Home: Gravy and Biscuits

This November, MHT is participating in the Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraising Drive. The money goes to programs that support refugee families that have been resettled in the United States. In tandem with these efforts, our clinicians are writing posts reflecting on what home means to them.

As I was reflecting back on what Home means to me, I continued to go back to memories of my mother cooking in the kitchen or teaching me how to make one of her specialty dishes. Homemade cooking was a very important thing to her as a Southern woman. This value has been passed down from generation to generation. Both my mother and grandmother (“mamaw”) take pride in their scratch cooking and believe in the merits of working hard to prepare a homemade meal. This value was passed down to me. Home to me means home-cooked meals. Home to me is waking up to the smell of homemade buttermilk biscuits and sausage being cooked for gravy.

One of my mother’s specialty dishes is her gravy and biscuits. This recipe has been passed on from my mamaw. What makes this dish so special is that it is made by hand and from memory. There is no recipe. My mother has always taken pride in her perfectly fluffy biscuits and creamy gravy. She has taught me over the years that the art of perfecting the biscuits is how you lightly handle the dough so that the it stays airy — this is what makes it fluffy. The trick with the gravy is to slowly stir until it is at its perfect consistency. Neither process can be rushed for it to turn out right.       

Thinking back on this memory as a child, I think about how much the process of making gravy and biscuits is similar to therapy. If we rush the process of therapy we will not get the result we desire. It can take time to move through the process of understanding ourselves and to remember that taking our time and being mindful is important so that we don't miss an important ingredient.

“Both my mother and grandmother (“mamaw”) take pride in their scratch cooking and believe in the merits of working hard to prepare a homemade meal....Home to me is waking up to the smell of buttermilk biscuits and sausage being cooked for gravy. ”

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HERE'S HOW YOU CAN PARTICIPATE IN FRIENDSGIVING WITH US:

Give! Visit our Miry’s List campaign page and make a donation. It's that simple and no sum is too small. Truly.

Follow! Be sure to follow us on Instagram and our blog throughout the month of November. We will be reflecting on what it means to be welcomed, received, and known.

Share!  Help us spread the word. You can do this by sharing our social media posts or links to our Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraiser page.

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A little about Miry’s List:
Refugee families come to the United States seeking a safe haven from violence and persecution in their home countries. They leave behind family and friends, as well as virtually everything they own. Many Americans, seeing these families in their communities, wonder: What can I do to help? Miry's List provides a mechanism for people to directly help new arrival refugee families with the things that they need to get started in their new lives – from diapers to beds to cleaning supplies and toiletries. To learn more, visit miryslist.org.

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Eryn Lewis, MA, is a Registered Associate Marriage and Family Therapist, IMF #186959, working under the professional supervision of Gabrielle Taylor, PhD, Psy #22054. Eryn works with individuals, couples and families on a broad range of issues including anxiety, depression, parent-child challenges, trauma, sexual abuse, and marital issues.

The Radiance of Relationships

“...sturdy relationships can hold just about anything...the kinder, rather than nicer, friendships are brave enough to share a flashlight so we can take a honest look at what’s true about ourselves...”

can·did
/ˈkandəd/

Did you know the word “candid” derives from the Latin root for “extreme radiance?”

At first it sounds really beautiful - sunshine, starlight, bright and shining faces. We find ourselves completely known. This is the place where we build intimacy with one another. But then after a while the extreme radiance starts to feel a little…extreme - office fluorescents, migraines, the inquisitor’s spotlight. Some days, burying your head in a pillow in a dark room feels safer.

That’s it. I think our brains really want us to feel safe. And it really wants us to feel known. In this push and pull, we navigate our daily relationships.

"You laugh at my nerdy joke?" Lights on.
“You criticized me in front of everyone in the meeting?” Lights off.
“I’m not sure I want you to see that part of me.”  Let’s dim the lights a little.
Come closer…no…too close.  

It’s ok. We’re doing the Goldilocks: too hot…too cold…now that’s just right.  It means we’re exploring. It means we’re in a relationship. It means we’re alive.

I think sometimes we can apply unnecessary pressure on ourselves to try to be completely open with other people.  Maybe the relationship doesn’t need to dive deeply so quickly.  And I think we can apply unnecessary shame for being too open with others.  Like surgeons, we sometimes need those spotlights to shine into dark places so that we can heal what is wounded and birth new life.  

