The Greatest Love

I never wanted to turn this into a personal "here's what's going on in my life" blog, but I can't help myself. This is the latest sonogram picture, taken yesterday. I feel so many strange new emotions (all you parents out there are shaking your heads in understanding, I'm sure) every time I look at this face. This is Inara Grace and she's due in a few short weeks and I can't wait to introduce her to everything that is wonderful and beautiful in the world.

Is It Bacon Day?

It must have been my birthday yesterday (it was- I'm now 29 for the first of many years), because Salon.com posted an article about one of my favorite guilty pleasures, entitled "Bacon Mania." Mentioned in the article is another of the food's fans, my boyfriend Tony.

I am also a known lover of the often acerbic, always entertaining and enlightening Jeffrey Steingarten, who has made a comment or two on Iron Chef America about how everything would be better with bacon. The first time I heard him say that, Jeffrey (who I once sat next to at wd-50 as the hostesses kept laughing at how star-struck I was) won my heart.

Aside from the fact that, in the words of my co-worker, "it's delicious! Ain't never heard a bad word about bacon," part of my love may have to do with never being able to have it as a child, as mom was highly allergic to the preservatives, or something like that. The only time we were treated to it was at Grandmom's house up at the farm, and any meal there was perfection simply because of the person making it and the people we enjoyed it with.

Regardless, the article is here: Bacon Mania by Sarah Hepola and below are two of my favorite bits. Enjoy!


"Americans have a guilty relationship with food, and perhaps no food is more guilt-inducing than bacon -- forbidden by religions, disdained by dietitians and doctors. Loving bacon is like shoving a middle finger in the face of all that is healthy and holy while an unfiltered cigarette smolders between your lips."

"To love bacon is to sink your teeth into life, to refuse to nibble at the side salad or sip on the seltzer with a twist of lime. "Nobody wants to be wholesome, boring Betty when they could be sexy, hot-to-trot Veronica," Sarah Katherine Lewis says. 'Pour me a drink, light me a smoke, fry me up a pan of bacon, and let's get it on.'"

Feast of July

You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.

~Erma Bombeck

You've Come a Long Way, Baby

In an attempt to avoid the tedious work I have to do right now, I was searching recipes from the turn of the century (the 20th, that is) on the Internet. I love these old recipes. They use equipment and ingredients we no longer have or can’t find anymore and often assume a knowledge in cooking that we (or maybe it’s just me) don’t have any longer – like how to whip up a pie crust or custard without direction. Here are some examples:

Hasty Pudding
Take any old cake, cut up in slices, dip in wine or sprinkle some wine over all. Make a custard with a pint of milk and four eggs. Put a tablespoonful of potato flour with the yelks, sweeten to taste, boil the custard flavor and pour over cake in pudding dish. Beat whites to a stiff froth, add sugar and spread over all. Put in oven to brown slightly. Eat cold.

Yup. This seems pretty quick to make.

Cocoanut Pudding
To a large grated cocoanut add the whites of 6 eggs, ½ lb of sugar, 6 ounces of butter, ½ a wineglassful of rose-water, and baked in or out of paste.

That would be a piecrust paste, then?

It is an educational hobby that I enjoy. These recipes provide an anthropological insight into the lives of women back then. And it kills time.

Well, imagine my surprise when I found an entirely different site also providing anthropological evidence of what the lives of people were like way back in 1974. I was born in 1970 so I do indeed remember this time. It made a lasting impression but since I was so young I think these pictures may explain a few things that I never fully grasped.

If some of you have seen this before, it would not surprise me. Apparently, this site has been in existence since 2003. But I just have to share this with you, dear readers. I simply cannot resist. I laughed so hard and thought you may need a good laugh too.

A note to Jayne or any other pregnant or food susceptible person:

– WARNING – the images you are about to see may be upsetting to delicate stomachs.

For those who may want to loose some weight, this site may actually help.

It’s from Weight Watchers, circa 1974. If I seem peculiar, odd, a tad eccentric as you get to know me, well, these pictures may give you an idea of why- this is the collective culture I was exposed to in my most formative years. (Side note - my mom indulged in macramé and painted ceramic figurines. Just recently, I convinced her to try and sell her last couple of boxes filled with macramé material on Craig’s list. She made $55! Who knew it was still so popular!)

