SIMPLY SATISFYING

child who had a meltdown when her peas touched her chicken or her ketchup slid over to her potatoes. Family meals were frequently lost under my wails. Any attempt at explaining to me that everything was going to wind up in the same place was for naught. I did not want anything on my plate to touch anything else, which meant that big holidays were a problem. They invariably involved massive plates of food, all of which intermingled, as though their contents resembled the middle of a Venn diagram: individual flavors, textures, colors, went by