Live to eat

Some people eat to live, while others live to eat. What about you? How far would you travel for the best meal of your life?

My hubby, the first time that he sat down to a meal with my parents and my sister, was shocked at the critiques that my parents made of their own cooking and that even while we ate, all we talked about was food and how it could have been improved on or done a different way the next time. I had to explain to him that this was normal for us and perhaps it had something to do about being French.

He eventually got used to the dissection of meals at the family table and it became a sort of learning process for him the way it had always been for us. I have written about my eating disorder quite a bit and I can assure you that our family's obsession with food and the quest to making it as perfect as possible have nothing to do with each other. I am grateful to my parents for instilling in me a love of cooking and baking and the desire to always make it to the best of my abilities and the curiosity necessary to search for new recipes and new menus.

In France it is common to make road trips to visit a special restaurant and I would not think twice to make a special trip to taste something extraordinary if I could afford to and that is the operative word, affordability. If it isn't possible for my wallet then that is where curiosity and research come into the equation, because if you can't bring Mohammed to the mountain then bring the mountain to Mohammed or something to that effect. The internet brings a lot to the plate and with enough patience and ingenuity you can sometimes get an approximation of a recipe, it probably won't replicate the experience of that special restaurant or menu, but it can still be fun to try and you often learn a lot in the attempt.

As long as there is a love of food, eating and celebrating together is always pleasurable.