26.When Food Is Love

“People who love food have something that will be precious to them all their lives” – Judith Jones

We are a family that collectively loves food.  From a young age, I could get both kids happily into their respective classrooms just by reminding them what they’d be having for lunch and/or dinner; the thought of the food to come somehow allowed them to trot happily away from me when the moment before they had been clinging to my leg.

Now that they’re older, I’m getting questions like “what are we having for dinner” . . . at six in the morning (part of the reason I love menu planning.  meals for the week are visible to all).  Now that they’re older, they’re also more curious about the food that they eat.  Where it comes from, how it gets cooked, and how to improve on the taste of things – which has resulted in multiple trips to our herb pots this summer.

And when you have a family that loves food so much, there’s no better way to show your love for each other than with food; food becomes the outward show of just how deep your love runs.

This week brought the Husband’s birthday . . . and excuse to shower him with all the food he loves best.  That meant pancakes, eggs, and bacon for breakfast.  And gorgeous ribeye steaks for dinner.  Oh . . . and there was also the cake . . . a Bobette and Belle stunner complete with edible gold.

And then tonight, a continuation of the celebrations, with dinner at Terroni.

Way back when, when the Husband and I first started dating, Terroni was right across from the condo where I lived, and where we later lived together.  We went there regularly on dates, often ducking out onto our balcony to see if the line up was too long (back then, there were no reservations) before heading across the street.

After a completely impromptu afternoon with the kids – a request for ice cream lead me to taking them to Dutch Dreams for the most ridiculous cones – a text from the Husband while we were there asking if we were going to come downtown lead me to taking them downtown . . . and to the CN Tower – which lead to us leaving downtown at 5:00 with nothing ready back at home for dinner.

So we did the obvious – we stopped at Terroni on the way home and had a spectacular dinner.  I honestly don’t think there’s anything better than explaining why you love certain tastes so much – for me, the mere smell of their Margherita pizza takes me right back to the early days of dating the Husband.  And I’m hoping, that as we share our food, and our memories with our kids, they in turn will have wonderful memories of our times together, and the food we ate together as a family.

As I was writing this post, I was reminded of the Judith Jones quote that I lead off with – I took this quote from a Food52 podcast that I listened to a few weeks ago – if you get a chance, and you even remotely are interested in food, listen to the two podcasts with Judith Jones.  You won’t be disappointed.

And on that note, I’m off to have a sliver more of that delicious cake leftover from last night!