Today I found a draft blog post from 2013. Title? “Three Times Lucky - Sourdough Starter Face-off”. I don’t really know what was lucky or what the face-off was about, because I only got as far as that title. I have a funny feeling my luck may have failed. But, ever willing to take on a seemingly impossible task, here I am again. The mystery is how flour and water can so confound me. I guess that’s where the science and magic comes in, and what keeps drawing me back. The attempts thus far have been fair to middling. I've had more success with biga (a sponge that's used to supplement a yeast dough) than with the starter. These lovely bubbles actually produced a pretty decent loaf. I used this recipe from Carol Field (and highly recommend her classic book The Italian Baker).
I’m hopeful. I really am. Michael Sampson, of The Sicilian Pantry - and my bread making hero - shared the recipe and video that got him started. A little more than 24 hours in and I’m seeing happy, bubbly frothy promise in my umpteenth attempt. I’ve put it in a glass container. I’ve even named it. But until the baby is full born and flourishing, I’ll keep her identity under (plastic) wraps.
This is Actinolite. On an unfashionable residential
stretch of Ossington Avenue in Toronto, the restaurant’s 30-seat room is deliberately
simple, and manages to avoid the inescapable din of most places, where shouting
over your food is part of the experience. Here the focus is on the pleasures of
the plate, and the stories behind each dish.
Little bites of cucumber and kholrabi
This is Actinolite. Its kitchen is small, holding no
more than five or six people at a time, unless you count the garden that is an
essential extension of the cooking, or the pantry down the stairs, where preserved,
pickled, dehydrated, and dried seasonal ingredients wait patiently for their chance
to make an appearance on the menu. When fresh produce is scarce and imagination
is indispensable, that pantry gets to shine.
White asparagus, rhubarb vinegar, lilac, lemon thyme and bee pollen
This is Actinolite. The menu changes with dizzying
speed in the dog days of summer, running to keep up with the bounty of the
farmers’ markets, where chef Justin Cournoyer knows every vendor and lets the
season guide him. When he’s not at the market or at the producers’ farms, he’s foraging
with his team in back alleys and country fields, carefully taking only what the
land can comfortably give. If it can then be grown in the garden, even better.
Fava bean, mozzarella, mint
This is Actinolite. Don’t look for it on the list of
the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, where the lone Canadian entry is Alo at #94.
You’ll have to dig deep into the list of Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants to find Actinolite,
where it’s hovered in the 60s for the past couple of years, well behind restaurants
whose menus don’t change but whose popularity soars in proportion to their proximity
to hip neighbourhoods or chef celebrity status.
Lobster, rose, mulberry
This is Actinolite. Where we dined last Saturday night to
celebrate our anniversary but where a special occasion isn’t warranted to dine
on the city’s best food.
We’ve been very lucky to eat at some pretty
spectacular restaurants in places far and wide, from Copenhagen and Vienna to
Mexico City, Modena and Menton. So we’ve seen the absolute inventiveness and attention
to detail that these places bring to every diner and every dining experience.
We’ve had a chance to peek into the labs at Noma and see how they make it nice
at Eleven Madison.
Far from this setting some sort of impossible standard
against which to judge every meal, the sum total of those experiences have made
us appreciate the work involved in bringing food to the table, in creating a
place where genuine hospitality and passion marry to create a magical moment. We
seek out and find those moments everywhere: from the delicious breakfast
sausage sandwiches and hand pies served by Dundas Park Kitchen at our farmer’s market, to the tacos de barbacoa and cactus salad at Vamos a Texcoco, a strip mall Mexican barbecue joint in Vista, California.
But this is about Actinolite, and authenticity, and
cooking so fresh and fine and real that I can’t believe there isn’t a line up
at the door. When the young cooks bring the plates to the table, they are
earnest, thoughtful, believing deeply in what they are serving and making. And
while that can seem contrived and gimmicky (and believe me, we have seen it
so), here it’s just right.
Strawberry, chrysanthemum, gooseberry
The young chef who bakes the bread brings us each
a piece, perfectly warm, with a crust that satisfyingly crackles. He explains
that he’s switched flours, now using one from Quebec that’s better able to
stand up to the oppressively humid heat we’ve been experiencing. The same chef
later brings us a dish featuring shitake mushrooms that are in an umami rich broth,
with shiso from the garden. He promises to bring me some shiso to take home. And even though the kitchen is slammed and it must be 35C in there, he does.
