The vegetables were in conversation with each other, and with me.

I didn’t know what they would say, or even who would greet me. Jackie had chosen them, at my invitation. “I’m thinking of making veggie friends,” I emailed her. “Basically some grain like farro cooked simply, and then a bunch of roasted or sauteed veggies that go together…If you have time to go to your local market over the weekend, I'm sure there are beautiful things there.” 

Our dinner guests, too, had no idea who they would meet, but they were game. These particular ladies hadn’t met each other before; I’d known Jackie and Allison for years and Frieda for just weeks but I felt like they’d all enjoy each other’s company. They all lived in the East Bay, not too far from Jackie’s house where I was staying, Jackie being one of several kind lady friends to host me while my son Leo was at camp with his friends. Half Moon Bay, Palo Alto, now Lafayette, then Marin, back to Half Moon Bay and finally Santa Cruz to pick up Leo: My itinerary was a whirlwind of Bay Area beauty and so much lady love. Everywhere, we gathered over food. Some I cooked, some I didn’t; all of it shared with generosity and joy and all of it the medium for the pigment of our conversations.

Conversing with the vegetables Jackie had bought was like a game – what had she chosen and how did they want to play? The beets wanted to be with their greens, roots roasted in found spices from Jackie’s pantry (turmeric, cayenne, whole cinnamon sticks) and smoked paprika I picked up at the market, piled on top of labne laced with more paprika and meyer lemon juice. The kale spoke to the sweet potato, roasted separately with coconut and pepitas and then combined. Summer garden bounty – zucchini, fennel, tomatoes – all sang together roasted with rosemary and topped with feta and mint, an idea sparked from dinner two nights before at my former manager Becca’s house when she made an Ottolenghi recipe to go with grilled sausage.

I could give you rational rules for why these choices – varying color and texture and so on – but the real answer is that it wasn’t logic, it was listening.

I loved Tom Robbins novels when I was in high school – Spoon and Dirty Sock and Can O’ Beans had their own inner lives and dialogues. Why not vegetables? Why wouldn’t they speak to each other, and to me? Sometimes the message was clear. The farro in its package was crawling with insects. “Don’t serve me,” it said. “Let me die in peace in the garbage can.” Other times, more subtle. The onion and chickpeas I had been frizzling to mix with the now-retired farro suddenly called out for the beet greens – “Join us!” – melting together and then topping the labne-beetroot platter.

“I bought a steak to grill too, because that’s what I like to eat,” Jackie said, “and I thought we’d do some dates and goat cheese and walnuts and honey for an hors d’oeuvres.” “Perfect,” I replied. “Thank you.” She worked, I cooked, and then we came together in the afternoon to finish the dishes together. Our friend Kristen and her husband’s chocolate chip cookies couldn’t make it from the city; I found some strawberries in Jackie’s fridge and plated them with store-bought chocolate toffee.

What do women talk about when in conversation for the first time? The gifts each one of us contributed – the wine, the food, Jackie’s table settings in her garden where we ate. Appreciation for who shaped us: Jackie let me wear her great-grandmother’s apron while we cooked. Where life was taking us, transitions and the challenges we’re meeting, and the books and podcasts and people and practices supporting us along the way. What’s inspiring us, and what we’re curious about. Gatherings we’d come from or dreamed of hosting. And most of all, what was right in front of us, the gift of presence. Strangers no more, neither the ladies nor the vegetables, now deep in conversation with each other.