Gastronomic Meditations: Basilicum Tormentum

There is no way for me to say this without sounding like a complete maniac, so I’ll just come out with it: Nothing gets my blood flowing like basil. I don’t mean that it is pleasing to my palate (it is); or that it is my favorite ingredient (it is); but that I am utterly obsessed with its arresting fragrance.

As soon as the basil in my garden is ready for picking, I am out there like a wanton lover, inhaling its scent so hard that I become deprived of oxygen, and feel myself swaying in a dreamlike haze. After tearing up the leaves to sprinkle over a bowl of tomatoes, my fingers are perfumed for the rest of the day, and I can return to my basil daydreams with the mere wave of a hand.

I’m not sure I’ve experienced a lust quite like it — I simply cannot get enough. This year I’ve experimented with adding the torn leaves to my bath so I can smell its ethereal aroma in my hair; I even keep a few leaves on my desk so I can rejuvenate my senses during the workday, allowing the captivating scent of anise to coat my palate as I muddle through the tasks at hand. Perhaps some sort of twelve-step program is in order, because my greed is out of control. (read more)

Gastronomic Meditations: Dating and Dining

Those who have perused my recent articles will know that I recently married a man who is as much a sensualist about food as I am. Those close to me are also aware that I discarded a potent and deeply considered anti-marriage stance in order to do so, and that the catalyst for my philosophical shift was an insistent desire to share food with this man for the rest of my life (coupled with a realization that weddings are not a necessary part of marriages).

However, the path to connubial cuisine was paved with a few significant others—and a slew of insignificant others — whose tastes differed from mine as much as the taste of ketchup differs from that of ripe tomato. In retrospect, although I might not have recognized it at the time, I have been able to discover something about why the relationships inevitably failed by looking at the differences between the way that I thought about food and the way that each of them did.

Seth was my high school sweetheart, and for the two years we were together I spent as much time as possible at his house, which was partially a tortured attempt to avoid my own. His parents were true American cooks, and we gorged ourselves on spaghetti and meatballs with sauce that had simmered all day, Dad’s shepherd’s pie, and gingerbread (the cake, not the cookie) with whipped cream. The food was more psychologically nourishing than it was healthy, but at that time, the love that went into making the food was what fed me. (read more)

Gastronomic Meditations: O Solo Mio

The day of romance and love is almost here! Little pink and red hearts will pop up in every store window that you pass. Florist shops have put up their “Help Wanted” signs and apparently will hire anyone from an eager eleven-year-old nerd who owns a bike to a stumbling, alcohol-perfumed escapee from the latest installment of “Life on the Road” to deliver massive tons of paper-wrapped roses from lovers to happy receivers (who today are individually referred to by the world as “My Valentine”).


Surprisingly enough, the great American machine of marketing and consumerism – one that provides such solid answers to each problem that presents itself in our lives – has not yet found an answer to one seemingly important question that many people ask themselves as this day approaches: “Where’s MY Valentine?” (read more)


Culinary Media Network, Gilded Fork, food, food writing, Valentine's Day

Gastronomic Meditations: Making Peace with Polenta

Going to my aunt and uncle’s lake house meant a lot to me as a child. It meant that summer was finally at an end, school would be starting in a matter of hours, and I would be facing a dish of polenta before the sun went down.

My aunt and uncle are Italian-American, and not actually relatives. It made perfect sense to call them so, since there was usually nothing to make me feel like anything but family; if it weren’t for the polenta, I might have attained full-blood status.

How well I remember my first taste. (read more)


Culinary Media Network, Gilded Fork, food, food writing, polenta, food memories