Beauty of Food

Cheese... Instead of Sex March, 2010

My mother told me that when I was born—and, of course, it’s true—I was the prettiest baby in the maternity ward. And I have paid dearly for that doll-like, milky skin. While swarthier November birth mates tanned to a golden nut-brown à la Ali MacGraw every summer, I burned to a crisp and had to be swaddled in towels soaked in cold, sour milk to calm the inflammation. The sour clung to me, like an institutional smell, though I was grateful for the freckles that finally popped up on my shoulders, my back and the bridge of my nose. Cute!

Dark Victory February, 2010

When my father was a child, he suffered from various ill-defined illnesses that often kept him tucked away in his warm bed while his fellow classmates recited their Latin. You see, my grandfather Jacob was the school’s principal and he demanded that his son, my father, be the exemplar of high moral character as well as academic excellence. No wonder my father took the only available escape route: his sick bed. During these bouts of infirmity, he refused all food and drink except chocolate-coated gingerbread hearts that his mother would feed him, one by one.

Salt of the Sea January, 2010

Salt gets a bad rap. Most of us in North America eat mountains of it every year without even realizing it. Did you know that many European brands heavily salt their products, such as cheese, for export, assuming that we can’t tolerate milder tastes? Hello, high blood pressure! Well, there’s salt and there’s salt. When it comes to health, taking the waters – salty waters – is enjoying a revival.

Sweet Heart December, 2009

Sweetness is happiness as every child knows. A taste for savoury—runny Bries, dense Bordeaux—that comes later, after a few hard knocks. But sugar, white as a blank page, is the passe-partout to every cheerful room in Instant Comfort Castle. White sugar really ought to be re-named White Mischief, after that Happy Valley Set of fast-living British aristos who ran amok in Kenya. Ain’t life grand—until it ain’t. Processed sugar is now implicated in everything from obesity to diabetes to allergies. Why couldn’t Nature assign this nefarious role to rutabagas?

Apple Cheeks November, 2009

This autumn, in the interest of seeing more of Canada – and, truth be told, avoiding the punishing euro – S and I decided to take a trip “down East” to Nova Scotia. So, this year, the flush in my cheeks rose not from long, boozy lunches in Parisian boîtes and shopping the Marais boutiques but from long walks on misty Maritime beaches.

Magic Mushrooms September, 2009

The scent of my childhood is not composed of madeleines, warm milk, or pink frosted cupcakes; it’s the odours of dill, kasha and wild mushrooms. Late summer smelled like dill. Having grown tall and lacy in our garden, it was then stuffed into pickling jars along with tiny cucumbers. When it was too hot to turn on the oven, we ate heaping bowls of warm kasha with cold sour milk for dinner.

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Beauty of Food