"How easily a dinner can be a feast of friends, those pleasures you enjoy breath by breath."
In the past few years, I've gotten more and more interested in food. Between Top Chef and farmers' markets, growing my own garden and traveling, I have spent a lot of time thinking about food. Recently, I read The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry, which is where the above quote came from. The book is a tale of a journalist who decided to earn a diploma from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. For those not into foody stuff, Le Cordon Bleu is a famous cooking school. The Paris location is the oldest one, and it's also the location where Julia Child learned French cooking.
The book is a delightful read. It's also chock-full of good recipes, so I'm a bit sad to return it to the library (though, realistically, I probably won't have time for cooking any fancy French food in the next few months -- school is keeping me busy already!). The quote I started this post with reminds me of something an outdoor instructor used to say: you get to know people best when you break bread or break sweat. Food is both solitary and communal; food is an experience we can have anytime but that seems to go particularly well with good people. The author, Kathleen Flinn, does a wonderful job interweaving the story of her social experience in Paris with her time at Le Cordon Bleu.
If you're in search of a new read, definitely check it out!