One night last fall, I was awakened by wild waves of nausea. I was dreaming about sushi, (probably thanks to the book I was working my way through, the zen of fish.)

This was my first taste of morning sickness. And worst of all, it came in the middle of a wine media trip to the Santa Maria Valley. Try hiding THAT from a bunch of food and wine journalist for three days while being offered exceptional food and drink morning, noon and night!

I had quite a run of it. It started the last week of September and plagued me nearly until Christmas. I don’t want to complain too heartily. Many women have experienced far worse pregnancies than mine. But to try to get through months of nausea, lethargy and migraines while working as a food writer and trying to hide the whole thing from colleagues is no joke.

I thought pregnant women were supposed to crave foods, not become averse to them. But for months I couldn’t bear the smell of everything from coffee to Cabernet. And I still can’t even handle the thought of fois gras at eight months pregnant!

I’d spent the past 10+ years loving food, dreaming of it and enjoying a career that allowed me to indulge in the cuisines of the world. Suddenly, it was like food and I were at war.

I survived the morning sickness and came out of it all a few pounds lighter and mentally far tougher. It taught me a few realities of pregnancy I think every woman should know going in (bear in mind, this is based solely on my personal experience):

It is okay if you lose a pound or two your first trimester. Don’t try to force the food.

If you are prone to migraines you might, like me, get frequent, debilitating headaches during the first trimester. (I had about 2 per week for nine or so weeks.)

If the doctor offers you medication for nausea, take it! I put my doctor off for two months before I finally gave in and got the prescription. It didn’t make things entirely better, but it make a remarkable improvement and, as far as we can tell, had no effect on the baby.

Despite what all the books say, morning sickness does not necessarily end with the start of your second trimester. Mine lasted nearly to month 5.

Make sure you take your vitamins, especially if you aren’t eating well. Just don’t–and I know this part is tough–take them on an empty stomach. This will make everything so much worse!

Do not, whatever you do, try to read a book about food (especially one about fish) during this dark period in your life.

serves 4
1 package fresh cheese or spinach tortellini
1 bunch Chinese broccoli
4 medium morel mushrooms, brushed, trimmed and thinly sliced
salt & white pepper
1 shallot, finely chopped
1/4 c fresh lemon juice (approx. the juice of 1 small/medium lemon)
1/2 c Chardonnay or other dry, white wine
8 oz unsalted butter, chilled
salt to taste
4 tbsp grated Pecorino
4 turkey meatballs (optional)

1. Put your pasta water on the stove and bring to a boil. (If the rest of the meal isn’t ready by the time the water is boiling, just turn it down but keep it at the ready. This will ultimately save you time.)
2. Wash and trim the Chinese broccoli. Cut into 1″ lengths.
3. Steam the broccoli in 1 tbsp water for about 4 minutes, until it is vibrant green and starting to get tender. Reserve to a plate and discard any remaining water.
4. Heat a non-stick saute pan coated with cooking spray. Add the morels and cook, tossing lightly, for 1 minute. Add the broccoli and cook for an additional minute. Reserve.
5. Return the saute pan to medium-high heat. Combine the shallots, lemon juice and white wine. Bring to a simmer and simmer until the mixture has reduced to about 1 tbsp, (4-5 minutes). While it is simmering, cut the butter into 1/2″ cubes. Make sure it remains cold–this is the secret to a nice, thick, glossy sauce (return to refrigerator if needed).
6. Add tortellini to the boiling pasta water and cook according to package instructions (generally about 3 minutes).
7. While the pasta is cooking, turn the temperature on the shallot mixture down to low and add the butter 2 chunks at a time, whisking thoroughly to incorporate. As the chunks melt, continue to add butter 2 chunks at a time, whisking constantly. You will be tempted to turn up the heat but do not rush the sauce. When you get to the last two chunks, remove the pan from the heat before whisking.
8. Once all the butter is incorporated, season with salt then remove from the hot pan. (I got distracted and left my beurre blanc in the hot pan unattended, which caused it to break slightly. Nobody wants a broken sauce!) Traditionally, you would strain out the shallots before serving a beurre blanc but I liked the rusticity they added to the final sauce and left them in for this dish.

