Enjoy Your Vegetables.

Honey has a way of making everything feel better. I put it in tea, in coffee, in yogurt, in cottage cheese...you name it. When I am lonely or tired or carrying a weight I cannot name, honey becomes a small, deliberate gesture that fills in the spaces in my heart and mind that I cannot name. It is not flashy. It is not trying to solve everything. It simply changes what I am tasting, what I am feeling, in a way that makes me pause and notice myself.

Lately, I have been exploring it with vegetables. Brussels sprouts, carrots, and Irish potatoes, roasted until the edges of the sprouts are crisp and the potatoes yield easily under a knife. I mix honey with a blend of palm oil and rapeseed oil, season it with paprika, black pepper, and salt, and pour it over the vegetables before they go into the oven. The smell rising from the pan is rich and layered. It is not sweetness alone. It is warmth, depth, and a little sharpness all at once.

Earlier, last weekend I made a version of a coleslaw salad and substituted the salad cream for mayonnaise. The outcome upset me. My older sister in law suggested I add some honey, lemon juice and paprika to give it a little oomph. I did. Somehow, it survived and the bucket of salad is all finished now. Phew!

The potato is the last step. I cut it open and add gochujang paste and mayonnaise. The heat of the paste and the cool creaminess of the mayonnaise meet the honey’s sweetness in a surprising way. Each bite is complex, and yet simple. It reminds me that even the boldest flavors can be softened, that even the simplest ingredients can teach something about balance.

Cooking in this way is a conversation with myself. I notice the way honey coats the carrots as they roast, how it gathers in little pockets in the folds of Brussels sprouts. I notice the firmness of the potato’s skin giving way to its soft interior. These are details I would overlook if I were rushing, if I were just trying to fill a plate. But I am not. I am present. I am paying attention. I am letting the food, and the act of making it, speak.

Honey is subtle in a way that matters. It does not dominate. It lifts. It frames. It brings out qualities in food I might not have seen. The first time I added it to the roasted vegetables, I realized I had been thinking about vegetables as an obligation, something to endure for health or manners. Honey changes that. It turns the act of eating into something worth noticing. It turns the ordinary into a small, private celebration.

I eat slowly. I allow the flavors to settle and shift on my tongue. I recognize that the sweetness is not just on the surface. It moves with the heat of the oven, with the strength of the spices, with the earthiness of the vegetables. It is woven into everything I have prepared, and in that weaving, I find a measure of care for myself.

Cooking, eating, tasting, noticing...these become gestures of attention. A spoonful of honey is not a cure, but it is a marker. It marks that I chose to be here, to taste, to experience. The vegetables, the oils, the spices, the honey and they form a quiet, unspoken acknowledgment that life can be deliberate, even in the smallest acts. Even in the simplest bites, there is room for sweetness, for contrast, for balance.

P.S

I even put some honey on my sweet pepper omelette this morning.

A little bird suggested that someone might have attempted a Honey Jar love spell on me. If that is the case, this is the outcome.

"Eat honey, my child, for it is good; honey from the comb is sweet to your taste." — Proverbs 24:13, ESV