Food and Paris will always be linked for me.  I have never tasted butter quite like the butter in France.  In fact, I have never tasted ANYTHING quite like the food in France.  Period.  It seems there, the goal is not “Homestyle” portions but rather intense flavor. 

I mourn the loss of distinctly regional foods and even seasonal foods.  The ability to grow food year round has lessened the experience for me.   

Fall once meant apples and harvest.  Human experience was organized and celebrated the arrival of the harvest.  It certainly no longer is in the civilized world.  For us, food today arrives pre-packaged in plastic and Styrofoam.  Easier of course. But at a price.

A few generations before me, it was commonplace to raise or hunt the animal before you slaughtered it.  

The loss of this direct connection to what we eat is a fundamental loss of an understanding of who we are. 

Of course none of this has anything to do with a birthday cake but it was the only picture I had of me with food.