Bite by Bite: Nourishments and Jamborees

by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

For what is home if not the first place where you learn what does and does not nourish you? The first place you learn to sit still and slow down when someone offers you a bite to eat?

What we think about food is a portal into our own personal histories, ourselves—and most lovely of all, it’s a chance to deepen our connection with others.

Taking a holistic look into what we consume, we see how we are what we eat.

The lychee martini was cold and crisp, with a tart and light sweetness. It was the first time in my adulthood I heard the phrase “signature drink,” and that phrase signed itself in my heart.

I could go from being in a sea of small-town whiteness to another kind of family in the city, all of us tumbled and unattached in our twenties, but forming into gemstones I still treasure over two decades later.

Can I find any lasting solace in the color green? —“Mint Snowball,” Naomi Shihab Nye

Once you invite mint into your garden, it simply will not leave.

Mint will always mean mother for me, a doctor who kept things spotless and clean, and whose white lab coat and fancy dresses always smelled of Elizabeth Taylor’s Passion perfume—and mint.

There’s an old ritual of blowing a pinch of cinnamon from your hand while you stand in a doorway, ideally under a new moon or on the first of the month. You stand in the doorway and blow a small poof of it to conjure up abundance and prosperity for your house.

I may actually do this

What is it about scents that can make us stop in our tracks if we catch a whiff of them and bring us back to a moment we can return to again and again if need be?