I’m two-thirds of the way through this, which is unlike any other food writing I’ve read. MFK Fisher chronicles her gastronomical coming of age through a series of essays, about traveling with others and alone. She writes about food by talking around it, so that she forms a vivid and complete picture of where it sits within a whole life. It’s part cultural history, part natural history, part autobiography. And she has the most distinctive voice: 

 She was a stupid woman, and an aggravating one, and although I did not like her physically I grew to be deeply fond of her and even admiring of her. For years we wrote long and affectionate letters, and on the few times I returned to Dijon we fell into each other’s arms…and then within a few minutes I would be upset and secretly angry at her dullness, her insane pretenses, and all her courage and her loyal blind love would be forgotten until I was away from her again. 

She writes about people more than she writes about food, though the food is there, and it tells you about the people serving it or eating it with her, but there’s absolutely no sentiment in her descriptions of either. She talks about running away from too many fine gourmet dining experiences in Dijon, farming in Switzerland with her second husband and feeling enslaved by the land. She believes in the ideal of eating well, but knows that most people and lives and experiences fall far short. I love that push and pull, that dense sense of knowledge about pleasure. 

Next I plan to read How to Cook a Wolf, about cooking and eating well on a WWII rationing-era budget. I figure we could all learn something there.

I made risotto for the first time this afternoon. Like many things, it’s easier if you bring something along to read. 

I am looking forward to the end of April, and the start of May.

When are they going to make a colored pencil that you can actually sharpen?

I got unreasonably excited when I realized this would look good in red. I’d like to carve it, though it might take awhile. The text is a slogan from  a skin care ad.

I don’t know what I think of these.

I made a leek and goat cheese tart yesterday that came this close to disaster. 

My brother called while I was shopping for ingredients; I told him what I was making and he said, boy you’re obsessed with pie. If you were on Top Chef you’d be the person who made everything into a pie. 
I said, But Dave, that’s the beauty of pie! 

The phrase of the day is: Embrace the opposition by killing them with kindness. That’s never been something I’ve excelled at. But I’m trying. 

I can’t even express how glad I am to see spring. Life is good.

“To this day, you argue about something that happened long ago. Arguments occur when you don’t put yourself in the other person’s shoes, or when you don’t listen to what is being said. But what would this protect you from? More crucially, what might it be absolutely no defence against?”

Coptic books for the masses-prepare yourself.

Next Friday, April 17th at CBA. Details to be had here.

that the cherry blossoms are beginning to bloom at the Botanical Gardens. I heard it on the news, that’s where. 

I made a fantastic blackberry tart this weekend, and only felt slightly guilty over the far-flung origins of said blackberries. 

I also made an orange vanilla pound cake, made with a vanilla bean mailed to me by my own dear mother, who brought them all the way from Egypt for me. Then emailed her to say thank you. 

Also: Bought tulips, braised artichokes, went for long walk in sun. I think the waiting is over. 

I have this phrase stuck in my head: 

You have outgrown a situation and you need to focus on something more in keeping with who you are now.

was this.