On Hope

Knausgaard, farm dinners, radical living; venison stroganoff

Reader Meatball¹ gave me Karl Ove Knaussgaard’s Autumn a few years ago and I’ll embarrass myself here and reveal to him that I still haven’t finished it. It had sat on my bedside table for awhile, where I’d read it in spurts if I wasn’t in the middle of anything else, but for the most part, it was left unattended. But, when I moved most of my books up to my new office from the various horizontal and vertical surfaces they had been scattered and stacked across haphazardly, Autumn found itself back under my eye. I picked it up the other afternoon as I was killing time between meetings.

Knausgaard writes in “Letter to an Unborn Daughter” that “[the] parents give the child life, the child gives the parents hope.” This is, of course — and Knausgaard states this — a transaction, but not an unfair one. And the statement is true. For without parents there is no child. And while parents can have hope without children, a child undoubtedly distills and amplifies that hope. Hope for a life to come, for potential, for missed opportunities and for the chance to provide new ones.

It’s that hope really that has driven the shift in the way in which I view the world. The other night, Mrs. CWD and I went to dinner at our local farm. A bit of a last-hurrah date night before we’re inundated with the responsibilities of parenting an infant. The farm — our farm, as I’m really apt to call it, since we spend so much time there — partnered with a James Beard-nominated restaurant to put together a menu which showcased seasonal ingredients, grown and sourced locally, and then was served family-style in the converted-barn. It was a lovely night — the food phenomenal, with recipes I’ll be cribbing — and I was pleasantly surprised by the conversation with our tablemates as well.

As I was in deep discussion with the woman next to me (who had intimated she might want someone to help rid her property of an abundance of deer), I heard Mrs. CWD talking about plastic-utensil purges with the couple on our other side. Turns out that they, too, have been buying wood and steel and other natural materials for their kitchen; too have shifting their own consumption patterns closer to home.² As the conversation deepened, we talked about CSAs, gardening, hunting, and, broadly, the concepts of radical living.

At a point in the conversation, the question came up if I had grown up eating and living like this, and, I answered no: I hadn’t. As those of you who have been reading for awhile know, growing up, Nana CWD scarcely let any of us in the kitchen and the closest we came to growing our own food was the tomato and pepper plants we had growing in pots by the pool.³ I vaguely remember Grandfather CWD being invited on a deer hunt, once, and me tagging along — but I certainly didn’t hold a rifle and I’m not sure Grandfather did either, besides for show. Mrs. CWD had to clarify to our dinner mates that, even in college, I was much more concerned with from where I was sourcing beer⁴ than from where I was sourcing my meals.⁵

When you’re feeding your own kids, though, you have a new bargain to uphold. As a parent, you’re imbued with hope — hope for your children and their future — and part of that hope is the hope for good decisions. I strongly believe that — beyond starting with kindness — the best thing we can do for our children is help them eat well, with their eyes wide open.⁶ For you to make good decisions on how to feed them and for them to learn to make those good decisions on their own. I’ve quoted it before, but it stands repeating: “a wise man eats well,” and “the ability to choose what food you must eat, and knowingly, will make you able to choose less transitory things with courage and finesse.”⁷

This mindset expands beyond food. When you’re thoughtful about what you’re eating, you must also be thoughtful about how that food came to be. You must be thoughtful about the conditions in which it was grown or raised, which means you must be thoughtful about the soil on which that happens. This line of thinking naturally expands to a broader view of the Earth, your own place in it, and the responsibility you have for the future. How can you leave a good legacy for the lives for which you find yourself responsible? Gradually and then suddenly, you’re not looking at the world from within an isolated, self-focused lens, but instead one with wide-angle vision and you’re embracing the world as it is — constantly changing — and not as if it were static, how you wish it to be. This, in turns, brings you back to hope: just because something is as it is now, does not mean it is how it will be later.

For me, this hope is an optimistic hope — what good can I do for these lives for which I am responsible — but I could see how others might see this as a burden. A burden to make the right choices now, to not miss the window when it is open. A burden to act, even if it is just for the sake of acting. But, I think, that’s a false imperative. Hope gives us the reassurance that things can go right, even if that right isn’t exactly what we thought it should be.⁸ When we focus on the things within our control — sourcing slightly better ingredients, being slightly more kind, taking a few more deep breaths before reacting — things often have a way of tacking towards the positive.

And that, children or not, should give you hope as well.

Something else from which I suppose you could derive hope is food. Mrs. CWD was hopeful all last week that we could make stroganoff — a seasonal favorite — so, adhering to the old adage that a happy wife means a happy life, we did. We used venison backstraps this time, but you could very easily use beef, make it with steaks or with roasts, or even omit the meat to make it vegetarian.⁹

The recipe we used is mostly based on Tuffy Stone’s version from Cool Smoke, if you’re looking for step-by-step instructions with precision.

In a large cast iron pan, melt some butter and cook down as many mushrooms as you'd like (we use around two pounds). Go slowly here, adding butter as necessary, until the mushrooms have released all their moisture and begin to brown. Add a diced onion and roughly chopped garlic to the mix, letting those begin to brown. Deglaze the pan with brown liquor (cognac is traditional, I normally use bourbon) and let the alcohol cook off. Dump in about three cups of stock and a few tablespoons of dijon mustard — and then let reduce, stirring occassionally.

While the sauce is reducing, cook a pound of egg noodles to just short of al dente. When the sauce coats the back of a wooden spoon, fold in a cup of sour cream, about a lemon’s worth of juice, and as much paprika as you find tolerable. When the sauce is consistent, fold in the egg noodles and stir until well-incorporated and the pasta glistens. Top with your choice of protein.

So there you have it folks: stroganoff. Make it this weekend, before the weather gets too warm!

We’ll be keeping things close to home, ourselves, as we’re on panda watch. Whether you spend your weekend outdoors, in the kitchen, or somewhere in between, I hope you spend it full of hope.

We’ll see you back here next week.

1. I’ve really got to come up with a better name for you, huh?

2. The woman grew up on a cattle farm in the Midwest, which I suppose makes sourcing a cow from people you trust much easier — if not closer to home!

3. This isn’t to say we ate poorly or in a highly processed manner, however: Nana CWD cooked whole meals, from scratch, five or six nights a week — balanced meals with proteins and vegetables and starches — and, they were — and still are — always delicious.

4. Wherever I could find it the cheapest.

5. “The dining hall” most likely.

6. One of the first “thoughtful” pieces I wrote was this one on “Kid Food,” which appeared in Issue 11 of

WARKITCHEN

.

7. Both from MFK Fisher’s How to Cook a Wolf (the first being quoted from a Chinese proverb).

8.

Flow

has some terrific merchandise which asks “what if it all goes right?” — a question I love. I keep one of those stickers on my iPad case as a reminder.

9. But… why?