Kale and Cookies

After our church service this morning, small groups of adults chatted in the narthex as our oblivious granddaughters happily munched cookies in their own little worlds underfoot. I was watching the girls, thinking how adorably lost in sugar reverie and cookie-happy they looked, when their mama said to me, “We need to stop at the grocery on the way home - (pause) - we’re out of kale already.”

Maybe it was her signature look – the cute of-course-we-must-have-KALE look – amidst the girls’ cookie crumbs falling like snow, or the context of church when you usually don’t expect to talk about leafy green vegetables, but I cracked up. When does anyone EVER run out of, ahem, KALE – as if it might fall in the same class as milk or bread or, goodness knows, coffee?  

This younger daughter and our older son (the two families are currently living under the same roof) have recently been easing into an extended detoxifying juice fast/feast by juicing through the day and eating one solid meal in the evening.  Last night that meal included surprisingly yummy gluten-free, refined-sugar-free berry pie in honor of their brother’s early birthday celebration – an atypical treat to celebrate the departure from solid food!

But as of today they’re into the real deal, which means mega-quantities of juice but no solid food, for the next week.  “I’m sure I’ll be spending several hours a day either prepping and juicing veggies, or cleaning the juicer,” she continued with that same impish-look, as if of course this is what we always talk about during coffee hour at church. 

Meanwhile, the dreamy-eyed girls chomped on their crispy rounds of refined white flour, sugar, and hydrogenated fat: dead non-food on the other end of the spectrum from nutrient-rich, living food: fresh JUICE.  It was just, well, a funny thing for cookies to punctuate conversation about kale juice.  Sort of like combining egg nog and sushi (shudder). Or beer and donuts.

On the way home, I thought how it’s an interesting time and place to be alive in regard to food.  Instead of gratefully consuming whatever basics might be available - the case with our ancestors and various people worldwide today - many in this country can choose to eat almost anything: sumptuous salads from endless salad bars; exotic ethnic cuisine; candy, chips, crackers, and snack cakes; bean sprouts and tofu; all-you-can-eat pizza buffets; organic produce, dairy, and meat; desserts like tira misu and fried ice cream….OR, would you believe, the extracted juices of carrots and kale.