Do you eat alone? Are you planning gourmet meals for yourself? Or are you regulated to frozen dinners for one? Or are you secretly eating something others might consider a bit wacky? Come join the discussion in the book, Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone edited by Jenni Ferrari-Adler.
This is a great study of being alone vs being lonely and preparing food for one's self. Some of the writers long for the days they can be alone, some remember times when they were alone, but others rejoice in the simple meals that they make for themselves. And the meals range from normal, to cravings, to obsessions, to grabbing whatever is in the pantry. One of my favorite essays is the one where the author decides to eat asparagus every day during the fresh season - which is two months! She becomes her own asparagus superhero. Personally I hate the vegetable, but I admire her obsession with it - I get that way for zucchini and fresh ripe summer tomatoes - and her desire to experience it at it's peak.
What is also interesting - is how many of these foods are or become comfort foods. Are our taste buds truly formed by our childhood foods? Or are there memories intertwined with these dishes? This book will definitely provoke some thinking about your own comfort foods and the times and the people behind them. An excellent read.
Some favorite bits...
"Dinner alone is one of life's pleasures. Certainly cooking for oneself reveals man at his weirdest. People lie when you ask them what they eat when they are alone. A salad they tell you. But when you persist, they confess to peanut butter and bacon sandwiches deep fried and eaten with hot sauce or spaghetti with butter and grape jam." - Laurie Colwin
"Eating after all, is a matter of taste, and taste cannot always be good taste. The very thought of maintaining high standards meal after meal is exhausting. It discounts all the peanut butter that is available in the world." - Ann Patchett
No comments:
Post a Comment