Happy Weekend & Bon Appétit –

http://www.candyboots.com/wwcards/czarina.html

Oh, by the way, I think number 10 – INSPIRATION SOUP is my favorite. Either that or number 11 – FRANKFURTER SPECTACULAR because it really is spectacular and I don’t get to use that word often enough.

Some Say in Ice

"A true warrior, like tea, shows his strength in hot water."
~ Chinese proverb
From a recent comment thread on Deus Ex Malcontent:

Emily... Oh, and an urban myth down here in Texas is that in restaurants up north they don’t put ice in their tea. I know this is dumb to ask, but is this true? Please don’t laugh, I really want to know if this is a common practice.

Jayne... As in iced tea? Because if you just ask for tea you will get hot tea ... But yes, darlin', we use ice. Not sure where that one came from. But if you do order our iced tea, it's not likely to be sweetened. You have to do that yourself with the little packets on the table, and it will never be as sweet as you are used to.

Anonymous... @emily: We do put ice ICED tea, but not in hot tea. Do you not drink hot tea at all in the South?

Emily... No, I do not drink hot tea. I have some friends that are a little bit more “artsy” that drink hot tea, so I know it is available to the public, but I don’t do it. Hot tea is gross and taste like hot nasty. Sorry if I offended all of the hot tea drinkers out there, but that is how it goes. Oh, and this little conspiracy theory all started at a baseball game, and it went a little something like this:
-“Hey ya’ll know that they don’t put ice in their tea up north?”
-“NO, you’ve got to be kidding me?
What do you just have to carry around a bag of ice or something?”
-“Yeah, that’s what I heard, you get it hot.”
-“Hot tea, that’s crazy, why don’t they put ice in it to make it cold?”
-“Crazy northerners.”Think I am kidding, I am not. This memory was imbedded in my mind since then, and I have finally been able to have a forum in which to ask this question.


Besides bringing a little chuckle to my morning, this conversation did get me thinking about tea. (Pregnant women are highly susceptible to suggestion when it comes to food of any kind.) As a New Yorker, I am fortunate to have friends from many cultures and all corners of the world, and although living in such a mishmash comes with a tendency to no longer notice the differences, it can be fun to focus on them every now and then. While I grab a medium coffee with skim and two sugars from the pushcart man on 49th street every morning, my co-worker (born in China but raised in Baltimore) brews green tea leaves in a press at her desk. I do enjoy tea, but mine is usually the black variety, enjoyed in the afternoon with some milk and sugar, like my British friends from across the pond. Other friends are baffled as to how I can drink my tea with milk at all, preferring theirs with a squeeze of lemon, which would of course make the milk curdle.

As for our friends below the Mason-Dixon line, their affinity for "sweet tea" is one of those stereotypes that exists because it is true. The foodie in me can't understand how sweet tea could possibly pair well with any food enjoyed by anyone over the age of twelve. Concern for my dental health stops me even when my sweet tooth begs for some consideration. But my year living in Atlanta, working for several restaurateurs, forced me to, if not appreciate, at least accept the addiction that these Southerners are all afflicted with. And I eventually began to realize that on an afternoon in "Hot'lanta," a sweetened glass of iced tea is not half bad. I remember fondly my first few batches made in that loft overlooking the Southern city, with tea bags and boiling water and sugar and my own addition of fresh mint leaves. As it brewed on the counter, I smiled as I began to finally feel just a little bit assimilated into the strange new culture surrounding me. I haven't made sweet tea since moving back to New York four years ago; it wouldn't feel right in the hard-edged land of cynicism.

In my quest for some information on the passion for tea that so many cultures share, I came across some wonderful little quotes, blurbs, and links that I will share with you. Happy sipping, my loves.


"Southerners, of course, have a taste for sugar that is demonstrably stronger than what you find up North. We like our pecan pie and pralines sweet enough to make the dentist cringe. All of the major soda companies—the Coca-Cola Co., PepsiCo, Dr Pepper—started in the South. Bourbon, that sweetest of whiskies, is from Kentucky. A mint julep, that classic Southern cocktail, is basically a whiskey'd up sweet tea, with mint, ice, simple syrup, and booze. ...

