Cooked Part II: the Cookpot

Michael Pollan describes the transition/evolution/transformation from barbecue to pot cooking as - masculine into feminine, external into internal, and I might add, tribal into familial. Rather than leaving barbecue behind he argues with aristotle's claim of boiling to be a higher form of cooking. Mr. Aristotle never got to try true southern barbecue, he reflects.  As so, this section, Part II, brings a steamy balance to the infernal Part I.

I love how the tension now mounts as his four elements take relationship.  Fire and Water, masculine and feminine, and as tarot would describe, swords and cups (like spits and cookpots).  These simple elements are  dividing like  sacred geometry, unfolding from the unity of fire, into the dyad of man and woman.

He does, though, hint at the triad, calling the pot harmonizing as  the ding, the Chinese cauldron with three legs, that symbolizes the well-governed state.

But what of the secrecy of the cooking pot when trust is compromised? Does the trusted mother becomes the evil witch. He describes the eating from the pot as Dionysian soup a leap into unknown waters.

I can't wait to try making dashi.

It is hard to stop the BBQ while the weather is so nice though,

Catharsis

Catharsis « You Are Not So Smart:

David McRaney seems to suggest that catharsis is harmful, mostly that the expression of anger breeds more anger. My experience has been to try and transcend anger, but this has led to depression and stagnation. There must be a middle path. One where the flames of anger are not targeting a person, but toward a broader change. But it must be a broader change that will sustain the coals of warm justice. I believe it must be a shared tendering of this volatile fuel.

…exposure to media messages in support of catharsis can affect subsequent behavioral choices. Angry people expressed the highest desire to hit a punching bag when they had been exposed to a (bogus) newspaper article claiming that a good, effective technique for handling anger was to vent it toward an inanimate object.- Brad Bushman, Roy Baymeister and Angela Stack, from the study on catharsis

How can we reframe our emotions to line up with our true desires in life?  In Nonviolent Communication, Marshall Rosenberg talks about expressing emotions fully.  He has a formula for recognizing the underlying needs that emotions point to.