"Throughout the world sounds one long cry from the heart of the artist: Give me the chance to do my very best."~Babette from Babette's Feast
" Seize life! Eat bread with gusto,
Drink wine with a robust heart.
Oh yes—God takes pleasure in your pleasure!
Dress festively every morning.
Don't skimp on colors and scarves.
Relish life with the spouse you love
Each and every day of your precarious life.
Each day is God's gift. It's all you get in exchange
For the hard work of staying alive.
Make the most of each one!
Whatever turns up, grab it and do it. And heartily! "
~Ecclesiastes 9:10, The Message
There are parts of me that cannot be supressed, no matter what company surrounds me--the love of language and the love of good food; to me, the whole of my service to others is wrapped up in these two loves. Often I find myself within a circle of people who don't understand my passions, and somehow that makes me feel small and insignificant. Sometimes I find my desire to produce substantial foods for mind and body belittled, almost ridiculed, by those who don't understand how intrisic these things are to me.
I can't help it. I want to feed you.
And it's not good enough for me to slap some macaroni and cheese or a bologna sandwich on a paper plate and hand it over.
It's not good enough to slip through the drive-through for lunch and be satisfied with a watery iceberg lettuce salad.
It doesn't do to throw together a casserole with canned beans and cream of mushroom soup and french-fried onions.
I know even in writing this that I'll be misunderstood.
I want to feed you real food. Real, substantial, simple, delicious food.
You must know how it pains me that I don't find myself with the amount of time I need to give you want I want to give you. The recipes I want to try, the dishes I want to prepare, the delicacies I want to bestow upon you are too many for the days I have left upon this earth.
I think of Babette, of the sacrifices she made to prepare a meal for those she loved, those who had saved her life, and how she must have had some sense that they were afraid of what she would serve them, that their fears grew larger than this realm. They literally believed that she was preparing the food of the devil. They had no idea that she was a well-known French chef. Her quail, you might say, were cast before swine.
If I were in Babette's place, I'd be fretting. I'd be fuming. I'd not have one good thing to say about those ungrateful gourmands.
But not Babette.
In someone else's kitchen, a long way from her home, she patiently and lovingly prepares a feast; course after course comes forth, and somehow, the food changes people. It awakens them. They find beauty and love and miracles.
When it is discovered that she has used all the money she had to prepare the feast--10,000 francs in the late 1800's--her spinster employers are aghast. Why would she spend all of her money on them?
"It was not just for you," she replies.
"Tout ce que ta main trouve à faire avec ta force, fais-le." Ecclesiastes 9:10, en francais.
I want to find that kind of purpose, like Babette's, where I do what I do--yes, for you--but not just for you. For my own good. For the Lord. Seizing each day with both hands and drinking it down.
Come eat. The feast is ready.