"Sugar worship might account for much of sweet tea's popularity, but I think its appeal lies in the ice. Southerners seem to have a particular fascination with ice. This may stem, most obviously, from the fact that the Southern climate is often steamier than a Rat Pack schvitz."
~ Jeffrey Klineman, www.Slate.com: I Wish I Lived in a Land of Lipton


"When the news reporter said "Shopkeepers are opening their doors bringing out blankets and cups of tea" I just smiled. It's like yes. That's Britain for you. Tea solves everything. You're a bit cold? Tea. Your boyfriend has just left you? Tea. You've just been told you've got cancer? Tea. Coordinated terrorist attack on the transport network bringing the city to a grinding halt? Tea dammit! And if it's really serious, they may bring out the coffee. The Americans have their alert raised to red, we break out the coffee. That's for situations more serious than this of course. Like another England penalty shoot-out."
~ Jslayeruk, as posted on Metaquotes Livejournal, in response to the July 2005 London subway bombings


"Tea to the English is really a picnic indoors."
~Alice Walker


"American-style iced tea is the perfect drink for a hot, sunny day. It's never really caught on in the UK, probably because the last time we had a hot, sunny day was back in 1957."
~Tom Holt


"When, I look back on any given memory of my childhood in Florence, South Carolina ," she began, "my mother always seems to appear out of nowhere to refill all of our glasses with sweet iced tea. We drank it more than we drank water. This did not seem strange to me until I moved to New York. I ordered sweet tea in a restaurant and the waitress gave me a funny look and said, 'We don't have sweet tea. We have tea and we have sugar."
~ Erich Kuersten, www.Slashfood.com, Secret of the South: Sweet Tea


"It's rough. It's been rough on that food. It's different eating here than it is at the house. Ain't got no sweet tea, and ain't got no fried chicken."
~ Boo Weekley, PGA golfer from Milton, Fla., interviewed by the BBC


"Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea."
~ Henry Fielding

But She's My Mother

Although not about food, this is a post that I contributed to Blog Me a Tale for the Mother's Day theme in May, and I wanted to include it on my own blog. It does include several elements that fit into what I consider Love Bites to be all about, most notably love and family. Enjoy. ~Jayne


Both of my grandmothers passed away over the last two years. Each one took a piece of my heart with her. Grandmom, my paternal grandmother, was the embodiment of maternal love. You never had to wonder or guess how she felt; she loved you completely and unconditionally. She expressed this in her many hugs and kisses, in the food she was always preparing and making you eat, and in the cards that she sent every birthday with the prewritten sentiments double and triple underlined to show that she really meant what they said.

My maternal grandmother, Mom-mom, was a little more complicated. I don't know what made her what she was, what dark secrets of her past she kept hidden, but she wasn't known to project the warmth and love that Grandmom did so easily. Still, I know in my heart that it existed deep down, and I know that if only somehow somebody could have broken down that rather cold exterior, we would have been overwhelmed by a truly interesting, remarkable, and loving woman. The glimpses that we were given came in the form of the care and perfection with which she sewed and baked-- a quilt, homemade chocolate fudge, crocheted Christmas ornaments, an angel food cake, or a stunning red satin prom dress with individually wrapped buttons up the back of the bodice-- these were the ways that Mom-mom showed her love. It was the only way she knew how. Having a generation's separation between her and I, I am sure that this was easier for me to accept than it must have been for my mother as a girl and young woman.

My mother, a woman gifted with far-above-average intelligence, a rare work ethic, an adorable wit, and unsurpassed sense of morality, was born into a perfect storm of conflict. I obviously wasn't there when she was becoming who she is, but I get the impression that between the cultural and historical influences of the 60's and 70's and the woman that raised her, Mom was forced to supress the strong maternal instinct that was always lying inside, waiting to be applied and appreciated.

