Longing and Dark Chocolate

As with many things with a bite or harshness, we tend to shy away from longing. It stings and hurts a bit, but if you are prepared, it can bring with it a deep, sensual satisfaction.

Some people prefer milk chocolate over dark, mayonnaise over wasabi, having over desiring. The former are fine, but there is something to be savored in the shock of the bitter or the heat or the ache of the latter.

Though the initial sensation will make some avoid them completely, the bold few who carry on and submit to the intensity are rewarded with a more complex pleasure.
Yes, it is nice to have. It is nice to eat the meal you delicately prepared with your own hands, it in nice to reach your peak while making love, it is nice to attain that which you crave. The preparing and the touching and the desire are integral pieces of the gratification.

You can dismally cook as though it were a drudgery, fuck mechanically with only one purpose in mind, you can pout because you don’t have what you want the moment you want it, but in the end, you are cheating yourself out of the full ecstasy of the experience.

I try to remind myself of this fact when I begin to feel that ache in my chest. I tell myself to relish the hunger, cherish the concentrated punch of desire coursing through my being. How amazing to feel something so intense, there is a pleasure in this pain like a ravenous caress.

I want to enjoy the entirety of my experiences, from the yearning to the achieving to the having. There is a melancholy that accompanies acquisition. As Ernest Hemingway put it, “After writing a story I was always empty and both sad and happy, as though I had made love…” That is what most people don’t understand, the ends are such a small piece compared to the means.

The same way I will not deny myself the burn of Thai chili, I will not rob myself of the bittersweet pleasure of the throbbing desire in my heart. They are mine to savor.

Overindulgence

Loving food does not make you fat. To me, this is the biggest misconception in our culture today. American puritan roots seem to cause people to equate pleasure with overindulgence. In my view Hedonism is the antithesis of pleasure.

Those who truly love something also treat it with care and respect, savoring quality over quantity.

I, like everyone, have been guilty of mindless gluttony from time to time, but I find that this inhibits my true hunger and desire and therefore my ultimate satisfaction. It is almost as if my taste buds numb to the flavors I consume, everything becomes interchangeable, meaningless and uninspiring.

There is a tipping point in the bell curve of returns. I think we have a limited capacity for pleasure as humans. Perhaps this is why, as MFK Fisher put it, " a good meal is wasted on those newly in love". One pleasure eclipses all others when it is fresh and potent. Would we want a watered down version of either love or cuisine? Well, those of us who savor certainly would not.

Perhaps the root of Hedonism is an internal emptiness, a deep well that cannot be filled, yet begs to be.

Like the sex addict who "indulges" in one night stands, over and over and over, and yet finds no real satisfaction, the American consumer eats and eats and eats, rarely having a decent meal and losing touch with the primal pleasure that one can bring.

Perhaps the problem is not overindulgence, but underindulgence. Contentment is not happiness, eating is not tasting, and fucking is not erotic. I want to be happy. I want cool, unctuous oysters not Long John Silver's. I want raw passion not a casual quickie. But, I am also a woman who chose New York over all the other more practical cities in the country. I am a woman whose sustenance is the primal soul-nourishing flesh of desire and the exotic seasoning of fearless experience. I am a woman who savors.

Tastes

Sipping my second cup of coffee this morning, relishing the good, bitter flavor and comparing it to the creamy sweet cup of coffee I had enjoyed earlier, I began thinking about the subject of taste.

I am of the opinion that if you don't like something, you just haven't given it enough chances. That's not to say there aren't bad versions of everything, but that is another matter all together. I realized this morning that the root of an initial distaste may stem from our own preconceived notions of what something "should be".

If I expected coffee to be sweet and soft, I would be off put by the reality of the bite as it hit my tongue. Upon second sip, I embraced the strong, dark brew for exactly what it was; relishing the bitterness and coffeeness of it.

I think that we may have the same knee-jerk reactions to people. When we encounter someone different from ourselves, either in values or personality, we sometimes reel back. Children on the playground provide the best example of this behavior, coming together in impenetrable cliques with prejudices against the unfamiliar. Though at one point there may have been a survival value to this, our ancestors avoiding new potentially poisonous foods, at this point in our maturity as adults and modern men, variety is the spice of life.

I developed a palate for people relatively early on, the unique differences enticing me, the complete otherness of people drawing me in. Life would be rather bland if it were filled only with boiled potatoes and people just like me. No, I prefer to explore the exotic flavors of my food and my friends. Whether it be a cultural difference or one of personality, as long as you are secure in your own identity, you can enjoy the bitter, sweet, savory, sour flavor of them all!

