Our Lady of the Rock -- Part 1

I sent the email on July 27

To the Sisters at Our Lady of the Rock:

I live in Princeton, New Jersey. I have heard vague references to you over the years and have finally been able to track you down on your little island. I would like to visit your monastery and would be free any time after the 2nd half of October. Please let me know if this can be done, and what might be needed for such a visit.

In peace,

Marcia W.

July 28

HELLO

N.J.??? DO YOU REALIZE WE ARE IN WASHINGTON STATE????

LATER HALF OCT. FREE- GIVE ME DATES, BLESSINGS, MOTHER HILDEGARD, OSB

July 28

Yes! I know just where you are...I grew up in Washington and have felt the pull of the San Juan Islands most of my life, although I haven't explored them nearly enough. Being out here in New Jersey makes me miss the San Juans even more, and once I found you I thought it would be the perfect thing to do. I will be in Seattle the 24th, and would be able to come to your island any time after that. The 25th would be wonderful.

Peace,

Marcia

P.S. I am a trained cook The thought of cooking out there sounds like heaven to me.

Aug. 2

HELLO

YES, OCT. 25 IS FINE- WE WILL HAVE HAD A BIG GRP. OVER WEEKEND SO WILL BE QUIET THAT WEEK- LET ME KNOW LATER IF YOU NEED MORE DETAILS, BLESSINGS, MOTHER HILDEGARD

Oct. 8

Dear Mother Hildegard,

Once I catch the ferry to Shaw Island, how will I find you? Can I get there without a car?

Thank you,

Marcia W.

Oct. 11

HI MARCIA- CAR NOT NECESSARY BUT CHEAPER THAN PARKING ON THE OTHER SIDE. 3+ MILE WALK.

ALSO LET ME KNOW WHICH FERRY YOU WILL BE ON SO WE CAN PLAN YOUR TIME WITH US-

OFF FERRY AT SHAW ISLAND

GO UP ROAD 1.3 MILES TO THE 1ST LEFT= SQUAW BAY RD.

GO ANOTHER 1.8 MILES TO THE DEAD END SIGN= HOFFMAN COVE RD.- MAKE A RIGHT

SOON ON THE RIGHT IS OUR FENCE- GO TO END OF FENCE = LARGE WESTERN GATE WITH AN IRON MALTESE CROSS TO LEFT OF GATE

GO THRU GATE- FIRST HOUSE ON RIGHT = ST. SCHOLASTICA’S GUEST HOUSE- ROOMS LISTED ON REFRIGERATOR

Oct. 12

Thank you! I will be dropped off on the mainland side. I'll let you know about my arrival as soon as I get the ferry schedule.

--Marcia

Oct. 22

HI AGAIN

DO YOU WANT TO DO SOME COOKING WHILE HERE-

I NEED TO MAKE MY 5 YRS WORTH OF MINCE MEAT- YOU COULD HELP WITH THAT AND MAYBE OTHER THINGS?

MH

***

The tiny old ferry, like a magical rumbling boatman, navigates the mysteries of The San Juan Islands. I first encountered these old green and white rusted metal carriers when I was twelve years old and had just moved from Los Angeles up to the Northwest Puget Sound. I thought those ferries were the closest thing on this earth to angels. Fat, slow and unassuming; yet weightless and able to carry so many people’s burdens.

Looking out the window from the upper deck I can already see the islands. Like the people who live here, they are difficult to approach, and one can’t easily find that first foothold. There are no soft, sandy beaches: rather, each island is a rock that falls straight into the icy water. The peeling red-barked madronas have managed, though. They don’t grow just anywhere, yet here they cling tenaciously to the plunging rock by the thousands, giving way to cedars and firs as one moves inland. There are few buildings to be seen, no lights, just island rock.

Those who live by the ferry schedule learn to be patient, practical and self-reliant.

The rhythmic rumbling of the engine mutes the scraping of my suitcase as I walk down the aisle past blue leather restaurant-like booths. Silver-haired folk (they don’t color their hair much out here) wearing Goretex jackets, Nordic sweaters, and blue jeans listen to an old salt strum an acoustic guitar. He’s staring out the window as though he’s playing to the sea birds and icy-green whitecaps. One fellow with a well-trimmed beard wearing a pea-coat and wool fisherman’s cap nods at me silently, as though he thinks I’m a local. Maybe my suitcase gives the impression I’m coming home.

