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crushed-velvet lounge chair, whose welcoming deep brown coloring reminds me of a beef reduction stock I make and freeze every autumn when the weather turns chilly. I could go for a hearty beef stew made with the stock right about now. It might fill up this sense of despair I’m feeling.
    I ease my girth into the lounge chair, propping myself up on the egg yolk-yellow satin pillow (I fear if I actually fainted into the chair, I might well break off a leg or two of it in the process). I toy with a tassel as I weigh my options. Weigh my options . Good one. I’d laugh at my little play on words, if it weren’t so completely not funny.
    I realize my choices are this: lose weight, keep my job. Not lose weight? Lose my job. Either way there’s dramatic loss. Okay, fine, and losing weight has an upside to it besides not giving up my beloved profession. I’d also be able to wear my Spanx. Maybe delve into the collection of smaller outfits gathering dust in my closet, arranged in an arpeggio of sizes from a relatively diminutive eight all the way up to a double-digited none-of-your-business.
    And not losing weight? All I can see are downsides. Downsides to being up on the scale. Marvelous. But aside from the "me factor" in this equation, is the bigger picture. I have aspired to being a premier food critic since back during the lean days, when we lived in Europe, when I realized how very much food is an integral part of the human condition. Here I always thought it was just me who was all about food. But it was there that I realized in many countries, food is life. And life is food.
    To celebrate when I finally landed my fantasy job, William surprised me by preparing—all by himself—a feast of my favorite French foods: escargots with garlic butter and a splash of cognac; langoustines (flown-in overnight from Brittany), sautéed in their shells with butter and garlic and a hint of malagache curry; potatoes daphinoise (a little overpowering with the langoustines, I know, but he was going after my favorites); and haricots verts sautéed in shallots, all paired with a vintage Dom Perignon. The meal couldn’t have been more perfect: conceived in love (sounds like a baby, doesn’t it?), dining by candlelight, Edith Piaf on the stereo. Cognac even got his own china plate to dine alongside of us.
    This is what I know: food is the common thread of all humans. The quest to improve upon any existing type of food, to create something so beyond merely satisfying—this is a universal mission. I feel complete when I can be a part of this greater good. When my efforts poke and prod chefs to do better, when I can be the conduit to the public, to say "Hey, wait’ll you try this!" Conversely, to save them money and tell them, "Don’t bother. You’d be better off staying at home than eating the swill" if a restaurant falls grossly short. To have a hand in someone’s celebratory moment—that silver wedding anniversary dinner, a fortieth birthday celebration, well, you just can’t put a price tag on that privilege.
    It’s as if all I’ve worked toward my whole life was to attain this one goal: My years of cooking with my grandmother; dabbling in foods throughout Europe, working in those shoebox kitchens in the French countryside, so hot I’d lose three pounds a night from sweating; all of those tiny little reviewing gigs I had in local weekly papers; freelancing for every magazine imaginable. And then: the Mount Everest of the food critic’s world. Mine to appreciate for the treasure it was.
    Until now.
    I suppose there are those who fall in the eat-to-live camp. Those sad souls who don’t even notice the taste of their meal; rather they view it as a linear progression to get from point A—hungry, to point B—fed. I’m probably proudest when I can lure one of that ilk over to the live-to-eat side: to convert someone who had been so preoccupied with the mundanities of life that they’re unable to relish in the simple joy of a meal,