LesGensFaims

 

Margaret Schlegel, E.M. Forster’s heroine, made me a writer, or at least she made me realize I wanted to be one. In a 10^th grade English class I read her assertion, “Only Connect! Live in fragments no longer” which gave me the jolt that high school soda vending machines and AP classes could not provide. I slowly began to recognize my childhood affinity for connecting and my curious mind that constantly probed the reality of her own environment - whether it was the nameless graves in the Confederate cemetery or George Washington’s mother’s home and if they really ate ginger snap cookies from Food Lion in the late 18th century, as served in the gift shop.

 High school and the fear of college applications (and not to mention, the agonies of adolescence), AP exams, and SATs had suffocated my mind rather than enlightened it. 10th grade English’s required reading introduced me to Forster who quickly sent my thoughts in a new direction – one that allowed me to view school as an opportunity for growth not performance, and see it as only one fragment of the puzzle. I began to write, which I saw as a chance to somehow preserve one’s singularity against the weight of high school pressures. It did not occur to me until much later in life that this would be my career path.

 

It was not until ten years later as a budding journalist in Berlin that Forester’s quote surfaced in my mind again, coolly reminding me why I was busily scribbling away in a café in Kreuzberg Berlin. Here, on a sleepy Sunday, I was working against a short deadline and next month’s rent while darting in and out of the Financial Time’s Sunday paper. I came across the Life and Arts section’s weekly author interview. The author quoted Howard’s End saying this quote had ruined everything for her – as if her life and career as a writer had somehow failed to meet Forster’s standard - she had lost the battle to connect and live in fragments no longer. I was stunned.

Forster’s imperative had begun everything for me – not ruined it. It had challenged me to open my mind, to think, to ask questions and ultimately begin writing. It had allowed me to see my own childhood affinity for the art of the story – from creating bedtime fables for my younger brothers, to directing faux documentaries on the Peloponnesian Wars and the scandalous death of Cleopatra for my 6th grade history class, to later working on the high school newspaper covering the second Iraq War. I loved translating lived experiences into words and in the process probing some hidden truth and telling a story.

To only connect is a habit of mind invaluable to any writer. It is neither a standard nor a scolding, but a chance to deepen one’s understanding of the world of ideas, and to the world itself. A writer’s role is to seek the truth and so connect, for herself and for the reader, in order to live in fragments no longer. 

Sketch of A Portrait

 

I am not a rosy-cheeked bon vivant despite my well-traveled life. My short journalism career has largely focused on food, a subject that I saw as a platform to connect other concerns, including politics, history, art, and science. My career as a food and culture reporter began in Berlin in 2011 after a year in Italy studying food in the context of the slow food movement. I had gone to Europe to develop my knowledge of food, but also to develop a fresh vision and understanding of food’s link to culture and art. And, having always wanted to be a writer, I hoped this new vision would be interesting enough to launch a new career in journalism and food writing. 

 As a member of the Berlin-based Association for Reporters Abroad (ARA), my articles were organized under our website’s Lighter Fare section. The majority of our reporters did hard news – covering the Arab Spring, the Euro Crisis, and the U.S. elections. While I understood that my stories did not qualify as “breaking news,” I also understood that it did not mean they were not relevant.  I savored the constant challenge of connecting our readers to cross-cultural culinary trends that were defying political divides to show that beyond the immediate plate of food - there was something deeper at the source. Where did these sometimes strange amalgams of foods originate? Did it matter? Was it a trend? Was it, as I deeply felt, a shift in the cultural landscape of this haunted, historically weighted city?  I had a chance to strengthen readers’ understanding of these trends and movements– whether it was through its emerging coffee culture, the dark truth of German bread, the rise of avant-garde supper clubs, the English-speaking literary scene, or the annual Berlinale film festival. There was an opportunity to turn Lighter Fare into something hard and newsworthy and I quickly recognized that my affinity for the world of ideas and culture would give me the perspective I needed to fill in the spaces left blank by the hard and fast news crowd.

