Thoughts From Becca

Exploring the hub of a city (the food market) is my number one travel priority. Towns historically formed as a market centre. The town emerged around the market place well before industrialization. Farmers brought their produce to town to barter or sell, long before we turned the fashionable 21st Century city phrase ‘farmers market’. When I was younger, and long before I ventured away from home, I found a love of travel, of discovering other cultures. Discovery was pursued in my mother’s kitchen by exploring the food of other lands. Cooking became more than sustenance, more than nourishing myself and others, and became a way to embody myself in other cultures. From this, there also unfolded my deep love of well cared for produce and slowly crafted cookery that became an integral part of my being. Now that I do travel as often as I can, the first thing I do in a new city is to find the food market. I felt right at home on my first sojourn to Paris because of the attention and importance

What is a 'griffe'? I first came across the word 'griffe' this last holiday season, when I devoured 'Immoveable Feast: A Paris Christmas' in one overnight helping. I must admit when I first picked it up in the Shakespeare & Co bookshop, it was the similarity of the title to the Hemingway classic, 'A Moveable Feast' that attracted me.  As it turned out, the book and I were well suited. Baxter is an Aussie who now lives in Paris; I am an Aussie who stills lives in Sydney but likes to visit Paris. The connection did not end there and was cemented with a love of food, French food. Baxter also describes his daughter's coming of age when she brings home her 'griffe'.   My Google search found the definition of griffe: a clawlike ornament extending from the base of a column. The griffe Baxter refers to is the sum of ourselves that describes our personal style. For his daughter her griffe was her business card holder.  The New York Times writer,