Pushing through the double doors to the outside deck I close my eyes and relish the cold stinging drizzle as it hits my face. Ah, this is the Puget Sound of my teens, before Microsoft and Google...

I remember feasting on raw oysters with a bewildering taste of watermelon, eating crab while still on the boat where we caught and boiled them, fishing for salmon back when they were easy to find, tasting my first clam chowder cooked on the beach over a driftwood fire...

The ferry pulls into the Orcas Island terminal and everyone gets off, except me. It is only noon, yet it feels late in the day, as though the place is closing up. As the ferry takes off again, I look around and realize I am the only passenger left. Suddenly I’m gripped with the fear that I’ve taken the wrong boat. A crew member pushes a mop nearby and I ask, “Is this ferry going to Shaw as well?”

“Yep,” she says. “It’s just that most people only go this far.”

“Is there something I need to know about that?” I ask concerned.

“Nope,” she replies without lifting her eyes from her task at hand. “Not much going on there...just the nuns, mostly. They even used to land the ferry out there a while ago. But they’re older now, and not so many. They got other things to do.” She pushes the mop on by.

Just a few moments pass before a voice booms over the loud speaker for my ears alone, “ALL PASSENGERS PREPARE FOR DEPARTURE. WALK-ONS DEPART FROM THE CAR DECK!” I roll my suitcase down the ramp as we approach the tiny dock. There is a one-person shack for the ferry worker on the left, a tiny weathered cedar-shingled store on the right, and hanging above the dock is a primitive carved wooden sign of a whale, over which is engraved in free hand, “SHAW”.

Islanders' Clam Chowder

As my husband (a fifth generation Puget Sound Islander) says, “This chowder is just like something you’d find at a stall while you were waiting for the ferry!” It is a rustic dish made in one pot, preferably cooked on the beach where you dug the clams. While the milky broth may be delicate, the eating of it is not. Pick the clams out of the soup with your fingers, carefully pluck off the stringy bits, then suck out the meat and throw the shells against the rocks for the seagulls. If you are faint of heart and don’t want to look at a whole clam in your bowl, you can always shuck and mince them, leaving the shells and the occasional grain of sand, out of the soup entirely.

One last note: if you are missing a minor ingredient, do the best you can. Today you’re an Islander, by God! Make do!

Ingredients:

2 slices bacon, chopped

1 clove minced garlic

¼ cup chopped onion, shallot or leek

¼ cup chopped fennel bulb and/or celery

1 bay leaf

⅛ teaspoon Old Bay Seasoning or curry powder

small pinch of cayenne

1 ½ cups water

1 lb fresh clams, extremely well-scrubbed and preferably left to empty their stomachs

in a bucket of salt water and cornmeal.

½ cup fresh corn kernels

¼ cup heavy cream

1½ cups whole milk

2 tablespoons chopped parsley, chives, tarragon, what-have-you

Pepper to taste, (salt is probably not necessary)

In a 2 qt. pot saute the bacon until brown and crispy. Add the garlic, onion, celery and bay leaf cooking until the onions are translucent. Add spices, cooking a minute longer (careful not to let the spices burn.)

Add the water and bring to a boil, then add the clams and cover the pot, cooking for 5-10 minutes (depending on the size of the clams), until all the clams are open. Toss in the corn, cream and milk. Heat until almost simmering. Serve with a grinding of pepper and a sprinkle of herbs.

Our Lady of the Rock -- Part 2

There was only one road leading off the ferry, and it followed the contour of the island. Although thankful for the lack of traffic, I kept to the side of the shoulderless road, minding the steep woods sloping into the water on my right, the cedar fenced sheep pasture stretching towards the sky on the left. I spied a rustic cedar shelter perched close to the water with the opening facing sea. It was just large enough for a dreamer to sit in solitude meditating the tides while breathing in cedar, seaweed and salt.

A large muddy ford drove up and a grizzled older man in a flannel shirt asked awkwardly, "Can I offer you a ride of some sort?" It sounded well-meant, like something my late father would have said in his shy Idaho farmer way.

