I love food.

I think about it a lot, and recently realized that so many of my important memories and “great moments” have been cemented in my head partly because of their association with my digestive system.

Not just those stolen moments with a bag of little chocolate donuts… of which there are many…..

but really significant and special moments.

Like being 4 years old. Kneeling on a chair in the kitchen as Grandma rolls out the dough to make noodles for her chicken soup. I can smell the flour, feel it spread over the cheesecloth she had covering the table; cool, smooth, whispery between my fingers, the dough soft and eggy. Grandma in her housedress, one of thousands it seemed. I can hear her voice talking to me, I can close my eyes and I am THERE. God, I miss her. And her soup.

My first trip to France, what else to do but literally eat my way through Paris?? We found the best gelato. Amazing. And it became necessary to stop and get more at that same gelato stand each day until we went home. I still pine for it, both the chocolate and the mango. It was too good for me to even try another flavor. Refreshing, yet somehow complex, like all things should be in Paris. We walked everywhere there, ate crepe’s from a street vendor (of course!), took a very long walk to the Sacre Coeur, and found a delightful candy shop along the way. Finished our walk eating from a bag of bulk candy and ended with an amazing view and black licorice breath.

Oh, there are the bad associations of course. Who could ever forget the flavor of mom’s steak teriyaki after tasting it at dinner…..and then repeatedly during the night as the entire family shared a delightful gastroenteritis. I won’t. I won’t ever forget that taste. And I will never eat it again. We always remember what that last meal was before our GI tract shifts into a hard reverse….

No photo necessary.

I think it must be true that when we really experience a moment using all of our senses, including taste,  that moment stays with us. Forever I hope… at least the good moments.