A Cook's Tour: In Search of the Perfect Meal

I’d hoped that all that would come rushing back when I slurped down one of Dominique and Jérôme’s finest. I knew I was trying too hard. I knew I was forcing things.

The combination of sugar, chocolate, hot dough, and grease is the perfect breakfast for a borderline alcoholic.

Those New York delis with the giant salad bars where all the health-conscious office workers go for their light, sensible lunches? You’re eating more bacteria than the guy standing outside eating mystery meat on a stick.

Context and memory play powerful roles in all the truly great meals in one’s life. I mean, let’s face it: When you’re eating simple barbecue under a palm tree, and you feel sand between your toes, samba music is playing softly in the background, waves are lapping at the shore a few yards off, a gentle breeze is cooling the sweat on the back of your

I wanted adventures. I wanted to go up the Nung River to the heart of darkness in Cambodia. I wanted to ride out into a desert on camelback, sand and dunes in every direction, eat whole roasted lamb with my fingers. I wanted to kick snow off my boots in a Mafiya nightclub in Russia. I wanted to play with automatic weapons in Phnom Penh, recapture t

I hadn’t, I realized, returned to France, to this beach, my old town, for the oysters. It wasn’t the fish soup, or the saucisson, or the pain raisin. It wasn’t to see a house in which strangers now lived, or to climb a dune, or to find a perfect meal. I’d come to find my father. And he wasn’t there.

I find myself looking for any diversion, anything to take my mind off the nicotine yen: Focus on the snoring human compost heap across the narrow aisle, pretend that if I stare hard enough, he’ll explode.

I’d been looking to hook into the main vein on this stretch of my around-the-world adventure. I’d thought everything would be instant magic. That the food would taste better because of all my memories. That I’d be happier. That I would change, or somehow be as I once was. But you can never be ten years old again – or even truly feel like ten years

We may have lost the war. We may have pointlessly bombed and mined and assassinated and defoliated before slinking away as if it were all a terrible misunderstanding – but, goddamn it, we can still drink as good as these guys, right?