Dinner

As a child, the evening meal at my house was an emotionally tense time.  I often wanted to eat and run.  As an adult in charge of the dinner hour over many years, I’ve wanted to cultivate a relaxed, pleasant atmosphere and offer interesting, tasty, healthful food as much as possible.  This seems important to soul as well as body, and worth the effort.

Tonight’s dinner menu fit my husband’s dietary goals without leaving us feeling the least bit deprived: cod and spinach baked in a sauce made with coconut milk and goat cheese, glazed carrots and onions, and steamed Brussels sprouts. 

Then we topped the last of the chocolate almond flour cake with a dollop of home-churned, stevia-sweetened coconut milk ice cream that rivals even the best of the best gourmet ice cream I’ve ever eaten.  Mmmmmmm! 

Dinner.  It’s about food.  But it’s also an opportunity to nurture and serve each other.

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Every day you provide your bodies with food to keep them from failing. In the same way your good works should be the daily nourishment of your hearts…You aren’t to deny your soul, which is going to live forever, what you grant to your body, which is going to die.

-        St. Gregory the Great