One Christmas our family chose to exchange consumable gifts. Theme baskets are fun to create and to eat! The last healing secret of food message encourages us to eat foods produced close to home, in as close to their natural state as possible and sourced with concern for the earth and for workers. This post offers ideas for optimal local foods good for health, the earth and the community.

Our beloved Labrador (nicknamed "Hoover" by his rescuers) ate each meal like a starved vacuum cleaner, as if someone might take the food away from him!  The opposite of "hoovering", mindfulness is a spiritual practice that allows slowing down to savor each flavor, texture and smell.  This weeks "Healthy Snack Ideas" encourage attentive and nourishing mini-meals with which to practice mindfullness, another healing secret of food.

Advent and Christmas are special for Franciscans.  This year, we celebrate the 800th anniversary of Francis’ live reenactment of Jesus’ birth.  Since Francis’ 1223 Christmas in the Italian village of Greccio, nativity scenes (live and in art) have continued because God who is Love was born as a baby, God among us.  This recipe for Bambino Bread is a simple way to honor the Baby Jesus on your table as a loaf of bread, shaped to resemble a baby in swaddling clothes!

With days getting shorter and varying degrees of chill in the air, it's officially comfort food season.  This Pot Pie recipe is rich with beans, greens and optional leftover veg and turkey!  Feelings of calm and comfort are expressed and elicited by certain dishes.  What foods soothe you?  Draw you in when your are upset? This week’s healing secret of food encourages us to be aware of our feelings before, during, and after eating.

By wasting less as we plan, prepare, and enjoy the holiday meals, we’ll reduce the 40% of food that gets wasted between farm and kitchen in our country.  This post on "Food Waste and Thanksgiving" offers tips from the authors of “Perfectly Good Food”.  Wasting less is part of giving thanks as we also look at Part II of the Healing Secrets of Food: Gratitude.

Canned Tomatoes and Beans can become a delicious, quick and simple meal.  Here are 3 variations you can make tonight from your pantry!  Meals don’t have to be elaborate to nourish the Body, Mind and Soul.  In the coming weeks, Seasoned Franciscan offers a series on “The Healing Secrets of Food”, from a book by Deborah Kesten, beginning with how we unite with others through food.

To “mull,” apple cider or red wine means “to heat, sweeten, and flavor it with whole spices”.  Mulled cider is a cozy drink during fall apple season. Infused with spices like cinnamon, nutmeg or cloves, it will lift your spirits and make your kitchen smell like fall. Smells can hold memories, so as hands are clasped around warm mugs, memories can be shared and made.

Farmers' markets and roadside stands are great sources for different varieties of beautifully colored, tasty winter squash, a food that is thousands of years old.  All squash (and their seeds) are edible.  Use more of this delicious food with a recipe for "Winter Squash Seeds".

Three Sisters Soup is a delicious harvest soup made with the nourishing trio of corn, squash, and beans.  The "sisters" have been staples in the diets of many tribes over the centuries.  Their story honors native wisdom and provides a great learning opportunity for Indigenous Peoples Month in November!

How do we honor your ancestors, both genetic and spiritual?   Images, rituals, habits, motherisms, stories?  Foods can also say mia familia (my family) to us.  This recipe for Italian Gnocchi (potato dumplings) represents strength, values and flavors from my Grandmothers.  There is a “from scratch” and an easy version.  Let kids help!  What food memories might you share?

This fall Wild Rice Salad is refreshing and full of nutrients. In this Season of Creation, Native people have much to teach about their sacred relationship to food, such as wild rice, manoomin or “good berry” and to the clean, cool water she depends upon.

Corn Chowder is a great fall recipe.  With corn fields all around us, less than 7% of US corn gets to our tables as fresh or frozen corn and cornmeal.  4% is processed into high-fructose corn syrup.  The rest, "dent" or field corn, becomes ethanol and feed for beef cattle, pigs and chickens.  It makes me wonder how the upcoming US Farm Bill supports creation, food and farmers.