My task was to immerse readers in a particular time and place and to use Lighter Fare to elucidate greater meaning about our quotidian lives – its relationship to history, politics, culture, food, or art. I think of MFK Fisher’s opening line in Two Towns in Provence and how she created a picture of Aix en Provence for me:

Often in the sketch of a portrait, the invisible lines that bridge the different strokes of the pencil are what really make it live. This is true in a word picture too. The myriad of undrawn lines are the ones that hold it together--- what the painter and the writer have tried to set down, which is their own vision of a thing: a town, one town, this town. There before us is what one human being has seen of something many others have viewed differently or not seen at all, and the lines held back are perhaps the ones most vital to the whole.

 

So my stories are drawn from those invisible lines—be they history, culture or some undefined undercurrent--those things that often are forgotten or brushed away in the zeal for everything new, which is so Berlin. But I learned to look for the invisible, to bring into focus aspects of the city unexplored or forgotten so that my readers would see that it is not just food, it is everything. 

The Snack

I first considered the meaning of the word snack in fourth grade while reading the children's book, The Giver. The main character, Jonas remembers elementary school, when pronouncing the word eluded him. He says “smack” instead and is punished with the literal smack of a ruler until he learns to pronounce the word correctly. The author uses Jonas’ confusion to highlight the book’s main theme: that knowledge and pain should never be tied together. 

Though the “snack” incident plays a minor role in The Giver, it made me realize that prior to pre-school there was no such thing as a snack . There were three meals a day that were prepared and consumed rather formally. Meals were pleasurable and nourishing and that was that. They had purpose – they knew who they were, followed a routine schedule, had a role, and happily filled their recipients. They gave context to a day and helped quell any hint of insatiable hunger, or bouts of melancholy. They maintained a steady daily course from kitchen to table to belly. They delivered.

A day without a proper meal seemed chaotic. TV Dinner? What the hell was that? Jim Lehrer came before dinnertime while Grandfather unwound from his round at the stables reeking of hay and horse feed. I’d watch him sip his Martini and anticipate dinner as the sound of cooking echoed from the kitchen. Then we’d march into dinning room.

Snacks were purpose-driven. But they had no set course or schedule – an insecure chink in their conceptual armor . Was 11:30 in the morning a good time? (But what about lunch?) Then there was 4 p.m., when kids are home from school. Orange slices and juice boxes between soccer practices?

It was not about eating, but about refueling. It was the refueling process – the snack’s trump card that enabled it to takeover, supplying an array of nutri-grain bars, gushers, and other sugar-laden faux fruit concoctions. Americans were quickly hooked as snacks tricked us into thinking they were a part of the eating process. They smacked us in the face - convincing us that we needed food. Artifice was the secret to the snack's success. 

I first sensed my unconscious dependence on snacks when I traveled to Europe for the first time. I was on a mother-daughter trip composed of two mothers and two teenage daughters. Prior to take off, we celebrated with a snack. My mother’s friend Sarah’s dutiful boyfriend had packed us Pepperidge Farm products for the trip, including Milano cookies, Goldfish crackers, and so on. We munched away and cackled like a bunch of magpies.

But then I noticed the crumbs on the aisle, which the French stewardess had seen, turning up her Gallic nose up. I couldn’t blame her. I felt disgusted. Eating before take-off on our way to Paris, where eating was practically a birthright, seemed absurd and unnecessary. I quickly stopped snacking and worked up my courage to order something in French to try to redeem us all in the eyes of the stewardess.

Paris was grand. I was a moody 17-year-old eager to explore and shake the shackles of adolescence. I wanted to feel European and cool. I never ended up feeling that way but I did enjoy the trip and its meals. In Le Petit Prince, which we’d been reading in French class, the fox says: “Il Faut des rites” — rituals matter.

