It’s said that Cleanliness is Next to Godliness, and regardless of your beliefs, a clean kitchen is surely going to keep you closer to the desirable state of ideal health and well-being than a slovenly one. A rotten, filthy kitchen, on the contrary, may well send you off to meet your maker (or annihilation) with unwelcome rapidity. In my experience, Good Eating is Next to Perfect Happiness.
Simply eating well–whether of the most esoteric or exotic or splendidly gourmet meals, or of the handful-of-greens with some impeccably ripe apricots, a speck of salt and pepper and a drizzle of lemon-infused honey pristineness–that act of tasting and enjoying is its own reward. Love of good eating and the happiness that accompanies and follows it are worthy sorts of pleasures.
The process by which the meal or nibble is achieved can be grand delights, too. Just happening on the desired food serendipitously, even sometimes without having realized there was a desire at all, is lovely. Planning a dish, a menu, an event can be a satisfying challenge and adventure. Hunting (in field, stream or market) can be your surprisingly meditative, endorphin-brewing action sequence to prepare for the meal making itself.
Along with all of this is the primary joy of dining with others: the communal happiness and yes, meaning that can be cultivated in shared eating. The love of good food is magnified, multiplied exponentially, by the reflection of that affection between those at table. With strangers and acquaintances, it is the magnanimity–the largeness of spirit–inherent in hospitality that binds and bonds us. Among friends and loved ones, the food is both expression and enhancement of the finest graces in our connections to one another. And I can think of no lovelier thing to stock in my kitchen than that.
Pull up a chair and have a piece of pear-blackberry pie with me!
Art-Colored Glasses 
I’m a stickler for kitchen cleanliness too! Totally with you on the importance of simple foods/eating, that’s why now is such a beautiful time of the year. Everything’s at its best and there’s an abundance of fresh produce to enjoy.
Oh, and you just reminded me there that I’ve got some fruit in the kitchen just calling my name! I think breakfast can hardly arrive soon enough. Mostly it’ll be that much the better when I’m sitting across the table from my sweet husband, whether it’s breakfast or some other time.
I’d love to join you for a chat, Dear, but I’ll skip the pie, as good as it sounds. Not even 2 minutes, ago, I put away my dish after having a piece of cherry-blueberry pie. And yes, I put the dish away; I hate a cluttered sink.
🙂 🙂 🙂
I agree with you, Kathryn, and I’d love a piece of pie (sweets are my vice), but I’m turning my cheek at sweets for awhile, cutting back on sugar! Though, it does look delicious! My hubby and I had a “date” yesterday, browsing in downtown Petaluma (north on 101) and I passed up The Pie Shop and Chocolate! That is strength, if I ever knew it! And the surprising thing was I still had a wonderful time and survived! Trying to shed 10 lbs is like pushing a buffalo across a freeway (bad analogy, but you get the picture)! 🙂 Hugs to you! xoxo
All my sympathies!!! I’m feeling less like I’m trying to shove said buffalo around than that I’m approaching buffalo weight myself, but I mustn’t complain, just cut back on the pie treats! 😀
Hugs galore right back–no calories at all.
xoxo
KI, did you make that gorgeous loaf of bread?
That one I did *not* make. I’ve made some fine breads in my time, but not that one. And I haven’t baked any bread since setting foot in Texas, that’s for sure.
So well-said Katherine. Love and happiness emanating from the kitchen, rising like steamy aromas from the oven. I’m (ahem) a bit anal about the kitchen. oooo that probably wasn’t the right word choice. OK then, I’m picky, very picky. Clean clean counters…not empty, no no, but clean! And my sink too. (and this is starting to go the way of true confessions, so I think I’ll stop. YOU dear Katherine know what I mean.) xoxo
Oh my, yes, I do know just what you mean!
Many hugs to you over in your squeaky clean kitchen, my darling!
I’m on my way.
🙂 Mandy xo
Door’s open, dear Mandy!!
xoxo
I’ve pulled up my chair as close as I can to the computer screen. Now what? I want me some of that there pie.
The pie is months gone. Fortunately for you, I’m very willing to repeat the performance any time you can make yourself closer than the nearest computer monitor. Y’all come!
Pear-Blackberry pie … oh, my mouth is watering! It looks, and virtually, taste absolutely scrumptious!
I think it was possibly my best pie performance so far. One of these days I ought to get it together and make another of that variety!