perfect foods

holding a freshly-toasted english muffin this morning, i roamed the breakfast line until i saw a vat of whipped banana butter. it was light but full of banana flavour, and surprisingly good. they certainly hadn't acidulated it enough to create an objectionable taste (bananas and acid don't go well together) but it hadn't turned brown. quite a feat. with a smear of apricot conserve, it came close to being a perfect food. a freshly-toasted muffin half is key.

at lunch, there was a beautiful lentil stew with puy lentils, wafer-thin slices of jerusalem artichoke, and roasted mushrooms. the jerusalem artichoke, as everyone knows, is actually the enlarged storage root of the sunflower, or girasol. they're a trendy but usually charmless starch, but today they supplied a soft crunch and starchiness that went beautifully with the lentils. sometimes the chefs put neat names on dishes and they decided to name this hearty, warming dish with a slightly musty flavour haleine du hiver, or breath of winter.

there were also beef cheeks supplied by the harris ranch beef company and braised to the point of collapse with guinness stout and the traditional vegetables. these beef cheeks were brilliant too, with a mellow, round flavour, and they were a startling shade of mauve; the onions, carrots, celery, and tomatoes had melted away into the gravy. the salad of frisee, gojiberries, and toasted hazelnuts, lightly dressed with a lavender-infused vinaigrette; that didn't hurt either.