This came up time and again when the Parisian mealtime gong sounded. Something as simple as a meal was also a ritual, one capable making sense of a day and providing a connection to it and to our foreign surroundings – bringing a place to life. We broke bread and let the crumbs  go unnoticed, something meals allow. Meals brought satisfaction, pleasure, and more importantly communion. The snack, by contrast, was insipid. It undermined the fox’s sense of ritual. It disguised itself as something authentic, worming its way into our circadian rhythms, when the snack was responsible for its disruption.

Snacks make you want to eat when you are not hungry. Their preemptive approach is tactless, artless but key to day-to-day life. The snack-pack habit would make food writers like M.F.K Fisher roll in her grave.

The American snack has created a gastronomic myth in which the snack is a bastion against starvation. The truth is the opposite: The snack starves us at a variety of levels. It convinces us we’re hungry, spewing nutritional diatribe, skewing the truth behind how why we eat. Like Jonas in The Giver, we ironically feel unprotected – vulnerable and exposed. Worse still, the meal seems further and further 

Stock is Everything

 A purist who eats for pleasure. Did I mention, she's Swiss - born and bred by perfectly chiseled mountains, striking green pastures - all of which Hollywood has, time and time again, failed to recreate. This is no gastronomic enigma. This is Laura Schälchli - someone who completely embodies the art of eating - taking that art and transcending the dullest situations - turning water into wine. 

One could say it's her healthy sense of humor that keeps her palate in check. Or perhaps, it is her loyalty to keep slow food's snail moving sustainably, but at a pace that does not exceed its pleasure barometer  that endows her with such a gift.  

 As Escoffier once said, "Stock is everything." Laura is a stock of sorts - one that is able to buffer and rescue any gastronomical endeavor from dumpster doom and the ugly waste which she abhors whilst she gracefully carries it all off ( like it was her plan all along). She seems to possess some innate ability - one that you need not compete with -  to gracefully combine thoughtful innovation with a gusto that I know comes from her - not her Colombian husband that allows us to think more broadly about food and somehow enjoy it - and come back for more.  

You could say this soliloquy to a dear friend is biased and well a lot of it is, but the other side stems from my observations and first glimpses. Jet lagged and cranky I arrived on Italy's doorsteps, but this smiling Swiss girl somehow emboldened me further, reaffirmed my belief that food is and touches everything, and is something worth beholding rather than simply eating. Laura already knew or knows this -and like the secret stock that corses through her veins - she lives and breathes it. You will surely notice this -whether you dine with her or not.  

 

A Good Appetite Is Hard to Find?

 

 

AJ Liebling said, "The primary requisite for writing well about food is a good appetite. Without this, it is impossible to accumulate, within the allotted span, enough experience of eating to have anything worth setting down. Each day brings only two opportunities for field work, and they are not to be wasted minimizing the intake of cholesterol. They are indispensable, like a prizefighter's hours on the road. "

I think Liebling was correct in his assertion - an insatiable appetite and curiosity lends an interesting start. Writing about food is a task of creative replication: the voice must redesign the tactile experience and sensation for the reader to experience on her own. The closer one brings her audience to a story which can be enjoyed, but also felt in a personal way, the more successful she becomes in communicating what Liebling was able to do so well - to value food as a means, not an end to story-telling. 

Cheers Liebling.  

 

A Wise Man Always Eats Well

The Chinese sage and philosopher, Confucius once said, "A wise man always eats well." Fast forward a few hundred centuries to a dining room table in Free Union, Virginia where my Grandfather, a philosopher in his own right said,"Never eat anything that goes splat." He was not referring to the Zhou Dynasty's digestive tract, but rather his former days of perfect posture and pressed uniforms at West Point Military Academy. He, like Confucius had a point and I remember my own cousin, Michael, a picky and interesting eater, who I once observed pick out all of the peas from his paella referred to my Grandfather's creed, when he was stationed in Iraq. He returned six months later alive and very well. 

