heartbEAT

I wouldn't have guessed that it would be so difficult to write about the best meal I ever ate. After all, I have so many years of good meals to choose from, with some standing out above others. The problem is that food, for me, cannot be separated from occasion, setting, and companion(s).

Food is very social for me. Food is also very personal. I've been overweight almost all of my life and obese for nearly half of it. Only intermittently have I managed to lose enough pounds to break the lower bounds and spend a few months, a year, but not more, in a smaller state. You'd think that I love food, but I'm often bored by it and find it disappointing. I like to bake; I don't like to cook. The food that is memorable is linked to family gatherings, family celebrations, family mourning. Food is tied to security. When joblessness threatens, I lay in stocks of rice, beans, canned food, and more that overloads cabinets and overestimates expected need. Having food in the pantry means that no matter how broke we are--financially or emotionally--there will be food for family gatherings, celebrations, and mourning.

I avoid the truth about food. I underestimate calories, overestimate average portions, ignore unhealthy ingredients, eat too often and not often enough, and always, always try to make the most with the least. I suppose this last attribute comes from cooking a lot of food for a lot of years for a lot of people. Give me a big pot and basic ingredients, and I can feed a crowd.

The best meals I have ever had have been shared with others. For example:

• Candlelit Christmas Eve dinners with family. This is a tradition begun in Southeastern Idaho. The first Christmas there, I cooked homemade potato soup ala Idaho Russets and served sliced summer sausage, cheese, and crackers; pickles, olives, and pickled peppers; and chocolate mousse made with Grand Marnier for dessert. When we moved to Oregon, I added tortellini soup and olive crisp bread to the menu. Most of the family prefers this addition as a replacement for the potato soup. After all, potatoes had been a staple in our Idaho home. We were invited to dig potatoes from the edge of the field next to our house, my husband bought dehydrated potato products at cost from his company, and school lunches almost always included some form of potato. But I have one holdout against the vegetables that surround the tortellini, and for this family member, I cook potato soup.
• This weekend's stay at my son's home, where his wife cooked venison spätzle, brocolini, and kale for dinner one evening, and eggs benedict, strawberries, and fresh whipped cream. She's an excellent chef.
• Pit-barbecued beef at an end-of-Vacation Bible School celebration in Idaho.
• Sourdough bread, cheese, sausage, fruit, and wine at Lake Isabelle, Colorado, (near Ward) with my high school friend, Nancy.
  
• Indian tacos from a stand at a mustang auction, Wild Horse Corral, Burns, Oregon.
  
• A meal at an Indian restaurant in Tacoma, Bombay Bistro, where we celebrated a family member's gallery opening with nine different dishes, all excellent.
• Conch salad and guava nectar with my a daughter at the Straw Market in Nassau.
• Raviolis at an Italian restaurant in Glenwood Springs on my honeymoon in July 1972.
  
• Sushi at Shige's in Boise with friends.
• Fried prawns at a coastal restaurant in Oregon.
  
• And alone, escargot in pastry, baked sea bass, and carrot and green bean fingers in Bermuda.

It's all so complicated. Cheap cop-out, I know, but my "best meal" just can't be sorted out of my many years of eating memories.