Gravity

My grandmother’s body was sturdy and solid. When, as a small child, I drove my head into her belly, arms aloft to clasp at her waist, I felt no broken lines, no fissures, no gaps. There was comfort in her density and warmth in the weight that anchored her to the tiled floor of her minute apartment. A short woman, a few inches under five feet, she was dwarfed by the incongruously stately height of the ceilings hovering above her, but her silhouette in the darkness of an unlit corridor filled the threshold of her kitchen. She stood there guarding her lentil stew, lamb chops or soupy rice with clams in her checked white and grey shirt, and tweed skirt, t-towel dangling from her waistband, scrubbed faced and blunt bob barely visible in the shadows. She called me “niña” and she whispered family stories as food bubbled under the lid of her pot. She was a figure at the threshold for me: she connected the unknown past with the present, she made me travel back in time, she gave me the gift of memory.

Her hands told another story: slender, elegant and long-fingered, they were her one concession to art and air. I admired them as she fanned herself in sweltering summer nights and imagined them flying over the keys of the piano she played as a young woman before the death of her father took away the modest family fortune that may have secured music stayed in her life. With those same hands she wrote letters to the women she had left behind in her personal diaspora: cousins steeped in the religious fervour of a whitewashed village in the South; friends bathed in the rainy melancholy of Galicia veiled in rain. Her handwriting was fluent and patrician and betrayed no effort. My own was spidery and belaboured: it took me a long time to be promoted to using a pen instead of a pencil, as the stringent requirements of my pre-schooling required a neatness that was beyond the reach of my compromised dexterity. I imagined the loops of her hand on the paper as the variegated paths of friendship. Watching her I learnt to keep friends close to your chest at all times, to cherish friendship above all else.

In my early twenties I came to Ireland and never went back to Madrid permanently. I became one of her correspondents: her letters followed me around my perambulations in Dublin as I was forced once more to uproot and move to yet another ramshackle house in the inner city. At first they had the airy elegance of the writing hand I knew so well when she wrote to her friends in my presence when I was a child. As the years went by, however, the rest of her body started to match their evanescence and I could feel her spirit thin out on the lines on the paper: a “t” breaking and separating from an “a”; the shattered loop of an “o”; a steady incline on the line; the much fainter touch of the nib of the pen on her signature. Her body began to break like the signs on the page until she stopped writing and my own body became the one that anchored us both when we embraced.

That old chestnut

You want to be somebody else. You are cycling through the city, it is dark but not late and gentle dregs of humanity cross your path as you head towards the canal on your bike. You don’t want to be somebody else because you are unhappy with who you are: who you are is evanescent; who you are has flown into ether in good company and fine spirits. You are so confident in who you are that you could shed it like a tunic made of silk: you could drop your whoyouaredness as easily, knowing that it would still be there in a few hours for you to pick it up and lightly put it back on.

You want to be somebody else. Specifically you want to be a couple in their late fifties walking down Leeson Street with their arms wrapped around each other’s waist. You want to be him as much as you want to be her, as much as you want to be both simultaneously. You want their ease and warmth, of course. You very much want to find out where it comes from: whether it has been earned through a steady life together, or whether it has dropped from the sky like an unforeseen catastrophe. You want to know whether they are holding each other to prop each other up or not to sink deeper. You even want to wear their indistinct high street clothing all greys and blacks and earthy browns; all really not caring for or expecting any fresh eyes to fall on their bodies.

And then, with the subtle autumn chill that tiptoes the edges of the canal, as you leave them behind, you realise that what you want is a shadow of what you had once: as a child holding your mother’s hand; as a teenager lost in the pages of a novel; as a newly wed believing in some endless wedding waltz. It is autumn and what you want to become tastes like a chestnut: earthy and hard to get to. And it has the flavour of a chestnut–the flavour of a welcome winter.

An emotional encyclopaedia of food: heartbreak

1. Heartbreak: the pit of the oesophagus contracts to the size of a small weather beaten Roman coin; the head of a blind worm; a slit on dried up muddy earth. Food is an invading army that cannot break through the gates of your fortress. From the top of your tower you watch it advance knowing it will be repelled, your senses cannot be ravaged.

Hell, yeah!

