Saving Christmas

Against all odds, the Christmas I hoped never to remember has become one I will never forget.

I've lost track of days now. It’s slightly past midnight as I write so Christmas is officially over. I rolled the Christmas Spirit of the season into the last few hours of Dec 25^th. It came late but it came.

I've long loved the holidays. They begin in October for me and last through New Year’s. As I've grown older they've become more difficult. It began a few years back when I discovered my occupation meant I spent the holidays working. It was difficult at first but as the years have gone on, it’s gotten more and more upsetting. For me, the holidays are about spending and making memories with friends and family. Imagine my surprise when I discovered not only would I spend them this year at work but I would spend every one working overtime. I don’t know how many hours I've worked this week. Maybe 80. It’s all a blur to me now. All I knew is I would be living at work, out of a hotel room; my last shred of holiday cheer crushed when I discovered late Christmas Eve it would be spent at work, again, to be available to work even earlier the next morning while the roads were shut because of a major storm. I was inconsolable. I cried. Maybe because of stress or the long hours working hard, feeling more alone as each day wore on--I wept at being trapped in a world of cold snow. My director could see I was deeply discouraged and told me to stop whatever I was doing and go rest. So, I had a few hours to myself on Christmas Eve. I had a fireplace and a beautiful snowy wonderland outside my window. I was miserable. I was alone.

A few days earlier my sister and brother in law made the trek to my work to visit and they brought me a Christmas present. Knowing I was trapped there and not able to come to the annual Christmas Eve gathering, they came. It touched my heart and I kept their gift out as a reminder during my stay. I treasure nothing more than I treasure my family.

My friends are very near and dear to me. They have been a godsend more times than I can count. It’s been the last three years I've been lucky enough to find friends who have become family.  Tonight, a dear friend’s family was visiting as I showed up at their house, my car dead after my long absence. I had been dropped off by my brother who was kind enough to store it for me while I was working. As I walked in they all wished me a Merry Christmas and welcomed me with hugs and kind words. They didn't know at the moment, between the loneliness and the despair of missing the holidays, that to see a family together, welcoming me with open arms, was nothing short of a miracle. It saved Christmas.While I couldn't be home with my family, I had family to spend Christmas with.

Santa, I was told last night you were the Christmas spirit. I was sure you would miss me this year. Thank you for saving Christmas.

Movin' On

There was a song a few years back by Rascal Flatts called Movin’ On. I remember it vividly. I lived those lyrics, every one. The day I heard it on the radio, I left town.  

I sold what I could and packed what I couldn't

Stopped to fill up on my way out of town

I've loved like I should but lived like I shouldn't

I had to lose everything to find out

Maybe forgiveness will find me somewhere down this road

I moved to a new place and for about 6 months, life was one fantastic, exciting adventure to all but drown out my past. Until it fell apart and I moved again. Then the wind came whispering at my window and I moved on a whim. It turned out right and took me to another new place after. I got rid of most things I had collected through the years and kept only what I could fit in my small room. I sold my Jeep and began driving around my mom’s spare 1998 Mazda truck. My gutless wonder.  It was an effort in faith that if I could be free from all that binds me, I’d be happy one day. A true nomad. I haven't found the happiness I'm seeking. My job is highly stressful, long hours and keeps me away from friends and family. My time with them is precious and priceless, they are what matters. Work consumes my life. On the surface, it gets me status points I care less about. They aren't worth the price I've paid. I give them away, it’s the least I can do to repay my friends and family for all the times I am absent and half-crazed with stress. I thought a non-relationship might be the key. The freedom to simply be without the worry. Eventually, it found me and someone to fill the role. It came with an upsetting discovery: I couldn't stop myself, I'm utterly sold on Guy Freedom. Suddenly I realized my mom was right when she wrote to me this afternoon, “don’t be afraid to let go.”

To the sea of eyes in that great void that will never read this post--wish me luck. 

