Thoughts From Becca

While I have a great love of home cooking and comfort food, there are a few food moments that stand above all the great memories (food delights or otherwise) of my life. On food, one of my favourite times was enjoying a simple piece of artisan bread shared with some local NZ cheese on a parkbench on the banks of Lake Taupo, New Zealand. Another bread and cheese favourite, is of course enjoying fresh baguette and camembert in Paris (cliche! but unforgettable!) The greatest moments however have been above fine produce, and ultimately have included exceptionally crafted cookery. I'm talking the kind of food (and service), that no matter how much I do love to cook, and no matter how practiced, that I just could not ever achieve at home. My star amongst a handful of ultimate dining experiences is still a recent memory. I'd done some research on what would be my selected 3 star Michelin dream for this Parisian holiday. Yes, such 'fine' dining is a costly exercise, but, to me,

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