The healing power of food
''Food has always been my lens and prism, my eye on the world,’’ writes Paula Butturini in “Keeping the Feast: One Couple’s Story of Love, Food, and Healing in Italy.’’ A former correspondent for UPI and the Chicago Tribune, Butturini lives in Paris with her husband, New York Times reporter John Tagliabue, and the couple’s 12-year-old daughter, Julia. Her memoir delves deeply into personal tragedy - Tagliabue was shot while covering the 1989 Romanian uprising and later suffered from crippling depression - while celebrating the role food and its pleasures played in her family’s recovery. Much of the drama takes place in Italy, where Butturini honed her skills as shopper, meal planner, and chef.
Q. Why are family meals so important?
A. I come from an Italian-American family where all discussions played out around the table. When you sat down to eat, everybody talked. You never ate alone. You were not allowed to read or do anything except be present. It was a time for the family to connect.
Q. Isn’t that an impossible dream for most time-challenged Americans?
A. Not impossible, just complicated. It’s only impossible if you don’t try. I like what Michelle Obama is doing to fight childhood obesity. If she can get people to sit down at the table with their families, it’s much healthier than wandering around at will, eating whenever they feel like it.
Q. You have a child named Julia and a history with Julia Child. Explain.
A. [Laughs] Julia happens to be a family name, although I did love reading Child’s cookbooks growing up. More than I liked cooking from them, actually. If I see a recipe with 20 ingredients, I’ll never make it. I cook more Mediterranean style, partly because while living in Italy I saw how simple great food could be. Small pieces of veal or chicken lightly sauteed with garlic and fresh herbs, a splash of wine: Done! That’s my kind of cooking.
Q. It’s no exaggeration to say food helped save your sanity - and your marriage.
A. That’s true. When John’s depression was at its worst, we lived near Rome’s Campo dei Fiori market. Every morning I’d get up early and walk to the Campo, where I’d talk to vendors and figure out what to make for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I purposely only bought food for one day, because I wanted to go back the next. It was my way of not completely losing it.
Q. VIP guests are coming for dinner. What might you serve?
A. Probably a more elegant version of our basic meal, starting with homemade soup or pasta with lots of vegetables - tomato and eggplant sauce, or small zucchini sliced paper-thin and briefly turned in hot olive oil and garlic with a handful of parsley. Next, veal or chicken scaloppini, sauteed in olive oil, butter, salt and pepper, fresh herbs from my garden, and a splash of wine. A nice salad, a wedge of good cheese, some fruit - baked pears in red wine, perhaps - and, of course, a good piece of chocolate to finish. You can’t have a great meal without chocolate.
Interview was condensed and edited. 
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