The person who eats with you most evenings. The person that pushes your trolley at the supermarket. The person who can pick food from your plate without asking for permission. The person whose food you can take without embarrassment. The person who helps you clean your fridge. The person who peeled the spuds for dinner. The person who grates cheese because you hate doing it. The person who takes the heavy shopping bags out of the car. The person who ate the roast you cooked even though it was dry and a bit burnt. The person who made a complicated family recipe just for you. The person who stacks the plates wrong in the dishwasher. The person who knows how you like your coffee. The person who never cooks with an ingredient you cannot stomach even though they love it. The person who peers over the Sunday supplement as you have your breakfast, smiles, nods, and says nothing. The person who will go out to get you a proper sandwich because the ones in the machine in the waiting area at the hospital are manky. The person who will hold your chin and open your mouth and feed you when you are old and weak and almost broken. The person who nourishes you.

Your friend. Your lover. Your girlfriend. Your boyfriend. Your husband. Your wife. Your future wife. Your future husband. Your family. Whoever you are, whomever you love.

Yes to marriage equality in Ireland.

Don’t change a thing, darling

Call me contrary but I don’t give a hoot about New Year resolutions: at best they smack of that unfoundedly optimistic practice called reinvention so beloved of Anglo-Protestant cultures; at worst, they seem designed to keep consumption afloat during the January slump. For professional and personal reasons I won’t go into, the year for me begins in September and it smells of the freshly pared pencils and cocoa that I associate with my time in primary school. By temperament I am fond of idleness and undisciplined, easily derailed towards any plan involving vibrant but aimless human interaction. I prefer keeping what works samey and improving through spontaneous encounters with new people and new ideas. If something does not work my experience is that it will eventually self-destruct. Please put away self-help books, gym memberships, fitness regimes, nutritional advice, and spiritual gurus.

So sorry, folks, look elsewhere if you want advice on the way to kick start a healthy diet, or the best ten restaurants to try in 2015. I am here to celebrate the spirit of judicious stasis and spontaneous change through some of the most enjoyable (food and drink related) things that I did in 2014 and intend to keep doing in 2015 plus the occasional unplanned change of heart leading to a more heightened enjoyment of life (again food and drink wise).

1. Having coffee with someone you love (and love talking to) every week: one hour, any place where the coffee is half decent. Don’t go out of your way to find the best beans or best ambience. Don’t forget the reason why you are having the cup of coffee is the person you are conversing with.

2. Giving a flavour or texture you detested as a child a try. I don’t like molluscs and I had never had an oyster until last summer when I had one in Carlingford. It was fresh, silky, briny and tangy, it slid down my throat like a juicy secret. Don’t plan to do this, let it happen when it happens. Otherwise it will feel like an obligation, like your mummy is insisting you give those peas a go one more time.

3. Flowers in the kitchen and in general the spirit-enhancing practice of juxtaposing the practical and the aesthetic.

4. Setting the table to have dinner with a friend at least once a week. Ritual is an important part of culture and sanity. Gentlemen in particular, take note: the decline of civilization starts with a single man eating tuna directly out of a can.

5. Eating roasted almonds by the fistful: nevermind what anybody says about calories. Nature would not make something that tastes so good bad for you.

6. Not commenting on other people’s eating habits or choices: I don’t care if someone is morbidly obese, unless you are paying the insurance premiums on their health plan, what they put in their mouths is no business of yours. Ladies in particular, take note: redirect your attention and efforts to worthier causes than policing fellow females. The road to equality and excellence is still too long to waste your intelligence on the girth of other women’s waistbands.

7. Talking to strangers in bars with no ulterior motives: I don’t want to score, I don’t want a free drink, and I am not networking. I am just another performer in this big circus, like you.

8. Going to restaurants where the waiter cares so much about the produce that he runs to the kitchen and thrusts a tomato in front of your face to show you how ripe it is. That kind of synergy between producer, kitchen and server spells out “good dinner”.

9. Keeping a bottle of port in the house and having a little tipple now and then with a good book or a good film. No comment necessary.

10. Celebrating New Years Eve with my family and being excited about the twelve grapes at midnight in spite of my disdain for New Year celebrations and resolutions. What the hell, happy 2015 to everyone!

15 things I like about food and do dare to ask for

1. Leftovers. Thrifty, effortless, flavoursome. Take aways, move over.

2. Salted butter. A love affair that started when I tried it for the first time on a crunchy bread roll in a restaurant in Gran Canaria when I was four. We’re still going strong.