To assemble:
Divide the pasta between four plates. Top each with 1/4 of the vegetables then drizzle with sauce. (You can also toss the whole thing in a big bowl and serve family style). Sprinkle each plate with 1 tbsp of Pecorino. I topped mine with a turkey meatball to try to add some healthy, lean protein but the meatball is completely optional.

Normally I don’t have duck fat laying around (imagine that!). But this week I found myself in the fortuitous situation of not only having some leftover fat from duck confit but I also had a pound and a half of my favorite French fingerling potatoes on the counter.

I’ve offered my recipe for my first experiment with duck fat potatoes below. Were they life-changing potatoes? I always love tender French fingerlings straight from the market. These potatoes have such a cream interior that they taste almost like mashed without the work (or the calories). But I can’t honestly say that roasting the potatoes in duck fat is that far superior to a less artery clogging olive or grape seed oil. My favorite way to cook a potato has always been at the bottom of a pan coated with cooking spray, topped with a bone-in, skin-on chicken breast. The potatoes slow cook as the chicken roasts, the drippings flavoring the potatoes similarly to those tossed in duck fat but far more intensely. Perhaps next time I’ll share that recipe with you.

Potatoes Roasted in Duck Fat

1 1/2 lb french fingerling potatoes, skin on
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
2 tbsp duck fat
generous pinch smoked salt

1. Heat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Slice the potatoes in half lengthwise. Place in a large mixing bowl with garlic. Toss with the duck fat to thoroughly coat then season generously with smoked salt.
3. Place potatoes cut side down on a tray and cover with foil.
4. Roast for 20 minutes in the middle of oven.
5. Remove potatoes from oven and flip them over so that the cut side is facing up. Return to oven, uncovered and cook for an additional 15 minutes, until potatoes are soft and edges are crisp.

Thanks to Chef Jack Czarnecki, My Truffle Dreams Came True

I was invited to come to the Wilammette Valley by Chef (and old family friend) Jack Czarnecki to learn about Oregon truffles. Czarnecki rose to prominence in the 1980’s as a leading culinary authority on mushrooms with his restaurant Joe’s in Reading, PA. After 22 years, Czarnecki closed Joe’s to move to the heart of American mushroom country in Oregon. There he founded the Joel Palmer House restaurant in 1997 (now run by his sons).

In the Willamette Valley, heart of America’s Pinot Noir country, Czarnecki discovered the luxury cousin to his beloved mushrooms: Oregon truffles. Jack has been hunting and studying truffles ever since and even founded Oregon Truffle Oil, which is, to my knowledge, the only truffle oil company to infuse its flavor solely with natural truffles. (The scent and flavor of most truffle oils comes from a chemical product.)

So when I was invited by such an authority to try my hand at black truffle hunting, I jumped at the chance and booked my flight.

In Europe, it was once traditional to use female pigs to find truffles. But because the sows were motivated by the scent of truffles, (which replicates a male pheromone–you knew I’d get my aphrodisiac reference in sooner or later), problems could arise during the hunt. The pigs could get themselves whipped into such a sexual frenzy over the truffles that they could become impossible to control. So in more recent years, most hunters have switched to using dogs. Canines can be trained for this scent work in a similar fashion to conditioning drug sniffing dogs.

Jack in Action

To rake for truffles, you use education and intuition to pick a spot likely to have truffles. On occasion a truffle will break the surface, giving you a head start on (hopefully) raking up a posse of these black pearls. (The same method is used for white truffle hunting–and from what I understand, whites are typically easier to rake than are blacks. Unfortunately, it was a little too late in the season to find Oregon whites which are typically fall/early winter truffles.)

The original plan had been to rake alongside Jack and truly earn my supper. However, based on the fact that black truffles had been particularly elusive this year and, taking into account that I would be raking truffles nearly six months pregnant, Jack decided to call in reinforcements.

He invited along his friends and mushroom hunters John and Connie Getz and their truffle dog, Chloe.

Score One for Chloe!

The day went something like this: A small group assembled at the Czarnecki’s beach cottage on the Oregon coast. There was another journalist, a chef, my mother and pregnant me. Jack and his wife Heidi prepared us a hearty breakfast of eggs and toast with truffle butter. From there we piled into cars and caravaned off to meet John and Connie, who would lead us to our secret truffle site.

