Ah! I think 1990 ish. I had been working on a shoot in Mauritius, which was HOT as hell, with very long, very hungry days of sunburns and hours on set and not luxurious accommodations. Ten days felt like two months. We flew back on the 15 hour flight, in the days of smoking on planes, fragile from the beating of the job (and recovering from a touch of dysentery) just basically wrecked. There was a plane change in paris then back to Milan, where I was living with my co worker and her camera man boyfriend on the top of an old building in the navigli. The boyfriend was also arriving home from shooting in Sardinia for the National news. We climbed the 8 flights up to the flat like we were wearing lead and opened the door to the cozy, spare attic apartment where the lovely boyfriend had a supper waiting for us, laid out on the simple wood table in the kitchen. Smoked swordfish from Sardinia that he had brought back and slivered on to a large plate doused with a olive oil, a plate of chunks of a nutty perfect Parmesan and little jelly jars of ice cold veuve cliquot. I think there was a delicious round loaf of bread but i just recall us all eating with our fingers, the salty smoke of that divine fish, the cold dry veuve and the cheese the most perfect, the most real luxury. I still dream of how delicious it was….
Plum tomatoes warm from the sun, dipped in olive oil and then in coarse sea salt, from a vendor's cart at the ferry dock in Sardinia, on my circuitous way back from a misbegotten hitchhiking adventure through North Africa. 1971. I was 18. What I love about this video is that the urchin is elegantly presented on a couple of KN95 masks. Humans are an amazingly adaptable species, no?
Talula’s Table in Kennett Square, PA - the table is reserved 1 whole year in advance, so the anticipation is high. We invited 8 friends and got to try course after course of incredible seasonal local ingredients. So tasty and so much fun to have the whole restaurant for our group, seated together at 1 table. Planning to go back this July!
Standing in chest-deep water at a beach on the island of Elba in 1962, tasting for the first time a riccio di mare, harvested just 10 meters away, scooped up on a plastic spoon with a simple squeeze of lemon. Cannot get better!
Dinner at a friend’s house, San Vito, Italy. Wine was from her small vineyard, tomatoes from her garden and I sat and watched her make Strozzapreti, with spinach, fresh ricotta, from morning market and brown butter. All from her tiny kitchen. Oh, and dessert, fruits, nuts, cheeses and jam crostata. Perfecto! Brava, to my friend Rosaria!
In the 1980s visiting the unbelievable Mont St. Michel on the northern coast of France we stayed and dined at La Mere Poulard inside the ild town walls. After a fabulous entrée of local salt marsh lamb we were invited in to the ancient kitchen to watch as our dessert soufflé was cooked in the wood oven.
Secret beach near Positano with a rustic restaurant. Caught a little launch at the city dock; spent the day swimming and sunning and had spaghetti a la vongole and a crisp white for lunch. Da Adolpho is probably not a secret anymore, but it was magical when we went.
I was 14 and visiting a family at there summer house in Normandy.
My host announced to his family that he was going to do “breakfast by the sea”. The family groaned but I volunteered to go. We took with us a baguette, a lemon and an oyster knife.
We bought a freshly caught bag of oysters and sat in the sand eating them.
* The first time I ate sushi: Expense lunch with a much older colleague, who ordered for us. I was terrified of the raw fish and of not knowing how to eat it right, and nothing would have made me admit I'd never had this before. Watching my colleague, I did as she did, and it was magical!
* My first Beijing street food: a leek, pancake, egg construction with a fiery sauce, cooked rapidly on a high flame, carried back to our hotel room, where my husband ate oatmeal and watched me as if I'd lost my mind. So good! (He made up for it later, just needed to get his bearings.)
* The meal I didn't eat: My baby was born mid-afternoon, and a little while after we got into the hospital room, dinner came on a cart: highly suspect salmon that might have been swimming in Love Canal, some gray plant-based stuff. I didn't eat more than a bite. Who cared--we had this baby!
It was 1983. We were living and traveling in the Bahamas on our sailboat and had met a couple living the life on their 25 foot sailboat. They invited us for dinner. They prepared everything on their single burner gimbled cooker. They made fettuccine Alfredo with with Irish butter and canned cream from England, accompanied with canned artichokes sautéed in garlic & olive oil. The meal was so simple yet so unforgettably delicious!
