recipe to solve a conflict

My friends, especially those who know me in Western Mass, know that I love to cook, and that I am capable of pulling off a really nice party. We all know that to do that, it obviously is a more complicated recipe than German Potato Salad; it takes an atmosphere of color, kisses, and communication between friends, strangers, and family. It is not always my party, but perhaps someone else’s- and I have been at gatherings where I knew just one person there, and in those cases, I have always found myself in a kitchen, where preparing food for everyone, washing dishes, fussing over which color table cloth is just right, and always deferring to the host/hostess is where I make a meaningful connection. Thanks to Heather, I know how to chop like a professional chef. Thanks to Claire, I know how to make salad dressing that tastes like a food expo and present food beautifully. From working at Earthlands, I know how to direct helpers. From living with Christine, and hanging out with my gorgeous late grandmother, I will always make sure that the kitchen is full of laughter… and love.

 

San Jose is a really difficult community to live in for me so far. The people I talk to are always looking around, desperately trying to find something else to do than talk to me, free of plastic surgery, names to drop, interest rates to discuss, or god really knows what else. Others speak a totally different language. I never seem to pass the “What do you do?” test. At my age, if I don’t have a lucrative career, a promising degree, or even a family to talk about, or better, a husband to brag (or complain) about, I think I am a “go nowhere” conversation. I have stopped explaining that I came from the east coast because I fell madly in love, because the reaction is far from positive. It is another reason to back out. My beloved is not a biotech engineer, but a soldier, a Gulf War vet who left the military to be a peace activist. I feel like I am either an annoying evangelist in their eyes or just a stupid over emotional woman; a counter cultural freak lacking brain, skills, and ambition. Or, as I was referred to by someone who incidentally is not from California, “east coast trash”.

 

Culinarily speaking, I am no genius. My ex un-boyfriend, a former French chef, always reminded me of this, with his fancy cream sauces and elegant knowledge of wine. I can make some pastry dough, I know how to julienne, but I would prefer to brag about “making poverty luscious”. The Indians do that well, as do Mexicans. Rice and beans, baby. All of that aside, the food is good because it is made with love. And love is good for you; better than just plain broccoli. Definitely better than just plain San Jose. Which is why I have lasted as long as I have, in both instances.

 

So this morning I worked at the San Jose Book Expo in the McHenry Convention Center on West San Carlos St. (1 ½ blocks West of Market). I was supposed to be selling subscriptions for the San Jose Repertory Theater there, but the atmosphere for such a thing was dismal. Everyone there either already subscribed, or would not catch my eye. Even the ladies at the MLK Library table next to mine were very uninterested in carrying on a conversation with me. After the “what do you do” (other than this) conversation, and my expression of love for the library, they busied themselves every time I even glanced over there, although no one was coming to their table, either. And I thought I got over that in high school. At least it gave me a thick skin for such indelicacies.

 

After about an hour and fifteen minutes, I walked around the hall, pausing to sample some cookies amongst the patrons who have no idea that a war is being waged in their name on a sovereign nation, and that their names are written all over the deaths of millions over the past 16 years, that authors who write about it are not invited to book expos, and moreover are granted CIA files and sometimes detained without explanation, and despite all of that, I sighed, wishing that someone would talk to me, because I have not had a conversation of substance with anyone in this city since I have been here. I really am, for the first time in my three decades of life, very lonely. At first it was novel to observe n myself. Now it makes me cry. Since I would rather cry for more the more pressing tragedies, I just sighed. Then I saw a cookbook at an otherwise relatively blank table being watched by a middle aged man and woman. It was called “Palestinian and Jewish Recipes for Peace”. I stopped.

 

My heart is an open book lately. Perhaps it is because I can’t find a good pair of boots to thump around in; perhaps I simply haven’t been living hard enough to maintain my calluses, like not playing guitar enough. I think though, that I am always effusive, but San Jose doesn’t contain a forum for public displays of emotion (although my boyfriend loves to challenge his Yankee girl’s cultural predisposition to flinching at public displays of affection, and has been quite effective in this arena). Here, my gush of “Wow, what a beautiful book! Is this for real? Tell me about this! What a beautiful testament to peace! This makes my day!” was met with an ensuing hour plus of meaningful connection I had yet to have in this soul crushing city, with two highly spiritually evolved people who do incredible work for peace.

 

Len and Libby Traubman of San Mateo launched the Foundation for Global Community, which fosters dialogue and sustained relationship building between Palestinians and Jews on the truly grassroots level of love, the Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue Group of San Mateo County, California. Their cookbook is a beautiful manifestation of their labor of love, featuring recipes like Hummus, Chicken Soup and Matzo Balls, Latkes, and Tabouleh. Apparently, the members would get together with a meal either before, during, or after the meeting, and inevitably the war between the cultures persevered in a loving manner of who can outdo each other in the kitchen! The magic of this amazing manifestation struck me, as did Len and Libby, who both shook my hand and engaged in conversation that included eye contact.

 

 

The Traubmans took what little desire I had to remain at the book fair and redirected it to feeling loved and valued, so that when I rode my bicycle home, the now-familiar lonely streets of San Jose beckoned with the possibility of conversation and connection. We as humans are not “badass” “ambitious” “exceptional” or otherwise by sheer luck. We are products of our environment. Our behaviors, relationships, and environments are all choices for the most part, and we need to trust our imagination and intuition to cultivate the changes necessary to have the courage to grow.

 

The Traubmans have that imagination and courage. Without judging anyone, they will flatly state that they do not take a side between the Israeli Palestinian conflict. They believe that sustained relationship building and communication will create peace. They are right, and it brings me back to a fight I saw at camp casey 1 in august of 2005.

 

The different cultures of camp casey were readily apparent in the arguments about food. Some people needed vegetarian food. Others claimed they were starving to death from lack of protein. Regardless of who was right or wrong, because there was no right or wrong, OBVIOUSLY, people needed to get their dietary needs met. Although I ended up being the volunteer who would cook the meat, which is the irony of ironies, I never forgot the snap of a Colorado hippie woman to a California Vietnam veteran at the meeting that morning. Fuming with self indignation, holier than perhaps even the Peace Mom for that moment, she hissed, “Peace begins on your plate!”

 

She really couldn’t be more right on.