An inspired dish triggers taste bud and imagination alike. It captures history and heritage, expresses personality and perspective, and, most importantly, nourishes its audience. It’s a complete thought, a parable on a plate, something that satisfies and leaves you wanting more.
In other words, it is like a meaningful quote, because a well-rounded thought encompasses so much succinctly, and lingers in a protected, even sacred, place between inspiration and memory, right near the center of the chest.
Like inspiring Chef John Cox of Sierra Mar once told me about his food, “I want to tell a story.” That evokes a quote I came across this week from fantasy author Erin Morgenstern: “You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone’s soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows what they might do because of it. That is your role, your gift.”
I admire how chefs, orators and thinkers embrace and share that gift. That reverence toward reflection is part of what moves me to close each column with a thought, at the bottom of Quick Bites (see column, right). Here appear some closing quotes from 2014-15, each telling a tale with only a few words. Get a second helping of foodstuffs for thought on the blog, www.mcweekly.com/edible:
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• “A hotdog at the ballgame,” Humphrey Bogart said, “beats roast beef at the Ritz.”
• “Food for the body is not enough,” Dorothy Day said. “There must be food for the soul.”
• Marla Lewis: “We all laugh in the same language.”
• American author Rebecca Walker: “That’s what life is all about: showing up for the people you love, again and again, until you can’t show up anymore.”
• Pinocchio author Carlo Collodi: “Hunger is the best cook.”
• Helen Keller: “Life is either a great adventure or nothing.”
• Pope John Paul II: “The future starts today, not tomorrow.”
• Isaac Asimov: “The true delight is in the finding rather than in the knowing.”
• Teddy Roosevelt: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
• “Success is not final,” Winston Churchill said. “Failure is not fatal.”
• Kazuo Ishiguro: “There was another life that I might have had, but I am having this one.”
• Ralph Waldo Emerson: “What lies behind us and lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
• Joe Dirt: “Life is a garden. Dig it.”
• Emily Dickinson: “Tell all the truth, but tell it slant.”
• Tony Robbins: “Trade your expectations for appreciation and your whole world changes in an instant.”
• “It is not enough that we do our best,” Winston Churchill said. “Sometimes we must do what is required.”
• C.S. Lewis: “Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes but when you look back everything is different?”
• Eminem: “The truth is you don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. Life is a crazy ride. Nothing is guaranteed.”
• Henry Moore: “I think in terms of the day’s resolutions, not the year’s.”
• Albert Einstein: “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.”
• “Suffering,” said Allan Lokos, “relates to wanting things to be different from the way they are.”
• “When you are squeezed,” author Wayne Dyer says, “what comes out is what is inside.”
• “I am not a glutton,” Erma Bombeck said. “I am an explorer of food.”
• Niccolo Machiavelli: “Never was anything great achieved without danger.”
• “It’s so hard to forget pain, but it’s even harder to remember sweetness,” said Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk. “We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.”
• “Destroying rainforest for economic gain,” E.O. Wilson said, “is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.”
• “Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go,” Nido Qubein said. “They merely determine where you start.”
• “Food is universal,” James Beard said. “[It] breaks down barriers.”
• “Be kind,” Plato said, “for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
• Eleanor Roosevelt: “Do one thing every day that scares you.”
• “A good head and a good heart,” Nelson Mandela said, “are always a formidable combination.”
• “To be ready at any moment,” W.E.B. Du Bois said, “to give up what you are for what you might become.”
• “It has become appallingly obvious,” Albert Einstein said, “that our technology has exceeded our humanity.”
• “All great change in America,” Ronald Reagan once said, “begins at the dinner table.”
• “Sometimes the questions are complicated,” Dr. Seuss once said, “and the answers are simple.”
• “Life’s under no obligation,” Margaret Mitchell said, “to give us what we expect.”
• “Strive not to be a success,” Albert Einstein said, “but rather to be of value.”
• “What is the good of experience,” Frederick II said, “if you do not reflect?”
• Orson Welles: “If you want a happy ending, that depends on where you stop your story.”
QUICKBITES
➔ Folllow Alvarado Street Brewery is putting in a production facility and a big beer garden. More on the blog, www.mcweekly.com/edible.
➔ Happy Girl Kitchen celebrates five years in business and a shift from Blue Bottle to Four Barrel Coffee with free coffee 7:30am-3pm Friday, Oct. 2. Cider pressing party 9am-3pm Saturday Oct. 3.
➔Namaste India Bistro is about to open in the former Loose Noodle on Lighthouse in New Monterey. More on the blog, including a peek at the menu.
➔ The Monterey Beach Sportsfest at Del Monte Beach from early in the morning until early afternoon Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 3-4, is a beautiful thing, with volleyball, open-water swims, stand-up paddleboard races, sandcastle building competition and more. See p. 30.
➔ Pacific’s Edge has some new dishes from Exec Chef Chad Minton like a rib chop, lamb loin and zucchini carpaccio.
➔ Home of the best bacon waffle these taste buds have touched, Em Le, has closed after an expired lease and renewal beef with the landlords.
➔ Hahn Winery will be the latest to join the Carmel tasting room menagerie with a spot in Carmel Plaza to complement its River Road tasting space.
➔ Taste of Carmel pulls in 20+ restaurants and as many wineries and breweries Thursday, Oct. 1. See p. 26.
➔ Make It Sustainable Weekend happens Saturday and Sunday at Monterey Bay Aquarium, with celeb chefs, demos, tastings and a big party. More on p. 28.
➔ Oktoberfest hits this weekend too. See p. 29.
➔ Barmel (626-3400), with its underestimated food and top-dog dancefloor, can now stay open until 2am. Yee haw.
➔ Carmel Valley Ranch is hosting a celebration of the resort’s grape harvest from its very own 4-acre pinot noir vineyard with a special Harvest Weekend, Oct. 9-11. More at the CVR website.
➔ The Gilroy Garlic Festival Association announced distributions totaling $250,000 to 138 different charities and nonprofit organizations this year, and nearly $11 million for the life of the fest.
➔ Dejan Stojanovic: “Fly without wings; dream with open eyes; see in darkness.”