An Email to Patricia....Thought I'd Share...

I'm having one of those weeks... thank you for the laughs.

Cooking is my.... well, my salvation and my perdition... If I don't cook, I don't breathe... but it's an art too, you know? It's not the science of the same exact plate every single day to me... it's a means of expression... if I can dream the combination and make it happen... and sometimes I don't get to do that as often as I'd like.

It's high-pressure and high-heat and there's a little sado-masochism in it, really, you have to like the ability to give and take real violence... because somewhere there's this golden moment like tonight when I took the crumbled bits from last week's chocolate biscotti that I saved for no good reason and start dreaming about Valencia mochas I drank seven years ago... and end up with the best ice cream ever.

It's a temporary pleasure, because ice cream is not a work of art that will be hung on the wall for a hundred years to come, nor a statue that will adorn a courtyard until it is worn away by time... it will be gone in a week and I will be forced to create some new sensation from other old crumbs... and that's a challenge I can and will rise to.

That's my melodramatic monologue for the evening. How're you? Glad to be home? Enjoying your long lunches? I hope so. Is the tour guide thing gonna pan out? Or is it Portland?

Have fun. (Everyone in New Orleans always says "Be safe." so I make it a point to say, "Have fun". Because the two are not always the same.... and one may have to take priority over the other...)

-amelia