where did what you love begin?
mine was warm orange juice in a little glass with oranges painted on its sides. old houses, at least the one my grandfather and grandmother lived in, have breakfast nooks. it gives me faith in the human race that we've designed rooms entirely for the purpose of breakfast--and we've called them nooks. my love started over orange juice, in a nook.
around the time i was five, i was allowed to spend the weekend with my grandparents in la mesa, california. it challenges me to remember anytime it wasn't desperately sunny at their house on the very top of a hill. the thing about this house is that in the thirty years of my life, it's barely been altered. i want one house like that for everyone.
my grandfather passed away when i was thirteen, but the rooms still smell of him, the hibiscus around the little pool he put in for my grandmother still gets me the way it did when i named my college honors thesis after them, and i know the wooden spoons in the kitchen were the same ones he used to concoct his famous twice-baked potatoes that bubbled with cheddar.
my grandmother still lives there, and i owe her a debt beyond describe for keeping the daisy towel hooks in the same place. she may not remember that the blood orange tree was something they planted to remind them of their honeymoon in italy, she just knows they are delicious. she is a preservationist even as the memories fade. she's kept the most important objects spellbindingly intact.
my grandfather loved food and he loved me. here was a man who made me my beloved peanut butter and homemade jelly sandwiches with an extra ingredient: butter. i'm not sure if this was a habit he picked up somewhere or if he just knew soft butter makes everything taste better.
has one person ever made you feel like you were the most important thing that was happening at that moment?
i've searched for someone or something that would make me feel that way again.
then i learned to start giving what i craved away. it is the hardest thing--to make someone else the center of my efforts. i know what it looks like, though.
it looks like in the morning when my grandfather would set out a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice and a waffle with vermont maple syrup from an enormous jug. everything was already on the table before i got there. the orange juice was never cold, but warm, as he'd picked the oranges in sunlight.
he had special glasses for juice, demitasse cups for espresso, nooks for breakfast, forks for fish, and spoons just for sherbet. his gourmandism was actually about a love of other people, a generousity in wanting you to experience the utmost pleasure a meal could possibly offer.
he fostered tenderness in those rooms. to many he was obstinate, pushy, and demanding. i remember the orange juice.
george bernard shaw said there is no love sincerer than the love of food. when i seek answers as to why to cook is my purpose i am always led back to him.
to love food is to love to love.