We pulled off a highway onto a wide swath of cut grass, hidden from the road by a bank of trees. Truffle hunting is very secret business. Hunters develop relationships with land owners and guard their turf carefully. Most are tucked away and rather remote. This is the way of wild truffle hunting around the world. However, in Oregon, native truffles often use pine trees as hosts, meaning that Christmas tree farms can make excellent hunting grounds for those lucky enough to score the rights to this type of luxurious turf.

Although it was a sunny day, we all layered up in our outdoor gear in preparation for a three-hour hunt. We meandered through a field of knee-high grass, across a stream and into a lush, Pacific Northwestern pine forest. Jack distributed rakes but rather than going on the attack, most of us chose to watch Chloe go into action. After a few minutes of play, the dog snapped into work mode and began sniffing the ground, weaving from the base of one tree to the next.

When she found a truffle she began to dig and John would jump in to unearth the edible prize. Once or twice, Chloe swallowed down a truffle before anyone got there. It seems the beast had a taste for the finer things. But for the most part, she just enjoyed doing her duty of pointing the boss in the right direction, then moving on to the next treasure.

We moved along this way with Jack and whoever felt like grabbing a rake gently sifting the soil beneath one tree while Chloe sniffed the base of the next. Chloe turned up a truffle of varying size and ripeness about every 3-5 minutes while the humans, well, we got a little exercise from raking, nothing more.

After a while, we established a routine. Chloe would point out the truffle. John would unearth it, then pass it to his wife Connie. Connie, who is legally blind, would sniff each truffle to assess ripeness (occasionally, an unearthed truffle will be past its prime). Connie, whose sense of smell was unparalleled, would announce the nuances of the truffle like she was evaluating fine wine. She would murmer, “Coconut” or “This one has caramel.” I decided to get my pregnancy nose (which I liken to bloodhound strength compared with what it was pre-pregnancy) in on the act.

Oh, the Decadence

All-in-all, I think Chloe turned up between 40 and 50 truffles during our hunt. We carried them back to the car in holsters Jack fashioned out of old, plastic milk cartons. We shook off as much of the damp red soil as we could before piling back in the car, our precious cargo nestled in their milk jugs beneath the back seat.

If scent had a sound, the aroma in the car on the way back to Jack’s place would have been deafening. I don’t know how a little pile of fungus could produce such a mind-filling aroma. It was the smell of earth and forest and fruit and chocolate and wine and sweat all mixed into one.

Because Jack couldn’t possibly allow our truffle education to end without the taste of our riches, we concluded the trip with dinner at Joel Palmer House. We were served the multi-course “mushroom madness” meal and although it didn’t say it on the menu, most every course was generously laden with Oregon black truffles. It was the perfect conclusion to a day that saw an almost decade-long fantasy become reality… or so I thought…

The next morning, as we were getting ready to visit a few local wineries, (we were in the Wilammette after all!), my mother reached into her pocket and made one of those indescribable startled sounds.

Truffles & Taffy

That’s how I came up with the radish-avocado picnic sandwich. The sandwich is actually a variation on the summer specialty from my new cookbook, Romancing the Stove. The original is a Tomato Avocado Picnic Sandwich, which I recommend as a perfect romantic weekend food). But, served open-faced so all the colors of spring shine, I think I might actually like the radish variation better than the original! Try it with radishes in spring and tomatoes in summer then you be the judge.

makes 1 sandwich

1 slice whole grain bread (I like a bread that is laced with seeds)
1/2 – 1 tsp butter
1 rounded tbsp chopped avocado
1-2 breakfast radishes (depending on size), sliced in half lengthwise
salt & black pepper

1. Lightly toast the bread then thinly spread with butter while the toast is still hot. (The amount of butter you use depends on the size of your bread slice.)
2. Spread the avocado on top of the butter. I know, it might sound like overkill but trust me, it tastes better with both butter and avocado.
3. Top with the radish slices and sprinkle with a pinch of salt and pepper.

Enjoy the taste of spring.

Annette gave me a choice: fried or sauteed. (Since saute is much easier, I went with that option.) Whichever cooking method you use, Annette’s filling is the same:

squash blossom filling

Thoroughly mix the ricotta and egg. Gently fold in the chives and zest then season with salt and pepper. Scoop the mixture into a sandwich-sized Ziplock bag.

