Dear Eater

First credit where credit is due: Shea needs to be lauded not only for discovering, testing and disseminating this carnitas recipe but for mailing me a package of the specific Mexican spices required and making it harder for me NOT to try it than it was to just make it. And boy was I happy I made it, as were my New Year’s Day companions if the number of helpings I saw consumed were an accurate indication.

I’m linking you here to the recipe on Shea’s other blog. Get it. Make it. It really does live up to any hype I can give it. A side note, I simply made the carnitas and tomatillo salsa for sandwiches and didn’t mess about with eggs or cheese.

What I really loved about making this particular carnitas recipe (aside from a renewed appreciation for the values of patient slow cooking) was how unexpectedly and completely communal it felt. Food creates community by bringing us together around a table and binds us together in shared experiences and shared tastes. This recipe sent from the other side of the country was just that.

Cooking this carnitas recipe from Shea, with spices he sent, for my family and some DC friends he has yet to meet was like reading a well written, deliciously filled letter to them. You remember those letters right? Before the internet took over? Those letters that made you feel like you'd just had a great chat with an old friend? It was one of those.

It was as if Shea sent me a complete moment in the mail. Almost like sharing a meal…..with a slight pause between bites.

Technology has broadened our horizons in so many ways and has clearly made communication across great distances far easier. Shea and I can both contribute to this blog despite having lived a continent apart for almost ten years (eek). Clearly we’ve embraced new technologies. But food, at its core, is still a fundamentally sensory experience. The taste, the smell, the texture can’t be replicated in bits and bytes (note I’m resisting the urge to go for a trite bites v. bytes joke).

At a very basic, human level communing over food still involves an in-person experience. Which this most definitely was. And a delicious one.

Clearly, nothing can replace the joy and connection felt in sharing a meal with friends and family. It’s time to be savored whenever possible. But in the absence of having all my nearest and dearest living right next door, this meal that was mailed to me was almost as good as the real thing. Almost.

P.S. Both of the recipes I made over the holidays that garnered the most positive feedback came to me via friends. This Pumpkin Ginger Cheesecake Pie via my book club compatriot MissMangoHands was also a hit, and well worth making (scroll about halfway through October for the recipe). Particularly for any ginger lovers.