Death in the Kitchen

I've been thinking about death lately, deliberately, because we're in the midst of Lent, but also just because death is so much a part of the world.

My husband, Peleg Top, is enrolled in a cooking school. He hasn't had to kill anything, yet, (boiled lobster is coming later this week) but he has had to face the mortality issues inherent in feeding ourselves more obviously than we usually do. It's impossible not to acknowledge death when cutting up a whole animal carcass.

In our own kitchen we've been battling a bug infestation, both worms and flies, probably two life stages of the same creature. We've thrown away a lot of spoiled food, but I've also been going around with a folded up paper towel picking up and disposing of bugs clinging to the cabinets and sometimes the ceiling.

It pains me to take the lives of these creatures, but not too much. Death is a part of the system of living. I value those lives but, frnakly, I value my own life more. To honor both lives, mine, and theirs, I kill, but with awareness, with respect, with gratitude and with humility.

Because death is involved inevitably each of us must create for ourselves an ethic that balances our life satisfaction with the costs to the rest of the world of our continued living. There is no clean rule because the situation is inherently muddy. All we can do is admit the inadequacy of our position, however saintly, ask for forgiveness, and humbly move on.