I am pregnant with my first child and I am scared to death. I am twenty-eight years old but I feel like an ill-equipped child. I crave confidence, stability, and financial security. I am constantly worried about what kind of mother I will be, and how I will be able to balance motherhood with the professional and social lives that I have created and have hoped to continue cultivating. How then must my mother have felt at twenty-one, still in classes, a newlywed with a man only two years her senior and just out of the Navy, and pregnant with me? She must have felt the same uncertainties and needs for security and stability. There must have been that part of her that wanted to push away all of the stresses of school and career and rent payments and just focus on her baby and the relationship that she wanted to have with her. She must have wanted to teach and care for her baby and the three others that she gave birth to in the years following, and provide them with the unconditional love and affection that she must have so desperately craved from her own mother.

But what about those other qualities and gifts that made her what she was? Mom had a life, a career, waiting for her right outside our door after she got us all off to school in the morning, a life that cultivated and appreciated her intelligence and work ethic, and this was the life that she was raised to want and have. As a result, the parent that we had the most interaction with, the parent who seemed to have the most energy for us, was my father.

Dad, raised by the aforementioned embodiment of maternal love, who was encouraged by this upbringing and the cultural and historical influences of the time to cultivate and freely express paternal love, was the parent that I turned to in good and bad times throughout my childhood. Mistakenly I thought that my mother lacked a maternal instinct and selfishly I mourned the absense of a mother that I thought I wanted. Resentful of her career, resentful of the mother-daughter conversations and bonding that never happened, I pulled away more and more as the years went by and I moved into young adulthood away from my family.

But as I pulled away and my perspective changed, I began to really see the full woman and not just the mother. I began to see how much she had accomplished while we weren't looking. I began to see the influences that she was raised with and the struggle between not wanting to be like her mother and not knowing any other way to be. I began to see a beautiful and brilliant woman who, regardless of what my childhood perspective had been, was also a very loving wife, mother, and daughter. I began to feel great pride as the daughter of this woman.

As I struggled through my own trials and tragedies of young adulthood independent of my family, the maternal influences in Mom's life continued to change and affect her. Mom-mom became a widow and began turning to her only daughter for support. Over the span of a decade, she relied on her for help and companionship, becoming increasingly dependent as her health deteriorated. Love and senses of responsibility and obligations for her children, husband, mother, and career continued to pull Mom in different directions. But when we asked her why she put so much love and energy into caring for a woman who had not shown her the same in our eyes, her response was always, "but she's my mother." Her dedication was unwavering.

But mom also had another influence all this time, affecting and shaping her right in front of us, and yet only recently did I realize that it had happened. When Mom married my father, another maternal figure entered her life, one who allowed her to see that she could be strong and caring and warm. She taught her, by example, how she could release that maternal instinct that she may have been repressing. Mom and Grandmom, two vastly different women from vastly different upbringings and generations, formed a loving and supportive mother-daughter bond, and allowed them to be who they really were inside: strong, confident, loving and maternal women.

It's because of this bond, I am certain, that Mom was able to become the mother that she always wanted to be, and to appreciate her own mother for what she was. The whole family has been heartbroken over the loss of Grandmom and Mom-mom, and we miss them both terribly. But because of what they were both able to bring out in my mother, we have an incredible matriarch who is everything that a woman should wish to be: caring and loving, strong, funny, intelligent, sassy and intriguing, to influence us and help us become the best that we can be.

And now, as a wife, I am fortunate to have an additional maternal figure in my life, bringing her own unique experiences and perspectives into the mix that is me. My husband's mother is a woman of extraordinary grace and faith who has welcomed me into her family with open arms and is always ready to show support when it is needed. Already she has influenced me, and I have no doubt that she will continue to do so as my child grows up and I need someone else to turn to.

When I found out that I was having a daughter, my first reaction was fear. The relationships between mothers and daughters that first came to mind were always strained, and I was convinced that I could do no better. But then a dear friend said to me "daughter is such a powerful word," and the true impact of what was about to occur really hit me. Here I have the chance to take what I've learned from Grandmom and Mom-mom, and Mom and Chez's mom, and bring another strong woman into this powerful and extraordinary line. I couldn't be more blessed.

And so, to the woman who brought me into this world, and the woman who gave birth to my husband, I send my love and respect and appreciation. And I send these to the women who were before you, and the women before them. I can only hope that my daughter grows to feel the strength of you behind her and in her the way that I do. Happy Mother's Day.

Norwegian Wood

Kricket's first Love Bites post!