There comes a time in everyone's life

When all you can see are the years passing by

And I have made up my mind that those days are gone

I'm movin' on.

...All That Dreams

I have been woefully lacking these past few months at blogging. It could be I have run amuck with my thoughts, my lack of writing skill, or that I simply found myself busy and distracted. Truth? It’s: D. All the above.

There’s this nagging string somewhere in the back of my brain, towards the nape, that keeps being tugged. To whomever and whatever is on the other end of that string; my thoughts are still too murky to understand so I’ll do my best to write the bits I know. You'll be appeased for today, you nag. 

There’s something about humanity that compels me. “Compels? To what?” You ask. To understand. I can’t get enough of people. (Ironic statement from one who is an antisocial.) I love people. They fascinate me, they intrigue me, they constantly surprise me. I could pull out a thesaurus here... Mostly, I love what drives them. I love trying to understand <--- that. The aspect of 'Humanity.' I love to hear and witness the stories that comprise our lives. The stuff that makes us real and feeling and living. Over and over, the thought keeps popping into my head “all that dreams.”

Last I heard, the jury was out on whether (and which!) animals could dream. I do a lot of dreaming. I am proud of the dreams my brain can whip up. Even Christopher Nolan his'self couldn’t do better. Its lead me to think: what impact do our dreams have? Little font disclaimer: no personal research has gone into this question so it’s all very unofficial. I daydream, I dream at night, I dream of things to come. If there’s a dreaming, I do it. Frequently. It has had huge impact on my development.

Nagging string, I hear you! Here’s where I’m at: We all dream. I feel profound grief at this. My grief is because I have never, not once, realized even the simplest or the craziest or the hardest of us all is human in this way. We dream. These personal voyages through imagination and wonder are undertaken by the man on the corner I refuse to give change to, the disabled man I feel uncomfortable around, the ones who get under my skin and irritate, the friends I adore, the family I love, and the people I desperately hope to understand. I’ve missed a huge aspect of humanity.

One day I will revisit this idea once I’ve followed the string at my nape around my brain and back again. I'll wrap that idea in buckram and put it on the blogging shelf to be cataloged. My only hope is that it doesn't sit there gathering dust. 

10,000 hours

People. They are incredible. The most potent changes experienced are administered in the form of people. I have met a few who have affected change. I offer the last 30 days as proof. And so, after much thought, 10,000 hours found their way into my head. After an hour's worth of conversation, I have new challenge. My brain works in odd ways I still don't understand but once it catches something, it goes, propelled inexhaustibly forward by some magic my conscious self is unaware of. So now I'm going and we'll see where it leads in the end. In the meantime, I'll stop with the logic and read the page as I feel it, wherever it takes me, without trying to understand it. Then after awhile, I'll look at my findings and logic can tell me what I discovered. This is for you two who were there that night when something inside me clicked into place. I dedicate this to you, 10,000 hours from now.

"In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours."
--Malcom Gladwell. Outliers: The Story of Success

At Seventeen

The human experience as chronicled through music is like pairing air with lungs. It breathes life into the inhaling that feels.

I am largely unqualified to blog of music. I grew up listening to the Kingston Trio, Carpenters, Johnny Mathis, Peter, Paul & Mary, and classical music. I was nearly through high school before I switched from the oldies station on the radio to the pop station. At first, I didn’t even know which station to listen to. Music at my house was performed more than heard. My dad played Hawaiian on his pedal steel guitar, my siblings their band or jazz or MIDI music. So when I speak of music, it comes from a standpoint of feeling, rather than hearing.

Janice Ian is resonance.  I think of Tracy Chapman every time I hear her name and with it the following memory. It is significant for a reason.

I was a promising 21 year old. I spent a lot of time at a house, kiddie-corner from my parent's backyard, where there lived a group of guys. This was my first introduction to what being cool meant. (I still consider my acquaintance with them a crowning achievement.) Cool and popular aren't the same, many are popular but few of those are cool. I suspect it all comes down to whether you think you are elite or not. There were always people coming and going at that house, good conversation, music fests, movies, games, food and people to meet. My time there were my golden years.