"No thanks," I replied. "I'm just lovin' the walk!" He grunted and sped away.

And I was, really, loving the walk. Somehow wildly fueled for this trek, I found myself almost sprinting to Our Lady to meet the Mothers. The road took a sharp turn though, and I came face-to-face with a road sign reading, "DOGS SEEN CHASING OR INJURING LIVESTOCK MAY BE SHOT BY PROPERTY OWNER." Above that in hand-written scrawl were the words, "OFFICIAL SIGN."

'What would be the chances of seeing that in Princeton?' I mused. But I began to wonder how much farther it was to the monastery anyway. "God!" I whispered, "I hope I'm on the right path...I just don't remember any other options!" I continued, although now with the feeling that I was running from something rather than towards Our Lady. My thoughts turned toward my own mother.

"You should be with her now," the words resounded in my head. And it was true. It had been months, and she so wanted me to spend some time with her, "to see her one last time" as she told my husband. I comforted myself with the confidence that she will live to be a hundred. The years since my father's death have been so dark for her though.

Like the nuns who have chosen to withdraw from the world and its comforts, she too lives with curtains closed, oblivious to the magnificence outside her window. And not so different from these sisters who have opted for simplicity, she survives with the austerity of a martyr, refusing to eat much or to turn up the heat in her home. Why is it then, that I think these nuns have so much to tell me, and my own mother so little?

If you had asked me (and precious few ever have) why I chose to seek an understanding of the facets of faith, I would tell you this: faithlessness just doesn't age well.

I think back to the moment that I had decided to seek a spiritual life. I, at barely fifteen, had taken myself on a 30-hour bus ride to Humbolt, California to visit a very religious cousin in college. After a day or two of following after her and those fundamentalist friends of hers, I found myself dying of boredom. I was desperate for a little shake up! The moment itself meant very little to me, a careless ‘what the hell’ kind of instant that gets fifteen-year-old girls in all kinds of trouble. I was in a prayer meeting led by another student in a cramped dorm room. As directed, I repeated the words. You know the ones, asking Jesus to come into your heart? They were powerful words only because by uttering them, I had done the most forbidden thing I could imagine, worse than if I’d gone and had sex. I spoke them. And disappointingly, I felt nothing for it: no rush of energy, or flood of love or anything that felt Jesus-y. Yet, because it was so big, so forbidden and yet so nothing, I simply laughed. And I laughed for days.

How could I have understood what it all meant then, to start on such a path?

Now surveying the island road ahead, I was convinced that I had truly lost my way. I grabbed my cell phone but there was no reception, there were no houses in sight, nowhere I might ask for help. Suddenly, an old station wagon came from nowhere and stopped. Staring at me from the passenger seat, with huge and curious ringlet covered eyes, sat a large black Portuguese water terrier. And poking her head from behind the dog, sitting in the drivers seat, appeared a tiny nun, barely tall enough to see over the dashboard. In a slow, high, voice which was full of a plain sort of kindness--not at all cloying, she asked , “Would you like a ride?”

Oh, yes!” I answered with relief. I opened the back door, threw in my suitcase, and jumped into the back seat. The dog pressed her huge body between the two front seats so that she could get a better look at me. Then the nun asked, “And where might you be going?”

"Oh! I’m sorry...to the monastery!” I answered, embarrassed because I thought she already knew.

"If you don’t mind, then, we have one milk delivery to make before going back...We are certified raw milk producers for the island,” and she pulled up a gravel road to a large Northwest style house. Stopping the car, she opened the back and removed some milk bottles. I studied her as she bent down, carefully placing each bottle full of milk in a delivery basket and switching out the empty ones. She wore a sturdy linen wimple that had seen some wear. It was held in place by a serviceable black cable knit skullcap, an old magnificently cabled indigo sweater, and a simple faded denim dress showing evidence of the day’s work. (A dear ex-nun friend of mine once explained that the nuns who still wear habits usually have one for work and one for church. Only in the Northwest, however, would one see a habit made of denim.) I wondered how old she was. She had beautiful skin, but her delicate posture and slow, careful movements seemed elderly.

She got back into the car, ignoring the dog, who was inching closer to me and by now had her paws on my shoulders.

