Hello lovely readers! It almost feels wrong to put an exclamation point at the end of my usual greeting. My heart feels heavy with the current humanitarian crisis and tragedies unfolding in Israel and Gaza, and I’m sure yours does too. I’ve been wanting to wait to send my email until I had something insightful to say, but sometimes, being at a loss for words allows for further reflection. I have always felt most able to help by feeding people, so I’ve chosen to donate to World Central Kitchen, an organization that provides meals in response to humanitarian, climate, and community crises and that is currently mobilizing “to support families who have been impacted—in Israel, Gaza, and neighboring countries should there be a flow of refugees.” If you’re not in a position to donate monetarily to an organization, remember that kindness and empathy cost nothing. On to this week’s essay, which dips back into my recent trip to Paris and explores the power of food nostalgia.
NOSTALGIA: A wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition. The state of being homesick. (Source: Merriam-Webster)
Food has the power to transport us, to somewhere we’ve never been or to return us to another time and place. Extracting morsels of meat from snail shells at Chez Denise in Paris reminded me of the first time I ate them in Paris, at age five, when my dad prepared them for us in our tiny Parisian apartment kitchen. The way the parsley-flecked butter pooled under the shells, how my dad lifted a small fork to my lips, the glimmer of pride in his eyes when I asked for seconds. I am there, in that galley kitchen, legs dangling from a stool, the anticipation building as I watched my father cook. I am transported to that long-ago meal again with a spoonful of the luscious, rich chocolate mousse I selected for that evening’s dessert. A tinge of bitterness alerting my taste buds to the quality of the chocolate as the pillowy cocoa cloud melted on my tongue.
Another night, I had a croque monsieur and a plate of golden frites at Cafe Charlot, the perfect late dinner to fill my belly after back-to-back cocktail bar visits at Little Red Door and Bijou. I recalled the melty toasted ham and cheese sandwiches that I used to eat with my dad at our neighborhood bistro, Cafe Mozart. How he always let me have the window seat so I could twist around on the banquette and peek through the bunched up white lace curtains to people watch. This version was a little different than a classic version, but I found a certain pleasure sitting alone at the bar, bathed in candlelight, left to my own time travel-induced reverie while I munched.
The etymology of nostalgia includes from PIE (Proto-Indo-European) *nes - “to return safely home” and is a cognate with Old Norse nest “food for a journey.” (Source: Online Etymology Dictionary) It makes sense to me that food should be wrapped up in nostalgia, particularly as it relates to a feeling of homesickness. When my parents and I moved from Paris, when I was six years old, I felt uprooted. I didn’t understand why we had to leave the first place I had ever felt at home, a place where I could be fully myself. A teacher once told my mom “Layla est bien dans sa peau,” an expression which roughly translates to being comfortable in one’s skin. We moved to Aberdeen, Scotland, then Jakarta, Indonesia, then back to the U.S. Each subsequent move etched a deeper scar, piling on top of my broken heart in the wake of the Paris move. I didn’t understand the depth of my sadness, or how this feeling of uprooted-ness and a search for home impacted me until very recently. I had such a wonderful and rich childhood in many ways, and I was always provided for. But there is a depth of grief that was buried for a long time, a hum of homesickness pulsing just beneath the surface.
Returning to Paris was a trip down memory lane, even when I was visiting new-to-me places. Something about being there made me feel in my element, at peace. In writing this, I realize that it can best be described as belonging. Dusting off old memories and turning them over in my mind’s eye and rolling familiar tastes around my tastebuds filled me up on a soul level. It’s as if something in me healed, and I found when I returned to the States that I felt satiated in a new way. My last bite on my Paris trip was fittingly a pain au chocolat from my childhood bakery, the one where my mom and I bought baguettes after school and where she sometimes let me have a pain au chocolate for my afternoon gouter. I sat on my hotel bed, dressed and ready for my early flight, willfully stretching my last moments. I had bought it the day before, so it wasn’t as flaky or buttery as I remembered. But it didn’t matter. It was the perfect last bite to fortify me for my journey back to my present day home. And besides, nostalgia has a way of making everything taste just a little bit sweeter.
Memoir Updates
For those of you keeping score at home, here are the stats on my literary agent querying journey so far: I’ve sent out 30 queries, received 8 rejections (including some non-responses), and received 3 requests for proposals. In addition querying being an emotional roller coaster, it is also a numbers game. So, I’ll keep putting myself out there, sending out my query letters and sample pages and book proposals, while stoking the flame of faith and keeping my fingers and toes crossed.
Published Articles & Media Appearances
REVIEW: Touched Out by Amanda Montei
For Hippocampus Magazine, I reviewed Amanda Montei’s latest, Touched Out. It blends memoir, cultural criticism, and theory to explore themes of motherhood, misogyny, consent, and control. On paper, these things didn’t seem to go together at first. As I read, it was astonishing how much intersection there is at it relates to women’s bodies, cultural conditioning, patriarchy, and expectations of motherhood, caregiving, and labor. I love how Montei captures the both/and nature of motherhood. She writes that she “was spellbound by her child’s presence,” but that “the amount of time she spent pleasuring and caring for others now outnumbered the amount of time I spent caring for myself.” It’s no wonder that motherhood all feels like too much—“too much touch, too much posturing, too much meeting demands, too much trying to say the right thing and be nice nice,” as she writes in the aptly titled “Body” chapter.
For Food Network, I got to interview Barbara Sibley of La Palapa, a fabulous Mexican restaurant in New York City’s East Village. I first met Barbara when I lived in NYC and joined the New York Women’s Culinary Alliance to make my foray into the food industry. What a blessing to have felt so supported in chasing my dream of becoming a food writer, and to know that you can still count on cherished relationships years and years later.
Books, Bites & Beverages
Books: I’m about halfway through Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead and am thoroughly spellbound by her writing craft and the depth of her characters and world building. Highly recommend! During my family’s beach trip last week, I devoured Ali Rosen’s Recipe for Second Chances (available as an Amazon First Reads pick this month!). It’s a delightful romantic romp set in New York City and Italy, with lots of food and travel sprinkled in and Rosen’s voice makes you feel like the main character is spilling her secrets directly in your ear.
Bites: I’m fondly scrolling through my Paris photos and delighting at the friends I got to re-connect with. I had a duo of crêpes with my friend Lucie, including a savory ham, cheese, and egg number paired with a dry cider and a Nutella crêpe for dessert, another taste of my childhood that I never tire of revisiting.
Beverages: I’m still thinking about this cocktail from Danico, a charming bar in Paris tucked away in the back of an Italian restaurant. It’s owned by Nico De Soto, who I interviewed years ago for Drinks International and whose NYC bar Mace is still one of my faves. This month’s Xplorer menu was inspired by travels to Mexico. This unassuming sipper, the Aztec Tepache, featuring tepache (a fermented beverage made from the peel and rind of pineapple) shaken with gin, brewer’s yeast vinegar, and aloe vera syrup. It all added up to a refreshing sour, lightly fruity tropical tipple that made for an ideal pre-dinner drink.
I loved your piece on dulce de leche. I have been playing with and experimenting with different cooking times and temperatures for cans of sweetened condensed milk for a popcorn recipe (coming soon)❤️