a love letter to appreciating food
come with me to Cafe Tiramisu
i started watching the TV show The Bear on Hulu expecting a good show. i kept seeing it talked about on twitter and my friends kept asking me if i’d watched it yet because they think the main chef (Carmy) is hot. all i knew about it was that it showed the inner workings of a kitchen and that the two main characters are definitely not in love. as someone who goes through TV shows very slowly, i watched Season 1 in less than a week. Season 1 of The Bear is good. Season 2 of The Bear is great.
Episodes 3 and 4 of Season 2 show two characters, Sydney and Marcus—the chef de cuisine (head chef) and the pâtissier (pastry chef) respectively—in long dreamlike montages in which pretty much all they do is study food. they’re in different cities, chicago and copenhagen; they have different experience levels; they have different tastes and appreciate different things and although they both write their thoughts in notebooks with pens (and i think both blue pens?), you can tell that they approach their food experiences in different ways.
these montages broke me.
here were these people (fictional, sure, whatever) putting so much time and appreciation and care into noticing so much detail and developing their tastes and learning about possibilities and themselves in a subject that i purposefully have spent so much of my recent past deprioritizing.
my relationship with food is not simple. after a year or so of very disordered eating in my freshman and sophomore years of college, it took me a long time to eat without thinking myself into spirals about what’s entering my body. it didn’t help that my metabolism was fucked for quite a while due to my body going into starvation mode. this was obviously a problem, so to cope, i purposefully didn’t think too much about the food itself. i did what feels natural and if that was difficult, i forced myself to focus on other aspects of the experience. this mostly worked—i’m healthier now. i eat most days based on nutritional value. i don’t overly restrict myself of calories or ingredients and although occasional body image issues crop up, i move past them quicker.
but as i was watching those episodes of The Bear, i had such a sharp pang in my heart for what i may have been missing. i love appreciating things and i hated that a history of disordered eating didn’t let me do that to the full extent of what i was watching on screen.
don’t get me wrong, i’ve had countless amazing experiences surrounding food in the last many years. but literally none, zero, not one of them were about the food. they’re only ever etched into my mind as experiences near food with people or in places. i’ve had some very “nice” (read: expensive) meals too, tasting menus in San Francisco and Amsterdam and London but i do not remember the taste of a single thing that i had. what i do remember is what the environments were and who i was with and how they made me feel in the context of the rest of the days.
it’s not like food isn’t still a part of my life; one of my favorite things in the world is sharing food! i will always buy baby carrots for snacking over bigger carrots because they’re easier to share, just in case i have guests. i adore baking banana bread because i can cut a loaf up into slices and make a day out of delivering parcels to friends of mine around the city. every time i hear my sister has not tried a dish, i will jump to have that experience with her. i love cooking for people, keeping notes on my phone of their dietary restrictions and their likes and dislikes. and i love eating other people’s cooking, appreciating their effort and time and love and getting a window into their current obsessions or how their tastes were shaped by their life. my favorite food by the way is my mother’s spicy shrimp curry. because my mother enjoys making it for me.
and despite the history of disordered eating, i don’t have any foods i would say i “dislike.” i don’t believe in that. i do believe, however, that there are foods that every time i’ve had them so far, i didn’t like the food part of the experience. i like how this leaves the door open for me to try that food again another time in another place and have a story to tell. it took me 10 times trying oysters before i had an experience with oysters i liked and i’m so glad i stuck it out because i get to be grateful to my friend Jenny who i was with. to be clear, i remember absolutely nothing about the oysters themselves. all i remember is that Jenny was there with me, and that it was a momentous occasion.
but i think watching those episodes of The Bear made me ready for a change. i think i’m ready for when the next time an occasion like “me enjoying my first oyster” happens, for me to feel comfortable remembering the food as well as who i’m with and the details of the room i’m in.
i understand that will take practice. so the rest of this will just be notes from a dinner i had recently. as you’ll read, i had a hard time focusing on just the food, but i see progress already!
8/1/2023 7:00 PM
Cafe Tiramisu w/ Isha
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Rossini
Bellini a la Fresca
Bluefin Tuna Tartare
Grouper
Tiramisu
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I came here 2 weeks ago and they refused to serve us if we were just getting desser
clams, jellyfish, squid, and octopu murals; fake frames painted onto the walls
Isha asked about apertifs and the owner was very curt in his response; previously I’ve seen him walking around saying hi to his regulars; I wonder what it takes to be his friend; he wasn’t really doing it this time
Rossini is strawberry (this is new to me) 2. Bellini is peach
I liked Rossini over Bellini
symmetric 8 dots of spicy mayo sauce
tuna 2 piece inside cannoli shells crunchy w/ avocado
sauce not that spicy; pine nuts; green onions; capers
owner asked if I was writing about how food the food is; his name is Giuseppe; he moved here 43 years ago when he came on vacation to visit his sister; was an architect for 1 year; started this place 33 years ago; the painting on the wall is w/ his partner from 25 years ago
grouper is fish; eggplant parm; on top of tomato sea urchin sauve; I liked the hardness of the parsley
fried parsley to top; fish is lightly cooked w/ black pepper on top; plate is very slippery
eggplant is a bit dry; I liked putting half the fish in my mouth; small bites weren’t giving me much
tiramisu is soft wafers, served on chocolate sauce with mint leaves; Isha and I ate it [the leaves]
owner cut up slice and served us halves
Isha said no flavor is overpowering; I don’t like when the wafers are too hard
owner said nice job when we finished
Isha noted the chandelier w/ grapes + pears
chiaroscuro pomegranate painting
his partner walked by; his white shirt has a rainbow collar and Isha thinks that it meant [he was his] romantic [as opposed to business] partner