 

How we eat and how we approach it demands a little foresight and well, honesty. Confucius knew this ( as did my Grandfather who played polo until his 70s and lived to be 91, in part because he did not eat anything that went "splat") and I assume that he was not flattering his brainy ego when he first said this over a cup a steamy green tea. Brillat Savarin, that notorious gastronome and king of bon vivants had a similar dictum, "Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are." This was not some irrelevant gastronomical quibble "after a few too many" aimed at gluttons, who had "gone too far." Instead, it was a nod to the virtues of gastronomy, reflecting this Dijon native lawyer's (and lover of food) own wisdom. Savarin understood the true merits of gastronomy and knew it had its own natural circadian rhythm and therefore lived his life according to it - eating only the best and relishing each season and in some sense, paying it homage to it with his plate and refined palate. There was no gastronomical dictatorship, but rather a democracy - where you could choose, or in this case eat what you want - but it did require some thought. 

 

The timeline, although spread out, reveals one truth: that wisdom not only lies tucked in Athena's helmet protected head, but in the stomach, if you allow it. Honesty, like one of the seven virtues is a necessity for a good life and one that includes, eating wisely, even if it is from the trough, on the side of the road, or at the office. Just make sure it does not go splat. 

 

Love in Your Dish?

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." And so begins Leo Tolstoy's, Anna Karenina, a masterpiece that relayed and exposed certain universal truths about the human condition, even in its opening line. 

Fast forward a few centuries later to late 19th century Burgundy, France - where Brillat Savarin that gastronomic sage and gourmand astutely observed and concluded that, "The way in which mealtimes are passed is most important to what happiness we find in life." I think Tolstoy would agree that how a family breaks bread is not only connected to their physical well being, but also their happiness both as individuals and as a collective unit. 

The table does come first as Adam Gopnik's latest homage to France and its long-standing traditions both haute and basic observes - as long as it welcomes a meal which includes participants - whether its newlyweds, an old couple, or a raucous family (I am thinking of my own lovely lot). If they can learn to dine with one another, they can learn to enjoy the food and each other's company.

It is fair to say that some meals are painful - I have been there and have chosen to block them out of my own memory. But for the most part, they have forced me to forget myself and to remember others, to learn how to listen, to talk with both adults and children. My family is far from perfect, but one thing I have observed is our enduring ability to still have a proper dinner and to talk and to laugh. There can be great magic at a meal- if you choose to truly participate. Like a Babette's Feast it can enliven the shyest soul ( sometimes with the aid of a glass of wine), enable that irritable grumpy self to shine, and instead, listen, talk, observe, as we eat and drink. 

It's a pause in the day's endless montage of busy nothings. Such a meal is freeing, but more importantly, I think -no, I am convinced as a veteran of the family meal, teaches us how to love - both food and people. To separate the two will only lead to unhappiness - like any divorce or familial separation, nourishment is dependent on two variables - nutrition and the nurturer. Their connection to one another is invaluable and certainly a life-giving force. To separate them goes against the grain. 

To conclude, "breaking bread" is no fire and brimstone stunt. It has real stock value and demonstrates that sharing food with one another, whether it is a simple bowl of soup, a hunk of crusty bread, and a glass of wine can truly nourish the soul. It is civilizing, but more importantly stimulating - both our need for love and our capacity to give it. It is as MFK Fisher beautifully asserted, "Love in a dish."

There can be no warm, rich home-life anywhere else if it does not exist at table, and in the same way there can be no enduring family happiness, no real marriage, if a man and woman cannot open themselves generously and without suspicion one to the other over a shared bowl of soup as well as a shared caress. 

I concur. Santé. 

 

 

In Vino...

I once casually drank a bottle of 1998 Barolo wine. The sanctity of this esteemed vintage slipped past my lips and palate only to quickly quench my thirsty desire to sustain my immature buzz. I had stumbled across the bottle in my parents basement hidden between the forgotten pool table, cobwebs, and WWII military helmets collecting dust. I don't even think I looked at the label and instead hustled upstairs relieved that "there was still wine in the house." I was 21 and at age where quantity took precedence over quality. Barolo was on par with a case of Bud Light, when in reality it was the foie de gras of booze. My then boyfriend and I - both ignorant of taste guzzled it down with buttery popcorn over Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (attempting to imitate Sean Connery's accent - I credit the Barolo here). 

