A chef, cookies, and comfort

Josh Casper is a chef at The Depot in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. I’d dined there tons of times before I learned that the person making the delicious things I was eating  loved the intersection of food, connection, and hospitality, just like me.

God bless Instagram.

I can’t seem to get my words around anything this past week… My husband wrote something that made me cry, and then I read something Josh wrote and felt a “yes! that’s it! yes!” so I asked him to share something with Mess of Greens. Not only did he share a beautiful reflection on living and loving people during hard times in a kitchen, but also the most beautiful chocolate chip cookie recipe. Talk about food for comfort.

I’m pretty sure you’re going to love what he’s written and his thoughtful voice. So, once you read it, head over to his instagram account for more, and then, the next time you’re in Hattiesburg eat some of his food… because, as Brian Andreas says “There are things you do because they feel right & they may make no sense & they may make no money & it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other & to eat each others cooking & say it was good.”

– Biz

The majority of my time is spent in kitchens. Talking. Yelling. Running around like crazy. Sweeping. Mopping. Doing dishes. You know, kitchen stuff.

There’s a lot of laughing too. And rage and swearing and that adult kind of love. Love that forces you to forgive and be forgiven daily. I often think food and love are similar in that they all have to be made new, every day.

But one week from yesterday I learned that there are millions of others who, like me, are trying to pick up the unraveled pile of string from recent events. Depending on where they stand, they might be hopeful or they might be skeptical. They may be excited, or they may be fearful. Because of this, I worry that love feels harder to make new each day for so many folks.

Even though I am tired of my opinions, I still put a voice to the thing inside of me that feels pain and sadness and anger. I have to be so careful with this voice. There are the folks I know -in the kitchen and out- who don’t understand when I say that I am sad, or fearful. They get defensive and start loading facts on me and their own personal vendetta against the old leadership and how hopeful they are for the new.

I guess I’d like to say that while their hope for change is so important, what I am feeling refers to the other things. The hate groups. The fear mongering. If it makes me nervous as a white American male, I can only imagine what it must feel like for minorities, women, immigrants and LGTBQ communities.

I voted for Hillary because I knew it was the safer choice for those people. Go ahead and throw Benghazi or abortions or emails at me all you want. We all drank the poison on both sides, and it tasted good. Sometimes it feels good to hurt people. It feels good to make them feel like they’re not as smart as you. I suppose my vote for Hillary was more emotional than anything. A strong and capable woman for president. How amazing!

But alas, it was not meant to be.

The next day at our restaurant, it was quiet. It was slow. We were all sort of hit from our blind spots. Living in Mississippi I can see how the election turned out this way. I will never understand it, but a lot of people do and a lot of those people eat at our restaurant and some of them are family and friends.

When I tell them that I’m sad, they get confused. “Wait, things are going to get better! Why are you sad?”

I cannot explain.

My heart does not often lose its words. How do you describe to someone the levels of your empathy, or the way personal experiences made you feel? Many of us have been lucky to travel the world and meet all sorts of people that are all sorts of shapes, colors and sizes and those things changed us. It’s like looking into the tiny blip of the night sky and seeing millions of galaxies all different and all spinning around, bound to run into each other eventually.

I guess most of all, that is what it feels like.

We all took this election and the outcome personally. As personal as we can be, as humans. And then if feels like we all sort of broke up with each other. We all got hurt and we’re all blaming each other for the split.

It feels like divorce, a bit. Such a separation between people and we are talking with our backs to one another, because we are hurt.

I get it. And I’m hurt. That’s just the way it is.

Now it’s time to start moving again. We are more responsible now, more than ever, to be good to one another and to be allies to the people who need us to listen.

I am lucky that my job allows me to welcome all sorts of people because we all have to eat. I figure I’ll start there, like I start every day. Making grits. Making biscuits. Cleaning. Putting food on someone’s table and washing their dishes when they’re through.

It is my own quiet revolution and it moves one plate at a time.
This is the recipe for Gretchen’s Chocolate Chip Cookies with Flake Salt. Gretchen was my chef in Portland, and means a lot to me. These cookies are all about the quality of chocolate used and they are a bit salty. They are very rich, and the hint of salt makes you want to eat more and more of them. These cookies give me a lot of comfort, and right now, because of how I think we all feel, maybe you should make them for some comfort, too.

By Josh Casper