James Derkits

(Originally Published in the South Jetty Newspaper) I love camp food. I don’t mean the food they serve at summer camp cafeterias, though that can also be tasty. I love the simple, delicious food eaten around a camp fire. Macaroni and cheese tastes best after hiking up a long windy trail. One of our family favorite meals is a “hobo dinner:” It’s a heap of ground meat, cheese, ketchup, onions, and anything else you might want to throw in the cooler on the way out the door, all wrapped up in aluminum foil, and cooked right in the campfire coals. It could be the fatigue, the environment, or the primitive feeling of conversation around a fire that makes the food taste so good. But probably simple campfire meals taste so good because they are sustenance in the wilderness. It is the food that is available, out away from any fast food options.   In those situations, often times simple meals are the most meaningful. Thomas Merton, one of my favorite spiritual writers, wrote...

 "Where do the ashes come from?"  I was asked on Ash Wednesday. It depends. You can order them from a catalog (you should see a liturgical resource catalog...just to check out the models, you can almost imagine the conversation between the model and the photographer: "Okay, look really contemplative, great...now let me see: inspired...understanding...no, more understanding! That's it.") Truly, I am thankful we have those catalogs, and can order resources  when needed, but I also love having community-made things when possible. Creating things from the community honors the community's gifts, and often helps the community discover gifts and even cultivate gifts that may seem out of reach. Church can be the community where we nurture one another, creating a safe environment not only to share develop gifts, but to discover and cultivate gifts we may not be aware of yet. That's also the tradition of Trinity by the Sea. Driftwood crosses. Judy Johns...

Eli and I finally made it to the Corpus Christi Southside Farmer's Market. (The market in Houston hung around was called Eastside .) It was overcast and rainy, which makes for a good day at the market: You may get a little soggy, but it's not so crowded, and the vendors don't mind you squeezing under their covering to chat for a bit. We bought some lettuce from Terra Madre Mini-farm (grown pesticide free, just around the corner from the market), and a beautiful hand made Valentine's day card . Oh, and the little girls in the background of this picture were selling hand-painted rocks; Eli picked out the blue one with a red crab on it. On our way home, I listened to "Whad ya know," and heard part of an interview with Eddie Huang about his book, "Fresh off the Boat." This guy's pretty interesting, for lot's of reasons. The thing he said that I tried to remember and write down was that, "Slow/local food should be an American standard, n...