one

to truely understand food, you can't just eat it. you can't just cook it. you can't JUST anything about it. if you don't have the love for food, the passion, the understanding, there is a certain emptiness surrounding your relationship with one of the most intimate activities your body has. understanding food is going past the sustenance, past the need to feed, past the necessity to fuel your body: it is an essential ideal that, without it, you can never experience real satisfaction with yourself.

for example, imagine your mother's kitchen. imagine the first time you were there, the first image that comes to you. imagine who was there with you. the lighting. the colors. the smell. the clutter on the counter.most important, what are you cooking? cookies? pasta? chicken? anything? i believe that this first memory is the one that defines your entire life's experience with food: this experience is what subconsciously drives you towards the foods you eat, how you eat them, how you feel when you eat them.

my first memory is a simple one. i am two or three years old. my mother is standing next to me, moving between the stove and the refrigerator: her hair is loose, following her like a shadow as she turns. i am standing on top of a foot stool, leaning on the edge of the black salt-and-pepper speckled stove, watching a medium sauce pan boil my lunch: macaroni. as i watch the starchy water froth and threaten to overflow the edges i hear my mother behind me - don't get too close, you'll burn yourself. i lean back as my mother starts running water in the sink behind me; hearing the noise distracts me, i turn to her to watch. she turns and takes the noodles off of the burner with a single swift movement - i turn back to look, leaning over the hot stove coil. i put my hand on the coil to get a better view of the noodles. the bubble that stretches across my palm from the pad of my thumb, along the bottom near my wrist and to the edge of my pinkie finger is about an inch wide and quite tender. someone rushes in to help when my mother calls.

that's the extent of it, anyway. as long as i have been near a kitchen i have always been most fascinated not so much with the outcome but the process, the science, the art of the cooking itself. the first thing i remember making by myself was a fish casserole. the recipe time given was one hour, but i took three. when it was finished it was the most exhausting and exhilarating thing that, up until that time, i had ever done. i made my own juice as a kid with an older bulky monstrosity of a juicer. i always wanted the strangest thing the menu could offer: at age 9 i ordered jambalaya frog legs and made them hop across the table, much to the delight of the chefs peeking out from the kitchen to see if i would actually eat them. in middle school i hung out in the back of a bakery, helping bake the breads and cakes for the next day while learning the ins and outs of the kitchen. it was pretty sweet, pun intended.

for a few years now i haven't been in this state of mind. i have had friends and co-workers in the foodie profession that have graciously shared this part of their lives with me, but i haven't pursued it myself. being in the position i am in now, working with my community to help create a foodie culture based off of sustainability and supporting your neighboring farmers, looking for the cleanest and most real food possible, eating organically and in season, i feel the time is right to start following this hobby as it were. to really think about my relationship with food and what direction i want to take it. hopefully these blurbs will give you some laughs, some insights, and some ideas of your own.