Shiso from the garden
The dish of peas and lamb – soon to disappear from the menu
because peas are almost over – is seriously one of the best things I’ve eaten
this year. More peas than anything, mixed with minced lamb, and topped with
elderflowers and sorrel, each pea bursts with flavour and I want this dish and
this moment in fleeting early summer to last forever.
Peas, lamb, elderflower
The chef’s menu ends with something loosely called
dessert, but better described as the perfect ending, which I’ll describe imperfectly.
Mostly beets, some dill, tayberries, a sorbet… It's new on the menu. Go have it now.
Beet, dill, tayberry
This is Actinolite. Where the team comes together and
is dedicated to the art of the possible, and the spirit of each ingredient. Where
the hospitality is not contrived or formal, but the knowledge deep, and where a
new seasonal revolution happens every few weeks.
Tequila Blanco, American gin, Italian amaro, lemon, ginger, chamomile, rhubarb, blackcurrant, decanter bitters
Hennessy VSOP, Fernet Branca, Dolin Blanc, demerara syrup, black strap molasses, fresh squeezed lemon and lime juice
What's on the menu at today's hot bars
I love a good cocktail. Something with a bit of a bitter edge, maybe faint sweetness, a bit of fizz or a dash of citrus. Beautiful glasses - a coupe, a cut crystal highball, a weighty smoked old fashioned - make the sipping even better. No straw please; I want to sip and feel the ice, hear the cubes settling in for a deep chill.
But something seems to have happened to the cocktail. Reading the drinks menu has become a bit of a chore. In a quest to create an ever more unusual, the-more-ingredients-the-better, Instagrammable drink, we're reading longer and longer lists that puzzle rather than tempt us. An ouzo or absinthe rinse ruins what could have been a perfectly fine drink. Lots of brown liquor. And Fernet Branca with everything. It's enough to make you want to order a G+T and be done with it.
The Sicilian Sundowner - three ingredients and whole lot of fun
Summer
should be a little more imaginative, without a whole lot more work. So tonight
instead of making a Campari soda or Aperol spritz, I made up a cocktail that
ticked all my summer sipper boxes: a little bit fizzy, a little bit bitter, a
touch of citrus and a sunshiny colour. No exotic ingredients, no syrups to make
or egg whites to beat. Just a long tall drink of summer.
The Sicilian Sundowner
makes one long cocktail
1 ½ oz. Aperol
1 oz. limoncello
Fever Tree Sicilian Lemonade soda, lemon tonic water or plain club soda*
*although this is not a sweet drink, if you prefer a drink with less sweetness, use plain club soda
Fill a highball glass with a generous fistful of ice cubes. Add Aperol, limoncello and soda of choice. Give it a stir, garnish with a strip of orange zest and sip slowly.
It's been pretty quiet over here at Duck and Cake. But not for
lack of delicious adventures. Richard and I still continue on our quest to eat at the world’s 25 best (we've made it to 14 so far, with a few more
reservations upcoming). And I've been cooking up lots of delectable treats,
with some recipes coming your way soon.
The big news on
the culinary Duck and Cake front is Cook the Farm.
In
January, I attended an intensive program at the Anna Tasca Lanza cooking school in Sicily with 12 international
participants from diverse backgrounds who are passionate about bridging the gap
between cooking and farming. Cook the Farm explores the intersection of food,
culture, community, horticulture, anthropology and sustainability.
From milking
sheep and learning how to make ricotta cheese, to pruning vineyards, making
pasta, learning about propagation and understanding the biodiversity and
history of the Mediterranean, Cook the Farm was a deep immersion into the world
of food, its meaning, magic and power. Although I've been home for two months now, I am still processing and absorbing the incredible richness that is Sicily: her food, her people, her heartbreakingly beautiful landscape.
Milking sheep - harder than it looks!
It's a experience that has forever left
its impression on me. Sicily really has stolen my heart.
As I've absorbed this experience, I've begun to capture some of it in a new
blog, Duck and Cake Travels. Please take a visit, and share in my journey. I'll be using Duck and Cake Travels to chronicle both more of my Sicilian
sojourn and also use it as a travel diary of sorts. I'll be linking to it here,
or you can subscribe directly to get updates as they appear.