 

The next morning my Mom informed me that that lonely bottle was in fact my father's prized possession. I gasped knowing that my Dad hardly bought himself anything nice aside from the cigars that perfumed his car and at one time my all girl's boarding school dorm. My guilty hangover prompted me to look more deeply into this Barolo matter. Soon, I began researching the "Italian king of wines" slowly discovering its true market and historical value, while I cringed at my Dad's potential reaction. Fortunately for me, he barks but never bites and quickly forgave me and now I buy him a Barolo every year for Christmas or his birthday.

 Four years later, I found myself ironically attending graduate school near Barolo headquarters in Piedmont, Italy. I had an entered a new phase of life - one inspired by taste and driven by a thirst to study why and how it is so inextricable to our lives. 

 At 21, I was still a Philistine half-heartedly making "gourmet meals" and stocking up on cheap French wine from the local Harris Teeter. My palate was ignorant and sullied by the weight of collegiate excesses. The Barolo incident was my first experience of true taste, but one whose significance had gone unnoticed. Interestingly, it had taken place during my last semester of college foreshadowing the exit of  my semi-destructive phase of gross quantity ushering in a new era, one rooted in the simple elegance of fine food and wine. Barolo had been humble that evening and I would argue, a tad sly, coyly hidden in our murky basement as it patiently waiting to be uncorked to meet an unromantic demise at the mouths of two wine amateurs. Its value and perhaps, lesson later arose in an "enlightened hangover." Although I wish I could remember my first taste of Barolo, I am sorry to say, I do not. But the memory of the delinquent act still persists and occasionally haunts me - proving that like a fine wine, taste also improves with time.  

 

 

 

The Easter Bunny

My earliest memories of Easter took place on a farm. It was my Grandfather's farm, bought with his retirement pension from the U.S. Military. His skills on the polo field were one of the many talents of Colonel Arthur Wilson. He also had a knack for names and his racehorses were evidence of this. From Nothing Bad to Secret Oak - both great racehorses to Ayatollah who was a complete  jerk and suspected in the murder of my Mom's cat, to even, Miss Nuna who later destroyed my Mom's beloved vegetable garden. There was no Whitey because he was all white; or Oreo because he was black with white patches; or Peanut Butter because he preferred it to a salt block. No, my Grandfather had a little  more original thought and his farm's name of Twin Orchard's was in sync with its four-legged hoofed residences.  

Snug between two pear orchards, the Colonel-cum-naturalist created the name, which was chiseled on a stone slab at the entrance. The pear orchards, however, remained hidden behind the ramshackle barn. The farm's main attributes were its southern-style open air porch, not one, but two sets of staircases, and a cottage where both a German and Russian lived during and after the Cold War. I spent my early childhood there cultivating an invisible friend, making mud-pies, and I believe annoying my older cousins to no end. 

 One Easter when I was seven, my second of three younger brothers, Will arrived. I remember my Mom slowly working her way down the staircases with my Aunt Anne urging her to head immediately to the hospital. As she walked out to the car, the latest batch of Gretchen's puppies were hot on her heels - some even nibbling at her bathrobe. It was her baby entourage. They knew what was coming.

My brother James and I resolved that Easter would be spent parent-less, but assured ourselves that the arrival of a new family member was far more important. Although I pined for a little sister whose hair I could braid, possibly boss around, my brother Will came with white fuzzy hair and lots of drool. 

So did Easter morning and rather than sit around glumly and wait for the mad dash to Church, James and I gingerly tip-toed down the backstairs only to encounter an Easter mroning surprise.

