Today my journal entry isn't so much about food as about the kitchen -- and what goes on there.

Inspiration comes to me sometimes through the oddest ways, but when it does I never question it. I'm always grateful that something motivates me to action.

This afternoon while Kipp was napping (when I should have been working) I was flicking through the TV channels and caught the beginning of a Showtime Original Movie called Rescuers: Stories in Courage. The first episode dealt with a Dutch couple who agree to hide Jewish people in their beautiful stone farmhouse, just a stone's throw from very picturesque Windmills and canals (ah, the movies). Anyway, Dana Delaney played a fairly well-to-do housewife and mother who never questions the decision to put her family in danger and help. In one scene, she's simply standing in her lovely kitchen, with daffodils on the windowsill and stacks of fine china on the table, and preparing flower bulbs for supper. For whatever reason that scene inspired me to slow down and calm down in my own kitchen. Things so often go flying, the place is always a disaster -- and I'm not even feeding 36 refugee Jews. It seems that no matter how much I might love to cook, I'm always in a hurry to get out of the kitchen, away from the mess. And the dishwasher -- I know it's supposed to be such a major convenience but for some reason there seems to be no more onerous task than loading and unloading that darn thing. Maybe it's because there's a lot of bending involved. Maybe it's because I'm always in a struggle to keep my one year old from climbing in and yanking out the dishes as fast as I put them in. Maybe it's because there's no pleasure in the act whatsoever.

So today I washed my dishes by hand for the first time in a long time and it was a revelation. I'd call it a Zen moment, but I think it was more normal than that. The water was so warm and pleasurable on my hands and I got to stand there for a moment, almost resting. At least I wasn't zipping from the kitchen wondering what task to do next. I got my dishes and my sink clean at the same time and now the whole kitchen smells of lemons.

Not only that, I had time to pretty much write in my head what I just wrote above.

I'm not going to call washing dishes my new hobby, but I'm definitely going to give the dishwasher a week off.

Kipp ate tangerines this week. Hurray!