Shortly after I took up semi-permanent residence at their house, a new guy moved in for the summer. He had his own place but wanted to mix up the social scene. He was nearly 30 if I recall, which to me back then was ooold. I couldn't resist being attracted to him. Maybe because he was elusive or “older” or just an incredibly awesome attractive guy who had passed the age of caring about being a twentysomething. I was intimidated by him and ipso facto extremely attracted. One afternoon after moving in he was sitting at his computer listening to music. It was the music that drew me over- he was listening to Tracy Chapman. As I listened to her most popular song, Fast Car, I felt, not heard, the music and it felt like Janis Ian. Months later, over a dinner downtown at CPK he asked me a question that changed the course of events in my life, my response began a spectacular love story with…another man. I have never forgotten how young I was then, how flattered I was, nor how naive and inexperienced about relationships I was. I often think back and wonder what would have been if I had answered differently. And now every time I hear that song I think of him.

At seventeen, I had never been asked out. I was never asked to a high school dance or had a secret admirer. I never knew of most the social events I wasn’t invited to. My friends ranged from the Navajo girl I had known since elementary school and wondered where she was half the semester to the student body president. I didn’t have any concept of social positioning other than what dreamed resided at the top. As all high school girls, high school is "real life" and I often felt swept aside by everyone because I blended into the background so well they forgot me. I sat at home most weekends listening to those oldies.

The sound of 70’s is music genius. Think about it. In one song you have Spanish guitar, smooth synth, trumpets, and jazz rhythms- for a folk song. At Seventeen spoke to my soul. Janis Ian and her contemporaries, Melanie, Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins (Send in the Clowns is still one of the best songs of all time) wrote about things that mattered. None of this music about partying and raising our glasses until we’re drunk- they were raw and meaningful. You could get lost in that music. You felt that music. Even if you were the beauty queen, you still felt the longing, the loss, and the pain of the 'simple girls like me'. You can’t listen to music like that without going on a journey. Those songs changed something about your humanity- you would come away understanding somehow-even if you couldn’t understand the meaning of the words. You sink into it, like an abyss when you listen.

The music we indentify with, those anthems of experience. Suddenly we have a tool and a way to express what’s within. We can pin ourselves to it and say we are not alone in how we feel.

A few days ago I went to the mall, a place I avoid like the plague unless the words Sephora or Nordstrom are above my head, but it was an emergency and I had only time for one stop. I was wearing a bright yellow t-shirt emblazoned with “Volunteer”, pink sweats and the homeliest mop of hair perched above an undone face. The effeminate man behind the counter stared at me in protest while his coworker resolutely slumped up to the counter to take my money. A few hours later I was at a photoshoot leaning against a wall modeling when a group of photogs walked by wildly snapping pictures. All the while played in my head:

“I leaned the truth at seventeen that love was meant for beauty queens
And high school girls with clear-skinned smiles who married young and then retired.
The valentines I never knew, the Friday night charades of youth were spent of one more beautiful.
 At seventeen I learned the truth.
And those of us with ravaged faces, lacking in the social graces, desperately remained at home, inventing lovers on the phone
Who called to say, "Come dance with me," and murmured vague obscenities.
It isn't all it seems at seventeen.”
-Janis Ian

Food!

I am a foodie. It often gets misinterpreted as a gourmet. Which I am definitely not. I am qualified to make that statement because I do know a number of gourmets. “Elite” is a four letter word in my vocab.

Why a foodie?

I’ve always loved food. A few years back I took a class on the anthropology of food and a class on osteology. Combining two things I absolutely love, anthropology and food, was magical. It set in motion a whole whirl of purpose. My blog’s mostly about these two topics. But here’s what happened to make a believer out of me:

Food rules the world. There aren’t many things bigger than food in the world. Most people don’t think about it. From an anthropological stand point, this is, well you can’t get much bigger of a topic to study.  Food customs, food beliefs, access to food, food in pop culture, food and ritual (myth, magic, and religion) - it is in everything. And it just keeps getting more popular by the day thanks to the media. Which, as all media does, exploits and promotes in one fell swoop.  

