June 23, 2007

• Dinnertime

  Last night I was absolutely ravenous. Fiendish and teeth gnashing. I was unabashed and eager to surrender myself to the most worthwhile of all the seven sins: Gluttony.

  Here’s why.

  I am doing a lot of boring archival stuff post-festival. While I compile scans of news clippings all the livelong day, I like to listen to podcasts to keep my brain from atrophying. Yesterday at work, I listened to every single episode ever recorded of NPR’s Hidden Kitchen series. If you’ve never had the pleasure of catching this series, click here and dig it. Just try not to drool on your computer.

  After hours of listening to stories about how beautiful foods shape our culture and strengthen our communities, I was inspired, amazed but most of all, hungry. The scanner started to look like a good snack. Mmmmm…technology. When the clock struck 5, I was out the door with a gorgeous grocery list formulating in my mind.

  Dinner was spectacular, a real feast. We gobbled up goat cheese tortellini tossed with fresh basil, zucchini and cubetti di pancetta. We devoured a baguette, a beautiful ball of fresh mozzarella, and heaps of spinach/red pepper salad with balsamic vinegar. We drank a glorious red wine and finished with a simple, satisfying desert of walnut-stuffed dates drizzled with honey. We nibbled and munched and laughed and watched a spectacularly cheesy 1975 movie called Picnic at Hanging Rock on DVD.

  I love my life. I am lucky to eat so well, to be loved so much. And its around the dinner table that I feel it most, that my heart feels gratitude. I’m not a person who prays in a traditional sense, but I do say grace in my heart at dinner. When I cook, I feel a tangible connection to each plant and beast that lived to feed me at dinnertime, and thankful to all of the farmers who’ve busted ass to make it all happen. I feel gratitude to the job that pays me enough to eat healthfully. I feel a commitment to eating locally (and organically, when possible) to sustain the environment in a way that will keep this abundance alive.

  Loving food has come as a real surprise to me. As a kid, I hated eating; it meant I had to come inside from playing or stop my latest art project mid-stream. Not only were mealtimes interruptions, but also my taste buds were not mature enough to appreciate the complex, very healthy foods that my mom, a fantastic cook, whipped up. I like rice pilaf now, but as a kid it felt like maggots in my mouth. I eat at least one massive salad everyday as an adult (usually for lunchtime), but as a kid getting to the bottom of a small side of greens took an eternity. So I have few positive food memories.

  There was the time at my dad’s house when I ate an entire package of strawberry wafers with my cousin Sheri before engaging in the most hard-core bed jumping session of all time. The result: a roomful of neon-pink puke.

  Another time, I tried to hide my salad in a napkin at my mom’s house, instead of eating it all gone as instructed. I threw my napkin away with the trash, thinking I’d snuck out of veggie eating for the night. Imagine my surprise when I was called down to breakfast the next day to find my wilted, balled up salad remains waiting for me to gag on.

  Once someone killed a bear and I was force fed a bear burger. Then there were the tragic pot lucks at my great grandma Pike’s church, where someone’s idea of taco salad was Doritos with 1,000 Island dressing and a few shreds of iceberg chucked in.

  But then there were the times when my aunt Dianne noticed that my dad wasn’t feeding me properly when I’d go over to visit, and she’d make a meatloaf, just for me. I liked her meatloaf so much. I needed it.

  I remember crunchy fish from my grandpa’s restaurant, dipped in thick, white tartar with relish stirred in. I remember my dad once cooking me a hot dog at the restaurant; it was cut down the centre, filled with cheese, and wrapped in bacon. He called it a Cheesy Weenie. I remember Grandma Render’s rice pudding, her weird fruit punch made with Vernors and sherbet, her fried Spam sandwiches. I remember the first time my mom made us English Curry, with loads of cream stirred in. She’d put the curry in one bowl and rice in another, laying out chicken, chopped peanuts, coriander, coconut, raisins, bananas and all sorts of yummy bits to add in on a separate serving tray.

  So I guess I do have a big share of good food memories, but I’m still eager to create more of my own.
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  What did you have for dinner last night? What is one of your favorite food memories?

  ::Random Tangent::
  Tonight I am going to dinner with Tony (the dad who raised me), his new girlfriend, her cousins, their spouses and their children. I’ve not met the new girlfriend yet but hopefully the good food will make things smooth and easy. Who can be ill-at-ease with a bottle of Tempranillo and some hearty Scottish food, served sharing platter-style? Lets hope not me…

  • 12:16 pm
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