Friday 24 August 2012

A DAY OF PERFECT MEALS


In the evenings we stand in the kitchen. Me by the oven, at the hob, standing with one foot flat on the floor, the other crossed over it, on tip-toes. Chris at the worktop, making our sandwiches for the next day - salami, cheese, salad, cornichons, mustard, Dijon for me, English for him. The sun setting, the sky turning from blue to pink, then getting darker and darker. Last night we listened to Spilled Milk, as we often do, and, while I made pasta with bacon, peas, parsley and parmesan, Molly and Matthew talked about their day of perfect meals. When the episode finished we tried to decide what our perfect food day would be. It's tricky, you start with one thing and then you remember a sandwich you used to eat, the breakfast roll from an Edinburgh cafe long since closed, a plate of freshly caught scallops, rotisserie chicken and crisps on a roadside in France. So what would my day of perfect meals look like? It would be something like this.

Early Bird granola with milk and a New Orleans style iced coffee from Blue Bottle for breakfast.

Spicy squid and grilled pork bún from Song Que with a watermelon agua fresca from La Superior for lunch. 

A nata and an iced coffee from Fernandez & Wells as a snack.

A white pie from Delancey for dinner with a bottle of the Bandol rosé that we drank with lunch at Petersham Nurseries on my 29th birthday.  

And for pudding? A scoop of chocolate ice-cream that I ate in Paris in 2003. It was from a small place on the Left Bank, Rue de la Bucherie maybe? It's closed now but is still the best chocolate ice-cream I have ever tasted. And with it, because that perfect food day definitely needs two scoops of ice-cream, a scoop of the mint ice-cream that we ate at Marlow & Sons in 2011.

I considered custard doughnuts from St John, gozleme from Stoke Newington, and lobster rolls from Maine but I guess the thing about the perfect food day is that it is bound to change, reflecting the tastes you have right now, in this moment, influenced by where you are, what you want from a day. And this food day, rich with memories of meals eaten alone and with friends, sounds pretty much perfect to me.  

5 comments:

Jess said...

Love this, Gemma, especially that last paragraph. I need to give this some thought, but off the top of my head: one of Brandon's pies is on my list, too (the crimini), and a scoop of Graeter's chocolate chip from my home town in Ohio, and toast with apricot preserves from Hi-Rise bakery, down the block. And some kind of fish, maybe. Will have to think about what. Happy weekend, to you.

Alicia Foodycat said...

My breakfast would have to be chakchouka and hummus with spicy lamb mince, and turkish toast with za'atar from Mint in Surrey Hills. But after that breakfast there is no more room for food in a day!

BF said...

what a great post! I will need about 3 weeks to think of my perfect day of meals...

Molly said...

I love this so much, Gemma! Wish we could meet for a white pie this week. xo

charlotte said...

I, too, love this.
Brilliant post, G.x