"That's Bella," said the nun,  eyes on the road ahead but speaking of the dog behind her, now in my lap. "She runs this place."


Recipe:
No recipe this post, except the explicit instructions to go out and find yourself a glass of true raw milk. You haven't lived until you've tried it. There is a sweetness and complexity that remains unmatched by that pasteurized stuff you find on the shelves these days. It's not always easy to find, however, and is illegal to sell or even to give away in some states. As for me, since it is a banned substance in New Jersey, I take myself into Pennsylvania and bring the contraband home. So go find yourself some. You'll need it for the recipe in my next post!

Food Ways

“You’re always looking for magic!” my mother complained shaking her head while throwing loaves of risen bread dough into the oven. I was about fifteen years old at the time, sitting at the kitchen table observing her. Watching her make bread seemed like the right time, so I had just announced that I wanted to learn more about God.

I’d heard those words before when she watched me try to lose weight--something I tried often and, yes, earlier than fifteen; and I would come to hear that same dismissal whenever I attempted to solve problems without that clench-fisted approach she had long trusted.

Of course I was looking for magic! Why wouldn’t I since I knew, even then, it was there? The belief I’ve always held is that if I could just unearth some pure nugget, some seed of truth, the way to anywhere or anything would unveil itself, and all things would be made clear.

And now, I’m still in search of such things, and I find them most often in the kitchen. For all the world, I love food, and I love it for what it tells me.

There is an uncompromising sense of righteousness to working with local organic vegetables, meats and milk. That’s what counts for Real Food these days--the kind one pulls out of the ground on the way to the kitchen. We’re talking crunchy carrots packed with moisture, sweet and slightly loamy; freshly foraged chantrelles still bearing that short-lived indescribable umami scent at the base of their stems; herbs like lovage, chervil and lemon verbena that grow just outside my door; wild greens like tangy purslane and stinging nettles, available only during some times of the year so that one must use them at every possible opportunity for that short while; meat from contented poultry and livestock who were fed the grass, seeds and bugs their bodies crave and know how to digest; and freshly milled grains grown without poison.

Who can resist, however, the wild promiscuity of using the agile refined white flours and sugars of every kind from the luscious and carmel-ly Lyle’s Golden Syrup to the more virtuous sucanat? I have a huge weakness as well for teas, coffee, and every exotic spice despite (or perhaps because of) its horrific story of duplicity and treachery. (More on that later.) These indiscretions may be hard to swallow by my more disciplined politically-committed food consumer friends. Yet all these ingredients beckon me, whether burdened with ancient histories of depravity or freshly hailed as the new answer to goodness and health. It is good to know how to be with the bad boys as well as the angels, all these ingredients have their places.

Real Foods, as well as the more compromised kinds, are like wild animals. If you want to know how to be with them, you must sit with each quietly for awhile, poke, mix, and watch while withholding judgment. Truly, food wants to tell you its secrets, all the things it can do and be, all the things it can create between people.

But to know such things one has to spend tenfold in mindful observation the time one spends stirring, steering, and cajoling. Most importantly, it won’t do to hurry, get angry, or force things, because food recognizes a bully. It knows the processors and engineers who. like porn directors with their shallow agendas, have turned God’s creation into a numbing sort of frenzy. Food recognizes people who only understand business, who want what they want and don’t much care about the damage. Food might cooperate sullenly, but it won’t disclose its unique beauty.

We would all do well to heed the words of Edward Bunyard as he describes a pear in his book Anatomy of Dessert.

"The pear must be approached, as its feminine nature indicates, with discretion and reverence; [for] it withholds its secrets from the merely hungry."

As with most things, when it comes to food respectful attention is worth the effort. During those prime moments of curiosity-fueled pure attention, secrets unfold. The most alluring thing about food is that as it unveils itself; it opens up the world, both inwardly and outwardly. Alone there in the kitchen, fascinating things are revealed in inaudible whispers. Sometimes as comfort, sometimes as instruction, it’s all in the palms of your hands there on the work table.

These things that I’ve come to know, I’ll tell as best I can. But like all fruits of the spirit, the hearing and the understanding are two different things. Cooking then, is about the sacred and profane. It is both a guide to prayer and a map of the world.

Next post...Why Bread?