It was strawberries – fresh from the farm out back. And from the side porch, peas – popped from their slumber in their green pods and straight into my mouth. Ahhh, they were so sweet and green tasting! Across the road was the apple orchard with trees all in strict attendance while the front lawn hosted a huge chestnut tree, the spiky fruit of which made a lasting impression on my tender bare feet. My grandmother’s farm, almost mythical to me anymore: helping Grandpa Art drive the tractor at three years old, finding the cow skull in the back of the land, and the big, black rubber pillow all of us kids used to jump on onside. All of these are some of my earliest memories.

My grandmother’s farm was in Wilson, New York and Art was her third husband. Her first husband, Clarence, was my grandfather, my mother’s father. Standing an easy 6 foot 1” and broad like a linebacker, it wasn’t merely his physique that was so intimidating. It was his presence. His parents were Norwegian and settled in North Dakota – why they felt the need to go somewhere ELSE that was just as cold and not choose say, Southern California or the South is a mystery. I guess it was the land. They could grow what they knew. I was always very proud of being descendants of Vikings as a child. I perceived them as explorers and bad asses with cool ships and wicked helmets and intriguing mythology. (The raping and pillaging not being fully understood until I was older) However, as the stories leaked out and I grew up, my comprehension of the abandonment, neglect, and abuse my mother suffered as a child at the hands of her parents turned my feelings toward my maternal side of the family into shame and confusion. And it is from him, my Norwegian grandfather, that the food passion gene has been passed down.

Gambling, drinking, women, and food. When butchers and grocers began to pack items in trays with plastic wrap, my grandfather would open them and choose the ones he wanted - and no one stopped him. He would not pay for food he could not see and personally inspect. My aunt, my mother’s older sister, came home one night from a date and went into the kitchen. She arrived at the center of the kitchen, pulled the cord to turn on the light and began screaming. All the snails that grandpa was going to cook for escargot the next day had gotten loose and were making a break for it all over the walls. His children weren’t allowed in the kitchen when he cooked, so they never really saw him in action. But they certainly had the dishes to do afterward as well as all the other household chores. They were living in Niagara Falls and routinely went to Toronto to pick up meats and cheese because they were more affordable there. They would stop on Deer Island to pick black walnuts, which they’d dry, in the attic. When my grandfather wasn’t cooking or at work, he and grandma would be in the bars. My mother and her siblings were left to fend for themselves. Sometimes, they would pick up loose coal found along the railroad tracks so they wouldn’t freeze like the mouse my mother had as a pet had done one year. When my uncle graduated from high school, neither of his parents bothered to attend. They never went to see him play football. My mother had an accident when she was 15 years old and instead of being taken to the hospital, my grandfather waited until it was too late and she lost the eye. She remembers the sores and scabs inside her mouth from being hit by her father and feeling like the rest of the world could see them as much as she felt them.

Still, the man could cook. Family secret recipes are a legacy. We still make his Escarole soup. Also known as Italian wedding soup it seems to have gained some popularity lately but I prefer my mom’s or even my own. My mother maintains that his pineapple upside-down cake was the best she has ever had and his fruitcake would make believers out of many who maintain that fruitcake is best used as a doorstop. She asks me, “What do you remember about grandpa?” I reply, “I remember the radiator being hot and getting burned. I remember he and Margaret (3rd wife) smoking and drinking. I remember him coming to Virginia soon after we moved there and making corn on the cob and it was incredible. But I was little and was probably just crazy about corn anyway.” “But that’s just it," she replied. "He could make even something as simple as corn on the cob taste better than you’ve ever had it. It was that good. I remember too.” He was an honorary member of some chef society– Cordon Blue, Chefs of America, who knows. It was only open to chefs but they made an exception for him as an honorary member based on his extraordinary cooking.

