365 Memories

Today, I purchased a fabulous cookbook: The New Portuguese Table , by David Leite . It has traditional recipes as well as updated recipes that bear the personal stamp of the author. The photographs are lovely, and I can't wait to try the recipes. But more than just whetting my appetite, this purchase brought back memories. In May of 1991, my parents and I had the good fortune to visit Portugal. This was following my college semester abroad in France, where I had stayed with an inhospitable host family and worked a job at La Defense. Study abroad is usually no holiday, despite how magnificent the surroundings and how eye-opening the experience; it's often quite difficult. I was in need of a vacation, and had a splendid one. My parents came to meet me in Paris, then we took a short hop to Lisbon and from there headed toward the resort town of Cascais . We stayed in a posh hotel by the the water—one that was at one time a private home, a royal summer retreat—the Hotel Albatroz . T...

I don't remember what year it was—sometime in the mid-1980s, I believe; I know my parents still had an apartment in Miami at the time, so that gives some clue—but I do remember that the appearance of Keebler's Soft Batch cookies on grocery shelves revolutionized the concept of bagged baked goods. Until then, all supermarket cookies were crunchy. If you wanted chocolate-chip cookies from a bag, you were pretty much buying Chips Ahoy (maybe Famous Amos, a much better choice) until Keebler introduced the cookies "so soft they taste like they're right from the oven." Soft cookies in a bag? No way. And yet . . . no doubt about it; they were soft. Not long after the product launch, my mother and I decided to try them out one day while grocery shopping. Maybe we broke the cardinal rule of shopping: don't do it when hungry. Maybe we were just looking for an excuse to linger up and down every aisle, because there was air-conditioning, and this was Miami in the summer...

Animal crackers, now red licorice. Not sure why the return to sweet treats from childhood—must be some escapist compulsions (which I tend to get whenever I have to pay bills)—but sometimes it's better to not ask why and to just enjoy, even if only in a bout of nostalgia. In a prior post, I wrote about black licorice and its unlikely pairing with wasabi . Today, I remember a love of red licorice. It's nothing I'd eat now, because it generally tastes much more artificial to me, or else (depending on the brand) just sweeter—none of the spice I crave in my sweets today. But I used to eat it often. Frequently in the form of Twizzlers candy, and then most often at the movies with my parents. We'd get popcorn, of course, and sometimes Goobers or Raisinettes , but I often loved the licorice twists, the cherry taste of them, the texture of tough and chewy, and the way the outer spiral pattern would form what looked like a star pattern if you looked from the bitten-off end of...

I remember how much I looked forward to a box of animal crackers. It was one of the simplest, best pleasures of childhood. I didn't have them too frequently growing up, just often enough to think of them as special. I loved the colorful box made to look like a circus wagon, loved how it had the little string attached to the top so that you could dangle it from your wrist like a woman's beaded evening bag, but the animal cracker box was so much better. I imagined the boxes as part of a long caravan, and I was always the circus master, deciding on the next destination. I was kind to the animals, or tried to be—I hated biting off their heads. I'd start with the feet and work my way up. (Really, though, is that any better? Maybe I should've just put them out of their misery, decapitating them after all.) But before getting at the animals, I remember that there was something very intriguing to me about the inner lining of the box as well: the waxy brown paper pouch suggeste...

I remember an olive green, plastic recipe box. Really just a filing box for index cards, I think, not necessarily designed in any special way for recipes. I remember it sitting on the kitchen counter of the condominium we lived in during our last year or so in the Windy City. I remember the window at the end of that galley-style kitchen; I think I remember a loose plaid wallpaper pattern left over from the family before us (excuse: it was the 1970s). I remember sitting on the counter, swinging my dangling legs, talking to Mom while she cooked or baked. I also remember that it was here I saw my first ever big-city cockroach, perched on top of the paper towel roll that was mounted under the sink, attached to the inside of a cabinet door. The roach was big, brown and glistening, and it sent Mom running to the store for boric acid. End of roach. End of roach memories, because really, it's not something you want to linger on—certainly not in a post about recipes. Like all memories, my ...