Regardless of what lumens we choose to shine on different parts of ourselves, sturdy relationships can hold just about anything. The healthy ones want to soothe those sunburns from those extra-candid moments. And the kinder, rather than nicer, friendships are brave enough to share a flashlight so we can take an honest look at what is true about ourselves and the resources around us. Together, our eyes adjust to the brighter light, until the path forward becomes clear.

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Lauren Masopust, MS, MFT Intern has extensive experience working with young adults, adolescents, and couples, and specializes in areas of trauma, identity development, and multicultural issues.

Playing a Different Tune

I love to play piano.

I remember the piano I grew up with: the ivory keys, chalky under my fingertips, and the horseshoe notch on the tip of middle C.

The piano was a phenomenal outlet.  It still is.

I don’t know if you ever play piano, but imagine this: playing piano from a place of blame. Picture yourself when you’ve just had it. You just can’t even. The world is going to crap, your dry cleaner ruined your interview suit, you’ve been audited for no good reason, your kids are being bullied, your partner did not stop doing that thing you cannot STAND...

“ Instead of getting stuck in the Blame Game where it’s you vs. me, how about we create space for us to carefully experience ourselves and our relationship from a different angle? How about we try a third way?”

WHAT. IS. WRONG. WITH. EV-ER-Y-ONE

Piano strings trembling, box radiating, sound waves bouncing off the smooth walls, in a grand crescendo until - resolution.

Blame. As much it doesn’t feel good to blame, it feels good to blame.

Songs are beautiful in that way. You play and play all the feelings, the instrument simply listens, and you, almost always, come to some kind of resolution. All on your own.

This principle doesn't work so well in relationships. And it's one of the reasons why I love working with couples. When a couple comes into the room, it’s like opening up a piece of music.  We stumble over the notes together, we find the affect, we determine the cadence, and before we know it, we’re in a full blown situation where the couple is enacting the very issue they are coming to see me for. And much of the time what they’re coming to see me for involves blame.

Hard blame. The fiery hot blame that spews steam from our ears.  The ninja-quiet blame that sneaks up and cuts us open, so quickly you question if it actually happened. The pedestal blame that points a finger from an ideological monument and leaves us feeling small.  Sometimes, it even feels better to blame ourselves and crumple into shame than it does to walk through the pain.

Listen. We all do it. It just looks differently.

A couple comes in with a song, a way of desperately trying to connect to one another, and the song often does not sound the way they want it to.

WHAT. IS. WRONG. WITH MY. PART-NER.

or

what.is.wrong.with.me?

are usually the songs that gets sung.

It’s either you or me. I get it. It feels good to find the cause of something painful.  Blame perpetually hunts for a culprit, where it can give birth to contempt, shame, and moral superiority. And when Baby Contempt is born, the research shows the relationship is in trouble: a roll of the eyes, a scoff of disgust, a correction of a person’s grammar, a questioning of a person’s upbringing...

Blame closes down the conversation. It darkens our vision of what is actually going on between us. It prevents us from taking ownership of our own stuff.  It turns a dialogue between two fleshy humans into an assailment towards an inanimate object.

Our goal is to open, loosen, and lighten what is going on inside of us and between us. Instead of getting stuck in the Blame Game where it’s you vs. me, how about we create space for us to carefully experience ourselves and our relationship from a different angle?  How about we try a third way?

When we step outside the Blame Game and into dialogue, we develop stronger empathy and personal responsibility. We stumble along until we meet a safe kind of humor and laugh with the parts of ourselves that got us so riled up in the first place. Instead of performing a solo rage onto the smooth, hard keys of a piano, we find ourselves in an authentic duet: giving and taking, listening and speaking, back and forth, two fleshy humans singing together the song of connection.

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Lauren Masopust, MS, MFT Intern has extensive experience working with young adults, adolescents, and couples, and specializes in areas of trauma, identity development, and multicultural issues.

The Blame Game: A Psychoanalytic Approach to Couples Therapy with Phil Ringstrom PhD

When hurt, or even anticipating the possibility of pain, our protective nature takes hold and we look to vanquish pain to anywhere but here...here being the house inside ourselves. Interesting fact: Did you know our brains don’t really differentiate between the felt experience of physical pain and emotional pain? Well, it’s a little more complicated than that (I trust you to Google it) but the idea being: broken heart or broken bone, it all hurts. Over time we learn to predict, anticipate, and guard against the possibility of being hurt. The world makes more sense when we know what to expect, who are the good guys and the bad guys. But when your partner has to be the bad guy so the world makes sense, "Houston, we have a problem." How do you get past these relational stalemates to build something new and vital with your partner? To get to the bottom of this, I interviewed Phil Ringstrom PhD, Psychoanalyst and Couples Therapist extraordinaire. Enjoy!

