The latest box office hit Eat, Pray, Love is a keeper.   The book was a good read with lots of food for thought, yearnings of adventure, rejuvenation of spirit, and an education in discipline plus a lot of self-indulgence.  Sounds like life on a grand scale only few of us will ever know or have known.  No matter what age you are,  travel makes us more tolerant, opens our minds and hearts to celebrate our differences and commonalities.  Food, music, beauty are the equalizers.  Every place on this planet offers up a book of experiences through all our senses.   Those experiences change us…eventually.

Ever since the 70s I have loved Julia Childe’s cooking shows.  For several years I was addicted to watching cooking shows on Saturdays from 11 am to 7 pm on KCTS, Seattle’s PBS station.  I bought every cookbook companion and then some, enmassing a huge culinary library. 

Like a kid in a candy store, my weekly sorjourns to Pike’s Place Market, were mornings of pure pleasure:  shopping for fresh veggies, herbs and Washington grown fruit, watching the fishmongers throw my order of salmon and octopus to the wrapper guy, sampling and buying exotic cheeses and wines.  A fabulous excursion for goodies to make my version of some delicious dish I’d seen on TV’s Chefs of the West, the Frugal Gourmet, Pierre Franey, Jacques Peppin, or some other show.  And a visit to Sur La Table was always a must, plus I had to have a spinach börek from the Pakistani shop, a steamed pork bun from the Chinese shop, fresh crumpets from the English shop, and then a Seattle’s Best double tall latte for the drive across the West Seattle bridge.

Shortly thereafter, I moved to Tonga in the South Pacific where all those hours of watching cooking shows really paid off.  More about my Tonga adventures later.

You’ll enjoy Julie and Julia.  It’s going to be a keeper.