I remember one year—was the baby born? only just, so it must've been around six years ago—deciding to test myself in the kitchen with a recipe from the series of books: Grand Livre de Cuisine d'Alain Ducasse . Not sure why exactly I would do this with a baby in the house—what, is plain old post- partum not enough torture for a lady?—but I set myself the task. I remember the heft of the cookbook, its silver jacket and the pages of exquisite photos, daring you to reproduce the color, the reflections of light on each fruit or vegetable. I went easy on myself, selecting the Bistrots , Brasseries, et Restaurants de Tradition volume. A sleep-deprived home cook without even the luxury of an automatic dishwasher, let alone other intricate culinary tools, I figured that tradition was more my speed than gastronomie . And even then, I selected what seemed to be the easiest recipe: Soupe au pistou , a lovely pesto soup. The pesto already made (that was easy; I make pesto frequent...

I've always loved ice cream. Always. Like many children, my first love in the frozen dessert category was Baskin Robbins. Blame it on my youth. In matters culinary as well as matters of romance, we are all a bit indiscriminate at first blush. By the time I reached age ten, however, I was outgrowing their allure—outgrowing them in both age and sophistication. I have, I confess, become a bit of an ice cream snob. And now that I make my own (and what a rude awakening: how many egg yolks?! how much cream?! yet it doesn't stop me), well . . . if I'm going to eat ice cream made by someone else, it's got to be sensational. All natural, intense taste, unique flavors. No plastic. I had heard once (was it true?) that Baskin Robbins used plastic in their ice cream, but maybe it was a vicious rumor; maybe it was just the power of suggestion, but I could swear I once did see something like a shaving of white plastic in my scoop of—what was it, rocky road? And yet . . . I do hav...

Seven years ago this evening, I was in a New York steakhouse with my husband, enjoying a rare dinner out. Somehow he had managed to unshackle himself from his four-star job for a night, and we went to Sparks on East 46 th Street. I am pretty sure that my sommelier husband chose Sparks due to its wine list—a Wine Spectator Grand Award winner many times over. It was all the same to me. I like a good steak on occasion, but I confess that I have never really understood the steakhouse concept. Meaning that while I get that it's all about the cut of beef, behemoth -like on your conservative china patterned plate, I have always been offended that the vegetables are ordered on the side, charged separately. When you pay top dollar for a slab of meat, can't they just include the side dishes? And can't they be more inventive than sauteed spinach or a baked potato? Truth be told, I would have preferred going out for sushi, or to a great Thai or Vietnamese restaurant. But meat and p...

I am elbows deep in dirty dishes in the kitchen sink, lost in my own thoughts while keeping time with Collective Soul, a CD played for the first time in what must be ages—loud, or loud in comparison to the usual silence. Two small hands reach around my waist from behind, squeeze in a little-boy hug with muscle to it. A hug that hangs on. I hadn't even heard my son enter the kitchen. Then his six-year-old voice tells me, a mom who feels on the edge much of the time: "You rock!" I do? I don't recall using that expression around my son, so I figure it's something he's picked up at school or at camp. This cool-kid slang invading my son's speech makes me smile. It's so unexpected. Also, I am instantly high on this praise. How did I earn it? Was it the ice cream base we just made together and put in the refrigerator to cool? Was it the music I put on? Or was it the promise of going outside once clean-up was finished so that we could squirt each other with wa...

It's Bastille Day. I could write about the French Tricolor; about Marianne, berets, baguettes, and pétanque . Or about champagne; champagne's always good. But today was just another day of long hours and feeling depleted. Am I getting one of those rotten summer colds going around? I've got no real symptoms, but there could be something to it, since I'm craving licorice. What does licorice have to do with anything? With Bastille Day? Well, nothing except that I ate half a bag of it at lunchtime: deep, black, gooey, stick-in-your-teeth licorice. And it now brings to mind an odd home remedy from nearly twenty years ago. I was back from college for a stretch—I suppose it was summer vacation—and I had the beginnings of a cold coming on. I remember my mom and I driving to Westport , to a health food store there. I don't know what was originally on the shopping list (if we even had a list), but I do know what we came home with: a bag of hot wasabi chips and a box of black...

