Bon Appetit!
I must have forgotten the joy of pure silliness, because as I watched Julia Child come to life by the reincarnation that is Meryl Streep, I envied her for her ability to joke about herself, immerse herself in her love for food, cry when she feels like it and laughs when she wants to.
Why am I here, I suddenly asked myself at some point of the movie. Not out there kneading dough and peeling potatoes for a good stock, getting down and dirty in the jello-splash of butter, licking my fingers clean of the results of my latest experiment in the kitchen?
Today, I made pearls of syrup with some sodium alginate and calcium chloride from the Food Science lab. A very amiable TA was kind enough to feed my urge to burst into my first foray into molecular gastronomy (big word, huh), and sneaked some of those substances out of the lab for me. Plus a lab squirt bottle.
As I dripped the final potion into calcium chloride, drop by drop, little pearls began forming. I was wearing a magician hat and a chef jacket, a scientist's lab coat and an adventurer's lenses. I made a huge pearl the size of an egg yolk. I doodled noodles into the solution. Then I tried making little tadpoles.
Amy Adams said in the movie, there is a certain comfort in food. For there is some certainty in it. Even if the world outside crumbled, you've had a bad day, you will always get that same familiar kick in chocolate mousse or apple pie, or whatever food that you indulge in when the skies are dull. The hands of aromatic herbs or the wand of pungent spices can lift the veil on many of life's relevations, many of which herds the clouds away.
I must have forgotten the joy of pure silliness, because as I watched Julia Child come to life by the reincarnation that is Meryl Streep, I envied her for her ability to joke about herself, immerse herself in her love for food, cry when she feels like it and laughs when she wants to.
Why am I here, I suddenly asked myself at some point of the movie. Not out there kneading dough and peeling potatoes for a good stock, getting down and dirty in the jello-splash of butter, licking my fingers clean of the results of my latest experiment in the kitchen?
Today, I made pearls of syrup with some sodium alginate and calcium chloride from the Food Science lab. A very amiable TA was kind enough to feed my urge to burst into my first foray into molecular gastronomy (big word, huh), and sneaked some of those substances out of the lab for me. Plus a lab squirt bottle.
As I dripped the final potion into calcium chloride, drop by drop, little pearls began forming. I was wearing a magician hat and a chef jacket, a scientist's lab coat and an adventurer's lenses. I made a huge pearl the size of an egg yolk. I doodled noodles into the solution. Then I tried making little tadpoles.
Amy Adams said in the movie, there is a certain comfort in food. For there is some certainty in it. Even if the world outside crumbled, you've had a bad day, you will always get that same familiar kick in chocolate mousse or apple pie, or whatever food that you indulge in when the skies are dull. The hands of aromatic herbs or the wand of pungent spices can lift the veil on many of life's relevations, many of which herds the clouds away.