<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"  Birthday cake, ice cream, the white cotton triangle between the long and muscular legs of Barbara M., the fastest runner in the third grade, boy or girl. Green M&amp;amp;amp;Ms and Eileen S. We raided the bowl at a boy-girl party; green M&amp;amp;amp;Ms were the substance of us, our communality. During a slow dance I tried for a side feel. She broke up with me. Laundry day a week later, my mother, nonplussed: &amp;quot;What the hell were you doing with a pocketful of melted green M&amp;amp;amp;Ms?&amp;quot; Paella de mariscos in Torremolinos, Spain, with Lynn M. We were from different high schools five miles apart; it was a long way to come to lose your virginity, but of course at that point I would have walked to the moon if necessary. I remember my first taste of saffron, so intense at the rocky seashore with the sun going down, about an hour after I&amp;#039;d become a man. There was no drinking age. I ordered a pitcher of sangria for two. Steamed artichokes and melted butter with D. J. R. We&amp;#039;d share a bottle of Mateus ros\u00E9, each petal so languorously pulled and dipped and scraped with the front teeth. Her parents were sailors; weekends they were always on the boat. She knew her way around the kitchen. We spent glorious summers learning to play house. Drip coffee and the older woman upstairs in the rental house. I had the basement apartment. Previous to that, I&amp;#039;d only drunk instant. She taught me, a young man fresh to the big city: taxi zones, sushi, Korean food, gourmet markets, experimental theater, jazz clubs, picnics on the living-room floor. After an oddly extended courtship, she confessed to having herpes. She hoped it didn&amp;#039;t affect my feelings for her. I&amp;#039;m afraid it did.  Fried shrimp at Shrimp Boat in D. C. with Winnie T. She was the security guard at work. And a model, too, it turned out. Light-skinned with freckles across her nose, tall and gorgeous. We both worked graveyard. One night near quitting time she grabbed my tie, pulled me across the sign-in book, and kissed me. She lived across the river in the projects with her mom. Shrimp Boat was pretty much what you might expect of Anacostia in the eighties, but it was the Four Seasons to her. Give a woman what she loves to eat and she&amp;#039;ll make you remember her. Ethiopian food with the young journalist from Georgia. Midway through the touchy-feely meal, a framed poster of Haile Selassie on a ledge behind her chair fell loose. It made a sort of slo-mo trajectory because of the ledge \u2014 the top of the frame fell forward along an arc, the bottom remained in place. I dropped my injera bread and stood at attention, raised my arm, saved the day. Everyone applauded. They sent complimentary glasses of that awful honey wine. I don&amp;#039;t remember it helping much with her, though. Apparently, she wasn&amp;#039;t looking for a knight.  Tequila and D. L. It made her crazy and jealous. Once she came at me with a roundhouse punch and connected. I confess: I countered with an open palm.  Carbo-loading with L. H., marathon runner. French fries and spaghetti and French baguettes and chips and salsa! Eat to run. Run to eat. Oh, my God! I did only twenty miles this week! Can somebody please say it? Running can be an eating disorder in disguise. I couldn&amp;#039;t keep up.  My wife and I have dined together happily, in simple and sumptuous conditions, all around the world. She is beautiful and bright; a man could find no better dining companion. Maybe that is the secret of a good union: Over the long haul you need a person with whom you can happily share three meals in a day and still look forward to the next breakfast. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/food/a8389/eating-with-women-history-0910/>