I wasn’t interested in cooking and was always reading or outside playing. I would make popovers or cookies but little else. One day my older brother, then 10 years old, in complete earnestness confronts my mother with, “What are we going to do about Kricket? She needs to know how to cook.” So funny! Why should I learn as long as I had my mother and brother to cook? My job was to eat and love it. Which I did very well, thank you. I eventually did learn of course, but I really started to cook in Oregon with all the fresh seafood and produce. I am an ok cook. Competent. My plus, some would disagree I’m sure, is that I am adventurous. I’ll tackle just about anything, but there are a few culinary delights that I leave to the pros like sashimi and sushi. My mother and brother are more accomplished but we all love food. My father, the Irish side of my blood and not a foodie, would return from some overseas trip. We gather around and ask, “How was [Turkey, Egypt, Nepal, Costa Rica]? What did you eat?” He says, “How would I know? What ever was there.” We have rubbed off on him though and he has managed to extol the virtues of Turkish yogurt and olives, Singaporean noodles, and Indonesian potatoes and cabbage.

My grandfather didn’t reach out to comfort with food. It wasn’t his way to amend for the dictator that he was in many regards. It was perhaps a solace and refuge for him but knowing what I know I think it was simply something he loved to do and at which he was a master. He refused to cook for money though he was courted by many local restaurants.

Despite the environment in which she was raised, my mother did her best to create a different one for her children. First and foremost, my brother and I knew we were loved. That was never a question the way it was for my mother. When my parents divorced, they didn’t fight over who had to take the kids, like her parents had. I wasn’t beaten, neglected, or abandoned. Instead, I had birthday parties with friends to sleep over and fantastic birthday cakes homemade by my mom and special birthday breakfasts. My mother has no recollection of any birthday parties as a child in her honor. It has taken a long, long time to find forgiveness for my grandparents. I now know that my grandfather had a miserable childhood too; surprise! I am sure he did the best he could. But as my mother proves, rotten childhoods need not dictate repetition.

Happy Mother’s Day, mom. I love you.

Draping and Grazing

Weekends are very different for Chez and I these days. Instead of late nights of multiple course meals, bottles of wine, and vodka cocktails, followed by lazy mornings sleeping off the inevitable hangovers and preparing for the next evening of debauchery, we now rise naturally with the light, our hands going to my belly to feel the baby's first movements of the day. It's a nice middle stage between our old lives and the chaos that awaits us in a few months, and it is, in a word, peaceful.

Coming into my third trimester, my appetite has changed drastically yet again. I am hesitant to go out for a nice meal for fear that a beautiful amuse will be placed in front of me and I will have no desire to eat it or any of the other dishes that arrive from the kitchen. Even when I am able to eat, I am usually stricken with painful heartburn that makes my eyes tear up and ruins any chance of eating anything else. After a second trimester with a healthy appetite for anything that crossed my path, I now have a full round belly that makes me look like I swallowed a basketball. And it now it feels like there's not enough room in my body for a full meal to even fit in my stomach. And so, I turn to grazing.

Apart from the frequent Bacchanalian feasts that my previous posts have described, I have actually always been a grazer. I prefer frequent snacks over only two to three large meals, and a table full of shareable appetizers and tapas over individual entrees that everyone keeps to themselves. It's always better to fill a table with an assortment of flavors and textures and colors, and allow conversation to flow while tasting and sharing, eating with forks and spoons and hands and fingers, occasionally brushing the arms of your fellow diners while reaching across the table for another bite. I prefer to pick up the wine bottle and pour you another glass, laughing as a drop or two runs down arm and leaves little red splash marks on the white dishes and tablecloth, rather than wait for a stranger to dicreetly walk behind us and do the job with perfection and sterility. By grazing, these beautiful moments can last for hours and hours, and even at home it is my preferred method of eating.

On the weekends, after some playful banter, we drag our sleepy selves from the dark windowless bedroom end of the apartment to the bright living area end. I pour myself a glass of juice or milk, and Chez opens up the laptop. I curl up on the couch and we scroll through the morning news channels. Chez throws on some shoes and a scarf and runs downstairs to the coffee shop to pick up lattés and a muffin or croissant for me and freshly squeezed orange juice for himself. He comes back in and drops a New York Times on the coffee table with the bag of breakfast, and our weekend ritual begins.

A little while later, one at a time, one or both of us will leave the couch and return from the kitchen with a plate of toast or eggs or bacon, or a take-out container with leftovers from the previous week. Playfully we'll tease each other and share the food that we've made or rescued from the refrigerator. As we shift our positions, we'll lay an arm or a leg over a lap, rest a head on a shoulder, take turns scratching the unreachable areas of the other's back. Eventually I will migrate to the bathroom to take a shower, and Chez will turn on the jazz station and separate the sections of the newspaper.

