Wine With Lunch

I didn’t sleep well last night for whatever reason and had to get up a bit earlier than usual to meet a friend for coffee. I came back to an email that meant well but touched some old hurts. So, I was cranky.  Last night I had picked up a book I started quite some time ago: An Everlasting Meal by Tamar Adler. It’s not so much a cookbook, although there are plenty of recipes, as a book about cooking and food. I was inspired. I cooked some brown rice. I put it in a bowl with some parmesan cheese and snipped in some fresh parsley. As I was enjoying it at my light-filled kitchen table, I thought “This reminds me of Italy.  And it calls for some wine – I can have some wine!” (I never had alcohol at lunch while working) So I included a (small) glass of inexpensive pinot grigio I had on hand for whatever.

And I happen to be reading the chapter on the balm of connecting with food and sense-memories when feeling resentful or otherwise out-of-sorts and the author includes this quote from Hemmingway:

As I ate the oyster with  strong tastes of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans

It wasn’t oysters on my plate, but I could totally relate.