Books on the Dinner Menu
A Vocabulary for Hunger
Following an afternoon hike, Aaron and I splashed our faces in the creek and changed our clothes outside the truck on our way to dinner reservations. This last part is not a regular part of our lifestyle. Aaron asked if his hiking shoes looked weird for going out. I asked if there was any dirt on my face. A few minutes later, we sat across from each other at a candlelit table. Ooh la la!
Aaron looked over the menu and joked, “I’ll order a hot toddy and a Path of Light.” I had no idea what he meant until I turned the menu over.
How fitting since our dinner was a treat gifted by a friend and reader, Tom Ryan. (Thank you!!!)
Hell’s Backbone Grill & Farm serves gorgeous farm-to-table food, alongside their delicious taste in books, in a remote pocket of canyon country. HBBG is more than fine desert dining; it’s a community center built upon a committed passion to care for the incredible landscape of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
As we slowly stuffed ourselves, it was hard not to think about hunger. I began writing Path of Light in 2019, alone, cold, and undernourished in Bears Ears National Monument. I learned to be satiated by stories, landscapes, and stillness when I did not have enough to eat.
This is a photo of me then. Frozen inside my Jeep. Not just cold—literally the mud covering my Jeep froze all doors and windows shut, and I had to hunker until the late morning sun thawed the crevices enough to kick the doors open.
Amid the evil November SNAP cuts, I wonder why, back then, I did not consider seeking help. I think of so many Americans who do not have that option right now, and of those whose access to essential food is severed. It is uncomfortable to bring this up, in part because I do not wish pity on me or on anyone else, but to show how close hunger can haunt people within your line of sight.
As we all dance between staying present and not stressing each other out more, we risk avoiding conversations about caring for our communities we should always be having. My Mom and I acknowledged this on a recent phone call. She shared the ways she and a friend are supporting friends who struggle with food insecurity. The most difficult part, she lamented, was how complicated it feels to talk about it.
And it is also hard to write about. In my hungry years, I lacked a vocabulary for the bigger picture. Instead, I followed my survival instincts and dived into dumpsters and plumbed gas station shelves to turn whatever I scrounged up into Outlandish feasts. Today, I still struggle, but I am eating my way to shifting perspectives.
This is how entrenched this system has made the belief that not everyone deserves access to the things that sustain life––food, clean water, shelter. These binaries of right and wrong, how to and how not to, limit our ability to communicate care. We need to talk to each other about this, and we also just need to help.
Going out to a nice dinner is forever different for me. It takes effort for me to resist feeling guilty. That is because I can remember a time when every morsel, no matter how small, nourished me. When winning the lottery was what I found in a dumpster. My therapist once told me how periods of true hunger can amplify and lock in memories more vividly than when we are well fed. I have heard the same from wilderness seekers, who limit caloric intake on forest sojourns to connect more deeply with the natural world. I cannot forget what the hunger has etched inside me, little of which has anything to do with food.
Tandem efforts to ban books, rewrite history, withhold healthcare subsidies, and rescind critical environmental laws also intend to starve us all. So yes, books should be included on a menu to nourish our ability to learn, grow, question, resist, discuss, help each other, and advocate for the rights of nature, which includes humans.
Ultimately, committing to writing books about protecting public lands helped me learn to take better care of myself. With each bite and word that we choose, we strengthen ourselves. With the food and the stories we share, we can do so much more. 🧡
There are so many creative and straightforward ways to help. My Mom and her friend are picking extra veggies from their yard and making care packages. A friend with a farm is making her produce donation-based. We can donate to or volunteer at food banks that are increasing efforts to make sure no one goes hungry as the temperatures cool. This is a cruel moment, but a reminder of a way we can all always be invested in the health of our communities.
🧡
Morgan
I finished reading Water Bodies, a potent written elixir of waterborne love edited by Laura Paskus, just in time to dig into beyond the glittering world edited by Stacie Shannon Denetsosie, Kinsale Drake, and Darcie Little Badger. Both volumes bring together so many brilliant writers of this moment. Beautiful work all!
ah, Yes: "Tandem efforts to ban books, rewrite history, withhold healthcare subsidies, and rescind critical environmental laws also intend to starve us all." Sing this full truth!