The afternoon is separated by moments of inspired cleaning, grooming, small trips to the store or the laundry room, book and newspaper reading, and internet surfing, but for the most part it's just us draping over each other, watching movies, and eating. A wooden cutting board with the day's selection of cheeses (today it's Manchego, parmesan, goat, and smoked gouda) will appear on the slate oversized coffee table (which will soon be replaced with a smaller version to make room for a crib), with crackers and sometimes a bowl of marinated olives. An hour or two later some fruit or vegetables will be cut up, or some pasta cooked and sauced, or a sandwich prepared, and that, too, will join the rest of the snacks on the table for us to pick at and jokingly fight over. We return to the kitchen for a refill or a clean fork, and come back to crawl over or tackle our companion.

Toward the end of the afternoon, we'll decide together that we should put all of this food away, and save our appetites for a larger meal as evening approaches. But that, too, will be brought out to the table and picked at over the evening hours, as the sun sets behind the red and white brick buildings on the west side of the block. When that has been cleared and the leftovers wrapped up and placed back in the fridge, we'll spend our evening watching the Food Network or HBO or a Law & Order rerun, taking turns dipping a spoon into the week's flavor of frozen yogurt or ice cream.

Chez and I love our weekends of grazing and draping. What could be better than two straight days of holding and laughing and sharing and eating? Essentially it's what inspired me to start LoveBites to begin with. I admit that I miss my martinis and celebrity chefs and late nights, but on a Saturday morning when Chez turns on the jazz and brings me my muffin and a kiss and our weekend ritual starts again, I don't want to be anywhere else.

Words of Wisdom

On a weekend morning jaunt to the corner bodega to pick up fruit and milk and tulips for the window sill, I once again found myself in a half English, half Spanish conversation with Manuel behind the counter. We inquired of each others' families and conversed of the weather, and as usual he tested my gradually increasing knowledge of a vocabulary I'd never officially studied.

As Manuel wrapped my flowers in paper and tallied up my purchases, he held up the fresh mango that I had chosen for my fruit salad. He began telling me of his house in Mexico, surrounded by fruit trees of assorted colors and sizes. He spoke of a big beautiful mango tree in the front yard, prompting me to ask, "But that sounds wonderful! Why would you leave?"

"But my friend," he said with a shrug of his shoulders and a shake of his head, "you need more than mangoes."

In the Bakery Window, Lollipops

Mema said Aunt Lucille’s life was one long dream of the movies with herself in all the best parts.
~ Crazy in Alabama
It is quite possible that movies are partly to blame for my passion for food. Although my early years in food service were far from glamorous, watching and remembering scenes that made food preparation and consumption look elegant and sexy made me enjoy it so much more. Suddenly I was watching for and noticing elements of the industry that I wanted to know more about. Soon I started reading books by Ruth Reichl and Jeffrey Steingarten and my ears would perk up at the name of a chef or an ingredient I had never before heard of or considered. And it just keeps getting worse, or better, depending on how you look at it I suppose. The more I learn, the more fascinated I am.

The film scenes that come to mind when I think of food may not be from the best movies, nor may they be the best food scenes out there. But they had me captivated enough to remember them. Here is a short list:


Amélie
I love that our protagonist gets thrills out of putting her hands in bags of grain and breaking the shell of crème brulée with a spoon. When Amélie bakes bread, I want to bake bread, too. When she grates cheese over her pasta, I am suddenly craving the same. The characters in the café drink beautiful Kir Royals, and the sound of the milk steamer has me missing my days learning how to make the perfect cappucino. I smile when I watch the way that Lucien handles each vegetable, and my heart aches for him when he is teased for it. When Mr. Bretodeau teaches his grandson how to find the oysters in the roasted chicken, I am sitting around the table at my parents' house after a holiday feast, picking at the leftovers.