I know a lot about food and it surprises some people that I haven’t joined the vegan bandwagon or shop exclusively at upscale markets. Like I said, I’m a foodie. I’ve been to the slaughterhouse, seen the propaganda movies, visited dairies, food production warehouses, been to open markets, bartered for food from the supplier, seen an airport hanger full of produce and witnessed how its distribution is decided and had my moments where I vowed never to eat food I didn’t grow myself again. I do believe in slow food and I do have my milk delivered. Beyond that, I join the ranks of the informed consumer.  I’m addicted to food. In a strange twist of fate vegans and the like are non-existent in the ranks of gourmets and rare among foodies.

Outside of my food hobby, it is my profession. Originally, I thought the two might come into conflict with each other but they never have. I keep the two separate. I run a seven-figure revenue generating restaurant. It is humble and off the map and you wouldn’t think it’s so successful. It is wildly successful, more than a lot of popular restaurants locals are familiar with. It has gotten me and my chef on T.V. more than a few times.  My wait staff pulls in incomes only fine dining can compete with. Outside of this I run a few more successful ventures: a pizza shop, a coffee shop, a grill, and Utah’s largest outdoor festival, along with a smattering of other special events. So, I know a lot about the industry in these areas. Because of this position I hold, I have a lot of buying power. Through me, insane dollars in product and supplies are purchased. It gets me to a lot of places. What this has effectively done is to build my foodie hobby. Not many foodies have access to those resources.  Only people who revolve in my world know who I am and I like to keep it that way.

I’m not a great cook, but I try. It helps that I have plenty in the profession to mentor me. As a teetotaler in charge of the biggest drinking festival in Utah, I spend a fair amount of time learning about spirits, wines, and beer. This has made me a number of “friends” who want the freebies I get. A lot of people think it’s amusing, I think it’s just the fun part of my job.

So all this exposure has made a foodie out of me but once the stars aligned and anthropology came into the mix- it gave me purpose. I’ve discovered not many view food as a very interesting topic. I understand this is my world and also my bias so I try to keep it real and discuss other things. Next time I am dining with directors and head chefs, I’ll invite you and we’ll see how you feel then. It is a HUGE industry. I am a plebian on this ladder and one seriously lucky gal to have landed in the industry with no background. I still know relatively little and am fairly green.

Food runs as a theme through essentially every aspect of our lives, it’s a fundamental so a lot of the time it isn’t thought about by the average joe. Our food habits are very telling, telling about us, telling about our society, and telling about the world we live in. There are so many food phenomenons now that globalization has taken root for better and for worse.

 I love food dialects; that food “you can only get here.” Food is exactly like language in that way. You have different languages and dialects within it.  It is as broad as the world and as localized as your town. (There’s a great “only get here” taco stand downtown at the Sears on State.) The food on the east coast is different than the west and the food on the west side is different than the east side. I am multilingual in the language of food.

 Even more interestingly, not only does food have dialect, is has gender as well. I wrote an interesting article about men, meat and marriage and in the very next week an article about the cupcake bakery fad sweeping the nation. Very gendered. Food also has social status associated with it and heritage. Food is incredibly telling.

The next time you sit down to eat, consider what you are eating and why. You might just find out a little something about yourself and the world in which you live. And if ever you find food is becoming a hobby, join me, we’ll find a little café somewhere and chat. I’m always excited to meet people who I can discuss passions with. Food and people is the best entertainment, and the oldest, there is.

