I don’t believe in internet memes! No! No! No!
Except when I do. Jenna has tagged me. And because I have practiced with her, watched her cradle a cup of coffee (gently, like an epicure), and even eaten off her plate, I will give her whatever she asks. Which is just as well, because today I was going to spend lunchtime writing something really critical about Yogaworks’ nasty new race and class exclusion strategy. Lucky for YW, the vegetables win.
Here’s Jenna’s original epicurean take on this set of questions, and below are mine. Now back to my lunch, which is a large kale-spinach-broccoli-red cabbage-cucumber salad with hemp seeds, almonds, vinegar and oil, plus a thinly sliced gala apple with a little flax oil and an owl-teapot full of genmaicha green.
1. What food do you consider the best “date” food? In other words, what meal or food item do you think is sexiest to eat in the company of someone you would like to look sexy around?
Nevermind about me. Or about sexiness, seeing as how I’ve been on one date in my entire life (in 1997 a football player named Tad took me to Aladdin one Friday after I closed the store where I worked throughout high school: his Drakar Noir nearly suffocated me there in his battered Camry, and things just went downhill from there… as some of you know).
What I like is to observe is how someone relates to a drink that comes in a rounded glass or mug. Tea, coffee, cognac, brandy, wine. And how they eat food that comes in morsels—tapas of any kind.
But the most interesting is when someone first offers me a bite of anything they're eating, brings me food, shares a sip of their drink. How that is done, from what angle, the feeling it expresses, and how good it tastes.
2. What well-known person would you like to share a meal with?
Jon Stewart. Rebecca Solnit. Michele Bachelet. Arundhati Roy. John Coetzee. George Monbiot. Pema Chodron. Eric Hobsbawm. Bjork. Daniel and Juliet Schor. Thomas Pynchon. The Riverbend blogger. A.S. Byatt. Karen Armstrong. Errol Morris. Michael Ignatieff. Daniel Kahneman. Umberto Eco. &c.
3. What does your perfect breakfast-in-bed look like? (Food AND the details, please. Candles? Music? Flowers?)
Post-practice salt is a breakfast delicacy. Don’t ask me to elaborate.
Otherwise, small pieces of fresh apple, pear, cantaloupe, blueberry, almond and cashew butters, fresh coconut, and a very light, slightly aromatic jasmine tea.
Plus an ocean breeze and a footrub with sweet almond or coconut oil.
4. What do you consider the best application of whipped cream to be?
Obviously.
5. Oh-God-No, Biff, the yacht is sinking! You are sent to the galley to retrieve the food. What luxury food items do you snatch first? The champagne? The caviar?
Leave the bacon, it’ll attract sharks! All I care about is the vegetables. The following will make me happy to stay around on a desert island for quite some time (especially since much chopping provides something to do). Lacinato kale, black kale, red kale, red cabbage, napa cabbage, broccoli, broccoli rabe, cauliflower, bok choy, tiny zucchini, Japanese cucumber, acorn squash, pumpkins, baby spinach, arugula, snow peas, portobellos, artichokes. If there’s still space, I’d toss in the best cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil, hemp and flax oils, loose green, GT’s kombucha (may as well succumb), 73% dark chocolate, pomegranates, apples, watermelons, lemons, coconuts, almonds, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, pinot noir, club soda, green Andalucia olives, cinnamon, pure vanilla, cayenne.
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