The other day, during my first Baking class, the Chef let us each ask him one “semi-intelligent” question as part of his Q & A session.

My question for him was: What’s your most memorable food moment?”

I asked this for two reasons. One just because I was curious. He grew up with a totally different culture and food experience than I did. He’s also worked in many different places and been exposed to so many more foods than I have. I was curious to know which of these foods really stuck in his memory.

Second, because I think the answer tells a lot about a person. Somebody who really loves foods usually has to think about it. Their lips purse, their eyes look up as if they’re trying to visualize it, and the moment that they think of it, you can almost see the joy and contentment the memory brings in their physical features. They smile, and their shoulders relax, almost as if their whole body just sighed. And when they finally answer, it totally reveals their sense of food, food style, and their passion. You can tell more about a person by asking this one question than by asking a hundred others.

His answer didn’t disappoint, and now I understand him more than I ever could before.

The other question that popped into my head was: what do you do in the kitchen when nobody is looking? Do you drink milk out of the container? Double dip? I somehow didn’t think that fell into the “semi-intelligent” category (or the remotely intelligent category either for that matter), merely the nosey one!