Flavor and Voice

I’ve been wanting to write about what’s happening in food on a platform of my own for almost a decade now. I’ve loved food, intensely loved food, since an ex boyfriend of mine made Shrimp Fra Diavolo for my family when he visited my parents’ old house, and blew their minds. He suggested, politely, that we add a bit of white wine to the chocolate fondue and it made the dessert sing. I was 19, maybe 20, and though my love for the boyfriend didn’t last, my love for the fondue certainly did.

I’ve been a passive student of food ever since. I’ve been searching in every small hole-in-the-wall noodle shop, every green market, every soup course, every surprise element of texture, or acid, or crunch in a salad, for a revelation about who I am as a home cook. What’s my flavor? What’s my voice?

Do I even have something to add to the commentary?

What qualifies me?

Well. I’m as voracious for the books and stories as I am for the dishes. I read the same way I eat: incessantly. I don’t know that I have any worthwhile ideas of my own yet, and that’s OK. Because I’m good at something else, and that’s reading and eating voraciously, and then talking about both.

So that’s what I want to do here. I want to use this platform to share voices and food that I’m reading, that I love. That I think you’ll love. Grab a cup of something you enjoy and a plate of something you love. Come sit at my table. I have a great book I want to tell you about.