The Flavor in the Fond

Yesterday hoarfrost sleeved the bare branches in that liminal space between darkness and light.  Skyfire red asserted the morning’s birth in the east, while a half-moon benedicted the darkness in the west.  It was a strikingly vivid moment.  I could only pause and take it in.  Pause, that is, and smile.  It was a magnificent morning.  

It all, of course, was ephemeral. Within minutes the moment had passed.  The frost melted into simple wetness.  The orange-red sprays of light coalesced into the single yellow dot well into its ascent.  The half-moon settled into its slumber below the far horizon.

Today the morning is a simple, monochromatic gray.  The air itself, thick with fog, receded into an ashen sky, around and above, as though the very trees, the chickens and all the other scurrying lives, were wine fermenting in a cement cask.  Including me.  Which is not to suggest that there is nothing today to notice, to absorb, to relish, to respond to with a smile; just to acknowledge that whatever it is will not grab us by the lapels and demand our attention.  We will have to look more closely, listen more attentively, discern more patiently.  

And amidst either day - the brilliant or the gray - to savor that which will only be there fleetingly.

Last year, I chose a word to focus me throughout the year.  “Awe” was my word of choice; to be available for even the subtlest experiences of glory.  And the word served me well.  If much of my passage through life had resembled that beginning sequence in The Wizard of Oz - largely black and white - this past year dropped into the land of Oz where everything was more than met the eye and all in technicolor.  

But as the year ended, I realized that simple awe - as precious and life-giving as it is - is not finally enough.  To see is not enough.  To viscerally palpitate is not enough.  What is seen, after all, never lasts.  To feel is fleeting.  What is needed beyond the seeing is the savoring.  To savor is to take in the awe and keep it - tasting the experience slowly; holding it sensually, appreciatively, and finally memorably - enjoying it, yes, in the moment, but lingering with it so that the experience lives on as a sensory echo indefinitely, imprinted.   It is to stretch out the awe by settling it into one’s very marrow.

Savoring has its roots in the kitchen - the culinary wonderland of tastes and smells.  There over an oily pan we test and correct the seasoning; we check for doneness.  And then, with the browned meat or vegetables removed, we scrape up the crispy caramelized bits left behind, stuck to the bottom of the skillet.  Those browned, flavorful bits are called “fond” and they are the concentrated residue of the process - the glory of the dish left behind.  

Perhaps that’s the gift that savoring adds to awe:  it is scraping up the flavorful bits of what has struck us as significant, as momentous, as delicious, and relishing the ongoing essence that lingers.

Awe leaves plenty of fond behind.  It is, after all, the stuff that widens our eyes and swells our soul.  It is the surge of wonderment.  But it is housed in a moment - fleeting, and then it is gone.  But it doesn’t have to be gone entirely.  It’s simply up to us to scrape it up, scoop it out, and savor as long as we are willing the flavor that lingers behind.  

That’s my new word of the year:  “savor”.  Capturing the flavor in the fond.

{While you are reading, you might enjoy my other blog.  You can find it at:

Substack.com/@taprootgarden}