Who is he? An exile. Which must not be confused with, allowed to run into, all the other words that people throw around: émigré, expatriate, refugee, immigrant, silence, cunning. Exile is a dream of glorious return. Exile is a vision of revolution: Elba, not St Helena. It is an endless paradox: looking forward by always looking back. The exile is a ball hurled high into the air. He hangs there, frozen in time, translated into a photograph; denied motion, suspended impossibly above his native earth, he awaits the inevitable moment at which the photograph must begin to move, and the earth reclaim its own….His home is a rented flat. It is a waiting room, a photograph, air. ~ Salman Rushdie
Today marks the eighth passing of “International Chefs Day” as proposed and promoted by the World Association of Chefs Societies. It also may as well mark another turning of the seasons in my seemingly endless exile from chef-hood.