Gently wash and dry 20-24 squash blossoms. (We actually made a dozen and froze the rest of the filling for later.)

filling the blossoms

While you’re stuffing the blossoms, you can be heating the oil in a heavy saute pan. Annette used a neutral oil to allow the delicate flavor of the squash shine. (Good choices include grape seed, soybean or walnut oil.) Being the consummate chef, Annette merely eyeballed the oil but I’d hazard a guess that she used about 2 tbsp. (Use enough to thoroughly coat the bottom of your pan.)

Heat your oil over medium/medium high heat. The oil should be heated to that point just before it begins to bubble.

the oil should look this hot

perfectly cooked squash blossoms

The blossoms are best when they’re hot. Just don’t grab them when they’re too hot or you’ll burn your tongue. (Bad for potential future kissing sessions.)

Three experiences stood out as my favorites in all of our New York explorations. The first was the discovery of Culture, http://www.cultureny.com/. Culture makes strained fresh and frozen yogurts. (Those of you who know me well know what a sucker I am for good frozen yogurt. I discovered that I was lactose intolerant in my late teens. Although it hasn’t stopped me from enjoying cheese, it has meant that I haven’t been able to enjoy ice cream since I was 19. Thus, I turned to yogurt years ago and consider myself quite the yogurt aficionado, if there can be such a thing.)

On my first visit to Culture, I tried the berry-flavored frozen yogurt topped with chopped almonds. Culture takes a healthy approach without beating you over the head with their agenda. The result is a topping bar filled with dessert-appropriate items that, for the most part, still offer some sort of nutritional value. I also picked up a yogurt shake for the road.

The yogurt was so impressively thick and tangy, yet with a smooth finish, that I went back for seconds and thirds over the course of my stay in Park Slope. My favorite was actually the fresh, plain yogurt (so thick it had to be scooped out of the container like ice cream) topped with Key lime syrup and graham cracker dust. If you ever find yourself in Park Slope, I highly recommend seeking out this creation.

My second favorite Park Slope find was Talde, http://www.taldebrooklyn.com/. A relative newcomer, this South East Asian/American/Hawaiian-inspired dining spot is owned by Dale Talde of Top Chef fame.

Talde is housed in what was formerly a laundry but you’d never guess that something so unglamorous was the space’s former incarnation. The restaurant is attractive and charmingly simple in its decor. A warm, energetic buzz extends from the partially open kitchen into the entire dining space. The menu is eclectic but in a way that makes perfect sense.

We tried an appetizer of three Hawaiian bread buns filled with Filipino pork, crispy fluke and market vegetables, as well as the perilla leaf with toasted shrimp, coconut and bacon-tamarind caramel, a fun take on one of my favorite Asian street foods. My favorite dish of the meal was the Lobster Tom Kha Gai, made with such a rich lobster stock you didn’t even need the lobster meat. Annette vows to return soon for the Korean Fried Chicken and I hope to get back some time for the Crispy Oyster and Bacon Pad Thai.

The most impressive of our Park Slope dining experiences was found at Soigne. (They don’t seem to have the website thing figured out yet but here’s the facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/pages/Soigne-Restaurant-Wine-Bar/162707180416775.)

Soigne is a new, seasonal American restaurant by chef Anthony Marzuillo. It is my understanding that Marzuillo, still a relative youngster among chefs, honed his craft during a several year stint at Aureole before risking it all to open his own place. Clearly, Marzuillo is an excellent learner because every dish we ordered smacked of technical perfection–at a fraction of Aureole’s prices! In fact, our dinner at Soigne was hands down the finest bargain I’ve ever found in New York.

I ordered the three-course Brooklyn Restaurant Week menu, offered at $25. (The menu is actually offered year-round on certain nights of the week but at a “whopping” $30.) First was a simple, seasonal salad. Next was skate wing with favas and morels (perhaps not an innovative combination but a magical one as far as I’m concerned). It was accompanied by the most texturally perfect gnocchi I could ever hope to taste; soft pillows of dough gave way to almost liquid, lighter-than-air centers. Annette ordered the duck because we’d heard a rumor that this is the chef’s favorite dish. And it was clear when the dish arrived that chef Mazuillo has a way with the bird. It was perfectly rendered and melt-in-your-mouth tender. Although we were far too full, my meal came with dessert, so we enjoyed a slice of cheesecake made under the direction of Mazuillo’s girlfriend and Executive Pastry Chef JoAnne Braganza.

