I never officially learned how to cook. It was in my debut Paris apartment that I tasted my first avocado at the ripe age of 20, where I learned that salmon rillettes are most definitely not a health food as I once thought and that sharp knives are of utmost importance—not to be feared—when trying to debone a still-somewhat-feathered chicken.
It was in another Paris apartment many years later that a dear friend patiently (oh so patiently) walked me through her preferred methods of chopping parsley, who didn’t yell when I bought an entire tuna that needed to be filleted, or when I bought a lime that turned out to be a green orange.**
(That dear friend has a new cookbook that you can pore over here.)
Equipped with these Paris stories and the experiences of learning from so many people, from France to Syria to Chechnya to India, I arrived in New York a little more than a year ago. As I shook my sea legs, I sought a way to build a new home in New York with delicious food inspired by local delicacies, all while trying not to mourn my 1,15€ baguettes.
From this, my New York family was born, meeting for dinners that sometimes take hours to cook, but still often include Popeyes. These dinners are a convergence of travels, of exploration, and of a shared love of joining together around a table on Sunday evenings at the brink of a new week. And it certainly makes the Q when it’s running local worth it.
Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin once said, “The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of the human race than the discovery of a star.” These are stories of my urban family, our commensality, and our constant search for new culinary stars. It’s the stories of lives that intertwine beyond nuclear family life. This is a modern day love story, with many delicious dinners and cheese plates and bottles of wine along the way. Join me, won’t you?
*But really, who would have guessed that would even be possible?