cassoulet

la deuxième partie:

The book that inspires this endeavor -- how I came to have it -- has a story of its own.  I was browsing the shelves of my favorite book store and was asked if there was anything with which I might be helped.  In one of those perfect demonstrations of serendipity, another bibliophile in close proximity overheard me say something about M.F.K. Fisher and pulled me over to the cookbook pile to show me The Cooking of Provincial France ... written by none other.   Since then I have been on the lookout for any of the Time-Life: Foods of the World books.  I love the recipes.  I love the pictures.  To flip through the pages is to step through places that no longer exist.  To contemplate the food -- a lure of being transported through space and time, if not by plane or boat, by fork and knife, aroma and taste.

But to go, is not to go lightly.  Most of the recipes seem to have a requisite, not of skill, but of commitment, and this is the kind of food I can get down with.  A thirty minute meal can become a duty.  Dare I say, a drudge?  Give me a whole day.  Two days. Shopping. Selecting.  Choreographing.  The fluid movement from one step to the next with nothing but perfect attention to each moment.  Dicing.  Simmering.  Browning (the sometimes nearly excruciating willpower required to resist moving things around in the pan too soon). Arranging. Composing. Watchful waiting.  Mindful waiting.  Grateful waiting. Grateful for the blessing and the absolution of time.  Grateful for the world in sublime order.