Bye week

I left you hanging

Welcome to the new subscribers who’ve found their way here via Hello Gloria! Thrilled to have you. What you’ll find is an essay first (sometimes serious-ish, sometimes filled with food & travel recs) and a pack of fun links second (things to watch, read, do, eat, etc).

xoxo

Last week, a series of fortunate and unfortunate events prevented me from having a newsletter ready to send to you! I am sorry to have left you high and dry without an essay and a link pack to browse with your morning coffee. Forgive me. It wasn’t you, it was me. My apology, below, in the form of a letter about food & joy.

I spent the summer after graduating from college traveling. But my fantastic itinerary (Hong Kong! London! Italy! Portugal!) belied the hard time I was having emotionally. I had absolutely no clue what I was going to do with my life. I had convinced myself that I was the only college graduate in history who was scared of stepping into the real world (no one understands!). And we were facing a global recession. I couldn’t articulate why I was feeling so low and, worse, I felt like I shouldn’t admit it anyway.

But then, one weekend during my month in Italy, I was standing with one of my oldest friends, barefoot on the cool stone floor of her kitchen, making lunch. She’d invited me to spend the weekend with them on the coast in Tuscany. We stopped at a random little grocery store, picked up a few things, and were making (I’ll never forget) a farro salad with perfect summer tomatoes, red onions, and fresh mozzarella. She was whisking a vinaigrette and I was tasked with tearing the ball of mozzarella up into bits. I opened the container, pulled out the mozzarella, and I swear to god…a single tear made its way down my cheek. It was one of those unexpected moments when something incredibly small and simple reminds you that it’s all going to be okay. For me, it came in the form of a cool, wet ball of cheese.

My friend, rightfully, made fun of me for crying over mozzarella. But then she relented, said she understood, and asked if everything was okay. After a very tearful (on my end) chat in the kitchen, we started calling ourselves the ‘hands on the mozzarella girls’. One of my other closest friends joined us the following weekend and is, to this day, the only other person inducted into our club.

The point is, some of us get deep joy from the multi-sensory experience of food. It’s the same joy I imagine some people must feel while rock climbing (else, why do it?) The feel of ingredients in our hands as we prep. The smells, the learning and trying, the spices. We’re people who close our eyes, fully aware of how pretentious it is, for a good piece of dark chocolate.