I was looking through some old memorabilia with my Mom yesterday. It was snowy and we didn't want to think about it, so we were off to the basement to put our heads in the old boxes. We saw all sorts of things but the one that made me laugh out loud was a note I wrote to her. I was living in Japan and took a trip with my husband to Tokyo. I wrote that I had seen a very old place of worship and I even got to have a nice Japanese dinner with my then brother in law. Then I ended the note with this line, "The thing that impressed me most was the double chocolate mousse cake that I got from room service". I am certifiable.
I was not yet a pastry chef. Indeed, I was fourteen years from it. But this seems to be the running theme in my life. I remember the rum soaked cake in Paris, the fois gras that I ate every day the second time I went to Paris and the little sandwiches I had in London at the Ritz. I have as many pictures of food as I do people. I took pictures of the mignardise tray at Daniel in New York, of the ladies room (not food, but weird and I thought that they might slap me where I sat if I had tried to photograph the food) at Alinea and dozens at Le Francais where I worked. I had to stop in the park near the shops Laduree and then again near the patisserie Fauchon in France to take the petit fours out of the boxes so I could photograph them. I only took a bite of each. Eating them wasn't the whole point. They were beautiful little babies and I needed to really look at them. And so it goes that I count the moments of my vacations not by days but by meals. My husband will actually say to me, "You only have 4 meals left", because he knows they count with me. I don't like the "quick bite" here or there. I like to think about it, plan it and even check out the menu first. It's an event for God's sake. Respect it.
So, anyway, I admit I am single minded some times. I could be in a place that means a lot to you or that you think should mean a lot to me and I will most likely not be thinking about what you might expect. Even if I am not hungry, I am thinking about what to make you or for me when I AM hungry. I've done it in church, while I'm mowing the lawn or when I am at the doctor's. I cannot stop it. Who would want to stop it? I have been thinking food since I was very very small and I think I will be thinking it until I am very very big.
