Every night for years, our friend Jim Fliss has made pizza on the bread board made by my wife Jean's grandfather. There have been thousands of pizzas. Years ago I adopted Jim's pizza tradition, not on Fridays, but at least once a week and added my own tradition of home-made sauce. Today we combined efforts, Jim's crust, my sauce. Hands-on traditions add ritual order to our lives, depth of friendship and meaning. Thanks Jim for getting me started with pizza and a tradition of my own.While the mind leaps quickly in flights of fancy, carrying us further and further from each other and ourselves, the hands as they develop skill create order, ritual, and meaning. "Why do you do it that way?" "Because my mother did." Those words might be regarded by some as a joke, but they describe behavior woven deeply into the fabric of life.
Secret Dough & Home-Made Sauce?
ReplyDeleteDoug,
ReplyDeleteThis is a story about "Why do you do it that way?" A fellow brings a big ham home for his wife to cook for Sunday dinner. Sunday comes and the ham is served all cut up without the hambone so he says "Why do you cook it that way?" "Because my mother did." was the answer that summer at the family reunion he asks his mother in law why she cooked her ham by cutting it off the bone? She says "Because my mother did it that way." He sees Gradma and asks why she cut the ham off the hambone before cooking and her answer was " Because I didn't have a big enough Pan." Make you think why we do somethings oneway or another way.
Joe