What I learned from Hannah's Placenta
The placenta is the best part of the the following story. But in the interest of not letting it upstage the lovingly sliced pepper, please take in on as a metaphor.
The placenta is a metaphor:
for displaced sources of nurturing
for the beautiful ways in which we get to feed those we love.
spoiler alert - no one, but the babe it originally fed, eats the placenta.
To catch you up: last April, a powerhouse (yet nurturing) woman named Hannah hosted a weekend retreat at her home (if you don't know about her, I'd recommend you check her out here.) She nurtured us with foot baths, with a trip to a spa, with transformational listening, tears, laughter, and with food. When planning, she had to juggle our many likes and dislikes (olives! no one but me liked olives) as well as food intolerances (ok, me.) She did this with much generosity. Several of us remarked about how wonderful it was to take a whole weekend off of having to think about what to cook, while still getting the food we craved. We went home with full cups, ready to more fully give back.
After the retreat ended, my long-time friend Persephone, who is Hannah's best friend, and whom I never get to see, came off of her island for a visit. Hannah had to make an airport run and asked us to cook dinner. It would be for the three of us, and for the six members of Hannah's family who were returning that afternoon.
Persephone immediately moved into gear. She pulled out all of the leftovers and vegetables from the fridge. She walked into the back pantry and perused the spice possibilities. Persephone is the owner of Persephone's Kitchen and I have always known her to be a goddess in the kitchen (even when she was only 18, her vegan sides at our Thanksgiving dinner greatly upstaged the turkey - and I make a great brined Turkey.)
.
"Don't you want me to cook, so you can have a break?" I asked, willing myself into action.
"Oh no! I love this. Just go get the meat and I'll do the rest."
So I did. I got the meat, put it on the counter, sat on a stool and watched her, while we caught up on the last two years of our lives. Even with the talking, I couldn't be distracted from Persephone's artistry. Her awareness was a beautiful thing to behold. The way in which she took her time to evenly slice the yellow pepper and to gently chop the onion has honestly become my inspiration for preparing vegetables ever since. She whipped together seemingly worn-out leftovers into fresh new possibilities, including a risky meatloaf idea, all while talking. This kind of attention comes from practice. Though, I have cooked a long time and it is still not a good idea to talk to me while I am cooking anything. I will focus on you, and your food will burn or be missing the main ingredient.
"Are you defrosting the meat?" she asked, pulling a cast iron skillet onto the front burner.
Of course not! My single-pointed focus had been sitting on that stool, watching the measured cutting of the pepper and listening to her.
"I'll do it now. I can make it happen quickly," I reassured her.
I opened up the plastic bag and tried to separate the frozen beef from the paper towels that had been placed on either side. As I pulled at the white paper, unsuccessfully, I realized that this was not paper towel. What the hell was that white padding? And then I looked more closely at the meat. It was moon shaped and solid. It didn't look like the ground beef Hannah had mentioned. But there hadn't been any other meat down there. It looked like venison. Did Dave hunt?
"It's her placenta!" screamed a wide-eyed Persephone. "Oh My God. It's the placenta!! I have two in my own freezer. The idea was/is to plant them under trees we would buy in honor of the babes the placentas came with, when we were finally settled. But instead, they just keep getting moved from house to house."
And then we laughed, forever.
The most horrifying/hysterical part of this was that if we had cooked it, it would have been eaten that night by the boy for whom it had been grown, almost ten years earlier. Talk about a unique use of leftovers!
It had not defrosted yet. We were able to put it back into its home in the freezer downstairs. We later found out that this was its fourth or fifth (I can't remember) home, not counting the time it lived in Hannah.
It was a transformative day. The meal was magnificent.
Witnessing Persephone's preparation that day, right as I was starting to study nutrition more intensely, changed the way I have gone about cooking ever since.
I fed my children really well, three times a day, since they were always home schooled. Once they had moved out - actually, way before - I had burned out. Food preparation had become a serious chore.
Now I see it as a way of nurturing myself as well as the people I am serving. Also, I believe that when I am feeling good and loving while cooking, it shows up in the meal. This can be from putting on good music, an interesting (non-political) podcast, or from just lighting a candle in the kitchen, taking a breath and listening to the many birds we feed in our backyard.
I didn't have a placenta in the freezer, but I had displaced one of the main ways in which I can nurture.
Interested in rediscovering how to nurture yourself? I am guiding a group cleanse, starting Feb. 24, called Release and Reveal. There are some great people already signed up. Please join us. More information is here.
Love,
Madeline