The Easter Basket was already fair game by the time I was seven. I had my own basket that came filled each year with the usual suspects of jelly beans, pastel-colored Peanut M&M'S, and one giant chocolate Easter bunny. I enjoyed the Easter rituals and reveled in its pagan like Halloween qualities. The hunt for eggs was good fun, too. One year a few went off the reservation only to be found by my Grandfather's dog, Gretchen a few months later. We presumed she had been skunked, as the smell of rotten eggs perfumed the air. Her mouth, however, covered in a rainbow of light pinks and blues indicated that she had discovered her own pot of gold. 

 This year Easter was different. Will was born, Gretchen was incapacitated from her own recent litter, and my Easter basket received a significant upgrade. 

With my Uncle Mike and Aunt Ann in Free Union for Easter things were different. James and I were not left in the care of Uncle Jingles and Gradfather, the two county bachelors, otherwise known, as the odd couple. Rather, we were in the hands of seasoned parents of five grown children. In particular, my Uncle Mike, a second generation Italian, a graduate of West point, Vietnam veteran, and well it may be unfair to say, one of my favorite Uncles had morphed into the Easter bunny overnight. Uncle Mike loved Easter and chocolate, and when the two came together, it was a match made in heaven (pun intended).

James and I could not believe our eyes. Our Easter baskets were bursting with chocolates - piled high as if Uncle Mike had been shoveling candy all night. And although I should have been off my head with joy for my new brother, my mind - nay my stomach was elsewhere.  With no parents around, an unsupervised feast lay before us so we gorged on chocolate all morning experiencing a high and then a low around mid-afternoon. 

The Easter egg hunt was a daze with the puppies running around as Uncle Jingles diligently grilled chorizos. My Aunt Anne continued to sip copious amounts of tea while James and I high on chocolate skipped around completely unconcerned about Will and our Mom. We were deliriously happy and now looking back, I am surprised we did not get sick from our chocolate binge.

Easter had risen well above the ranks that year. Soon, I began to worry about next year's Easter -knowing nothing could match Uncle Mike's baskets. Perhaps fate would grant us another sibling summoning Ann and Mike down to the farm? It was unlikely, but one thing did change and that was my childish obsession with the Easter bunny. I had always suspected that my parents had had a hand in it occasionally spotting stowaway jelly beans on the car floor. As long as I received the Easter basket, I was content and would go to Church without fuss. But now a crucial player had entered the game and I thought to myself, as long as Uncle Mike is around, I do not care. 

Happy Easter. 

 

Frog in Your Throat

The witches of yesteryear often talked of the fountain of youth. Pounce de Leon searched in vain deep in the jungles of south Florida, but the only water he found was swamp water and it was loaded with alligators.

 Where I'm from,we have our own fountain of youth and we call it well water.  And well, it comes from a well dug in the ground  - to be exact, the ground of Albermale county whose soil is rocky but the view of Blue Ridge is handsome and the sound of the bard owl's perpetual hooing question, "who cooks for you" echoes in the woods. It's home. Free Union, Virginia with a modest population of 193 inhabitants, a post office, a local country-store called Maupins where the moonpies, twinkies, and slim jims are are as old me, a local garage mechanic, and lastly the resident witchdoctor, Bruce Campbell's Family practice. 

 Well water has a sharp aftertaste which can be mistaken as blood. You may think you have your bitten lip, when in reality it's the soil's iron dense nutrients entering your system. As you lick your mouth, you find no wound and can't help but smile. 

 There once was a frog stuck in our well and it caused a big brouhaha on the farm. The thought of a slimy amphibian loitering in our water supply weirdly delighted me. I remember my Uncle Jingles ever the recipient of unpleasant tasks descending into the misty cave. He lifted the black tarp that masked the well's entrance and threw it aside and soon descended into the murky labyrinth. I was in awe and contained my delight by scampering in between the main house and the cottage waiting for a frog to jump out. It never did and I think it sunk lower into the muddy waters of the well. The only thing that emerged was Jingles' head and he looked distressed, addled, and annoyed.  

 My Grandfather barked, "Well, did you see it? Where is it?"