First time at Guelaguetza in the mid-90s, shortly after reading Jonathan Gold's review. Never had Oaxacan food before then. It was exciting and revelatory--like hearing a favorite band for the first time. I could not wait to go back. And did, many times.
In 1971, age 21, in Bastia, southern Corsica, with best friend, walking along a dark road looking for the harbor and a place to eat dinner. A car following slowly behind scared us and we ran to a house with a porch light on. Inside, they were serving dinner. Steaming bowls of broth and a platter of assorted steamed fish. My first bouillabaisse, unforgettably fresh and tasting of the sea.
Going back many decades to when I was living in Jerusalem. It was middle of the cold grey winter and a guy I knew took a friend and I in his Porsche down to Jericho. Less than an hour drive but it was warm and sunny. Sat in a garden with endless little plates of mezze crowding the table and drinking arak. Some of the best salatim I remember eating or maybe it was the sunny garden on a cold day and the arak.
Fresh morels cooked chicken fried steak style (my father used to gather the mushrooms in Eastern Washington's Blue Mts), The almost magical variety of foods in Singapore, Cougar Gold cheese from WSU, fresh caught Dungeness crab cooked on the beach, Asparagus cut and cooked within minutes. So many food memories - all with excellent company I might add!
One of the most exciting meals I have ever had was my first time at the French Laundry (thanks to YOUR review, Ruth!) for my birthday. We managed to get a lunch reservation a few weeks after the revew was published in the NYT. We flew out from NY to try it. After we dined on foie gras terrine (I had never seen anything like it) and other exquisite dishes I felt as if I never had to eat another meal again. Of course, I did! And I have been truly blessed to have dined at the FL and Per Se over many years for some of the most memorable meals of my life. Also, eating at Tetsuya's in Sydney and at Edge of the Bay in Tasmania. We loved the food so much we asked to meet the chef. We thought he should cook in the kitchen at the French Laundry but it never came to pass.
Ah! I think 1990 ish. I had been working on a shoot in Mauritius, which was HOT as hell, with very long, very hungry days of sunburns and hours on set and not luxurious accommodations. Ten days felt like two months. We flew back on the 15 hour flight, in the days of smoking on planes, fragile from the beating of the job (and recovering from a touch of dysentery) just basically wrecked. There was a plane change in paris then back to Milan, where I was living with my co worker and her camera man boyfriend on the top of an old building in the navigli. The boyfriend was also arriving home from shooting in Sardinia for the National news. We climbed the 8 flights up to the flat like we were wearing lead and opened the door to the cozy, spare attic apartment where the lovely boyfriend had a supper waiting for us, laid out on the simple wood table in the kitchen. Smoked swordfish from Sardinia that he had brought back and slivered on to a large plate doused with a olive oil, a plate of chunks of a nutty perfect Parmesan and little jelly jars of ice cold veuve cliquot. I think there was a delicious round loaf of bread but i just recall us all eating with our fingers, the salty smoke of that divine fish, the cold dry veuve and the cheese the most perfect, the most real luxury. I still dream of how delicious it was….
Plum tomatoes warm from the sun, dipped in olive oil and then in coarse sea salt, from a vendor's cart at the ferry dock in Sardinia, on my circuitous way back from a misbegotten hitchhiking adventure through North Africa. 1971. I was 18. What I love about this video is that the urchin is elegantly presented on a couple of KN95 masks. Humans are an amazingly adaptable species, no?
Talula’s Table in Kennett Square, PA - the table is reserved 1 whole year in advance, so the anticipation is high. We invited 8 friends and got to try course after course of incredible seasonal local ingredients. So tasty and so much fun to have the whole restaurant for our group, seated together at 1 table. Planning to go back this July!
Standing in chest-deep water at a beach on the island of Elba in 1962, tasting for the first time a riccio di mare, harvested just 10 meters away, scooped up on a plastic spoon with a simple squeeze of lemon. Cannot get better!
Dinner at a friend’s house, San Vito, Italy. Wine was from her small vineyard, tomatoes from her garden and I sat and watched her make Strozzapreti, with spinach, fresh ricotta, from morning market and brown butter. All from her tiny kitchen. Oh, and dessert, fruits, nuts, cheeses and jam crostata. Perfecto! Brava, to my friend Rosaria!
