It has been surprisingly hard to combine holiday cheer with a job search and I am occasionally finding it quite difficult to look ahead objectively, probably even more so because it is the end of the year. This season has always been (for me anyway) a time to tie up any loose ends, finalize any projects and, most importantly, look at what I feel I have accomplished in the year that is coming to an end. This then leads to determining what I want to build on in the year to come, based on those accomplishments. "Get a job" doesn't really give me much scope for my usual seasonal introspection (though plenty for introspection of a less positive and unseasonal kind).
Since Pity Party is, despite its ironic title, very much about putting on one's big girl pants and getting on with things (I hope), I have been concentrating on the present positives in my life rather than my usual annual list of hopes and aspirations. I have also been thinking a great deal about food - not just recipes and cooking but the impactful role that food occupies in my daily life. Please note, this is very much about the happiness engendered by the role that food plays in my life and not a post about emotional eating or any kind of negative relationship with food. Though I have a few extra pounds that I would dearly love to shift, I suffer from neither of those two issues. Loving cooking and food as much as I do has enhanced my life and there are many people who have helped me to fully embrace this particular love fully to whom I am extremely grateful.
I adored my maternal grandmother and one of our primary methods of communication was through cooking. She was an excellent home cook; the kind of woman who made strudel dough from scratch and knocked out dozens of homemade pierogi effortlessly. When I was growing up, she had use of a neighbor's garden and it is from her that I subconsciously learned about the importance of quality in ingredients. I remember vividly, when I was about 8, marching up and down the vegetable rows, helping her, after much inspection, pick a perfect zucchini, a flawless yellow squash and an unblemished tomato. We washed them, still warm from the sun, and into a pot they went, with a tiny bit of garlic and a slick of olive oil. My grandmother simmered the vegetables in their own juices, at the lowest temperature possible, sprinkled them with a bit of salt and a handful of fresh basil from the glass on the window sill and we ate this with some crusty bread. Proust can take his Madeleine and shove it because my dish is the true memory inducer. My very own Anton Ego moment as well, with similar ingredients...
My mother taught me about proper cooking, both homey and fancy, and the concept of lovingly (mostly) preparing balanced home-cooked meals for your family every single day, whether you feel like it or not. She also taught me about cooking when entertaining. My parents hosted a great deal of dinners and cocktail parties and, while she on occasion would hire someone to bartend, serve and clean up (and that person was sometimes me), she always made the food herself. I was in awe of the near military planning and copious lists that went into making those parties look as though they just happened organically. Though my mother doesn't cook that way today, she is still my go to person when I have new recipes that are of potential interest to me that I want to parse and someone with whom I really like to talk about food in general. She is also, of course, the person on who so many of my taste memories are based. She was the one who catered to my likes and dislikes at the childhood dinner table and expanded my palate through the judicious introduction of new ingredients when she thought I wasn't paying attention.
My mother also gave me my first experience of full on, Michelin-starred, temple of high gastronomy dining by taking me to La Pyramide in Vienne as part of my high-school graduation present. Strangely enough, and quite unfortunately, I do not remember a single dish that we ate but I remember the magic of the experience as a whole. The setting, the effortless looking service, the presentation of the dishes, getting dressed up because this was a special occasion, eating leisurely and ceremoniously for 4 hours and yet never feeling full. I also remember the kindness of Madame Point, who gave me the compliment of recognizing my love of food by what I ordered and my comments to the wait staff and who took me back into the kitchen, showed me around, let me lift up pot lids and poke in walk-in fridges and allowed me to ask the chefs all kinds of questions. That one meal was a seminal moment in defining my relationship to food and what it means in the abstract once it has been consumed. A happy memory? A proof of love? There is so much more to any meal than just what is on the plate.
I really cannot remember a time in my life when food din't bring me joy and when I didn't find it exciting - to cook, to discuss, to imagine, to plan for... I love grocery shopping, farmer's markets and food halls. I am always incredibly happy when I find an ingredient I previously knew nothing about. I have always read cookbooks like novels and was quite astounded when I discovered that not everyone can read a recipe and know exactly what the end product will taste like, a bit like musicians reading a score can hear the music. I find cooking an incredibly useful tool as a method of sharing and giving and as an outlet for personal creativity. Cooking is one of the few areas in my life where I can feel like an artist by putting my own personal stamp on what I am making.
The next person who enhanced my love of the whole food experience was my first husband, a true French bon-vivant. He was all about experiences and the bonding that comes through eating a fine meal together. He taught me how to lop the neck off of Champagne bottles with a saber to get a party started, about matching wine to food but mostly how a meal should be throughly enjoyed. Each bite should be relished and appreciated and commented on, from the first canapé down to the digestif, slowly sipped and savored as a method of keeping the evening from being over. He took me to many restaurants in many countries and made sure that I enjoyed every experience. He ensured that I knew that food is not just fodder for the body but fuel for the soul and that cooking is an act of generosity and togetherness. He made eating (and cooking for him) so much damn fun. He got sick and, Interestingly, about a year into that ordeal I became a vegetarian until he died, which I later realized was because what I put in my mouth became the only part of my life over which I had any control. The day he died, I went out, ordered a steak and reverted to being an omnivore.
And then I was accepted into the tight knit restaurant industry family, which certainly changed my take on food and cooking even further, but that is for another post.
Enjoy this week's recipes, here.