That is the most tragic dessert story I've ever heard. Talk about invidious comparisons. One cake to rule them all. In Search of Lost Cake. Now a little part of me wants to taste Sammy's cake. Can we put him under hypnosis?
David, you always give me the best one-liners. One cake to rule them all! I still make people at the office call me "Noha, First of her Name"...
I miss that cake so much but I'm almost afraid of finding it again. I'm sure I've oversold it, even to myself, not because it wasn't amazing but because it took on a life of its own.
I lost my mind yesterday when I opened the cake box and found the chocoframboise. Like, I literally shouted out, “IT’S THE CHOCOFRAMBOISE!! OHMYGOD IT’S THE CHOCOFRAMBOISE” and I know that the cake is unbelievably delicious (and it was) but it was also the gift of going down memory lane and remembering all the delicious tastes and the delicious moments that played on my heart strings.
It is! For whatever reason, I don't have the voiceover automatically applied - I've heard some get it and some down and you can't control when it's there and when it's not.
Noha, this is so good, I could eat it up and lick the plate. It reminds me of M.F.K. Fisher’s reply to those who asked why she chose to write about food. “It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it . . . and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied . . . and it is all one.”
What a luscious piece of writing! And yes, isn't there always a cake that got away, or maybe it's a cookie, or maybe it's the most divine piece of fried chicken ever, never to be replicated. Ah the trials and tribulations of this life!
Maia, I recently tried this absolutely heavenly, thick, chocolate chip cookie from the delicious but overpriced salads and bowls place at work. Just the perfect combo of chewiness and chocolate that melts in your mouth. Loved it so much I brought my work friend back a week later and we both got one for our dessert to go with our healthy lunches lol.
The second time? Not as good! A cookie that got away! As you said, there's always something.
the Buddha called this dukkha…. dissatisfaction… and so often our whole life can revolve around it. I find this such a helpful reminder for everything from disappointing cookies to relationships that go south : )
Ok now I need to know more. is the dukkha just the idea of the natural dissatisfaction that exists in life, or is it the fact that we as humans are never satisfied?
A bit of both, I think. Dukkha [a Pali word variously translated as un-ease, unhappiness, suffering] is central to the the first of the Four Noble Truths, and it's what the Buddha chose as the starting point on the path to liberation. I guess maybe his thinking was you can't free yourself from something you don't see clearly to begin with.
Sometimes people translate it as "Life is suffering," which I don't find particularly helpful as it reifies an already unhelpful idea. More useful to me is a translation that goes something like, "In life there is suffering...." He goes on to explain that we suffer or feel dissatisfied because something is really wonderful and we don't want it to end, but it ends (or like the cake, it got away!); because something is really difficult and we don't want it to show up in our lives but it does.
Lucky for us there are three more Noble Truths to get us out of dukkha!
This is SO interesting! As I read your explanation, it occurs to me that I know next to nothing about Buddhism, and that everything I do know is pop-culture adjacent, a la "7 years in Tibet"...
I'm guessing you get into this in your newsletter? or where do you recommend I go to read more about The Noble Truths, but in layman's terms...
Yeah I think Buddhism can seem a bit mysterious and it often gets pop-culture-ized as you note.
One of the best and most accessible books is one by Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh: The Heart of the Buddha's Teachings. He covers the Four Noble Truths there as well as other basic Buddhist teachings.
My writings in my newsletter are definitely buddhist-informed though I don't usually get that explicit... but you'll get a taste there : ) And there are many amazing newsletters now in DharmaStack, the directory I curate.
I also agree that French baked goods (and really most French foods) are overrated. They’re okay, but French food doesn’t nourish my soul the way the food and desserts from other cultures do. French food can be tasty, but it falls flat to me.
So I've had this problem with a lot of French culture, mainly because it's just accepted as the most sophisticated, the most this, the most that. When I combine that attitude with how much discrimination was thrown towards my culture and faith group (not to mention others) I find it so hard to admire... I still don't find most French food that great (barring dark chocolate mousse cakes lol). My favourite food is Indian. Now THAT is sophisticated!
100% agreed! French culture could never be the most sophisticated in my eyes when it has such a long history of violent colonization that persists in their attitudes and culture today. I wish unlearning and atoning for their racist history and present was as much a part of French culture as “guarding” their language and turning their noses up at anything not French.
I know the feeling of wanting something you miss so badly, but when you finally get it, it’s not what you remember it to be. This is about food, but it could easily be about a relationship or even a place. It reminds me that it’s not about the thing we miss, but the ambiance around it.
This is exactly it. And even if there's nothing "wrong" when you go back, if you can go back, it's not as special as the first time. It's like that expression, "lightning doesn't strike twice".
Oh this story. I smiled throughout. You have articulated so gorgeously the importance of food as a connector of people. And the cake recipe. Oh the cake recipe. I’m gonna head right over and help you root through some more boxes 🤣❤️
Hahaaa come on over on the next flight and we'll take a roadtrip to Montreal and go on an eating tour of all the bakeries to find that cake. How long could it take? A year? 🤣🤣
Thank you for sharing. Great story. Good food trigger memories of our past. Eating those food is to re-live the good times of the past and cherish the love you feel at that moment.
