I Put It Aside

I'm reading The Gastronomical Me by MFK Fisher, and I love it, but it was tucked in my purse by someone, and I've gotten away from it, and it has taken me a embarassingly long time to read. However, can I supply an excerpt for you?

"Then we sat on a rough bench at the table, the three of us in the deep green twilight, and had one of the nicest suppers I have ever eaten.

The strange thing about it is that all three of us have told other people that same thing, without ever talking of it among ourselves until lately. Father says that all his nervousness went away, and he saw us for the first time as two little brown humans who were fun. Anne and I both felt a subtle excitement at being alone for the first time with the only man in the world we loved.

(We loved Mother too, completely, but we were finding out, as Father was too, that it is good for parents and for children to be alone now and then with one another... the man alone or the woman, to sound new notes in the mysterious music of parenthood and childhood.)

That night I not only saw my Father for the first time as a person. I saw the golden hills and the live oaks as clearly as I have ever seen them since; and I saw the dimples in my little sister's fat hands in a way that still moves me because of that first time; and I saw food as something beautiful to be shared with people instead of as a thrice-daily necessity."

(published w/o even a hint of permission from Robert Lescher, Trustee of the Literary Trust MFK Fisher)

Please don't judge me, but every time I read that last paragraph I get teary. If you even have minimal family ties or a crude understanding of the importance of sustenance and human bonding or a fraction of un-hardened heart, I think you could love this book. She talks about food, but through the filter of her life. I want to be best friends with this woman. She's adventurous with her palate and her love life and her travels.

But I haven't finished it yet.