Hungry

"I came to see hunger as being as important a part of a stage as knife skills. Because so much starving on that trip led to such an enormous amount of time fantasizing about food, each craving became fanatically particular. Hunger was not general, ever, for just something, anything, to eat. My hunger grew so specific I could name every corner and fold of it. Salty, warm, brothy, starchy, fatty, sweet, clean and crunchy, crisp and watery, and so on."

 --Gabrielle Hamilton, chef at Prune, on the specifics of hunger and her early travels.

          I love the idea of unfolding one's hunger, recognizing that Gabrielle has well described how we select our meals to satisfy the specific cravings that sneak into our minds and inhabit our palettes. And for the past several days I have been conducting my own hunger experiment. Two words: stomach. virus. Somewhere between the gallon of grape juice and the artificially colored and flavored orange popsicles, the first moments of true, sincere, hunger snuck back in. I mulled over the vague whisperings of food for a full day before they finally coalesced into a single idea -- I would need a sandwich, and it would need to have bacon. And now, after locating said sandwich at a local cafe and giddily inhaling it, I know that I have successfully guaranteed that I will never, ever crave bacon again. Popsicles for a few more days, it seems.