Contentment Is Our Medicine
Dear friend,
Grab a cuppa, preferably something with frothy milk, a hint of sweet, and a strong espresso. Today, I want you to belly up to my kitchen table — a place where you’ll find crumbs on the floor and full bellies to show for it. As I type this, I’m sitting in one of the two kitchen chairs — a gold, velvet second-hand duo that lives by the wood stove in the corner. From this vantage point, in real time, I can smell a red sauce simmering on the stove. This particular sugo is seasoned with fresh garlic cloves, basil, shallot, and jarred tomatoes from last year’s harvest. The ground lamb in the meal was harvested from our own grassy fields and is a welcomed gift of seasons past that keeps on giving (God bless freezers). A throw-together chocolate almond-flour torta that I’ve made approximately 1,372 times is in the oven, pasta simmers on the stove, and the first of the season’s pepper harvest is roasting. A chilled white wine, perfect for everyday sipping, is in my cup. This beautiful bounty and I are just waiting for the family to return home from town, at which point we will serve up supper and enjoy our fill of today’s offerings.
It’s easy to see why this is the seat in which I am most contented, happy to be resting in my favorite place in the world. My kitchen. Magical life happens here.
“Contentment is a state of peaceful happiness and satisfaction. It involves accepting your current circumstances without a restless desire for more, while still allowing for personal growth and ambition."
It perhaps feels a bit paradoxical, to be living without a restless desire for more, while at the same time wishing to still grow and expand as a person (proof sits in the true emotions I’ve just shared and the Italian vocab cards littering the kitchen table I’ve yet to learn). Even still, I think contentment holds with it the possibility for happiness, in our homes and hearts. And when I think of contentment, I often think of Italian kitchens.
An Italian kitchen often holds no more than three knives: one for bread, one for meat, a small paring knife, etc. There’s usually a well-used, thin, plastic cutting board stacked on the counter, a few large bowls for mixing, and a small handful of saucepans for cooking. Plus a pot for pasta, of course. They’re rarely fancy. Yet each piece is valued and used. Each piece has a place and a purpose. I delight in episodes of “Pasta Grannies,” in which Italian grandmothers will manage to churn out a Sunday supper for their entire family using one burner, a pasta roller, two bowls, and their kitchen table as counter-space.
The answer to contentment isn’t having more.
Perhaps you’ve seen the viral clip of two Italian men, gathering rocks into a wheelbarrow? (I can’t find it now to quote it exactly.) But as they labor, essentially, one says to the other, “This is our medicine. We have the sky, the fresh air, the physical movement of our bodies. We have each other. We have a nice afternoon and conversation. We have a calm. This is our medicine.” I think of this viewpoint often, reorienting my thoughts towards what there is already around me to be thankful for, even when there is labor at hand. Such observations refocus my eyes on what small gifts already exist in the humdrum of making breakfast, sweeping the floor, or marinating a roast. Or smelling this delicious sauce on the stove.
Because the answer to contentment isn’t having more.
“When we receive our daily bread with delight in God’s wholesome provision we cultivate genuine gratitude — not only for the food itself, but for the God who gives it.
— Andy Felton
La calma, I whisper to myself as I cheerfully (yes, cheerfully) fill my sponge with warm, soapy water and begin to scrub up the remnants of breakfast.
La calma, I repeat again as I mix last night’s leftover roast with garden greens to create a cold, refreshing salad for lunch.
La calma, I breathe as another drinking glass gets broken and another towel gets stained with juice from summer blueberries.
Can I be bold with you? I don’t want to waste my life being pissed off. No, let me be more frank: I refuse to spend my God-given time on this earth feeling anything but grateful for the many gifts and mercies I have been granted. Contentment, la calma, is my opportunity to take stock of it all and to yell at the top of my lungs: Lord, thank you! This is more than sufficient!
Such a heart-posture is made evident in the kitchen in beautiful ways. For ages past, women have learned to make do with what they have. They’ve cared well for their equipment, savored their harvests, and made use of their crumbs. They learned to make peasant food beautiful and appetizing by the work of their hands. They took stock and managed their inventory with intention and generosity. Let it be so in my kitchen!
For if we are not faithful with little, how could we ever expect to be faithful with much?
My dear friend Dolores spoke to me once of her Aunt in Naples who cooked out of a tiny, dark home — but it was always tidy and tended to, it was all used. “Her front porch is always swept,” she once told me. I think of that often. After all, what good does it bring those at our table if we have a grander refrigerator? A bigger workspace? Fancier gadgets? If we are not in a “state of peaceful happiness and satisfaction”, no new knife or fancy cutting board will help. I assure you.
Contentment can be found with much or nothing at all. It can be found with a bowl of porridge or a bountiful spread. Contentment lives in our hearts and it is free — you and I can have it, right now. What a gift that is!
Let’s play a game. Leave your answer in the comments. I’ll start:
“I’m content with the fact that ____________________.”
Looking forward to reading of the many gifts you already have.
Time to eat!
Chocolate Olive Oil Cake
This cake is incredibly moist from the olive oil, rich from the almond flour, and hits the palette like a perfectly cooked brownie. It comes together in a few minutes and can be topped with anything from fresh berries, to jam, to whipped cream, to, in this case, homemade hot fudge sauce. It’s an absolute star.
For the cake
6 tablespoons cocoa powder
½ cup strong coffee
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon sea salt
1 ½ cups (175 grams) super-fine almond flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
⅔ cup (150 grams) extra virgin olive oil
1 cup (200 grams) date sugar
3 eggs
For the hot fudge
1 tablespoon butter
¼ cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup chocolate chips
1 tablespoon corn starch
Flaked sea salt, for serving
Preheat the oven to 325°. Line a 9” springform pan with parchment paper on the bottom and oil the sides of the cake pan with a bit of olive oil. Set aside.
In a small bowl, whisk together the cocoa powder, coffee, and vanilla extract.
In a second bowl, whisk together the sea salt, almond flour, and baking soda.
Lastly, in a larger bowl, whisk together the olive oil, date sugar, and eggs for 3-4 minutes or until the mixture is lighter in color and creamy in consistency. Fold the chocolate-coffee mixture into the egg mixture until completely combined. Add in the almond flour mixture and mix well to combine.
Transfer the cake batter into the prepared pan. Bake the cake for 40 minutes or until just set in the middle. Err on the side of underbaking if you’re unsure — a toothpick put into the middle of the cake should come out clean, though a few moist crumbs are fine.
Set the cake aside to cool slightly.
While the cake cools, add the butter, cream, honey, cocoa powder, and vanilla extract together in a small saucepan. Whisk and allow the mixture to get very warm, though not quite boiling. Turn off the heat and add in the chocolate chips and corn starch. Again, whisk well to combine and allow the chocolate chips to melt.
Pour some of the hot fudge over each slice of cake and serve with a pinch of flaked sea salt.
Love,
Try The Cooking Community free for 14 days
If you love cooking along with me, there’s plenty more where this came from. Join home cooks from around the world for new recipes, instructional videos, kitchen inspiration, and good conversation. Start your free two-week trial here.
