Hello, my friend!
This week, I am in search of something to cleanse and harmonize. Incense, actually—with notes agreeable enough for both my husband and the Vogue wedding planners next door. Nothing too bruja.
↓ In today’s email:
- This week’s inspiration: Why smell reaches places words can’t
- Latest blog post: Why cypress feels good right now
- What I ate this week: Pa amb tomàquet
This Week’s Inspiration: Why Smell Reaches Places Words Can’t
So the procuring began, and now packages come from France, China, Japan, and Sweden. Incense in cardinal red boxes or minimalist sleeves—claiming to be ancient recipes.
When we breathe in, life inhabits us. Literal inspiration swirling.
Many cultures believe smell changes consciousness. For sure, the ancient Chinese did. They believed that the Po, the part of our spirit that lives in our lungs, responds to the beauty of scent.
This is the vibe for this week’s newsletter: what scent evokes in us, what heals us, and what makes us remember. Perhaps healing and remembering go together.
Whether it’s freshly cut grass, gooey chocolate chip cookies, or the smell of roses that reminds us of a grandmother who’s long passed.
What are your earliest olfactory memories? Do you use incense? If so, which ones and why?
Report back ;))) xoxooxox
Latest Blog Post
Why Cypress Feels Good Right Now
Fall’s emotion in Chinese medicine is grief. Sometimes it is painful and obvious. Other times it hides. This week, as early fall arrived, nearly everyone in my practice gravitated toward cypress.
My teacher Jeffrey Yuen taught me that the scent of pine can soothe those who are dying, while cypress can be a salve to the broken hearts of those left behind. Cypress is not a typically beautiful smell. But for anyone carrying sadness—the kind you can name or can’t locate—it can be a balm.
What I Ate This Week
Pa amb tomàquet
How to celebrate these tomatoes? Nothing is more satisfying than pa amb tomàquet, the Catalan name for the open-faced sandwich made from toasted bread rubbed with raw garlic and fresh-from-the-farm tomatoes, sliced and juicy, soaked in olive oil, Maldon salt, and freshly cracked black pepper.
The actual recipe involves not eating the whole tomato, but taking every bit of its pulp and smushing it into the bread so it has a rosy red hue—and, of course, the spice of garlic.
It brings me back to a time of tortilla española and copious amounts of sangria, circa 1991 :)
Until next week, my friend.
Dr. Catherine