Enough

Nearly every meal that I've made for Ed and me in the past two months I've served in simple white bowls. For breakfast, it is steel cut oatmeal, granola with yogurt and berries or cream of wheat. For lunch and dinner it is sometimes a soup; sometimes a stir fry; sometimes a salad. I fill our bowls with goodness and it is always enough – not too much, not too little, always just enough.

We gave up drinking alcohol for Lent, so "setting" the table involves filling our two bowls, figuring out if we need forks, spoons or chop sticks, and filling two glasses of water. It's weird how simple this feels to me – but it feels just right, right now.

I'm not sure how I got in the habit of serving our meals this way. Perhaps it is left-over from our January Asian travels where we scooped bits and pieces of our meal into rice bowls. Or maybe it comes from our experience of placing food in monks' bowls at day break in Chaing Mai, Thailand.

Perhaps it comes from reading too many food blogs that boast the merits of "abundance" bowls. Or maybe it comes from buying six bowls to go with my mom's china and then being excited to use them.

Whatever the reason, it suits me for now. Perhaps later in the spring, I'll want to spread out the bounty of our garden on large white platters, and in summer, I may want to go back to my bright colored Fiestaware. But for now, these simple bowls are enough, just enough.

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What to know what I've served? Check out these links:

Corn Chowder
White Chicken Chili
Chili Con Carne
Green Chili with Pork and Hominy
Tom Kha Gai Soup
Cold Lentil Salad With Cucumber and Olives
Mango Salad
Chickpea Salad with Lemon and Parmesan
Gingery Roasted Butternut Squash and Sweet Potatoes
Bubbling Bacon Butter Beans
Spicy Thai Steak Salad
Coconut-lime Sweet Potato and Chickpea Stew
Black-Eyed Pea Cassoulet
Minty Millet & Pomegranate Salad
Butternut Gratin
Slow Cooker Chicken Tikka Masala
Linguine con Vongole
Shakshuka

Can't wait to move on to bowls full of spring peas and asparagus...