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Burnt Ends: The Fast History of Low and Slow Life
He chewed, making a deep rumbling noise among the masticating before the actual word formed and escaped his still-in-motion mouth. “Glory.”
I came to food in a serious way rather late in life, already an adult, already in the process of traveling the world.
Living in Europe the first of two times hooked me into food as a blooming personal passion above just daily sustenance and something to be sought out when you crave certain things not available at a drive-thru window. Though surrounded by food growing up, and in a family and culture in which food was predominant, I never really bothered to learn to make it myself. That changed when I left the mountains of my origin and the familiar serving tables of Up Yonder and the regular rotation of food by my mother and the other cooks in my family. It gave way to an expanded world in which food needs to be sought out and explored further. From Texas to Germany, the Middle East to Las Vegas, from Southeast Asia to the Southeast of America, there are some things you only get to eat after finding them on life’s journey. Since those adventures are far flung and usually fleeting, the only way to revisit that experience is to start making those foods yourself.
