Arts & Manners: Happiness Is Not a Warm Stove

I DON’T very much like to eat food I have cooked myself, not even the things I make for guests, let alone my family. My idea of heaven would be never having to set foot in a kitchen again as long as I live. Instead, I would take all my meals in a restaurant that would put in front of me a menu full of delicious surprises to choose from; I like at least one surprise every day. Not that it would have to be a fancy restaurant; indeed, I think with loathing of all the times I have been asked what is my favorite meal, or my favorite restaurant.

I’ve eaten fine meals in hovels. I remember driving on the back roads around Naples one time, having lost my way to Pompeii. Overcome by hunger, I stopped at a house to ask directions to the nearest restaurant. The inhabitants of the house were about to sit down at a table that was already set with bread, salt, pepper, and a few other accoutrements. They asked me, in the horrible dialect of the region, to stay and share their meal. Although the house was old and dirty I was very hungry, and so I accepted. I ate two plates filled to the brim with homemade fettuccine. The woman said she was too poor to buy pasta—that she had to make it herself every day, and without eggs and oil (“You know what I mean,” she said, nudging me), to keep her family fed at all. But I don’t think I ever enjoyed a plate of pasta as much. This convinces me that a most enjoyable meal can be eaten in truly miserable surroundings, if the circumstances are right. This is what I tell those who ask me for my idea of the perfect meal.

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Nika Hazelton

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I DON’T very much like to eat food I have cooked myself, not even the things I make for guests, let alone my family. My idea of heaven would be never having to set foot in a kitchen again as long as I live. Instead, I would take all my meals in a restaurant that would put in front of me a menu full of delicious surprises to choose from; I like at least one surprise every day. Not that it would have to be a fancy restaurant; indeed, I think with loathing of all the times I have been asked what is my favorite meal, or my favorite restaurant.

I’ve eaten fine meals in hovels. I remember driving on the back roads around Naples one time, having lost my way to Pompeii. Overcome by hunger, I stopped at a house to ask directions to the nearest restaurant. The inhabitants of the house were about to sit down at a table that was already set with bread, salt, pepper, and a few other accoutrements. They asked me, in the horrible dialect of the region, to stay and share their meal. Although the house was old and dirty I was very hungry, and so I accepted. I ate two plates filled to the brim with homemade fettuccine. The woman said she was too poor to buy pasta—that she had to make it herself every day, and without eggs and oil (“You know what I mean,” she said, nudging me), to keep her family fed at all. But I don’t think I ever enjoyed a plate of pasta as much. This convinces me that a most enjoyable meal can be eaten in truly miserable surroundings, if the circumstances are right. This is what I tell those who ask me for my idea of the perfect meal.