Oh man, I lived in Montreal for a few years and this is making me cry for all the delicious food I no longer have access to. I remember we would buy a baguette and some other treats from Premiere, pick up some cheese, and head over to Parc La Fontaine for a an impromptu summer picnic with bread, cheese, and books. This brought back some wonderful memories. 🥰
You are in my head, Sri! Wasn't it just the most delicious? I have to remind myself that even if I was there now, it wouldn't be the same. I may have theoretical access to the food, but the impromptu picnic would almost never happen because I'd be too busy shuttling the kids to one activity or another.
Oh, Noha, I just love this story. That intersection of the perfect food at just the right time with just the right people, and the sense that you could never really go back and recreate it. Sweet and sad at the same time. On the Fourth of July my daughter wanted to make a dessert for our fireworks picnic, but she'd had a busy week and hadn't had time to plan anything. Which reminded of a dessert I used to make in just those circumstance: a chocolate cake from a 1995 issue of Bon Appetit. I dug around and found her the recipe. When it was first published, it had a story that went with of a family whose French exchange could make only one recipe - this cake. It is so good, yet so easy, yet so elegant. That French thing you were describing. My husband and I have not stopped asking each other why we stopped making that cake. One great cake deserves another so here's a link to the recipe: https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/elodies-chocolate-cake-1067 Thanks so much for a lovely read this morning. 🤗
Tara!! Thank you for sharing your story, and the story from Bon Appetit, and the recipe. I'm excited to look at it and get all mouth watery, until I just can't take it anymore and I eventually have to make it.
Noha,
That is the most tragic dessert story I've ever heard. Talk about invidious comparisons. One cake to rule them all. In Search of Lost Cake. Now a little part of me wants to taste Sammy's cake. Can we put him under hypnosis?
David, you always give me the best one-liners. One cake to rule them all! I still make people at the office call me "Noha, First of her Name"...
I miss that cake so much but I'm almost afraid of finding it again. I'm sure I've oversold it, even to myself, not because it wasn't amazing but because it took on a life of its own.
Makes me want to drown in the kind of memories that taste like chocolate and lost chances. Thanks for the ride through your cravings and regrets.
I lost my mind yesterday when I opened the cake box and found the chocoframboise. Like, I literally shouted out, “IT’S THE CHOCOFRAMBOISE!! OHMYGOD IT’S THE CHOCOFRAMBOISE” and I know that the cake is unbelievably delicious (and it was) but it was also the gift of going down memory lane and remembering all the delicious tastes and the delicious moments that played on my heart strings.
first off, is this your voice in the article VoiceOver? it's amazing.
It is! For whatever reason, I don't have the voiceover automatically applied - I've heard some get it and some down and you can't control when it's there and when it's not.
So I just record my own and add it 😂
Noha, this is so good, I could eat it up and lick the plate. It reminds me of M.F.K. Fisher’s reply to those who asked why she chose to write about food. “It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it . . . and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied . . . and it is all one.”
What an incredible quote! So innately, recognizably true. Human hunger is a multifaceted thing.
If you don’t already know her memoir THE GASTRONOMICAL ME, I recommend it.
What a luscious piece of writing! And yes, isn't there always a cake that got away, or maybe it's a cookie, or maybe it's the most divine piece of fried chicken ever, never to be replicated. Ah the trials and tribulations of this life!
Maia, I recently tried this absolutely heavenly, thick, chocolate chip cookie from the delicious but overpriced salads and bowls place at work. Just the perfect combo of chewiness and chocolate that melts in your mouth. Loved it so much I brought my work friend back a week later and we both got one for our dessert to go with our healthy lunches lol.
The second time? Not as good! A cookie that got away! As you said, there's always something.
the Buddha called this dukkha…. dissatisfaction… and so often our whole life can revolve around it. I find this such a helpful reminder for everything from disappointing cookies to relationships that go south : )
Ok now I need to know more. is the dukkha just the idea of the natural dissatisfaction that exists in life, or is it the fact that we as humans are never satisfied?
A bit of both, I think. Dukkha [a Pali word variously translated as un-ease, unhappiness, suffering] is central to the the first of the Four Noble Truths, and it's what the Buddha chose as the starting point on the path to liberation. I guess maybe his thinking was you can't free yourself from something you don't see clearly to begin with.
Sometimes people translate it as "Life is suffering," which I don't find particularly helpful as it reifies an already unhelpful idea. More useful to me is a translation that goes something like, "In life there is suffering...." He goes on to explain that we suffer or feel dissatisfied because something is really wonderful and we don't want it to end, but it ends (or like the cake, it got away!); because something is really difficult and we don't want it to show up in our lives but it does.
Lucky for us there are three more Noble Truths to get us out of dukkha!
This is SO interesting! As I read your explanation, it occurs to me that I know next to nothing about Buddhism, and that everything I do know is pop-culture adjacent, a la "7 years in Tibet"...
