ojalá que llueva café en el campo...

...que caiga un aguacero de yuca y té




If possible, I have become more obsessed with food than before. Not so much the eating of food, that level is pretty much the same, but more along the lines of the importance of food. So we couldn’t live without downing a bit of calories a day, duh. But food is so much more than just daily nourishment. Some deodorant commercial says that scent is the sense most tied to memory. I beg to differ. We have “comfort foods,” not comfort smells.

My host mom’s food is great but I’ll be excited to have a bowl of my mom’s steaming dumplings, or famous lump crab cakes, a slice of Henriette’s trademark quiche with Gruyère and prosciutto or the best apricot cake ever, ever.

I've often pondered why I am so taken by food. I think it's because, as a child, I was surrounded, inundated, encircled by good food. From Henriette’s amazing French meals that Mom, Claire and I have been treated to over the years, to what I remember of my Grandma's great Chinese soups to all of the delicious meals my mom made me everyday, food has always been a positive part of my life. One day during a morning walk with my host mom, we were talking about how people teach their children how to eat. I told her about Mom grinding up homemade boiled dumplings for Claire and me to eat when we were babies, instead of baby food. “That right there is true love,” she said.

There was this huge music festival here a month or so ago and its motto was la música nos une. Music unites us. Sure music unites us, and so does food. From the pride that people feel of their regional specialties to timeless rivalries (New York or Chicago?), food and culture go hand in hand. But even on a much smaller scale, food can play a big role in how we connect with other people. I’ve loved learning to cook Costa Rican food from my host mom, and she always seems excited that I’m excited to learn. And as cliché as it is, through food, we can show people we care for, that we do. Nothing says, “I hope you stop feeling crappy and coughing up phlegm” quite like a bowl of homemade chicken soup. Perhaps, in being away from the food I grew up with, I've come to appreciate it more. Absence makes the heart (and digestive system) grow fonder, I suppose.

I remember, as a little kid, being embarrassed (and I think simultaneously a little proud) to be the only kid with a thermos everyday without fail, always full of home cooked goodness, instead of a sandwich or Lunchables (I envied every kid with Lunchables). In elementary school, my teachers would always help me open my heavy duty, ridiculously hard to open thermos. Their noses always seemed to linger, they’d look morosely back at the lunch sitting on their desk and jokingly pretend to steal mine. I remember when Claire and I begged (No, seriously. Begged.) Mom for Chef Boyardee and Spaghetti-o’s. When I started to take Hot Pockets to school in 5^th grade, it was like a new culinary frontier. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were a novelty (and kind of still are) because I never got to eat them. When we finally convinced mom to buy us that can of Chef Boyardee, we tried it and never pined for sugary artificial canned pasta again.

So why am I a foodie? Perhaps the better question would be, if I grew up in an environment like this………

...how the hell could I not be?

Anyone who knows me well enough or has traveled with me knows that I have a habit of taking pictures of food (mostly when I travel or during big family/family friend gatherings). The reason I do it? Every picture of food that I have reminds me of where I was, what I was doing, how I was feeling, who I was with: a little story. Very much tied to memory. So--here is, one of the first pictures of food I ever took, with no idea that it would manifest into this (sort of embarrassing--espesh in public) habit. At the time I just thought that it was a pretty salad, especially since the menu was in French and I had very little idea of what I had ordered. I think I thought it would be healthy. (Don't think I've ever had a salad with so much cheese and sausage.)


Paris, France: summer of 2004. We had just arrived in Paris and were out sightseeing for the first time. We stopped in a cafe on a street corner (which I swear I saw in Paris Je T'aime). Mom and Mindy, you witnessed history. :P

I guess my Mom should have seen this coming. When I was 7 years old, we took a trip to Spain where my mom had a conference to go to for work. We went out to eat somewhere in Madrid. My all-things-gourmet Aunt Joyce (I mean that in the best way, Aunt Joyce :) ), I believe, told me that this chef was a famous one. I asked him for his autograph. He told us that no one had ever asked him for his autograph before and seemed to think it was all pretty funny. In my 7 year old eyes, he was a chef, and what could be more autograph worthy than that?

They say that some people eat to live. Others live to eat. I’d say that’s not fair. I like to do other things too.