I am a Genußmensch, a gourmand, a true lover of food. The pleasure I derive from preparing, eating, smelling, seeing or even just thinking about good food is nearly unparalleled.

I’ve always been this way. Even as a child, I wasn’t a picky eater. There were things that I didn’t like, but the breadth and variety of things I did - and still do - like far outweighed the occasional green bean or brussels sprout that I rejected. One of my parents’ favorite stories is from when I was about 8 years old and I ordered herrings in sour cream sauce in a restaurant. The waitress leaned over and nervously whispered in my mother’s ear, “Does she know what she’s ordering?” My mother proudly responded, “Yes! She loves that!” Maybe I was a strange child. I was crazy about spinach (and even named my rocking horse Spinach), I would steal and eat anchovies from the tin when my mother was making pizza and I would choose pimiento spread over peanut butter cups any day.

The food of my childhood was Italian, or at least that’s what I remember the most. My mother’s father was of Italian descent, and his family taught my grandmother numerous recipes, which she then cooked for us. Spaghetti and meatballs, lasagne, eggplant parmesan, veal cutlets, Italian sausage, “Oma soup”, “tookoo" - olive oil, tomatoes, oregano, parsley, garlic, wine… I would come home from school, and the pungent aroma of rich red tomato sauce would waft over me as I walked through the door. I would throw a fit if I found out that the sauce was to be saved for another day. To this day, I sneak into the kitchen and dip a piece of white bread into the sauce as it simmers and steams, just to taste-test it, of course - and the rattle of the lid on the pot inevitably gives me away.

I am endlessly proud of this little bit of Italian heritage; as a typical “rootless" American, it gives me something to hold on to. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a grandmother who stands in the kitchen all day making an eggplant parmesan that is so heavenly it brings tears to the eyes.

It is this pleasure that makes me thankful to be a food lover. I have never understood - and always been somewhat wary of - people who only eat because they have to. I’ve known several people like that; they dutifully shovel in their nutrients at the allotted times and get no pleasure whatsoever from perusing a cookbook or watching butter melt on peppery mashed potatoes. I feel sorry for these people, because I think that they’ve closed off a potentially huge source of joy and relaxation. I find that when you love good food your opportunities to be elated increase a thousandfold. The whiff of a freshly-baked baguette - pure bliss. A creamy tomato soup tingling on the tongue - a balm for the soul. The sinful richness of homemade pesto - positively orgasmic.

And when you sit around a table with your friends, and everyone is laughing and chatting and nibbling on marinated olives and drinking a good red wine, and you know that the espresso and tiramisu is yet to come - well, what better place is there to be?