I'm guessing you get into this in your newsletter? or where do you recommend I go to read more about The Noble Truths, but in layman's terms...
Yeah I think Buddhism can seem a bit mysterious and it often gets pop-culture-ized as you note.
One of the best and most accessible books is one by Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh: The Heart of the Buddha's Teachings. He covers the Four Noble Truths there as well as other basic Buddhist teachings.
My writings in my newsletter are definitely buddhist-informed though I don't usually get that explicit... but you'll get a taste there : ) And there are many amazing newsletters now in DharmaStack, the directory I curate.
I find your voice refreshing and your energy palpable. Your food descriptions make my mouth water and my jaws move. Perhaps a food magician?
Thank you! I would love to be a food magician, not only with the words but with the ability to whip up said cake 😅😅
I also agree that French baked goods (and really most French foods) are overrated. They’re okay, but French food doesn’t nourish my soul the way the food and desserts from other cultures do. French food can be tasty, but it falls flat to me.
So I've had this problem with a lot of French culture, mainly because it's just accepted as the most sophisticated, the most this, the most that. When I combine that attitude with how much discrimination was thrown towards my culture and faith group (not to mention others) I find it so hard to admire... I still don't find most French food that great (barring dark chocolate mousse cakes lol). My favourite food is Indian. Now THAT is sophisticated!
100% agreed! French culture could never be the most sophisticated in my eyes when it has such a long history of violent colonization that persists in their attitudes and culture today. I wish unlearning and atoning for their racist history and present was as much a part of French culture as “guarding” their language and turning their noses up at anything not French.
This this this...
I've spent so much time unlearning what's considered sophisticated vs. what's considered quaint or old fashioned or backwards.
Absolutely delicious, Noha.
Thx Mary!
That cake sounds amazing. And, yeah, the foods that got away are the ones we often remember.
That quote about the man walking past people buried in the rubble -- there aren't words.
I think because it grows and grows in our heads, our imagination is beyond anything real...
The quote - I am grieving for both the people who die and the ones who survive. I cannot imagine the trauma.
I know the feeling of wanting something you miss so badly, but when you finally get it, it’s not what you remember it to be. This is about food, but it could easily be about a relationship or even a place. It reminds me that it’s not about the thing we miss, but the ambiance around it.
This is exactly it. And even if there's nothing "wrong" when you go back, if you can go back, it's not as special as the first time. It's like that expression, "lightning doesn't strike twice".
I had no idea I’d love reading about French pastries until I read your writing on it. And now I’m convinced I’d enjoy anything you write. Brava!
Hahaaa thank you! I really enjoy reading food writing so I thought I'd try my hand at it.
Oh this story. I smiled throughout. You have articulated so gorgeously the importance of food as a connector of people. And the cake recipe. Oh the cake recipe. I’m gonna head right over and help you root through some more boxes 🤣❤️
Hahaaa come on over on the next flight and we'll take a roadtrip to Montreal and go on an eating tour of all the bakeries to find that cake. How long could it take? A year? 🤣🤣
I think to be safe we should allocate two?!
💯
Thank you for sharing. Great story. Good food trigger memories of our past. Eating those food is to re-live the good times of the past and cherish the love you feel at that moment.
It absolutely is. I love the phrase trigger memory - it captures it so well.
Oh man, I lived in Montreal for a few years and this is making me cry for all the delicious food I no longer have access to. I remember we would buy a baguette and some other treats from Premiere, pick up some cheese, and head over to Parc La Fontaine for a an impromptu summer picnic with bread, cheese, and books. This brought back some wonderful memories. 🥰
You are in my head, Sri! Wasn't it just the most delicious? I have to remind myself that even if I was there now, it wouldn't be the same. I may have theoretical access to the food, but the impromptu picnic would almost never happen because I'd be too busy shuttling the kids to one activity or another.
The true tragedy (or gift?) of time! So much more appreciation for what can never be the same.
Delicious story.
I'm so glad you liked it! The highest of compliments.
Oh, Noha, I just love this story. That intersection of the perfect food at just the right time with just the right people, and the sense that you could never really go back and recreate it. Sweet and sad at the same time. On the Fourth of July my daughter wanted to make a dessert for our fireworks picnic, but she'd had a busy week and hadn't had time to plan anything. Which reminded of a dessert I used to make in just those circumstance: a chocolate cake from a 1995 issue of Bon Appetit. I dug around and found her the recipe. When it was first published, it had a story that went with of a family whose French exchange could make only one recipe - this cake. It is so good, yet so easy, yet so elegant. That French thing you were describing. My husband and I have not stopped asking each other why we stopped making that cake. One great cake deserves another so here's a link to the recipe: https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/elodies-chocolate-cake-1067 Thanks so much for a lovely read this morning. 🤗
Tara!! Thank you for sharing your story, and the story from Bon Appetit, and the recipe. I'm excited to look at it and get all mouth watery, until I just can't take it anymore and I eventually have to make it.