In Lorrie Moore's short story Agnes of Iowa, the title character starts out as the unlucky casualty of good intentions. The name "Agnes" had been her mother's superstitious attempt to bamboozle the genetic lottery, using the logic that "a good-looking woman was even more striking when her name was a homely one".
But Agnes and her mother are slapped in the face by the hand of fate. Homely young Agnes tries to make her name sound exotic, introducing herself as "On-yez" at parties. But Agnes grows up, and the story is a masterpiece of expectations and loss.
Themes of expectation and loss might have something to do with why I'm naturally suspicious of garnishes on food. After all, the word "homely" can be used to describe something cosy, familiar and suggestive of a home environment, but it also could have been used to describe Agnes.
Like make-up, garnishes have their place in the line-up. The notion of comfort food in restaurants has always freaked me out, reminding me of "wear your pyjamas to work" day and other things I'd rather live without.
A cook's responsibility to make food delicious isn't as subjective or as variable as it often appears - but how much does it have to do with how beautiful the food looks? When I'm paying to eat in a restaurant, I don't always need it to be different or better than something I would make at home, but there are definitely certain things I'm more drawn to experimenting with and consuming on home - or homely - turf.
Potted meats, where have you been all my life? I eat you, and then I forget you. And I'm sorry about that, because some of the best things I've eaten in the past month have been simple potted meats: the tender, rich, imported sardine rillettes at Carrefour; the sweet and buttery potted brown crab at London's NOPI; a velvety terrine of rabbit and wild mushrooms; a duck confit in Spain that first crackled, then melted, in our mouths.
As David Lebovitz writes in the introduction to his recipe for salmon rillettes (davidlebovitz.com): "A recent story on CNN talked about how America's Favorite French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, was not bourgeois… the (American) commentator exclaimed, 'He didn't grow up eating pâté!' I thought that was pretty funny since meaty pâtés and rillettes aren't upscale delicacies in France but are considered everyday fare."
Lebovitz's website also contains a recipe for outstanding sardine pâté, including a version where he adds my childhood favourite, Kiri cream cheese. If I could find Kiri in Santa Fe, I'd be making some for breakfast. Instead, I'm making his salmon rillettes.
In late 2009, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall did a two-part series about terrines and terrine alternatives for his column in The Guardian. They're a great resource - and like Lebovitz's recipes, they're freely available. If you're interested in making potted meats at home, I highly recommend checking out their notes and recipes.