Food

Walking across the parking lot at Andronico's last week, on a shopping expedition for a dinner party, I could smell the ripe cantaloupe piled in boxes outside the supermarket entrance. Such a heady smell, ripe fruit! At dinner we talked about food - many of us remembering how as children we'd be called into kitchen duty, sitting with the older women and listening to them talk while we helped freeze or can  fruits and vegetables in season - berries, peaches, applesauce, tomatoes; pickles and jams and relishes of all kinds.

It's a different world now, but the smell of ripe cantaloupe can still enchant, and food is still unbelievably good, especially if you grow it yourself and/or pay attention to what you're buying. It seems like such a simple thing, but food is an essential ingredient of life - food, air, water - and the capacity to notice and appreciate its beauty offers one of the most delicious opportunities for happiness we have available to us.