Today we are cooking with eggs. Nina is in an "Egg Frenzy." We are not making one egg dish, we are are making several. On the menu line up for the egg recipes are: deviled eggs, meatloaf, and an assortment of sweet breads. They may not all sound like egg dishes, but they do all require eggs.
There is generally a purpose to all of this cooking, or is there? I think Nina just loves to cook and share her gifts of her delicious treats and knowledge with the world.
Our first acts of Eggery are a banana nut bread, followed by a cranberry orange bread. Nina has all of the ingredients spread out on the counter. She hands me the loaf pans and motions for me to grease and flour them. She's told me before 'without a good base, food will crash and burn, just like your relationships.' And I know she's right.
"First understand that eggs are used for many different reasons. Leavening, richness and moisture and as a binder. They are for leavening when you don't have baking soda or powder," Nina stops talking and holds her index finger up in the air, looking over her glasses that are falling down her nose, scolding to make her point. "or to off set acidic agents like vinegar or buttermilk, like in banana or a nice cranberry orange bread. There are many people who are the leavening agent in their relationships. I've seen you do this before child... It's not always healthy to be the leavening agent. You see this can often mean that there is something toxic in your relationships....maybe the other is a drinker, or they do things in excess that can damage the relationship. But we need leavening in the breads. Yes, a stabilizer. Many people are looking for a 'stabilizer' in a partner for various reasons; it's a common form of denial in my opinion." She emphasizes the 'O' in opinion.
"I generally think those looking for a 'leavening agent' don't have the confidence to love themselves. That makes me sad." She shrugs her shoulders and begins adding ingredients to a large mixing bowl.
When the breads are safely in the oven, She takes out a large pot to boil the deviled eggs in. She puts about five inches of water in the pot and asks me to bring her two dozen eggs from the fridge.
She takes the first carton from me and and withdraws one egg at a time, placing them carefully in the water. "These are the beginning of what needs to be equally yoked. You understand equally yoked?" Apparently the look on my face says that I do not understand the phrase, even though I give a little chuckle to the 'yolk' pun she's used.
"Equally yoked is what John and I are, what that cute little Italian couple you told me you knew as a child were, and your grandparents were. They had the same 'core' values. They believed the same way. They didn't worry about trust or lack of it. They knew, they BELIEVED in each other...and God too." She points to the ceiling and then quickly signs the cross in front of her. Your generation, not so blessed maybe." She finishes adding the eggs to the water in speaking silence but gently hums a tune I recognize as 'It had to be you.'
Once we have the boiled eggs peeled, cut, and the yolks in a separate bowl, the lesson continues
"The yolks provide the rich taste in the whites. Another purpose of eggs is to have richness in flavor. Richness, like adventures. Equally yoked is also about having fun and feeling fulfilled. Adventures, like travelling, raising children, or something as simple as laughing together, provides the foundation for memories, making your life rich." She smiles and mashes the yolks with with a fork. A short time later two dozen beautiful deviled eggs share an 'equally yolked' platter.
Our final task, to finish the day's cooking is a meatloaf. As she's forming the loaf in the pan and arranging it for it's final oven destination, she tells me..
"The eggs are a binder in this case. A binder holds things together. In the case of the meatloaf, it binds with the bread crumbs and meat, coagulating in togetherness in the oven." She laughs then, so do I. She can be very silly sometimes; it's one of the reasons I adore her. " A good relationship binder are two who are willing to share responsibilities, like work, gardening, and chores. Also, equally and if not more important in being equally yoked is your emotional state of being. One will quickly outgrow the other if they are stifled by the other instead of encouraged, or one remains trapped in the past, unable to let go of the past, or refuses change altogether. You must be like the meatloaf, that changes from it's raw form to a juicy encrusted cooked dish. Even it has to go through a transformation to become edible."
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