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Michelle Harwell, MS, LMFT is an expert trainer, respected speaker, and licensed therapist in trauma and attachment. She is noted for her specialization in areas of development, attachment, trauma, and neuroscience, and her ability to communicate complex topics with clarity and humor. Michelle is currently completing her PhD in Psychoanalysis from The Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis. She received her BA in English Literature from University of Oklahoma, MA in Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary, and MS in Marriage and Family Therapy from the Fuller Graduate School of Psychology.

The Cold Brew

Cheese is a juggernaut of transformation. In the right hands, what is presumably rotten transforms into utter deliciousness. Fermentation, the heart of how cheese becomes cheese, parallels our own emotional process of change as humans. Change often has the aroma of death. It's a stinky business. I wanted to gain a deeper insight into this process of change. I interviewed Ms. Leah Fierro, owner of Milkfarm and fiercest cheesemonger in the West.

M: So tell us, what has cheese taught you?

L: Cheese has taught me a lot but foremost, how little people know about where food comes from.

M: Yeah, I find that interesting too. In general, we are really disconnected from our food. You’ve also chosen a food that people love but know little about. I wonder how aware people are that cheese is basically in various stages of rot, controlled spoilage?

L: People don’t understand that cheese was created due to lack of refrigeration. What do you do with an excess of milk that you can’t drink? You make cheese. Same thing with vegetables. You have seasonal bounty. What happens in the middle of winter when there is no produce? That’s where fermentation comes in. Because in 2016, we don’t know seasons, everything is available to us. Whatever we can’t get in California, we can get from Chile, from anywhere so people are disconnected from seasonality.

“People don’t think about controlled spoilage. They think if something has mold on it they have to discard it but that’s not true, you don’t. You just cut it off and keep eating it. Everything in our store molds. Everything.”

I think it’s interesting that as a cheesemonger, I am essentially serving a form of controlled spoilage and milk to consumers but people are very shocked by this. They ask questions like “How long does this last?” To which I answer, “This Parmigiano-Reggiano has been around for three years. It’s not going to spoil in three days in your refrigerator.” People don’t think about controlled spoilage. They think if something has mold on it they have to discard it but that’s not true, you don’t. You just cut it off and keep eating it. Everything in our store molds. Everything.

M: Everything?

L:  Everything. Cheese molds, everything molds. Everything, everything molds. We just cut it off and keep going. I often wonder if I have cheese mold in my lungs. Cheese is controlled spoilage. Sometimes people come in asking for blue cheese, not understanding that blue cheese is mold. The blue is mold. Or asking for camembert, brie, and not understanding that the white fungus on the outside is mold that is intentionally sprayed on the cheese to help develop the flavor. This helps the cheese mature and break down. There’s proteolysis which is the breakdown of proteins and fats which help the cheese develop to the ooey gooeyness that we all love. Spoilage.

Nearly everyone eats cheese but few people understand it. I get asked all the time “Why did you call you store Milkfarm?” People don’t really think about how cheese comes from milk and there is somehow a farm involved. It’s up to me to educate my consumers.

So there are 4 outlets for cheese making. 1. The Diary Man: he is raising the cows, growing the grass, making sure they are eating right. 2. The Cheesemaker: he ensures the cheese is being made in the proper way, controlling the pH. and the bacteria. 3. Affineur: this is the person who ages the cheese, who controls the bacteria in these cheese caves, on these wooden planks as cheeses age. This effects the flavor of the cheese. 4. The Cheesemonger: this person educates and serves the cheese. How we take care of the cheese represents all three people.

I’ve gone to a lot of cheese stores where the cheese looks like s*$%. It’s dead. It’s lived, it’s died. And it does represent all the hard work the other people have put in.

By the way, you need to come to my Parmigiano-Reggiano class on the 26th. You can learn a lot through my classes.

M: Umm. Done. 

M: I’m really fascinated by the process of fermentation, controlled spoilage, or as you have said, “delicious rot.” The idea that something decaying or rotting, in skilled hands, can become something rather delicious.

L: But it can also be very not delicious! If the cheesemaker doesn’t have the appropriate skill or knowledge, they can really mess things up. So like, if you come to the Parmigiano-Reggiano class you’ll learn about microbial rennet, why things can get bitter. If the cheesemaker doesn’t cut the curd the right way, it messes up the pH. of the milk because milk is an alive thing. The process of trying to get the perfect pH. before they add the salt, before they add the rennet, before they maneuver and manipulate it. That has a lot to do with the  outcome of the cheese.

