It's about the people

Food's about the people.

True, food's good for keeping us going, giving us the physical sustenance to live. And it brings us some of the finest fleeting sensory pleasures, through decadent tastes on our tongues and enticing smells tickling our nostrils.

But I love food because it binds us together as communities, big and small, and creates indelible memories that can be triggered by the slightest taste, smell, sight, or thought. Gathering in a St. Louis kitchen with an old friend, trying time after time with only limited success to get the bread dough from Mom's recipe to rise, but then remembering that recipe, the one for those peanut butter treats from third grade, and making those instead! Picking peaches in the Virginia countryside, and returning home to make pie after pie, and gallons of peach ice cream, because we may have gotten a little overzealous and picked a few too many ('cause they're so good!). Joining the crowd in the kitchen to make sandwiches and bake brownies for the annual fundraiser that introduces Louisianians to New York deli. Going back time and again to that French restaurant in Tokyo, the one where the chef knows us, and gives us little tastes of everything (oh, that pear tart) (and teaches us some Japanese -- skoshi -- along the way)! And picking oranges in the Florida sun, the sticky sweetness as I sample each kind dripping down my arms, but the next morning declining the fresh-squeezed OJ made special for me because I don't like all that pulp.

Food's about the people. And the memories. Happy birthday, Grandpa. I miss you.