 "Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans....are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit."
--Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidental

American Beauty

I watched American Beauty for two reasons. 1. Rebellion. It was forbidden to watch so I did. 2. I have an obsession with Kevin Spacey. I didn’t understand most of the film at the time; after all, I was breaking the rules watching it for all the wrong reasons. I never forgot the dead bird. I identified with a morbid sense of beauty long before I enshrined it. (Tragedy!, dear readers who have always considered me an absurd reincarnation of Fido who caught a bright little ray of sunshine.)

A year ago as I drove home from church I saw a bird flailing in the gutter on the side of the road after being hit. I couldn’t let it die in the gutter so I pulled over and removed my sweater to pick up the sickeningly car-beaten bird and move it to the grass. The bird was terrified. The thought occurred to me I had made the situation worse putting it on grass that would irritate and poke its already broken body. So I made a nest of my sweater and laid the bird on it to die and drove away.  All the while I cried, not for the bird but because I am haunted by the times I didn’t stop: the child who fell in the street, the couple on the scooter who had impaled themselves on rebar, the ancient man who asked me to trim his hedges on a blisteringly hot day, the time it took me to join the response to a hit and run where the man died and the woman who hit him went insane.

And looking back on it all, it was in sepia tones.

I call those moments tragically beautiful. (Does the word beautiful offend?) My life is riddled with them. And black. Solid black; the things I no longer remember unless dragged to the surface. I call this "beautiful" because it created.

I took this picture this afternoon. I’ve admired this plant from afar the whole winter. I finally had to capture it. It was aesthetically beautiful in death. An ordinary plant this summer; now, it’s paper thin walls spoke volumes to me of how something past, in death and so delicate, can be beautiful where in life it could not. I don’t celebrate my horrors. I honor what filled their place and how from these rose a phoenix. 

I’m not much of a better person but I stop now and dedicate myself to honoring the phoenix moments in us all and I remember every day we see the world as we are, not as it is. 

"It is a serious thing," says Lewis, "to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no 'ordinary' people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations -- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whome we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit -- immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously -- no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner -- no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment."

--C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory.

p.s. for all you Fido aficionado's out there, a redeeming aside to keep you from worrying (you know who you are--your claims I am going "Amish" are ridiculous...) Here's a little bit o' fun I smattered a good handful of un-suspecting victims via text with in a fit of  amusement. The back story here is that I have a bunch of fresh stitches throughout my scalp...  don't pat my head for a few days. I'm still down to catch a Frisbee though.

The Sound of Silence

There is no such thing as silence. There is sound in every corner of every space.

A good friend of mine is a composer at a recording studio. Hanging out with him one night, I walked into the booth where the air is as dead as I’ve ever heard.  I stood in silence. Almost. It physically hurt.

See, I don’t live in silence. My world is very loud. It crept up on me? I can’t remember any more.  I only remember the moment I recognized it. It was in Barnes & Noble and it hit me like a tidal wave. I arrived home in time to collapse onto my bedroom floor. Even that was unstable. I couldn’t tell if I was falling or lying still in space; I had no sense of space anymore. I was a terrified void. I heard sound. The sound pinned me to the existence I began to doubt.  Sound so loud it seemed my body would make those tones audible for everyone to hear. Sound has been my constant companion since.

The Dr said the only cure for my condition was to live with it, or scramble up my middle ear so nothing was left to cause a problem.  Naturally I chose to live with it. At first, with drugs, and then as I became trained to cope, without.

I had hearing tests a lot as a kid. This time it was different. No clown nose to light up. It wasn’t pass/fail anymore. I understood this test. I had passed the others, the xrays, the MRI, the psychological evaluations; everything before the audiologist. Ultimately, I failed. The sound was destroying my hearing. Slowly. There have been more tests since that day, every time hoping the loss won’t go so fast or be so permanent. Maybe the sound will one day grow tired and stop.  It could happen.

I am obsessed with sound now.  Maybe because I want to hear as much as I can before I can’t. Maybe because I hear too much noise in my head that I can’t shut off. Maybe because sound is my drug.