3. Food that tastes better when you grab it with your hands: peeling a grilled prawn oozing olive oil; holding a charcoal drenched lamb chop by the bone; dangling a slice of iberico ham before dropping it slowly on your tongue. Put your fork down now.

4. Stealing food from your lover’s plate: an eloquent sign of intimacy.

5. Aperitifs and digestifs. Superfluous and hence a sign of gastronomic civility. The perfect pair of brackets for a meal.

6. After dinner conversation at the dinner table. Leaning across, doubling over with laughter, picking morsels of left overs, listening, eagerly interrupting, pouring yourself another glass of wine. Please don’t move me to the couch just yet.

7. Eating barefoot: at home or al fresco. Nothing says I’m on holiday more clearly.

8. The right (unexpected and unasked for) tapa. Cesar Montes’ bar in Lavapies, sadly closed now, used to get tapas bang on right. Delicious canapés free of charge served with an earthy quip and a broad smile.

9. Dining on Guinness: the only drink that can replace a three course meal. A sturdy broth, smokey main, and creamy desert in one. Order peanuts if you like but you won’t need much more.

10. Carnivores who make good imaginative vegetarian fare. Vegetarians who go to the deli and buy some quality cold cuts for their meat eating friends. The definition of hospitality.

11. 70% + dark chocolate. Going back to milk chocolate would be like listening to Garth Brooks when you could have Johnny Cash. Unthinkable.

12. Restaurants that can do cooking, wine, service and ambience. Peerless theatre. There are far less than you’d think and they are not all the most expensive. Here’s to hardworking people in a very tough business.

13. Gnawing the last bit of cheese off the rind like it was the end of the world and you were the last rodent.

14. Olives: I am convinced all food issues would be resolved if children grew up eating olives as a treat. They are the best way to educate a palate into the subtleties and complexities of food: tart, sour, salty, briny, oily, pulpy and filled with a stone that you can move around your mouth. Olives are the stark opposite of all the sugary processed crap taking our reptilian brains hostage.

15. A Brandy Alexander: the only cocktail I know that can be served as desert. Cream, brandy, creme de cacao, and cinnamon. And surprisingly inspiring too. Go to Cafe Barbieri if you want to have it in the perfect setting.

The party is over

The party is over. It lasted for days. It lasted so long your bones still rattle to the drums. It was so loud your housemate, the pill-popping Beastie Boys-headbanging piece of work,  had to sleep in his girlfriend’s car across the street. You took the right drugs and fucked the wrong man. You crossed the line of tired with your eyes open and your limbs loose. The world was sharp for hours and now it’s dull and smeared like the splash of vomit on the bathroom wall.

The party is over: there is no music and no strangers you can love with all your heart.

Look around you to see the faces of those who stayed behind to rinse up glasses, mop the floor and gently wake up the interloper on your couch. They are now your family.

You are how you eat (5): a gentle man

He has a sweet tooth but measure, will power and intelligence too. I call round to his in good and bad times, bring a cupcake, a gingerman, a viennese finger: we slice them in half, we always share. He drinks tea, suits his subtlety and gentleness. I drink coffee for the punch, the bitter kick offset by cream and sugar. We laugh. We’ve been laughing together for 20 years.

Like the best confectionery he makes life better, lighter.

You are how you eat (4): the straight shooters

On Saturday two close friends invited me to lunch. There was no missing the love when I sat at their table: a heart-warming homemade all vegetable miso stew; delicious fishcakes made from scratch; a selection of Spanish and French cheese; good Rioja wine and triple distilled very rare Irish whisky to put some fire in my belly. These friends often invite me for lunch and they invariably treat me with kindness and warmth. If you allow me to be sentimental for a moment, I would say that they open their home and their heart to me. I sit by their fire and while the hours away in their company, there’s always a good anecdote or two, we laugh, they listen, we share. They always give a lot and ask for nothing in return. And a big chunk of the love is delivered through food as sound and nourishing as our friendship.

