Sun and Food - A Song To Listen To

With the fridge door wide open, a few cheeses, a red bell pepper, mushrooms, tortillas, lettuce and some leftover chicken tomato sauce looked back at me and began a song I hear if I'm listening.  

The brie called to me more clearly than the jack and cheddar did, so I pulled it out of its bin.  Tortillas joined chicken tomato sauce on the countertop.  Sunshine splashed on the floor and blazed outside.  I went out into it; it washed over me.

I sat in the sun with my bare feet on warm wooden steps.  A breeze rustled the trees.  The brie did not hold up to the sauce, of course, it being too mild and tender to do so, but I separated the two of them with tortilla bites, and we were all satisfied, glad to be in the warm daylight, listening to the day and our song.

After the tortilla was gone, I put away the rest of the sauce.  Then, raisins and honey were singing to me on their shelves with light voices.  I set them down next to another tortilla and the brie.  The tortilla was eaten cold with a plop of semisolid honey in its middle joined by a small gathering of raisins.  I saw a Meyer lemon  resting in the fruit bowl, so I squeezed it over the tortilla, and its juice wandered through the neighborhood of raisins singing of Sicily.  Brie, with its rind giving a little resistance to each bite, told me about cows in pastures and the nature of patience and aging gracefully.

If you notice, raisins are not simply sweet but also taste of pepper and dirt, or the way dirt smells when it's a little damp and aromatic.  Your mouth waters when you eat a few raisins, in sympathy with their dessication. The honey was joy itself, old and young all at once.  

My appetite was telling me one thing:  Eat.  My mouth was telling me another:  Taste.  My food was telling me the third:  We have lived and been patient during our short lives, we have lived among the bees and raindrops and bring their songs to you.

The sun is very bright.  It recognized the raisins, honey, tortillas and cheese, of course.  How could it not? Food should always be eaten outdoors when the sun is shining.  It's music and color and time that never changes.