My favorite advice for coping during a catastrophe was gleaned from an interview with a woman who cooks these Zen-inspired dishes. After a big earthquake struck the area where she lived, the power went out in her apartment building and in the surrounding buildings. She went to this cafe in her neighbourhood, where others had also congregated, and they made small dishes from the stuff in the fridge and storeroom and shared them among themselves, eating quietly in the candle-lit dark while they waited for the electricity to come back on. They could have fled or hunkered in their apartments, each on their own. Instead they chose to find their community, feeding people and enjoying food in the company of others, whatever the future.

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