Maroc - NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 11/Aug 09:28

Marriage. Food. Passion.

We ate for almost three hours straight. There was some talk, but that mostly came from the caterer, who described not only the food but his travels, home, assorted cultures, the inconvenience of chairs, serving times, cooking times and hurricanes. And through it all, we ate. One of the boys is getting married. Here, a “boy” refers to any one of the male offspring produced by the siblings. Same for “girl” – except they indicate girls. We have a half-dozen of each. While we own they were birthed by specific women and sired by specific men, we genuinely feel – “feel” is such a fraught word – they are communal children. Tragically, that means for the dozen grandchildren issuing from the line of my parents, exactly what it meant for me: more mothers than you know what to do with. But back to marathon eating and marriage. One of the boys has got it into his head to be wed. And true to form for this one, it feels dangerously close to last-minute. Not the idea of marriage but the planning. And equally familiar is the sense that all are panicking but he. But. Unlike most of his life, this time he won’t be able to call his parents, hand on heart (like he always did), semester after semester to say it was all his fault, he didn’t study and he was going to fail everything (which he never did). No. This time, even if there’s no wedding, he’ll have to suck it up, because we really like his intended and we’re keeping her and sending him to her family. Weddings involve decorations and entertainment and those things you give to guests and a whole heap of things beyond my understanding. Then there is food. And of food, I understand a great deal. This explains why this is the only part in which I’m involved. I care about food because it’s the only thing everyone is likely to be interested in. Surely no one ever hung their hopes for a rollicking reception based on the centrepieces. When I used to write about food as a real job, I loved it. Possibly because it made sense to me. Now, I’ll take just about any lowly job that makes me feel I’m back in the game. Even a taste-testing. Because I can do all the things I learned to do when I was teaching myself how to be a discerning food writer. I can compare flavours and try to see how they match (or don’t) other things on the menu. I can work out if the textures on a plate are too samey, or if everything tastes like rosemary, no matter the name or nature of the dish. Here I am, child-not-of-my-womb, I stand between the politeness of your other relatives and a bland meal at which, mysteriously, everything appears tinged with pink. I brought palate cleansers and digestive aids for all. While the others trembled at the thought of another sample (because who’s listening to me or sharing 25 years of experience? – am I bothered? I’m not bothered) I was just getting started. It was a wonderful gustatory voyage. The food was lovely, but that’s not what did it for me. I was where I wanted to be: tasting, deconstructing, pairing, silently noting outrageous suggestions, thinking of the guests and what they’d want. I was in my elephant, as we say in my circle. It’s like being in your element but with longer memory and the ability to stomp. Sometimes when you’re doing something that’s important to you, it’s all too easy to forget you were or are passionate about other things. That’s where the Cat’s Father comes in (not like that, ye salacious swine). With the column more than half-done and me thinking about missing food writing, he brings me a gift: Vir Sanghvi’s Rude Food. The Cat’s Father must have looked everywhere for this. It’s a second-hand copy and looks like the last owner was a three-year old with a love of pencils. It was a sign from all the gods. Anything I say will sound like spin, but Sanghvi really is hard-hitting and possibly even more award-winning. He wrote about food early in his career – before the politics, terrible things and more politics – and he always came back to food. He was not doing anything new in the world of food writing when he started reviewing restaurants. He was, however, doing something unheard of – indeed, unthinkable – in the Indian papers. He was being independent. It’s always hardest at home. But some of us still live in places where that’s what matters most. The post  Marriage. Food. Passion. appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.