Mayonnaise

Are foods like weathers? some are great and not for others; why is taste a conversation to avoid when it helps us get to know each other so well?

Preparing for a special dinner during artistic residency, thanks to Nina Rodin and these amazing artists. I still hold our exchanged treasures dear.

Mayonnaise is a bit like the word moist; it contains a lot of icky feelings of repulsion for some folks, and indeed contained a great lot of yuck not so long ago for me. Maybe because I had made too many salads and sandwiches working at delis, or because I was afraid of the sauce in incumbering my stride while running or hiking. So how could I regress my taste to accept the condiment I had condemned for the better part of my life? The better part being the part where I did not eat mayonnaise, to this part where my rules are so open to say, sure, I could use the calories if they came my way.

I had an artistic residency mate to thank. For one, I was afraid to spend a month alone in Switzerland, and for the rest, once I realized how joyful the spaciousness I was inclined to - wished he would change the dates so I could actually be alone. Luck would have it, that I had to share a week with a truly incredible British artist wrestling with whether or not to continue painting the way he does (incredibly well), or not. This feisty fellow’s wife happened to bear the same name as me, and yet worked as a nurse and a mom; a far cry from my determination to support ways people would not need nursing or mothering for…but a sort of generative energy that would fulfill some kind of postmodernist ideology that probably has nothing to do with reality.

And that’s what Dean Melbourne taught me, the foolishness of a low fat diet. Why on earth would I pay more to have more of the nutritional qualities of a food removed? By halving the serving to a more substantial nutritional load, I could cut down on time cooking, time eating, and spend more time making art and hiking and reading. Brilliant. Thanks not only to Dean but also to Nina and Pascale for giving us space at Angelot-Trélex for a month.

A glorious month I never ate mayonnaise but experimented with my gluten allergy a few times to realise, ok, I will have to find time to invent a croissant recipe that doesn’t make me bloat like a pregnant goat. This month I worked on art, developed teaching programs, did freelance writing (which seems like a mainstay), and hiked up mountains I knew nothing about, ran from mating foxes in the dark that I had presumed were wild humans hurting each other, and generally felt oddly at home despite knowing so little French.

Our spirits are foreign to even the most introverted of us. I have vivid dreams, things that pop in my head after going to bed with a question have been things like:

Annona

Le beau monde creatif

Others…..which I will save you from for now.

But mayonnaise is something that both Dean, and ok, Kafka, somehow had to open my tongue up to. 2019 until 2022, now I can eat the dastardly gross condiment with pleasure. I have to say it’s best with Scandinavian Spice; and though it would be nice if Santa Maria payed me for saying so, they didn’t.

You know what’s so odd about today’s mayonnaise eating and internet, is not that the rules are made for breaking but rather that the most accessible and honest conversations are missing, because of things like projection, of jumping to conclusions, of saying one thing but doing another.

So I suppose I’m a little scary, because I want to invite people to say things and learn and grow and change out of the oscillating patterns of yesterday.

Mayonnaise is really not the point here, if you are getting the fragrance of this batch in the cookie jar. But it’s something a bit tangy, healthy in small doses…and that thing maybe…change. Survivable even if not palatable. A bit like the way some people who feel like money justifies some pretty mayonaisseeee behavior. Saturated whatever they be, are still probably better best kept at a minimum for optimum health.

Speaking of palatable, since when did community become the buzzword for tribalism. What happened to pluralism and moderate liberals? I know you’re out there….

I used to feel guilty for needing mountains, but now I know they are a must in my life. February was a special warm sunny period in the spring, mostly known for rain in the French-speaking region.

Dean sending his family a note while I express exasperation at the quantity of cheese during a truly special evening in Trélex.

Jura Mountains held me near the grounds of agriculture and horses. How can I feel so at home at a place I never was before? I believe it to be the power of lineage and ancestry.