In the 1980s visiting the unbelievable Mont St. Michel on the northern coast of France we stayed and dined at La Mere Poulard inside the ild town walls. After a fabulous entrée of local salt marsh lamb we were invited in to the ancient kitchen to watch as our dessert soufflé was cooked in the wood oven.
Secret beach near Positano with a rustic restaurant. Caught a little launch at the city dock; spent the day swimming and sunning and had spaghetti a la vongole and a crisp white for lunch. Da Adolpho is probably not a secret anymore, but it was magical when we went.
One of the most memorable of my life:
I was 14 and visiting a family at there summer house in Normandy.
My host announced to his family that he was going to do “breakfast by the sea”. The family groaned but I volunteered to go. We took with us a baguette, a lemon and an oyster knife.
We bought a freshly caught bag of oysters and sat in the sand eating them.
I shall never forget the flavor.
Oh, these are all so much fun to read! Mine...
* The first time I ate sushi: Expense lunch with a much older colleague, who ordered for us. I was terrified of the raw fish and of not knowing how to eat it right, and nothing would have made me admit I'd never had this before. Watching my colleague, I did as she did, and it was magical!
* My first Beijing street food: a leek, pancake, egg construction with a fiery sauce, cooked rapidly on a high flame, carried back to our hotel room, where my husband ate oatmeal and watched me as if I'd lost my mind. So good! (He made up for it later, just needed to get his bearings.)
* The meal I didn't eat: My baby was born mid-afternoon, and a little while after we got into the hospital room, dinner came on a cart: highly suspect salmon that might have been swimming in Love Canal, some gray plant-based stuff. I didn't eat more than a bite. Who cared--we had this baby!
It was 1983. We were living and traveling in the Bahamas on our sailboat and had met a couple living the life on their 25 foot sailboat. They invited us for dinner. They prepared everything on their single burner gimbled cooker. They made fettuccine Alfredo with with Irish butter and canned cream from England, accompanied with canned artichokes sautéed in garlic & olive oil. The meal was so simple yet so unforgettably delicious!
First time at Guelaguetza in the mid-90s, shortly after reading Jonathan Gold's review. Never had Oaxacan food before then. It was exciting and revelatory--like hearing a favorite band for the first time. I could not wait to go back. And did, many times.
In 1971, age 21, in Bastia, southern Corsica, with best friend, walking along a dark road looking for the harbor and a place to eat dinner. A car following slowly behind scared us and we ran to a house with a porch light on. Inside, they were serving dinner. Steaming bowls of broth and a platter of assorted steamed fish. My first bouillabaisse, unforgettably fresh and tasting of the sea.
Going back many decades to when I was living in Jerusalem. It was middle of the cold grey winter and a guy I knew took a friend and I in his Porsche down to Jericho. Less than an hour drive but it was warm and sunny. Sat in a garden with endless little plates of mezze crowding the table and drinking arak. Some of the best salatim I remember eating or maybe it was the sunny garden on a cold day and the arak.
My comment vaporized, but bagna cauda after not eat8ng 5 days post a major surgery.😛
Fresh morels cooked chicken fried steak style (my father used to gather the mushrooms in Eastern Washington's Blue Mts), The almost magical variety of foods in Singapore, Cougar Gold cheese from WSU, fresh caught Dungeness crab cooked on the beach, Asparagus cut and cooked within minutes. So many food memories - all with excellent company I might add!
One of the most exciting meals I have ever had was my first time at the French Laundry (thanks to YOUR review, Ruth!) for my birthday. We managed to get a lunch reservation a few weeks after the revew was published in the NYT. We flew out from NY to try it. After we dined on foie gras terrine (I had never seen anything like it) and other exquisite dishes I felt as if I never had to eat another meal again. Of course, I did! And I have been truly blessed to have dined at the FL and Per Se over many years for some of the most memorable meals of my life. Also, eating at Tetsuya's in Sydney and at Edge of the Bay in Tasmania. We loved the food so much we asked to meet the chef. We thought he should cook in the kitchen at the French Laundry but it never came to pass.