September, 2015: We had just come back from dinner at Pujol, in Mexico City,
and were sitting in our hotel room, talking food. And service. And writers who write about
food. In the past few weeks there had
been two scathing indictments about “fine dining”. One, an Op-Ed in the New York Times, was a
thinly veiled account of Eleven Madison Park, as told through the eyes of a
former employee; the other, in Harper’s
magazine, a biting lashing of three Michelin starred restaurants in New York,
including, yes, Eleven Madison Park.
In “Dinner and Deception,” the NYT Op-Ed, the writer
confessed that “serving elaborate meals
to the super-rich left me feeling empty.”
The Harper’s writer was even
more pointed about her EMP meal: “It is weaponized food, food tortured and
contorted beyond what is reasonable; food taken to its illogical conclusion;
food not to feed yourself but to thwart other people.”
Really?
Had the art, the science, the magic of inventive cuisine
been reduced to weapons to be fed to the super-rich?
It was a depressing thought.
We were on our quest to eat at the world’s 25 best, not because we were
super-rich, not because we wanted to approach each meal like a battlefield, but
because we really believed that what is being created in these restaurants is
its own kind of singular evolution, an art form, newly elevated, that deserves
to be celebrated and experienced.
It got us thinking and talking. About the evolution of food; about the nature
of service and the theatre of dining; about food writers and whether this is
all still relevant. Here’s part of that
conversation.
*********************
It’s like the pigments
that Van Gogh was sent and used.
What do you mean he was sent the pigments? I don’t know this
story.
His paint supplier had
these new yellow pigments and Van Gogh was so taken by these pigments; every
time he mixed them he had new colours – colours that didn’t exist before. So he did this whole series – all of these
sunflowers – and they’re all experiments – they’re worth millions of dollars
today – but they were just experiments. And each new painting opened another
door not only for him but generations after.
So what does that have to do with food?
Well, it’s exactly the
same thing. You’re taking ingredients and you’re decomposing them, you’re
recomposing them, you’re taking them a step further – it’s evolution. Rene Redzepi, Escoffier, The French Laundry,
Thomas Keller. He influenced a ton of other chefs that didn’t necessarily go on
to open French Laundry-like restaurants.
But it just evolved and the key to humanity is evolution – without
evolution the planet stands still and we die.
What I’m really beginning to understand about these restaurants
is how much theatre there is, performance art.
There’s definitely a style of service at all of them and in some cases
you and I have observed there’s such a degree of formality…it’s not what I
would call a fun dining experience. What about that?
There’s something to
be said about tradition. There’s a proper way of showcasing, of putting the
spotlight on what this is all about and in this case it’s food. So they’re
honouring the food because really - what if it was just thrown at you?
What about this other thing we’ve experienced where the
server is the intermediary between you and the food, between you and the
chef. The reality is whether it’s a 3
Michelin star restaurant…
…or your local pub
Yeah, exactly – well, you’re usually not meeting the person who’s
making the food. So the server is the face of the food, the face of the
chef. What happens when you don’t
connect with the server or when the service is perfunctory or they’re just reading
their script? Because frankly, they’ve said the same thing …”be careful the
plate is hot”…they’ve said that a hundred times tonight, so how can they get
excited about it and then how do they make a connection with you, the diner?
That’s almost
irrelevant. It’s like walking into an
art gallery. What if you don’t connect
with the art…
Let me interrupt you here because you are shown the art the
way the artist created it. You talked
about Van Gogh earlier? When I see his Sunflowers
or his Starry Night or a self-portrait,
I see it the way he imagined it. Now, in
a restaurant I see the food the way the chef imagined it but there’s someone
who’s an interpreter for the chef.
Unlike the artist or the painting where it’s left to my
imagination. So the skill of the server
is really important, for me anyway, because I want that server to tell me the
story behind the dish, to care about it as much as the chef did when they
created it.
When you stand next to
a painting and the gallery owner comes explains to you the history of the
artist, or the technique that they’ve used and all of the sudden you see a
completely different painting than you originally saw…
I think we’re saying the same thing. What I’m talking about
is when that server doesn’t have that skill or the passion or the…
But that’s what I’m
saying too. If the gallery owner doesn’t answer your question or answers your
question so that you absolutely don’t understand what he or she is talking
about, you’re on your own. The
connection you’re craving is almost irrelevant; it will never be a perfect
experience. Somebody eating tonight at Pujol probably had a bad experience, and
that’s unavoidable. Someone here at the
hotel may not have a good experience because they don’t like this kind of
architecture, the room décor, whatever.
