I Want a Man Who Can Cook Me This

squash and corn soup with saffron infused oil from The Silverspoon

When life sucks, soup can be the most comforting remedy. Warm, creamy and nourishing soups always feed me in a way that no other food can. Recently life has been throwing me some major curve balls Chinese iron torture balls directly at my head and so I've been eating lots of soup. And reading lots of Tear Soup too (thank you Aly!) Over the weekend my dad and I went to the Silverspoon Cafe and I ordered the squash and corn soup prepared with condensed milk (for sweetness), a dash of nutmeg and cinnamon and a drizzle of saffron-infused oil. After one warm, silky spoonful I wanted to go into the kitchen and kiss the chef. I wanted to thank him and tell him that my heart hadn't felt that much love in so long. I wanted him to know that his attention and care for one dish singlehandedly made one girl feel the most happy she had felt in months. Often times we forget how nourishing food can be for us. Sometimes I think of food as evil, "guilty" and I tend to have a love/hate relationship with it. But when someone prepares a meal with such awareness and attention to detail, the food becomes magically infused with something greater than its material or caloric or even nutritional value - it becomes love itself. And there is no better way to show love and care for someone - or for the self - than through careful and loving attentiveness to the act of preparing and eating food. It is the most elemental and sacred activity we have.  Our relationship with food is a pathway to discovering our relationship with ourselves - and, as always, our relationship with ourselves is the most fascinating and rewarding of all.