I never knew something as simple as cheesecake could become a transformative experience. I took my first bite and with a touch of shock in my voice said to Annette, “This cheesecake is… wet.” Annette, with a starry-eyed look, nodded and said, “This is real deal New York cheesecake. The kind I remember as a kid.” While I sat and pondered how a cake could at once crumble under my fork and ooze moisture on my tongue (this was apparently my first brush with true New York cheesecake), I watched Annette travel to some far off place as she ate her cake.

Although I don’t think every great dining experience needs to transport you to a happy place that is all your own, a dinner that can make you exclaim, sigh and think happy thoughts with every course certainly marks a restaurant with some level of greatness. And clearly, although it is little more than a neighborhood haunt, if you brush away a little bias, Park Slope’s Soigne is the hidden gem that can glitter brightly.

But spring has sprung and this Sunday I heard the market calling. And among the rainbow of seasonal offerings, I found a vendor offering the first of the season’s pea tendrils. I adore pea tendrils for their little corkscrew stems and tiny flower buds clinging to the vines. But mostly, I think, I enjoy these tender greens because the window of opportunity to enjoy their unique flavor only comes once a year.

So, of course, I filled my basket with a tangle of the greens and raced home to make brunch.

Garlicky Pea Tendrils

1/2 lb pea tendrils
1 tbsp olive oil*
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
salt and pepper to taste
1 tbsp cold water

1. Thoroughly wash the pea tendrils (I find these greens like to attract bugs).
2. Heat the oil in a large saute pan. Add the garlic and saute until soft, about one minute.
3. Add the pea tendrils and saute for an additional 2-3 minutes. (The leaves should still be vibrant green but soft.)
4. Season with salt and pepper then remove pan from heat and mix in the water before transferring the tendrils to a serving dish.

*I read that Alice Waters sautes her pea tendrils in duck fat. Although it sounds delicious I didn’t happen to have duck fat on hand. But if you have a spare jar laying around, you might want to try it!

I served my pea tendrils with scrambled eggs, bacon and toast but they make a delicious side to almost any dish.

I learned about this trend at the recent International Association of Culinary Professionals annual conference. I showed up at a seminar on connecting bloggers and marketers. The seminar description mentioned monetizing and, as the editorial director of a well-established online magazine, EatSomethingSexy.com, I was interested in seeing if these strategies could apply to our business. To say that the information discussed was jaw dropping would be an understatement. I think I spent the next three hours with my jaw dangling somewhere between my knees and China.

What I learned was that major (and even small) organizations in the culinary business (as in Kraft, the Got Milk? campaign, Kitchenaid, etc) are contacting high profile food and lifestyle bloggers to endorse products, create recipes, photograph dishes made with their products, conduct giveaways, etc for reasonably substantial financial gain.

As marketers discuss the kinds of relationships they develop with bloggers, I could feel a negative current ripple through the air. You see, the majority of attendees were professional journalists, recipe developers, publishers, home economists, editors, etc. The general feeling in the room was shock and horror and, trust me, I threw my emotional lot in with the majority.

When asked to talk specific monetary amounts, both the marketers and bloggers on the panel suddenly grew shy. One marketer mentioned a blogger not in attendance turning down her client because she doesn’t accept less than $500 to develop and photograph a unique recipe. The test kitchen director from a major, highly respected appliance company seated to my left looked over with the same shocked expression I’m sure was painted across my mug and said, “That’s not exactly a lot.” I agreed, wondering how, depending on the ingredients, you could possibly develop and test a recipe and still make enough money for the hours of work to be worthwhile for much less. …and then I got my answer. The recipes aren’t tested.

If you haven’t worked on this side of the food business (or have been the victim of a bad recipe), you probably are wondering what’s the big deal? A professionally created recipe will be tested multiple times after it’s developed, often using different equipment. Why? Any of you who have experienced a recipe with a mistake already know the answer. I once encountered a chocolate cake that literally exploded in the oven. (And no, it was not my ineptitude, I actually checked with the source and I was not the only one to experience the chocolate TNT.) Recipes that appear in reputable publications undergo testing to ensure that the experience of making a dish goes smoothly for a home cook.

How much is enough? The recipes in my cookbooks are tested three times in the test kitchen then sent to 2-3 home chefs to try. If the home chefs have a problem, I go back to square one. If the tested recipes work for all the hobby cooks, they get published. Some publications go through far more extensive testing. At America’s Test Kitchen, they will test recipes as many as 100 times before sharing with the public.