Are you saying that we’re taking this all too seriously?
Not you and I, or
certainly not me…
I think I’m taking it too seriously.
Perhaps.
And there’s absolutely
nothing wrong with that. It reminds me of those articles we were talking
about. What is the point of these
articles? They’re not constructive at all and at the bottom of it they’re
trying to stop evolution.
Explain to me what you mean by that.
From what they’re
saying, questioning the importance …
Or belittling it.
Yeah. It’s like
questioning Andy Warhol’s relevance in the history of art.
Well that’s a good example because there’s people who would
maybe say he’s not really a “serious” artist.
Yet he’s had such a
huge influence on other generations after him. He’s completely opened a door
that was not even open before. I question these kinds of articles. What is the
point? That these restaurants are irrelevant?
I don’t know if they’re saying they’re irrelevant. It’s about
that they’re too self-important, that they take themselves too seriously, that
everything about them, from the style of service to the price that you’re
paying, to the ambiance, the list of ingredients is oh so overwrought that it
can drive you crazy.
Doesn't have to be highbrow to make it on to Instagram, as long as it's food
You know what I think it is, frankly? It is absolutely a
moment in time. I mean, food has never
been more popular. I think the
underlying thing behind this obsession that we have with food is an analog reaction,
actually, to everything else that’s around us. The fact that we’re on our
phones all the time. The fact that technology has inserted itself fully into
our lives. When we eat we can’t do anything but take the fork and put it in our
mouth. That is a tactile experience. It is immediate. We’re trying to
photograph it or Instagram it, or do whatever to it but that moment exists in
the here and now. And I think there is this underlying or maybe now overt
desire for people to connect with something real. And food is perhaps become
the object of that.
And that’s another
layer of the onion. If it’s important for someone to go to a restaurant just
because it’s on their bucket list – so what? Some women will buy an Hermes bag
because they know that it took a hundred hours for some craftsman to make and
that woman appreciates that, where at the other end of the spectrum there’s a
woman who buys it because it’s a fricking Hermes bag and it’s worth $20,000 and
that’s her motivation. But who cares?
I mean food is the topic de jour and I’m actually surprised that this food trend has gone on as long as it has. We had these supermodels, which we never had before, and all of the sudden we have these super chefs, which we’ve never had before.
I’m sure that chefs are wishing they could say that they
don’t get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day
I think you’re on to
something when you say it’s a way for us to reconnect – and I
don’t mean to sound clichéd – reconnect with the world, with our earth…Because
these fricking phones – we drop them, oh well; we lose them, oh well. A new one
comes out, we throw out the old one. But food - it does feed our souls, it’s a
social gathering. All this social media
has sucked the social – funny that it’s called social media because it’s
anything but social – it has eliminated our need to really interact with people
that we care about. Your phone doesn’t do that; it doesn’t provide you with
that. But food…when you sit down with another person - whether it’s your spouse
or your child or your best friend or a group of colleagues – it’s an experience
that no technology has replaced – none. So perhaps that’s why it’s even more
important today than ever before.
When I see chefs like
Grant Atchaz at Alinea...whether I appreciate the food or not, whether I think
it’s worth the money or not, just the brain behind it, the science behind it,
the creativity behind it…how I can produce X or Y, what can I do with this
orange? These writers who are writing these articles – you’re actually
telling me that you would kibosh what these people are doing? I come back
to Van Gogh’s pigments – that all of the sudden he could do a 100 shades of
yellow when in the past, a week before, he could only do twelve shades of
yellow.
A journalist is to
determine that we should only have the equivalent of twelve shades of yellow? How ridiculous is
that…how limiting is that? Because we’ve had some amazing meals not spending
hundreds or thousands of dollars for them.
You know, you almost
have to break it down the way Miranda [Priestley in The Devil Wears Prada] –
does - that’s her name, right? The
number of people employed. It’s a business, it’s not just one person’s little
fanciful thing. It’s not about a $500
dinner. How many people are in that kitchen? How many people does it
employ? All the artisans that make the plates that perhaps somebody ends up
buying – what about that? And how many people who work in the kitchen end up
going and opening their own restaurants?
