Chickpea to Cook

This blog melds two of my biggest loves: writing and food.

I eat, I write. I cook, I write. I dine out, I write.

It’s that simple.

I hope you came hungry.

A chickpea leaps almost over the rim of the pot where it’s being boiled

“Why are you doing this to me?”

The cook knocks him down with the ladle .

“Don’t you try to jump out. You think I’m torturing you. I’m giving you flavor, so you can mix with spice and rice and be the lovely variety of a human being.

Remember when you drank rain in the garden. That was for this.”

Grace first. Sexual pleasure,  then a boiling new life begins, and the Friend has something good to eat.

Eventually the chickpea will say to the cook, “Boil me some more. Hit me with the skimming spoon. I can’t do this by myself.

I’m like an elephant that dreams of gardens back in Hindustan and doesn’t pay attention to his driver. You’re my cook, my driver, my way into existence. I love your cooking.”

The cook says, “I once was like you, fresh from the ground. Then I boiled in time, and boiled in the body, two fierce boilings.

My animal soul grew powerful. I controlled it with practices, and boiled some more, and boiled once beyond that, and became your teacher.”

Rumi, September 30, 1207-December 17, 1273