Celluloid Bites (4): Blue Is the Warmest Color

Rome, 1^st century BC, a slave, topless and barelegged, stands knee deep in a bath behind his master who is sitting with his back to him, completely naked. The light lathers their bodies in a bronze that compliments their tan complexions. Addressing his slave, the master proceeds to interrogate him about his habits and morals, does he lie? Does he steal? Has he ever dishonoured the gods? To all of these question the slave replies no. The questions are a form of foreplay, a series of appetizers preparing the ground for the main course, “Do you eat oysters?” the master asks; to which the slave replies that he does whenever he can. “Do you eat snails?” the master continues. “No, master.” The young slave replies. “Do you consider the eating of oysters to be moral, and the eating of snails to be immoral?” Thus runs one of the most explicitly coded homoerotic encounters in the history of cinema courtesy of Stanley Kubrick’s direction, Dalton Trumbo’s script, and Laurence Olivier and Tony Curtis’s performances in, you guessed it, Spartacus.

Abdellatif Kechiche fishes in similar waters in his provocative, intense and explicitly homoerotic Blue Is the Warmest Color by having the assured artist Emma tease her young and more inexperienced lover Adèle about the latter’s dislike of oysters, which Emma relishes both literally and as coded female genitalia. In the scene, the two leads are lying on the grass side by side, fully dressed, so absorbed in each other they may as well be an island slowly drifting away under the sun. Delight and a subtle flash of embarrassment cross Adèle Exarchopoulos face in yet another of the myriad close ups that constitute Kechiche’s film. It may not be the film’s subtlest moment, coming in the wake of Trumbo’s daring defiance of 1950s scruples but, the universe of adoration and intimacy in the young actress’s lovely face will touch anybody lucky enough to have experienced requited love. By the end of the scene Adèle is ready to enter the threshold of a new world that will devour her and spit her out forever transformed. She is now ready to taste oysters.

However invested in his lesbian love story (and invested he is), Kechiche’s film is ultimately a character study; a sort of sentimental education for a young working class woman who begins the film wading the troubling waters of her sexual awakening and finishes it almost drowning in them. Blue Is the Warmest Color is a long film, running at almost three hours, and it is exhausting in its uncompromising refusal to breathe for air as it inhabits young Adèle’s development; in that sense, it is utterly novelistic and Kechiche acknowledges that his protagonist must be measured not only in terms of an inner consciousness that is beginning to assert itself, but also against a milieu that is at odds with her passion and, as Kubrick would have it, her taste. For that reason, Kechiche has found in his oysters not just a metaphor for sex between women but also a class signifier, which he deftly uses in a scene that brings the young women for dinner to Emma’s house. Emma’s mother and her partner are bohemian, comfortably off but-unshowy in their tastes; they buy art and display it on the walls, they are discerning and adventurous in their search of white wine, they know Emma is gay and they receive Adèle with open arms and a batch of fresh oysters. The scene is lit in subdued muted gold reminiscent of candlelight; Emma’s mother, warm but inquisitive, tries to disguise her incomprehension about Adèle’s modest and pragmatic ambition to become a primary school teacher. Adèle overcomes her scruples and swallows the oysters that used to disgust her. She has crossed the line that separates her from the worldlier Emma, even if momentarily.

Kechiche sustains his use of food as a class signifier in a mirror dinner scene staged in Adèle’s house. Here Emma is not a lover, but a friend helping Adèle improve her results in Philosophy. Oysters are not on the menu, spaghetti Bolognese –a male and working class coded dish in cinema (not incidentally is it frequently on the menu in Mafia films heavily invested in depictions of masculinity)– have been cooked by Adèle’s father. In this environment, where earning one’s crust is paramount, Emma’s metier is questioned as impractical. She, like Adèle before her, is willing to enter her lover’s world on its own terms, adopting a heterosexual mask and toning down her bohemian streak to please her girlfriend’s parents. Léa Seydoux smiles as she absorbs the spaghetti that run under the charming gap between her teeth. She is more knowing than Adèle and it shows on her face. Kechiche once again proves that he is a great director of character: action and expression meet through the consumption of food. Dinner tables have always been pregnant with silenced truths in classic drama and this scene is a fine addition to that tradition.

Elsewhere Kechiche and co-script writer Ghalia Lacroix prove that it is impossible to write about love without writing about food. I won’t tell you any more. Go see the film and have some food before you sit down for its three-hour run. Be careful not to overeat though: Blue Is the Warmest Color proves that oysters can be far more (ful)filling than spaghetti.