookies as my first run on the mixer because they are so different.

Not just your chocolate chip cookie, my friends, but sweet, so sweet, and yet not too sweet, thick, creamy dulce de leche, a product of mothers and grandmothers wanting to share the goodness of life with their families, reshaped into these delicious cookie sandwiches.  As I stood in the kitchen, cookies baking, spreading the thick dulce de leche across their bottoms to create the sandwiches, I thought of how in the times I spend in the kitchen, I am connected to generations and generations before me.  I am connected to humanity in the most pure and authentic way.  We share our stories and recipes with one another, and neither languages nor cultures can inhibit the way we feel when we are staring at creation.  It’s so beautiful, and I’m so filled with joy to have this experience.  And I crave the next time food and baking can equal peace and joy; the healing attributes for any of life’s complexities.  This is family.  And I’m going to be okay.

spreading dulce de leche and joy.

Fin!

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