TIME TO EAT

 

In most cultures, this call to table is an obligatory gathering of the family unit, and the home brigade responds to eat together with gusto. Lolo (grandfather) was the head announcer of the communal feast — and it was always a time when appetites were at their peak to charge the dining hall for the best seat (but there was always plenty of food to come around for everyone). As a youngster, eating had impressed upon me a sociological context as belonging to an intimate and rambunctious group who had actually loved me to my heart’s content, and cooking was designed in my household for exactly that purpose. And what I was proudest of was that my late mother was Lolo’s favorite family chef (over my other aunties) because she was exceptional on all counts running the kitchen and presenting the banquet magnificent. This inheritance is very clear to me now as I carry in my full heart the tradition embodying my grandfather’s invitation to eat and my mother’s cooking on par with hers from everyone in my closest circle know and delight about not to miss if I was at the kitchen. I did exactly that gathering today with friends=family at our reunion in Los Angeles to rally around a loved one indexing a health boost — and my clear purpose  was to cook healing food for  the soul with a company of laugher and good energy more potent than any prescribed medicine could give on the clock. My French lentil soup was a butternut squash and celery broth concoction sweet enough for the shaved Brussel sprouts and kale marry into with crystal simplicity elevated by chives herbs. My salad was a playful ensemble of edamames, pearl radishes, yellow cherries, dates and micro greens classical dressed with nothing more to wit than freshness. To awaken the palate in others is why I cook for the life of me — meaning: this is how I love you, as I was so loved as a child of food.