Many meals tell a story and many great stories include a meal that weaves itself, inextricably into the plot. Today’s meal has a background story and due to it’s success, has now become part of the story of  My First Year Back in Paris.

Last year I met a man who loves food almost as much as I. Our first day spent together revolved around food and kissing. Not a bad combination. In fact, our first kiss was in the middle of Munich’s Viktualienmarkt, under the hot summer sun, standing next to a produce stand.

Fast forward a couple of months and there we are,  a couple in Paris together and he’s making sure that I eat very well.  It goes without saying that, when you love food, being with someone who shares your passion is a delightful experience.

Of all of our meals together, my favourite one was on an October night in a very small, excellent restaurant. I ordered fish with polenta, chorizo and cépes. The dish was served in a shallow, wide bowl. The polenta and chorizo were hidden under the fish (not formed like my meal today). The fish was wonderful, the wine was perfect and I remember we smiled all evening and congratulated ourselves on having such great taste.

Life wasn’t as perfect as the meals we were sharing and by the middle of the following January we parted ways.

But not before I tried to recreate the dish. In my defense, you just shouldn’t cook a meal when you feel miserable. It doesn’t help if  both the cook and the guest are alternating between smiling and weeping. Such was the case on the evening I decided to cook for us. Instead of planning the meal with care, I went to the grocery store and quickly bought frozen fish and pre-cooked, pre-formed polenta. Big mistake…huge mistake. Pre-cooked polenta is hard and flavourless, rather like eating cardboard.

I began the meal with some trepidation. We were both under enormous emotional stress and had been for a while. The turmoil had caused me to lose my cooking mojo and I knew it. Losing one’s cooking mojo is serious business. My creativity, precision and passion for cooking was gone…whisked away as if by black magic.

That night I cried while cooking, we both cried while eating (and not just because the fish was over-cooked) and by January my Food-Loving Lover and I seperated. I never did cook a proper meal for him.

Lovers come and go but the things we love the most, the things we’re passionate about, stay with us. I may have lost my cooking mojo for a while but the talent, passion and deep love I have for food, was always there, under the surface…just waiting for me to heal from heartbreak and once again embrace my Love of Cooking.

Do the thing you love and everything else will fall into place.

Today I decided to re-create that meal on my own terms, in my own way. What I’ve done today, barely resembles my original inspiration. This is actually, what I prefer.

I bought mold forms at E. Dehillerin yesterday and went in search for the best chorizo I could find. Instead of serving in a bowl, I made forms and layered thinly sliced chorizo in the middle. Instead of fish, I used prawns. Instead of cépes with brown sauce, I made a chorizo cream.

And this time, instead of cooking for a lover I cooked for two of my best friends in Paris, Steve and Paul. Sitting at the table, I watched them closely as they first tasted the results of my work. Steve moaned slightly and barely spoke. He looked at me later and said, “It wasn’t just good, it was to die for!”

Mission accomplished.

My cooking mojo has been back for a while but today was especially important to me. I believe in not giving up on something until you get it right.

So this meal is for the man that kissed me at Viktualianmarkt, fed me well & with love, and ate the over-cooked fish I served him.

All’s well that ends well.

The recipe and instructions are here.

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