Unless an individual or dish is poisonous (which some most certainly are!) I stand by my opinion on taste. Take another bit of kimchi while chatting with an anarchist; you might just like it and it certainly will be an interesting meal.

What is the Point of a Romantic Relationship?

Ever since I ended my last relationship and found utter satisfaction with myself, I have been struggling with the question of why we bother with romantic entanglements. Sadly, many of us look for salvation in a partner, we build a life around them and that is a weight too heavy for any couple to bear. If you are satisfied with your life, not in need of a new one, and if you take sex out of the equation (Which ultimately is inconsequential anyways), what is it that a romantic partnership can offer you that a platonic one cannot?

This question haunted me, the tangle of thoughts created a brier patch in my brain.

Last week I had a rather glorious epiphany on the subject. I was contemplating the fact that I am not "looking" for a man or a relationship, but it still feels so good when the possibility arises. For some reason this thought lead me down another path of reasoning; perhaps it is not a utilitarian point I need to be looking for.

For someone who has decided to devote her life to the study of mankind's greatest pleasure and comfort (food), it is rather ironic I did not come to this conclusion earlier. I don't ask, "What is the point of eating foie gras"?

Human beings need to eat to live, but they don't have to eat well. The pursuit of great cuisine has no point beyond furthering our enjoyment of the human experience (and perhaps expression of self through consumption?). Food, love, play, friendship, adventure: these are all elements of a good, full life. Love as an element of, and not the key to, a good life makes sense to me. Love as a luxury, this I can accept.

The aspect of this thing I struggled with the most was the idea that love is the ultimate goal. It cannot satisfy you completely any more than a perfectly prepared leg of lamb, but it certainly can add another level of pleasure to this earthly experience of ours.

Yes, love can comfort you like food, it can enhance a moment, it can bring a smile to your face, but it cannot be your life.

This explanation I can live with. I appreciate the fact that food means more than sustaining life and I can accept that being in a romantic entanglement can fill you with a sense of bliss. Because it is not the basis for a happy life, simply a piece of the puzzle, it no longer requires a rational explanation.

I still find myself with serious doubt about the sustainability of this pleasure, but at this point it seems as inconsequential as worrying about your last bite. A topic for another time. For now I will relish my emblazoned heart and short ribs with the same reckless abandon, resting in the succulent, elemental, utility of them both!

Julia Child Saved My Life

I was living a shadow of an existence for many years. I grew-up in a war zone as a young soldier and subsequently lived the life of a survivor: you do what you should or what you have to, nothing more. This proverbial sleepwalk kept me bound to the past, ravenous to feel alive again.

War can do that, the contrast between your impending death and each breath intensifies every experience. I longed for that desert, I didn't realize that what I really wanted was to feel something again.

I began to wake, brushing the dirt off the coffin of my soul, completing the sentence: "I want..." yet I still could not accept the idea of doing anything that did not have an inherent purpose.

My passion began to re-emerge and over the years I discovered the creative release I had been craving in the kitchen. I am not a painter or a musician, but I have an eye for beauty, an ear for harmony and a palate capable of tasting every element. I found my canvas and my opus on a plate.

I continued to have a desperate frustration with my life, anxiety wracked me as I tried to find my way. I picked-up Julia Child's "My Life in France" and found within its pages a a blueprint for a life of joy, adventure, love and deep richness.The key was openhearted passion. I knew my passion was food and people, though it somehow didn't seem enough to build a life around. It was too frivolous for a practical girl like me. Julia is not unique in her guidance; MKF Fisher, James Beard, Ernest Hemingway and countless others have whispered these truths to me since then, but Julia was my first.

Realizing I was too unhappy to go on, I struck out to craft the life I had been missing with passion as my only guide. Through my journey I found that there is a particular breed of human who truly appreciates culinary pleasure. I collected a menagerie of these individuals and with food as the only common denominator a community of passionate, vibrant people was born.

I began formulating a theory in which people who know how to enjoy gastronomical pleasures also know how to live well.Perhaps there is more to eating and cooking than hedonistic pleasure or survival. Based on this one little element of life, people from all ethnicity's, all economic and social backgrounds were united.

Eating is the most basic joy and comfort for the human race. Sharing a meal and sharing your bed can be equally intimate acts, cultures are defined in part by their cuisine and it is something everyone must do.

It is interesting that this is the one element of life in which utility and art are united. Perhaps that is why it is only through this lens I have been able to make sense of it all.