And then they employ people…it’s huge! It’s not that one meal. It’s not
that green sweater or whatever she’s talking about.
**************************
And then we finished our wine, and realised we had stayed up way later than intended. But just before we went to bed, we watched that great monologue from The Devil Wears Prada one more time.
Yes food, like fashion, is at its heart a business, as Miranda says; it's also still magic, still mystery, still theatre and genius. "Weaponized food, food tortured and contorted beyond what is reasonable"? That's eating without imagination and a willingness to be whisked away on the chef's journey, wherever it may take you.
Next up: putting on a show at Eleven Madison Park
NB to our readers: Yes, we are still continuing on our quest! Eleven restaurants down, 14 to go. While we're way behind in posting about our adventures, please visit back soon to continue reading about where in the world Liz and Rich have dined next.
It took me all my life to learn how to salt a tomato
Chef Eric Ripert
T.S Eliot may have thought
that April was the cruelest month, but I’m guessing he never visited New York
City in February. Short dreary days; snow and slush at every step; a damp
that can seep into your bones and settle in to stay until the spring thaw. But there are ways to make
even a New York February weekend transcend the elements. Take one opera,
two stellar restaurants, three days and four fabulous friends, stir, season
liberally with laugher and healthy helping of libations and you have it: our
next adventure in our quest to eat at the top 25 World’s Best restaurants (you can read about that here).
New York is
that miracle of a place – so many not just good but really great restaurants
that your head can spin trying to decide where to eat. Luckily our options
were pre-determined: of all those restaurants, Michelin stars, Zagat rankings
and NYT four star reviews notwithstanding, only two were on the “list”: Eleven
Madison Park and Le Bernardin.
The weekend was going to be
hectic. I was flying in from Shanghai on Thursday night, and meeting up with
Richard, Silvia and Jeff at the hotel. We’d grab a late dinner
somewhere. Lunch at Le Bernardin on Friday, Carmen at the Met on
Friday night, Eleven Madison on Saturday night. In between, squeezing as
much out of New York as we could, weather and energy permitting.
Friday dawned brisk and
crisp. Coffee for breakfast and barely much more…we wanted to be ready to
savour our lunch at Le Bernardin. A luxury indeed: the whole afternoon
ahead of us, a rare treat to have a gourmet meal on a weekday. The restaurant is tucked
away on 51st Street between 6th and 7th, the sign subtle, easy to walk by and
miss. Once inside, however, the atmosphere could not be more welcoming.
Le Bernardin is a soothing, beautiful clubby space with old school glamour and
sophisticated details. Gleaming wood in a rich coffered ceiling, a
silvery wall lit from below that has the shimmery effect of gently lapping
waves, artfully arranged cherry blossoms towering over delicate orchids, all
exuding a Zen-like calm and a measured cadence.
Chef Eric Ripert, he of the
silver hair and dazzling smile, has been at the helm of Le Bernardin since the
age of 28. Within a year, the New York Times gave the restaurant four stars, an
honour it has maintained in the 20 years since, repeating the feat four times.
A man of seemingly singular focus, Monsieur Ripert is that rare celebrity chef
– one who is still cooking in the kitchen. He's also a Buddhist, and perhaps it is that which seems
to create an air of complete serenity at Le Bernardin.
We opt for the eight course
Chef’s Tasting menu. As with Arpege, the singular focus on a family of
ingredients creates a special kind of mastery. Here, seafood is the star.
Subtlety shapes every dish, delicate flesh translucent and raw, or perfectly
cooked with a restrained sauce that lets the sea shine through.
And so begins the meal.
A crudo
of bay scallops and sea urchin done ceviche style with a Granny Smith apple
and Meyer lemon vinaigrette
Warm king fish sashimi, generously topped with
Osetra caviar and
finished with a light mariniere broth
Sautéed langoustine, topped with a perfect shave of black truffle and sprinkled
chanterelle mushrooms, unexpectedly paired with an aged balsamic
vinaigrette
White tuna and Kobe beef, with fresh kimchi, Asian pear and a soy-lemon emulsion
As the meal progresses, we notice a
prevailing theme of earth and sea; whether in the use of the black truffle or
chanterelles, the umami flavours complement but never overshadow their oceanic
plate mates.