City of Angels
Meg Ryan dies because of food in this one, so it's worth a mention. She and Nicolas Cage taught me how to enjoy the touch and smell of fresh fruits and vegetables when at a market, and I love trying to come up with descriptions of the food that I eat, as the movie briefly described the sensations of eating a fresh pear or slurping down an oyster, tasting the salty sea. I think of this movie every time I chop fruit and mix the pieces together with my hands, letting the juice from the orange slices drip down to my elbows.

Woman on top
I first understood how sexy food preparation could be while watching the Brazilian Isabella (Penélope Cruz) in her restaurant, her cooking class, and then hosting her television show, Passion Food. The men in the film all stare in awe at her, jaws dropped, as she describes the simplist tricks for cutting chilis or squeezing coconut juice. I admit I had a similar reaction, and have been fascinated with Latin cooking since. No other part that Ms. Cruz has ever played comes to memory, but Isabella will always be one of my favorite women in the kitchen.

Spanglish
The reviews were average at best, the box office earnings were far from impressive, and I rarely find anybody who saw this movie or remembered anything particularly positive about it. Still, I count it in my lists of favorite movies (much to my husband's confusion), and this is largely because of the food. I didn't sit down to watch a great movie, (I think it was just on HBO one day and I ended up watching it from halfway in) but less than twenty minutes later I was captivated. There was something so wonderfully familiar about Adam Sandler's character: the way he felt about his review and his restaurant, and the way that food comforted him when everything around him was falling apart. He doesn't reach for a bag of greasy salty snack food, nor does he rely on a pint of Ben & Jerry's; for Chef John Clasky, comfort food is a plate of gooey French cheeses and a bottle of red wine consumed on the floor of the restaurant's walk-in refrigerator. Or, in what I consider to be one of the top food scenes ever, the creation of the perfect sandwich in the middle of the night. If you have seen the movie, then you remember what is referred to as the Spanglish sandwich. I discovered later that the glorious Chef Thomas Keller was tapped to consult for this movie and in particular that scene, and it all made complete sense to me. The most romantic part in the movie is the evening that John and Flo spend in his restaurant, cooking, eating, and talking, building sexual tension (that never gets released) with each bite.

Chocolat
This is a story of a beautiful and wise woman who descends upon a small town and introduces all the sad people therein to the magical effect that food can have on them, making their lives more fulfilling, exotic, and lustful. Vianne does this with chocolate, an apron, and a twinkle in her eye. I related to Armande's wish to have her last moments in life be filled with a Bacchanalian feast, surrounded by those she loved the most. I loved every page of the book and every minute of the movie, and I desparately sought chocolate (and more) when I left the theater.

Ratatouille
And speaking of Thomas Keller... Not really a fan of animated films, I was reluctant to see this one. But I could only hear "Jayne, you have to see this movie!" so many times before finally giving in. So, one night, Chez and I stayed in and ordered the silly movie about the rat who wanted to be a chef on pay-per-view. It had a lot going for it right off the bat with Patton Oswalt, Ian Holm, Brian Dennehy, Brad Garrett, Will Arnett, Janeane Garofalo and Peter O'Toole (as the most feared restaurant critic in Paris) supplying the voices, but watching Remy lovingly pair found ingredients and then feeling the disappointment when his fellow rats just didn't get it, had me completely smitten. His euphoria while running around the restaurant kitchen, with the spices flying and the music souring, was contagious through the screen. I could not keep the smile off of my face; I was giggling through the entire movie. When Remy couldn't eat the breakfast he had painstakingly prepared, my heart went out to him. Moment after moment he was just a misunderstood foodie who wanted nothing more than to cook food and watch people enjoy his creations. I loved that little rat.
(Pixar Studios also sought the expertise of Chef Keller to bring authenticity to the animated kitchen and the creations coming out of it.)

Waitress
With each new turn of the story, our protagonist imagines a new pie in her head, and we get to watch the mixing and pouring of the ingredients into the crust. She never seems to understand the effect that her pies have on the people around her, but we catch glimses throughout the film and we understand what Doctor Pomatter falls in love with. No matter what sadness creeps into her life, Jenna can always escape to her kitchen. The intimacy between her and the delicious Nathan Fillion when she teaches him how to bake her specialty becomes even more charming when she sings the song that her mother sang to her. And you just know that when she walks off into the countryside with her little girl in the end, they too will sing together about baking a pie with a heart in the middle.