eat; mangia; come!!!

My dearest guests, 

Welcome to the eat portion of Eat Pray Love.  And welcome to my kitchen.  Tonight, you will be experiencing long grain wild rice with eastern spices, and zucchini, onion, summer squash and tofu pan fried with soy sauce and sesame seeds served by our amazing head chef. All of this will be complimented with "Team" Jacob's Creek Cabernet Sauvignon courtesy of my brother-in-law (thank you, <3 you), who added the "team" into the name of this delicioso wine seeing as I have been converted since the movies!! The vino will be served in my Tiffany and Co. glasses that I feel like a million dollars drinking from =), but really in all honesty weren't very expensive.  How I came upon these glasses is a long and semi-funny story for another time.

So, here I am with this amazing meal, which I normally do not cook for myself, but I feel as though I am cooking for all of you too.  So, I was inspired to cook tonight.  For me.  For you.  Mangia!  

I've been thinking about the notion of having a relationship with your food.  After all, cooking is passion.  Food is a very important part of your life.   It is nourishing the temple of your body with vitamins, anti-oxidants, iron, etc.  But, food is also allowing your lips and tongue the utmost pleasure of tastes, and spices, and memories--all packaged into one succulent bite.  In the perfect combination of sweet and salty your food can be divine ecstasy--it can increase your awareness, your emotions, your desire.  


And so my dearest friends . . . Tonight, I had a relationship with my dinner!!  

While I was eating. . . oatmeal chocolate walnut cookies were baking in the oven!! Courtesy of my mother's semi-homemade recipe--where one step in the directions is literally to take three fist-fulls of oatmeal haha!  Who needs measuring cups anyway!!!

Can I even tell you how much I love the words for eat.  Not so much the American word, it sounds kind of rough.  But, mangia... I think I love this word because it was often said to me as a child in the presence of the old Italian cooks in my family.  I espeically love the Spanish word for eat, which is "come."  You pronounce all of the letters, of course, so it actually sounds like co-m-A.  But, I love that in English you would pronounce this come, like come here, come and eat with me!!! 

come and eat and mangia!


Alla Salute,