July. Time for watermelons, which I'd always eat right down through the white and palest green of the rind, all the way to the very skin because I didn't want the sweetness to end. I remember someone telling me that swallowing the black seeds meant a watermelon would grown in my belly—I never was that gullible, not even as a child. Still, I spat those seeds out, held contests to see which friend could spit them the farthest. The white ones, thin and soft, I usually ate along with the red flesh of the fruit. There was never anything so good as a watermelon when summer was reaching its hottest temperatures and the sun sapped your appetite for anything substantial. Adulthood has done nothing to curb my summertime watermelon cravings. In fact, my husband brought a giant one home last weekend, cut it up and stored it in four large Tupperware containers in the refrigerator —I have nearly eaten every piece, all on my own, since my husband is not home much and my son for some reason ...

Another food memory, once again in France. I would wonder if readers are tiring of this cycle of posts, and yet . . . who could tire of the undeniable romance of French fare? Done simply and well, certainly not I. This memory is of tomatoes. Other things, too, but mostly tomatoes; some very particular ones. Deep crimson and full of taut tomato flesh. Not the pale, dry, mealy disks that pass for tomato slices in many places. No, these were real, juicy tomatoes with more meat than membrane and seeds. Sliced and served up in a perfect rustic arrangement of a tart, with a quintessential French butter pastry crust, simple. I don't remember ever before (or since) tasting a tomato that was the epitome of tomato; a tomato in which you could taste the earth it was grown in, the sun that ripened the fruit, the farm freshness, the . . . terroir . Does anyone talk terroir when talking tomato? If they don't, they should. And these would definitely be AOC tomatoes. Where were they? Served...

The hiss and boom of fireworks are tapering off. Another Independence Day in the United States. Today, I think about all the reasons why I feel lucky to belong to this messy community of free thinkers and loudmouthed discontents. News in recent weeks is enough to remind us: we do have basic freedoms of thought, speech, and action that people (especially women) in other parts of the world can only hold in their hearts as hope. I don't have the strongest record as a patriot, but there are not many other places I'd rather be at the moment, barring the need for serious health care (knock wood). Well, on vacation, yes, but that's different. So this day of anthems and outdoor grilling is coming to a close, and what do I remember in this moment? Really, because of the fact that this afternoon our family did nothing to mark the holiday (traditional plans fell through), I am remembering the picnic we would have had—the one that we've had whenever possible, in the years since I ...

At some point, a marriage becomes a matter of routine; taken for granted. It's something that, being human, we are all guilty of at some point or another, despite the folly of the practice. We tell ourselves that it's just a comfortable sort of being together, worn like a favorite shirt that's fading at the elbows but still intact; more often, though, it's stagnation. It's our duty, I believe, to fight against complacency. Some people do this with reminders of those early days, however long ago, when everything seemed new. Others seek to replicate the newness by seeking future adventures, possibly crazy ones (depending on how prone to midlife crisis one is). Past, future . . . the best way is of course to pay attention to the now. And when you do that—really pay attention—you can amaze yourself with the power of your memory. My husband and I seem to be people who look back on the first blush when we want to rekindle. And our collective memory, I must say, is all abo...

To enjoy your French breakfast: 1. Sit outside at a wrought iron patio table, in a patch of light. 2. Lift a warm bowl (not cup!) of creamy coffee to your lips. 3. Notice how the baguette, baked just minutes ago, is still warm; split it lengthwise through its perfect golden crust to expose the soft, white inside. 4. Demi - sel butter? Slather it on without hesitation. 5. Take the slim, long-handled wooden spoon resting at your elbow and dip it in lavender honey—pale, thick, creamy. Spread this over the buttered bread. Its aroma will make you want to sleep in a field in the sunshine, content. 6. Dip your buttered, honeyed bread into your coffee. 7. Smile at the man sitting across from you. There will always be a handsome man sitting across from you in France. 8. Sip the coffee. Bite the bread. Chew. Swallow. Repeat at leisure. A charmed morning in Provence: waking up to love. Honeymoon, day one. France forgives us our tired-writer clichés , seen through a newlywed's rose-colored gl...