Or the problem can lie with the cheesemonger. So let’s say you get a brie and you cut this brie at a restaurant and its ooey and gooey and delicious. Then you have another piece at another restaurant and it’s hard, kind of chalky. Then you have another piece at another restaurant and it smells like Windex and its brown. This could be the exact same cheese but just in different phase of the lifespan.

M: So what I hear is that it’s not only the cheesemaker but it’s how the cheese is used.  Shifting gears…Let’s talk about biodiversity. As a culture we are so germaphobic but from what I have read, it’s actually the diversity of microbes that brings the complexity of flavor. Bacteria is our friend.

L: (laughs) My sister has a newborn and if she could put her in a bubble or dip her in latex she would but the truth is the human body is a complex system of microbiomes. We need all of that bacteria. Like the nun in Cooked Episode 4, she needs all the funky bacteria growing in that wood for years and years to develop that cheese.

A few years ago the FDA was cracking down on affineurs using wooden planks. There were some high counts of “bad bacteria” on some planks so they wanted to banish all wooden planks. That would have been disastrous because we need all that funkiness to play a role on the cheeses surface to create beautifully complex cheeses. The interesting nuances and flavor profiles would be gone.

M: So there is a fine line between safety and danger and the potential for growth and goodness.

M: If you were to make a t-shirt, what would it say?

L: I heart bacteria. 

M: (laughs) So back to this concept of fermentation. When was a time in your life where it seemed like you reached a point of change, where it felt like the end but it became something new?

L: There was a point after I got married where I felt like I had no oxygen. That I was done. But I regenerated. I started to figure things out, what I needed. Interestingly though, in cheese oxygen can accelerate the ripening process. So like with blue cheese, at certain stage they actually purposely introduce it to oxygen to feed the bacteria.

M: So cheese has an anaerobic process but then it’s purposely exposed to oxygen. So the lack of exposure starts the cheesemaking process but then it’s all about exposure and handling?

L: Yes, but oxygen exposure starts the ripening process. So like blue cheese, the second you cut the wheel open you can literally see, with your bare eyes, the blue becoming more blue. And every day, you will see it become bluer and develop more mold.

M: So what does that mean? Is that more flavor or is there some line between deliciousness and rot?

L: It’s more flavor until you hit that point where it becomes too bitter or the flavor too strong.

M: So, it’s a dance

L: Absolutely. There’s high amount of spoilage in my industry. People wonder why cheese is so expensive. You already heard about all the people involved in the process of making the cheese. It becomes my job to sell it within that peak window. So, a lot can spoil.

M: You leave a lot cheese on the table so to speak.

L: Well, not so much anymore. People are starting to get it. It’s a good feeling. Slowly people are starting to get what we are serving is of the best quality.

M: Anything you want people to know about cheese that they may not know?

L: Not all soft cheeses are bries. (laughs)  and not every hard cheese tastes like parmesan. These are probably the two most irritating things to the cheesemonger. But those are things we chip away at as we educate the public about cheese and its differences.

L: Also, terroir. It’s a French word that translates to 'of the land.' So, if you are having a pinot noir from the Willamette Valley versus a pinot noir from France or Paso Robles, they will all taste different because of the soil, the hands that touch it, the climate, the bugs that are eating it, the ripening, they all make a difference in taste. Terroir effects cheese a lot.

So, take Raclette.  It's a very famous cheese meant to be melted and scrapped atop potatoes. Raclette is made in France. It’s made in Switzerland. I chose to use a Raclette that’s made in Vermont. The flavor is completely different. The taste, the flavor of it is delicious because these people are raising cows that are eating the freshest sustainable grasses; it’s made in these really great caves. It’s all terroir. Everything about that farm is effecting the way that cheese taste. Terroir.

M: The ecology of cheese. (laughs)

L: Cheese is interesting. I think I’ve stayed into it because it’s not so black and white. It’s not simply: follow a recipe and then, done. Cheese is living, changing, breathing. It's so much more than just a cheese shop.

M: That it is.

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Michelle Harwell, MS, LMFT is an expert trainer, respected speaker, and licensed therapist in trauma and attachment. She is noted for her specialization in areas of development, attachment, trauma, and neuroscience, and her ability to communicate complex topics with clarity and humor. Michelle is currently completing her PhD in Psychoanalysis from The Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis. She received her BA in English Literature from University of Oklahoma, MA in Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary, and MS in Marriage and Family Therapy from the Fuller Graduate School of Psychology.