Food is beautiful, even in its simplest state.

Don’t get me wrong – I love a swirled and styled plate of delicately piled carefully carved pieces, but when you pare it down to the raw ingredients and tools, well, that’s beautiful too.

When it comes to restaurants, I say  the best seat in the house is the one in view of the kitchen [if said restaurant is of a certain rustic-swanky combo that seems to be in right now. A style of which I happen to approve.]. The above is Figs, a gourmet pizzeria in Charlestown, Mass [and one of my faves in the Boston area]. The pizza dough is rolled right here – wooden table, wooden rolling pin, mini mountains of flour. J’adore. A small wall of more wood, discreet and polite, is all that separates workspace from restaurant.

I love the idea that life is a journey, not a destination, and acknowledgement of the food’s journey makes the dining experience “art” rather than just “eating”. Bon appetit!

P.S. Last week’s micro-pleasure: Poetry on a Park Bench