Garden Harvest Soup, by Piper

Today Piper made us Garden Harvest Soup. Totally her own initiative. Set the table for us with a wet (for some reason) nappy, bowls, spoons, and serviettes. Had to be matching everything, even the spoons. She was very pleased with herself, very smiley, but had worked with great intent and obviously had a vision for how she wanted to present her soup, and how she wanted us to participate in her culinary act. It was bemusing but beautiful.

Piper took these shots, and I wish there was one of the soup. It consisted of: beans, beetroot leaves, dandelion flowers, spring onion tops and other odds and ends. No doubt very healthy! And we did eat some!

Gord and I have been reading a bit of The Art of the Commonplace: the agrarian essays of Wendell Berry, and this experience with Piper correlates directly with something he writes:

I do not believe that "employment outside the home" is as valuable or as important or as satisfying as employment at home, for either men or women. It is clear to me from my experience as a teacher, for example, that children need an ordinary daily association with both parents. They need to see their parents at work; they need, at first, to play at the work they see their parents doing, and then they need to work with their parents. It does not matter so much that this working together should be what is called "quality time," but it matters a great deal that the work done should have the dignity of economic value. (p. 68)

Piper is always playing and imagining, but I've never seen her so clearly emulate, on her own, the everyday work of cooking that Gord and I engage in almost every day. Especially settling the table like that.