With the arrival of each
dish, there is a reverent pause and then a collective groan of approval from
the four of us. Around us the restaurant is full, the steady hum and laughter
of diners well satisfied. So deeply are we into the meal and our lively
conversation that Richard’s sudden refrain “There he is” “There he is”
“THERE HE IS”, said in an increasingly loud and urgent whisper, take the three
of us a few minutes to register. And indeed, there he is, the Chef
himself, making his way quietly to the captain’s station, and then, impossibly,
towards our table, stopping for a brief gracious moment to say hello.
Our friend Silvia is never
at a loss for words. But as Chef Ripert quietly shook our hands, and we
thanked him for a wonderful meal, she could only nod silently in assent.
At such times the moment crystallises and becomes perfect, a memory captured
that is fleeting but never forgotten. Words become irrelevant when the gift of
a great food experience is this good. It seems only fitting that the final dessert is distinctly Canadian in
character: a maple candy cap cremeux with huckleberry confit.
The
captain approaches our table, asking if perhaps we would like to see the
kitchen? Bien sur! Lunch service has wound down and the
kitchen team is busy preparing for the evening's onslaught, each stainless
steel surface wiped clean and gleaming. Although Chef Ripert is not in
the kitchen, that same air of watchful calmness prevails and we can imagine
that even at the height of service, there are no raised voices or crashing
plates.
If we had to sum up this, our second in a list of 25 world class meals, all
of us agree that there are three words that spring to mind to describe it:
subtle, sophisticated and refined, executed with an intense concentration and
precision. I'm thinking it's the same precision that led Chef Ripert to
learn how to salt that tomato perfectly. Two down, 23 to go. If Arpege and Le Bernardin were numbers 25 and 23
on the list respectively, how great could good get?
Stay tuned for more...
Elizabeth and Richard
Next up: A Big Apple showstopper
Eric Ripert's Fish Fumet (Fish Stock)
from the Le Bernardin Cookbook
Makes 3 cups
I suspect a whole ocean of fish fumet has flowed through the kitchen at
Le Bernardin. This recipe, like everything at Le Bernardin, is
simple and delicious.
2 lbs. heads and bones from black bass, red snapper or halibut
2 tbsp corn oil
1 medium onion, peeled and very thinly sliced
1 leek, very thinly sliced
15 white peppercorns
½ tsp fine sea salt
1 sprig fresh Italian parsley
1 bay leaf
1 c dry white wine
3 c water
1. Remove the gills and the
eyes from the fish heads or have your fishmonger do this for you.. Cut the
heads and bones across into 4-inch pieces. In a shallow pan filled with cold
water, add the heads and bones. Cover, and let stand for 1 hour, changing the
water twice.
2. In a large stockpot set over
medium heat, add corn oil, onions, fennel, leeks, peppercorns, salt, parsley,
and bay leaf. Reduce the heat to medium low, and cook until the vegetables are
soft but not browned, about 4 minutes.
3. Transfer heads and bones from
water to the stockpot; discard water. Stir periodically until bones and flesh
around bones turn from translucent to white, about 12 minutes.
4. Add the wine and 3 cups of
water; bring to a boil over high heat. Boil fumet 10 minutes, skimming off the
foam as it rises to the top. Remove from heat; let rest for 10 minutes.
5. Strain the fumet through a
fine-mesh sieve or chinois, pressing firmly on the solids to extract as much of
the flavourful liquid as possible. If you have more than 3 cups of fumet, place
the liquid in a clean saucepan over high heat, and boil until it reduces to 3
cups. Store, tightly covered, in the refrigerator up to 3 days, or in the
freezer up to 2 months.
This blog started with a kitchen renovation that changed our house and our lives, and ended up being about my cooking adventures, musings about food, travel, Sunday dinners with great menus from sometimes wacky cookbooks, and ultimately how food unites and transforms us. Sit back, read on and stay awhile. There's a dish or story here for you, and plenty of room at the table.
I'm eternally curious, always adventurous and usually hungry. Roast Duck and a Big Gooey Cake allows me to share my passion for cooking, and for eating with friends and family. It's liberally spiced with musings about local flavours, unusual ingredients, travel, wacky and wonderful cookbooks, and the joy that gathering around a feast can bring.
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