The Reader Travels

I read Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate a few years after I’d seen the magical movie at the Inwood Theater in Dallas. I was trying to get a few years’ distance so I could read it untainted by memories of the images on the screen. I was not disappointed. While I loved the movie, the book was even better.

Each chapter starts with a recipe, which is interwoven into the romance of the story. The quail in rose petals ignites an intense passion in the dinner guests, and chopped onions bring a flood of tears. Reading this book opened my own mind about spice combinations I had not explored before. I discovered cinnamon with meats, when I had only ever considered it for breakfast or dessert.

Now I put cinnamon in my spaghetti sauce and chocolate in my chili, and it seems so natural to me now, even if my mother never taught these things to me in my formative years. And when my dear friend handed me a piece of bacon fudge a year ago, I was blown away at the maple and chocolate flavors that melded so divinely with the crispy, salty pork.

Here’s to passion and taste adventures.