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"One of the great joys of wine is picking the wrong bottle and having it turn out even better than the right one. The surprise, the unexpected, the serendipity, the new experience—these for me are among the most euphoric moments wine can provide."
― Eric Asimov from "How to Love Wine: A Memoir and Manifesto"
I have no idea how to eat.
Maybe I was born knowing - but I remember being so young when I forgot. Instead a mix of secret eating, fast eating, eating without tasting and not eating make up the last twenty years of my life.
I have tried to learn how to eat well.
I have tried to learn how to eat perfectly.
I have tried to learn how to eat clean.
I have tried to learn how to eat structured.
I have tried to learn how to eat less.
In my life -food was to be feared and managed. Food had control of me, my worth, my attractiveness (and thus my value) and my sense of whether or not I was doing well or not.
Oh sometimes it could be delicious - but that was always served with a side of guilt.
Isabel Foxen Duke, the amazing eating coach, writes in a piece called How Not To Eat Chocolate Cake.:
“Let yourself have chocolate cake, and sit the f*** down. Enjoy, savor and for God’s sake,
CHEW! If I were you, not only would I sit my ass in a chair but I would put that warm, chewy,
chocolate goodness on a really attractive dish and maybe garnish it with some berries, or
whipped cream like it was the QUEEN of all the cakes in the land. Why would you waste such a
treat eating so fast you barely remember it happened? ”
I thought this type of eating was only for the super skinny, the super disciplined or just those better than me.
I would watch Top Chef and Cupcake Wars and dream about enjoying food the way people on the shows could. My envy tinged with a bitterness that wondered how they didn't understand that food - like weight - was about management and not enjoyment.
There is no room for surprise in management. There is no room for desire or connection. Everything is tinged in shades of shame.
Things are changing. Therapy helps. The hard work of remembering every day that I want to be friends with food helps. Resilience helps.
But more than anything - tasting helps.
Many people make the jump from food to wine - but in tasting wine - I am finding my way back to food.
Tasting is adventurous and conversational.
The question is not whether or not something is good or bad. Those words don't apply.
It encourages curiosity and not judgement. It asks you to look at this one thing - this sip or this bite and ignore every other bite you have had or the larger ideas of FOOD and WINE.
Tasting asks
what is happening here? What do you find? How do you feel?
Tasting asks you to listen and converse with this one thing - made and created, living and fleeting.
This bite is different than the next. This wine in this one vintage won't taste the same next year. There is something precious and special and true about this if you take the time to taste it.
Tasting is about your experience, your interaction with the wine or with the meal. You are invited to participate in something else - in the work of other's and the magic of the year that brought these ingredients.
Good and bad have no dominion here. We are not even judging or rating - we are just exploring.
It is an embodied experience - one of sensory pleasure and engagement. Smelling, tasting, savoring, remembering the flavors, imagining the land it comes from.
It is not scanning the menu for the one taste you like or finding the one thing on the menu with the least amount of calories.
It is not staying entrenched in panic as you chomp guiltily.
It is letting yourself be led by pleasure and adventure and the joy that comes with letting things be interesting.
As I write this - I am eating an egg, avocado and sprout sandwich that I would have doused in hot sauce or salsa or even ketchup before - just to have one taste I like. I don't want to make the food easier anymore. I want to meet it on it's own terms and experience it.
It is vegetal and seedy. It tastes earthy and there is not one touch of sweetness.
It is telling me something and I trust myself to listen.
This is the next level - feeding curiosity. Savoring the differences, the dissapointments and the delights that each plate and glass can offer. Coming to the table as a willing participant in the magic of a meal. Giving myself permission for pleasure and complexity in this trickier and multi-terrained life.
This is my hope :
Sip by sip and bite by bite - I want to taste what this world and our creativity have to offer with the full knowledge that this journey is my adventure, my sustenance and my delight.