first, a bit about me...

Let’s just say the accidental development of my palette came from my love of food and my point of origination.

While I have no pedigree in culinary arts, my path in life has been tread on that of culinary experience. I was born in Caen, Normandy. I come from salt of the earth worker stock: farmers; my mother’s family being a mix of poor farmers from the north of France and mountain sheep herders from the mountains of Northern Algeria while my father’s family hails from the French/Italian Alps, and most likely were sheep or goat herders.

As result of coming from farmer stock and poverty, food was grown in the backyard. Even as subsequent generations were educated and prospered, growing one’s own food stuck. Add the French sensibility of eating fresh produce and minimally processed foods and I was in the perfect environment to arm me with a palette.

I believe I was gifted with a palette because I had the luck to be born into a family that loves food: not just growing it but also preparing it and degust-ing it. The French (and other romance language nations) have a word for “eating” food in the sense of tasting it, savouring it and enjoying it: deguster. Even if you are just eating, you are still in the process of deguster because you are tasting the flavours which give enjoyment.

My mother believes my palette formed from our incessant travels when I was a child. Very early, I learned that no matter where I was, if there was food, I was ok. We came to the U.S. in 1976 and every summer, including one year in grade school and high school, I was in France with my grandmother. Each summer, my grandmother and I traveled across France, visiting one of my mother’s 9 siblings (3 uncles and 6 aunts) and their broods of children.

Several aunts had gardens with various legumes, fresh cabbage, beets, potatoes, tomatoes, herbs, carrots, onions, fennel, etc. I can remember more than one summer where portions of them were spent in my aunt Micheline’s “backyard” harvesting vegetables or some other legume. One year, I turned to my aunt and said, “Since I’m picking these haricots verts for you, will you be paying me?” My aunt and grandmother roared with laughter and replied, “Yea! With a tasty bean stew!” I was then perfunctorily told off for having the nerve to ask for money.

In the summer, my grandmother’s favourite time of the season was late July/early August when l’oiseille grew wild alongside hedges. Whenever I’d see her in the garden picking through the hedges and fields, I knew later that evening we’d be dining on soupe a l’oiseille with bread. I am sorry I can’t translate l’oiseille for you. My go-to for French into English, Mom, doesn’t know. Neither does Google (shocking, I know.). But trust me when I say l’oiseille is very savory and has a distinct flavour perfect for soups, sauces and goes quite nicely with fish.

Being of mixed race to begin with and having traveled to more exotic locals, very early I was exposed to foods that most people don’t discover until their teens. I was lucky enough to be introduced to Chinese, Mexican, Middle Eastern and Indian foods as a very little girl. The rest, like Thai, Japanese, Korean, African, came naturally as nuances of what I already knew. I learned the distinction between Pakistani and Indian, Thai and Malaysian, Vietnamese and Cambodian, Senegalese and Nigerian, Ecuadorian and Colombian or Lebanese and Iranian. My mother has always joked that I have rarely met a food I didn’t like. And at 35, I can say she’s pretty much right.

Food, in my opinion, is one of the few pleasures mankind can count on being consistent and every present. To me, every meal is a celebration of flavour, smell and texture as well as colour, shape and design. Ask anyone who knows me well enough to have eaten with me: I applaud when I am served. I talk about food almost as if it’s a lover of mine, in the sense that I talk about it all the time and I tend to wax overly poetic about it.

Family dinners, as most French dinners are famed to be, have always been lengthy affairs. Sitting down for dinner was at a minimum at least a 3 hour commitment. Even to this day, I can sit at a dinner table for a 5 hour meal and come away perfectly happy, full from food, sated with conversation and laughter and satisfied with the beauty of the evening spent with those I love and enjoy. Funnily enough, just recently my friend Damien wrote that i introduced him to the 4 hour dinner and he loved them. To me, this was one of the best compliments I could have received.

Another running joke in my family is that we eat our way through vacations. And as funny as that sounds, it’s true as most of my vacation memories revolve around meals like the taverna we found in Skopelos; eating Milan’s specialty at the famed Osso Buco; eating refritos negros and tortillas in the jungle just outside of Coban; discovering dutch breakfast in Utrecht; eating insanely spicy Pakistani in the back alleys of Barcelona.

I can go on and on about meals I’ve had and shared but I’ll spare you. The point is that most of the joy and pleasure in my life comes from sharing food with those I love, whether making it at home and being served in a restaurant. My fundamental belief around food is that is unifies and strengthens bonds between people. And bonds, whether of love or friendship, should be celebrated with the ultimate show of love, nourishment. Giving sustenance to another human being to ensure that life, love and joy, as well as comfort, can go on. What a beautiful ceremony that is!

I started this blog so I can practice writing and develop my skill but also to share with others the incredible relationship I have with food. Most of the entries will be around local restaurants in Chicago (and occasionally restaurants I discover in my travels abroad) but also, I’ll share interesting article, stats, facts, experiences, reminisces, recipes and other food related items here. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it.