The point is companies are now farming out this kind of work to home cooks, whose skill in recipe development and writing haven’t been proven–without any control over how well the recipes have been tested. The bloggers are, essentially, faking it. And then marketers are sharing these recipes with the public–and paying hobby cooks for skilled work for which most aren’t qualified. (And to what extent do the companies check to ensure the resulting recipes aren’t plagiarized from professional sources?) Worst of all from my professional standpoint, it’s acing pros like the ones in the conference room out of much needed work in their chosen field! The public loses, the culinary profession loses… the only winners in this arrangement are marketers and the bloggers.

I’m not saying that all the bloggers reaping the benefits of these arrangements aren’t qualified or don’t posses a unique set of skills deserving of the leap from Wordpress to notoriety (The Pioneer Woman comes to mind). But in general this trend is a glaring example of what many have complained is a general “dumbing down” of the culinary profession, particularly food journalism. At a time when legendary publications like Gourmet can no longer sustain an audience, it makes my skin crawl a little bit to think that advertising dollars that could have helped sustain high quality food writing and recipe development, (not just Gourmet but the great food writing and stunning photography newspapers and other magazines have lost to cutbacks), is going to people with a hobby and probably too much time on their hands.

Yes, as a food professional part of me is outraged. The work of great recipe developers, food stylists and photographers and, of course, food journalists are skills, crafts honed through years of education and/or apprenticeship and resume building. If this trend continues, we’ll all be out of work. But setting personal feelings aside, what is much worse is how this hurts the consumer. Until now, consumers have been treated to professionally created recipes, photographs and fact-checked information on food. If this trend continues, quality communications from the food world to the consumer will be a thing of the past. Don’t you deserve more?

The best pizza I think I’ve ever tasted was at Grimaldi’s in Brooklyn. I walked over the Brooklyn Bridge and stood in line in the rain for half an hour to get that pizza. And at the moment the hot pie hit my mouth, I knew the journey was not only worth it, but I had no doubt I would walk a mile further and stand in line twice as long to have the experience again.

So I think I must have won some sort of culinary lottery when I had the chance to experience this kind of pie again, sans rain, traversing bodies of water or even a line. In fact, I just strolled right in to this magical haven of American-Italian goodness.

I’m talking about Rubirosa, a surprisingly inviting, Italian hole-in-the-wall on Mulberry Street. In New York to promote Romancing the Stove, I got a hot tip from friends that I would like the pizza and, although in the evenings it is only available by whole pie, before 5pm you can get it by the slice.

I was skeptical that the pizza could rival Grimaldi’s but I had hopes that it would at least inspire a few sensory memories. I ordered a slice of the restaurant’s Classic, promoted on the menu as coming from a 50 year old family recipe.

When my pizza arrived, I felt a shot of excitement just looking at the splendid orange triangle in front of me. In appearance, it was remarkably like that pie of my memories. The crust is as thin as lavosh–this one might be thinner than Grimaldi’s–but it’s more pliant than a cracker. In flavor, it tastes like a low-sodium Saltine (utterly unremarkable) although its glutinous texture brings so much to the pie.

The sauce is a slightly sweet crushed tomato with just a mere hint of seasoning. Like the crust, it would be fairly unremarkable on its own. The cheese, imported from exotic Wisconsin I’ve been told, is a tangy, slightly tart, brilliantly stretchy yet not particularly flavorful Mozzarella. Its amazing that the sum of these three somewhat underwhelming parts can come together to make a perfect whole. But they do. Oh, do they!

The secret, I’ve decided, to this earth-moving experience is balance. Each of the three parts plays its role, both in texture and flavor, to make one clear, concise, seductively balanced eating experience. The crunchy, chewy texture of the crust mingling on the tongue with sweet tomato and tangy, slightly salty, gooey cheese is almost magical. It makes me understand why pizza is practically a religion here.

Did the Rubirosa pizza live up to the legend of Grimaldi? It’s really hard for me to say. The Grimaldi’s pizza was part of an experience and it was my first. I am now older, wiser, and far more jaded a pie critic today. But ultimately, does one have to exceed the experience of the other? Can they not live on in my mind as the days I danced with a perfect slice?