Sometimes delicious food and love can just bowl you over, knock you down.
Once, back when we went on what I would call “dates,” Gus took me to Lupa, one of Mario Batali's restaurants. He knew the pasta would win me over. Really he could have taken me to IHOP and I would have been happy.
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I was just thinking about middle school. The oversized LL Bean backpack that I insisted on wearing on one shoulder despite the threat of scoliosis. Braces that made me look so unattractive (the perm didn’t help) that one popular boy, who barely spoke to me otherwise, was moved enough to tell me how much better I looked the day they were removed. He seemed utterly relieved on my behalf. Keds. Dirty white Keds.
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My friend Cate and I used to have a standing movie date every Sunday night. Ten years ago we lived in the same Brooklyn neighborhood, only a few blocks from each other, and the date was easy to keep. We didn’t call to confirm. We just called if we needed to cancel. Not much further planning was needed.
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Remember when people got fancy for travel? Not early-1900’s-voyages-on-grand-ocean-liners fancy. I'm thinking early-80's fancy. When we were kids, my family would get plenty gussied for a plane ride. I can remember pretty new dresses, shiny patent leather Mary Janes, and nicely brushed hair. Traveling was a pleasure and a privilege and my family dressed the part. Let me tell you, wearing tights on the 14-hour flight (plus layovers!) to Sri Lanka was a serious endeavor. They don't call them tights for nothing. My adult self can recognize the lunacy in the act, but the desire to dress nicely took over any consideration for comfort. I’m surprised that I could actually eat while flying (all that constriction!) but you know that I never missed a meal.
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My friend Cate and I have a recurring food theme. Anyone who knows us would probably guess it's noodles. We have eaten our fair share of noodles together. I don’t know if that’s because Cate loves them as much as I do or she’s just dear enough to eat them with me whenever I beg. (Which is often.) When she and I travelled back to China after a trip to the beach in Thailand, sweet Cate agreed to go directly from the airport to my favorite Beijing noodle shop - before even popping home for a quick refresh. We ran straight from plane to cab, with all of our heavy luggage in tow, and zipped to this tiny hole-in-the-wall spot all because I was craving a noodle fix. (Thank goodness noodles are my only addiction.) I still can’t really believe she agreed to do that. Dear friend. I still can’t really believe I asked her to.
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One day, on a visit to Sri Lanka in the 80's, my grandmother and I made a trip to town in a three-wheeler. After buying the spices and vegetables that she needed, grandmother took me to the sweet shop for a treat. I carefully weighed my options and then spent my saved rupees on some foil-wrapped toffees. You’d think I’d invested in golden bricks the way that I treasured them. When we got home, I gave everybody exactly one candy to cherish before I put the rest away for safekeeping. When I say safekeeping what I really mean is tied in a small baggie around my neck. That’s right. Just like some kind of candy-deprived maniac, I wore those toffees securely fastened around my little head. That’s how afraid I was that my precious sweets could be taken from me. Supposedly my mom has a picture of me fast asleep, candies safely secured at the end of a creepy string. Whoa. Whenever I hear this story, at the point at which I am the most ashamed of my ridiculous behavior, my sweet mom always chimes in with the fact that I did share them to begin with. As if that helps my case.
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I’m going to tell you the truth about this post. The tone was completely different the first time I wrote it. I was singing a completely different tune. You see, I was planning on telling you how I had come to the conclusion that all of those annoying rules about making jam at home were just for suckers. I was going to tell you that I had figured out how to make excellent jam by just trusting my heart and having fun. But then I realized that in this case my heart just couldn’t be trusted.
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Coconut has been enjoying some serious time in the spotlight these days
and I'm all for it. My parents were born in Sri Lanka, which is prime
coconut-eating territory. Coconut appears in some form in basically
every dish the island has to offer. Literally every one. Breakfast,
lunch, dinner, and dessert. Not to mention, the spoons are made of
coconut shells, the floor is cleaned with brooms made from coconut
fibers, the mats underfoot are woven coconut husks, the ubiquitous,
brutally strong liquor is fermented coconut sap, and if you’re my dapper
grandfather, your hair is slicked back with coconut oil.