Food as comfort and solace

It felt strange to be driving in to Boston yesterday, the day after the terrible bombings at the Boston Marathon finish line.  It was a gorgeous spring day, traffic was light but there was an edgy feeling, not helped by the large numbers of heavily armed police, security and army around the city. But having lived in London during the IRA’s bombing campaigns, I know that you must continue with normal life and not give in to the fear that the terrorists try to instil in us all.

I particularly didn’t want to miss the intimate lunch for Yvette Van Boven at Les Zygomates. Yvette is in the USA doing a small book tour to promote her latest book, Home Made Summer – she has already been in New York and today flies to San Francisco. You can see the events on her website.

The lunch was a perfect spring menu of recipes from the book – Oysters with ginger-lime sauce, Asparagus pie wth a green salad, and White wine sorbet ice with berries.  There are lots more recipes I want to cook from the book – if you haven’t checked out Yvette’s books (the others are Home Made and Home Made Winter) then take a look.  The photography by Yvette’s husband, Oof Verschuren, is gorgeous and her design and illustrations are really personal to her.

I coudn’t think of a better counterpoint to Monday’s horror than to sit for a couple of hours eating and talking about cooking and restaurants with Yvette and Oof.  Food is a great unifier – around the table we had Dutch, English, Italian-American and other heritages – but the common language of food made us feel a connection that helped alleviate the sadness of the day before.