Jingles shook his head and suggested to my Grandfather they go the stables to feed the horses. 

 The black tarp resumed its post and soon the frog was left to its watery grave or perhaps haven. Although the frog stayed and his whereabouts continued to remain a mystery evolving into local folklore, our water supply did not alter. I smacked my lips each morning wondering if I I was drinking "frog water," and told my friends at Free Union Country Day that there was a frog  in our well. It was not until I was in high school, when I heard the expression "frog in your throat" that the incident came back to me flooding my mind with memories of my unruly agrarian upbringing came flooding back and without thinking, I blurted out, "Oh we once had a frog in our well." 

The perfect perky pony tail sitting in front of me at 12 o'clock turned around.

"What?" said my St. Catherine's classmate raising her eyebrows.

 I replied, "Oh, we had a frog in our well - well my Grandfather's well because we used to live on his farm when my Mom was writing her dissertation…."

My classmate ignored my mindless clatter and zeroed in on my original comment, " You said you had a frog in your well?"

"Yes, we literally had a frog in our well. Maybe it slid in….but it's funny since you said you had a frog in your throat…."

" That's disgusting. We only drink bottled water at home. What does well water taste like? Is it safe?"

I shrugged my shoulders. " Of course, it's safe. I mean it tastes a little bit like blood, but that's because of the iron in the soil."

"It tastes like blood! Was that because of the frog in your well? Did it die?"

I laughed.

"Why is this SO funny? I think it is gross." continued my classmate.

"Oh come on, it is funny given the saying 'frog in your throat,' when we had a frog in our well.' It did not die and probably lead a very cozy life in our well. Furthermore,  well water is probably the best kind of water you can drink. It comes from the soil right in your backyard and is loaded with nutrients from the ground much like the food in your garden."

But it is was too late. I had upset my classmate with this hillbilly tale.

She looked at me and replied, "I think it it is disgusting! I can't believe you drank from a well. I can't believe there was a frog in it."

"It was fine," I said. "Probably not much different than bottled water you drink and in fact better."

She snorted, "Are you sure?"

I thought to myself, " Yeah, I am sure and it's because of that damn well water slash frog pool that I am better Latin student than you."

I decided to end the conversation but the reappearance of that perky ponytail tied with a pink ribbon tied hinted that it was already over.

Later that day, I found myself by the vending machine perusing the usual suspects of sodas, fruit juices, pretzels, potato chips, and candy bars. Adjacent there was a whole machine containing bottled water - Dasani to be exact and I noticed how many girls came back an forth buying bottled water. It was 2001 and bottled water was all the rage. It had never crossed my mind to buy water except on long road trips, but my recent conversation had left me wondering. Was well water weird? Was my family some bizarre species who rather than distill moonshine in the mountains guzzled well water?  And furthermore, when we buy our tenth bottle of the day is out of pure necessity or rather is it simply a by product of the current status quo's mindset concerning superior hydration? 

 Today, 60 million bottles of water are used daily in the U.S. - or to be more precise are thrown away. Not everyone can have the luxury of a well, but the majority do have running water. When I lived in Italy, I was shocked by the numerous bottles of water people drank and the plastic bottle graveyards I noticed on my biked ride to and from school. 

 During those initial months, my sore stomach proved that the water supply was sub par and I soon purchased a filter. I thought about my Grandfather's farm, Twin Orchards and its well water, and my awakening in high school about the bottled water cult. I wondered what had initially provoked it, how many suppliers of bottled water existed in the world, and what was their marketing strategy and overall appeal. 

 Our thirst for purity whether it's water from the Alps of Evian or the thermes of San Pellegrino or even the lowly iron rich well water of Free Union, Virginia brings to the fore our current confusion with need and want. How much water do we need to clear the 'frog or future frogs in our throats'? How many bottles does it take and whose is better? Where is this so-called fountain of the youth?It is a ploy or was it always in the backyard - a simple canal of hydration and future insurance towards a good life. Maybe the frogs knows.