Pommes Frites: French Fries for Food & Body Image Week by Avery Wittkamp

Salty, crispy, crunchy, mealy. The pursuit of the perfect French fry has taken me many places.

There is joy inherent in food and its preparation. I’m fortunate to be part of a culture of cooks who work hard to honor simple ingredients like the potato and transform them into phenomenal experiences. Like the first roasted fingerling potato I ever tasted… a pillowy soft piece of potato gnocchi, or thrice-fried French fries coated in briny sea salt.

On the way to Pommes Frites, I fretted over my hair, my outfit, and whether I should do this at all–I hate having my picture taken.

Then I came across a line of people wrapped around Tompkins Square Park. They waited for free canned food or a bowl of warm soup, and this just after Thanksgiving. Suddenly my worries about how I was going to look for a body image awareness blog struck me as absurd and trivial.

But that’s how it is; our relationships with food and image are complex. I work with food professionally, and it would seem that this might insulate me from some of the body image issues that women often face, but it doesn’t.

There I was eating French fries for breakfast on a chilly Saturday morning, and I was happy.

Avery Wittkamp is head pastry chef of Diner and Marlow&Sons in Brooklyn, New York. Her rye pecan pie was recently featured in the New York Times, and her penguin igloo cake was the cover of the Martha Stewart Christmas card in 2007. In her spare time, she works as a trainer at Crossfit NYC and trains in the sport of Olympic Weightlifting.

This photo was taken by Lauren Gerrie of BigLittle GetTogether, photographer, chef and entrepeneur.

  Copyright protected by Digiprove © 2010 Social Pollen, LLC