I am coming to believe...

that kitchen tools and gadgets are the invention of someone with a lot of stock in Johnson & Johnson. Because apparently, I can't work a simple vegetable peeler without slicing at least one finger open at any given point. My left thumb was the victim last night as I was peeling a butternut squash.

Sure, I could buy the squash already pre-cut. But there is something ..... I don't know what the correct word would be. When I chop and dice and peel and cut and all that myself, I feel even more connected to the whole food prep process. I think, "this is the way that generations of women before me helped prepare food...." and I feel more deeply connected to them. I feel more deeply connected to the growing process -- to the farmers who grew the item and sent it on to the store, or brought it to the farmer's market, and to the food itself. I know it sounds insane, but there's an energy to the whole preparation process, and there is a beauty to the rhythm in chop-chop-chop. To do all this is almost a spiritual exercise. It takes time and effort and expending yourself for something else to come about.

This is why I love cooking, in spite of the nicks, bumps, bruises, and other kitchen mishaps. There is nothing quite as satisfying as the ability to give people nourishment for their bodies and perhaps at the same time for their spirits and souls -- and for yourself as well. Can't buy that at a drive-through!