During the summer of 1991, I was living in Dutchess County, New York, soaking up sun in the Hudson Valley. It would be my last summer there, as I was heading into my senior year in college and already knew that I would be moving on to do other things after graduation. At this time, I was involved with a local man who was nine years my senior (I've posted about him here and here ). He was self-employed and didn't work traditional hours so we got to spend a lot of time together. Things were still good between us that summer, easygoing; we took care of each other, which also meant taking care of each other's friends. One friend of his in particular (I'll call him "Adman") worked and lived in the city during the week; each Friday he would take the train from Manhattan to Rhinecliff , New York, and my boyfriend and I would go pick him up. The three of us fell into a routine that suited us all quite well. With summer hours in play, Adman would come up a little ear...

When the weather got hot, when I was between the ages of six and nine and my family lived in Chicago, my mom would kindle the entrepreneurial spirit and set us to work in the kitchen. We'd cream sugar and butter; add eggs, vanilla, flour, baking powder; we'd overdose the chocolate chips and spread the batter in a pan. I remember the smell of gooey bar cookies fresh from the oven, chocolate still shiny with heat. We'd do a taste test for quality control. We'd get a giant pitcher, fill it with cold water and scoops of Country Time Lemonade mix, stir well. We'd take the lot of it, along with an antique ice-cream table and chair set (wood table top and seats, iron legs and backs), and head across the street from our apartment on Lake View, into Lincoln Park. We'd set up at a sidewalk intersection, where people came frequently in and out of the park, and do a brisk business in lemonade and cookies. I remember the Dixie cups, the repeat customers (especially joggers, ...

1987. Privileged Cheeverish town in Connecticut. An odd place to be down and out, but I promise, you can find the homeless, the hungry, or a band of penniless liquored-up losers anywhere. Even in Fairfield County, they don't all drink like bull-market Minotaurs in labyrinth mansions. Read the post just prior to this and you'll know my basic situation: fresh out of high school, college deferral, "friends" of the worst sort, rent to pay, and a dawn-past-dusk job that had me too dog tired to work toward fixing the mess I was in or really even to complain about it. I would just come home, step around the cases of Black Label, and try to get some sleep before having to get up and do it all again. The jerks who lived with me—nay, who mooched off me; who turned my first apartment into a flophouse and got me evicted—were a pathetic bunch. Of course, I was even more pathetic for playing hostess to them. I did it in part because I'd fallen in love with one of these freelo...

I graduated from high school in 1987, and although I had applied to college (one only, I knew what I wanted) and gotten my acceptance, I deferred matriculation for a year. It was for the best. Teen angst and anger were peaking, I was sick of school, and really it would've been a waste for me to go straight through when all I could think of was living on my own in the "real" world. Well, I got a dose of that. A good dose of what I could expect to do with a high school diploma and—let it be said—a bunch of shifty slackers for roommates, whose only ambition was to get wasted and stay that way all day. Except that I was not a slacker; that's something I never have been. And even if I had wanted to party—illegally, mind you, I was still underage for beer let alone the rest of what was out there to be had—well, there wasn't the time or energy for it. After a somewhat lost summer following graduation, I set about getting a job, a checking account, and an apartment, tryin...

Three . . . Two . . . One . . . Ready or not, here I come! My friend's voice traveled down the hallway of her family's large, Los Angeles house. We were playing Hide and Seek: my friend, her older sister, and I. The girls went to my elementary school (we were in our last years), and they lived just down the canyon road from where I did. I remember being at their house fairly often, and also some kind of occasional car pool our moms had worked out. I remember that breakfast for them was often of the powdered sugar donut variety. Did I wish for the same, instead of my hard boiled egg and toast? Maybe, but not with conviction. Overall, I accepted (and now am very thankful for) my mother's firm belief in breakfast being the most important meal of the day and therefore her insistence that it be nutritious. I am now debating how to relate the next bit of info in a way that will not sound uncharitable. My intention is just to describe a fact, not a judgment, but, well, there aren...