I listen to a lot of sound. Sometimes, when I’m most riled up, someone will put on some music and it tranquilizes me. I mean that. Halcion tranquil, I've taken the drug, it's the same effect.White noise. My salve. Most people find it irritating. It is my salvation. Without it, I’d end up in a psych ward.

My favorite sound is music. I’ve been to my fair share of concerts, ecstasy all, even if the band was terrible. I’ve spent the last decade of my life listening to music to replace silence I never hear. I don’t know much about music. I am not well versed in bands, what’s hip, what’s obscure, what’s worthy of being called music. I just listen to whatever I can access and makes me happy. No, I am juvenile about music, except for one thing: passion. If appreciation were a talent, in the words of Lady Catherine DeBurg, “I should have been a great proficient.” I am McLean’s living, breathing, littlest angel with music in my soul I can’t express.

I’ve learned to tune out sound. I sleep without ear plugs in a house of 8 girls. I simply roll over, put my bad ear up to mute the noise, and tune the rest of it out. I've learned not to pay attention to sound. I can focus "in the zone" at  loud, raging parties, and fall asleep in movie theaters. I barely notice I hear it all the time anymore. It is kind of a cruel fate- knowing one day I may not hear and learning not to hear while I can.

Sound often overwhelms me.  I’m possessive of sound. Bad sound irritates me worse than any annoyance I can imagine. In crowded rooms, I read lips. I can hear sound but I can’t recognize the sound as words in big crowds. My brain doesn’t want to filter that much noise. So I try to avoid crowds where I have to interact with people. Sound disorients me.  Sound makes me uncomfortable-the sound booth that had been silenced.  It physically hurts me when I can’t process silence that should be there; like the noise of nails on a chalkboard or Styrofoam rubbing against Styrofoam.  A whisper in my right ear sends my body into muscle spasms as if it is one giant exposed nerve. I involuntarily flick at the sound as I would a fly resting on my eyelashes.

I am drawn to the musical types. I don’t discriminate between performers and dealers. But, I don’t live that life. I’m a fish out of water there and quite awkward. Music is my drug and I abuse it like any junkie. I know my boundaries and I steer clear. That hasn't stopped me from being a mosquito drawn to a bug zapper. I can’t walk by a piano being played without stopping, I cried when I heard the story of Joshua Bell, I involuntarily stop breathing when my ears hear new and stronger drugs, I fall in love with the minds of musicians. I become obsessed with what they are capable of creating. It is an unfair advantage to put a pharm lab in front of a junkie. It is dangerous to even put a dealer in front of a junkie.  And that’s my foible. My great weakness.

I’m addicted to the sound of silence.

 "There was a woman named Ivy who seemed to hold in her mouth all of the sounds of Pauline's soul. Standing a little apart from the choir, Ivy sang the dark sweetness Pauline could not name."
-Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye

Food as Seduction

For this Valentine’s the most appropriate topic on food: seduction. Not only is Valentine Day synonymous with the word “chocolate” but it is the epitome of the role of food in seduction. The gift of chocolate has so engrained itself into holiday tradition that in the month of February chocolate metamorphs into a universal symbol of love, lust, and sensuality. Brave souls the country over buy boxes of the stuff (the world’s most recognized aphrodisiac, even clever cupid with all his arrows simply can’t compete) to give away in a gift giving ritual repeated every February 14^th asking a bold question: “Will you be my valentine?”

Our infatuation with chocolate first began 2,000 years ago when it was discovered in Latin America. The Maya and Aztec elites infused cocoa beans with water to form frothy chocolate drinks – the first frappuccinos, if you will – for special occasions and as sacrifices to the gods. The Aztec ruler Montezuma believed that chocolate was an aphrodisiac and routinely drank it before entering his harem, thus increasing chocolate’s popularity and its association with love and romance. As it turns out, he was ahead of his time. Modern-day scientists have linked the chemical phenylethylamine in chocolate to feelings of excitement, attraction and even pleasure.

