Volcanoes

In February 2008, I traveled with Dave to Deauville, France, for the third annual Omnivore Food Festival. The two of us were like fish out of water in this off-season beach town. Straight off the plane from New York and jet-lagged, we were left to our own devices in the tiny, remote town to gather Asian ingredients for a kimchi demo. We agreed to wake up at 6 a.m. the next day to get breakfast and get going. We met drowsy and confused in the empty hotel lobby and proceeded to sleepwalk through the ghost town until we could smell fresh-baked bread and saw a light on in the only bakery in town. Dave took charge and pointed at nearly everything in the joint, as that’s how we eat when we’re abroad. “I’m full” is not a phrase you’re allowed to use—such is the price of traveling with chef Dave Chang. We found a bench outside and unwrapped this mound of bread that looked like it had some sort of creamy gravy inside. Still half-asleep, we wrestled the filled bread ball out of the bag and bit in. When you are having a food moment, it’s like tasting food for the first time. Your eyes open wide and then close, as if in slow motion. You chew as if no food with flavor has ever touched your tongue before and what you are eating at that very moment is what will shape all future food opinions you will ever have. That was our 6:05 a.m. February morning in Deauville. Neither of us speaks French, so we decided to call it what it was, a volcano—an explosion of potato, lardons, and cheese like no other. We raced each other to the bakery every subsequent morning that week. And on the plane ride home, we agreed that if and when we opened a bakery, it must serve our very own volcano.