The rest of Aztec society used cocoa beans as money and were unable to afford to drink it. Thus “gifting” chocolate for consumption was the Aztec version of John Cusak standing outside of your window with a boom-box. Christopher Columbus saw how the Aztecs revered cocoa when he entered the picture in the sixteenth century and immediately took the luxury product back to Queen Isabella of Spain. Chocoholics sprouted up all over Europe, sharing the legend of their new obsession’s alleged mythical powers. At one point in time, chocolate was believed to be so potent that nuns were forbidden from eating it and French doctors used it to treat “broken hearts.”

Consider all the films (Chocolat), books (The Chocolate Touch), music (Kylie Minogue’s Chocolate) and traditions that embrace chocolate as a sensual delight.

But you don’t have to take my word for it…

Food as Seduction

Feeding has always been clearly linked with courtship. In nature this is not without its dangers. In several species of insect (the praying mantis, for example) the female devours the males after mating: he has done his job and so becomes a source of nutrition for the now expectant mother. Many species tone this down by having the male offer little packages of food to the female, who eats them and leaves him alone. The males and females of all species, including our own, seem to be involved in this mating gamble with food as the bait. Even if the male is not himself the food, he universally seems to have to make some show of feeding to be acceptable. With humans this works two ways since we are the only animals who cook: the bride is usually appraised for her cooking ability. (“Can she bake a cherry pie, Bill boy, Billy boy?”) In some cultures this is far more important than her virginity.

But food and sex are generally closely linked. They are physically linked in the limbic system of the brain, which controls emotional activity generally. It is not surprising that we not only link them but do so emotionally. Good food = good sex. It is this sensuality of eating that spurs the puritan and ascetic rejection of food pleasures. But the link makes sense. To reproduce effectively, a female needs not only insemination but also provisioning. Particularly in species such as ours, where she is relatively dependent during the suckling period, she needs a male to provide food. Thus, a male’s willingness to provide food becomes an important index of his sustainability as a mate. Above all, it suggests his willingness to “invest” in the female’s offspring. Studies of mate preferences in many cultures reveal that while men universally go for looks (actually a fair indicator of fertility), women go for provisioning: a male with resources is preferred to one without, regardless of his attractivity. Studies of Western females show that one of the most “attractive” features of a male is his willingness to “pick up the tab” for a meal. This may be an appeal to deep and atavistic survival motives in the female, but unscrupulous seducers can use it to their advantage. Courtship etiquette today seems to demand the offer of a meal by the male as part of foreplay; and the female is then supposed to cook breakfast to complete her part of the bargain. (Some modern cynic defined a contemporary “moral dilemma” as whether or not to go bed with a man after only a cheeseburger.) 

The choice of setting for food and courtship is as important as the food itself. There is a tendency to move gradually (or swiftly as the case may be) from the public to the private. For modern urban couples, “dates” usually begin in a crowded public place such as a bar or disco. On the crucial “second date,” they may move to a restaurant, where the male is able to demonstrate his “resource accrual ability” by paying the bill. This stage may be prolonged, but at some time the “your place or mine” issue will arise, with, researchers have found, her place being generally preferred. At this stage she is supposed to supply a meal – usually a “romantic” candlelight dinner – thus demonstrating her abilities as a cook and hostess. Breakfast follows the consummation, again usually cooked by the female since it’s her kitchen. But it is order at this point for the male at least to offer to make breakfast, thus demonstrating his egalitarian and cooperative nature. 

If the relationship gets serious, then the next important ceremonial meal is likely to be with her family. Again the meal is used as a “bridge” to mark the importance of the event and as an icebreaker and demonstration of the family’s good will. The prospective mate joins her family at its most familial: eating the family meal. He can be assessed. He in turn gets to see his prospective in-laws close up, in a setting which both offers information and lubricates the difficult mechanism of social interaction.
Food and Eating: An Anthropological Perspective  by Robin Fox