Homesick for a simulacra

I found my copy of "The Georgian Feast" today. I've been browsing through the recipes, trying to avoid submitting job applications, and remembering. It's hard.

Food was such an indelible part of the Georgian experience. It's central to the culture, to the ideal of hospitality, to the Georgian soul. Wine, bread, cheese; simple things that take me back to my smokey house in Akhaltsikhe. I'm reading recipes, and thinking of Inga, spending hours every day cooking amazing foods for us and her family. It's melancholy, in a way that I haven't been melancholy in quite a bit. The anger of the invasion has started to fade; in its place, I find a strangely post-soviet bitterness and resignation to the situation.

When I first came home from Georgia, I was angry. Really, really angry at the entire situation - from the way the Russians set Georgia up, to the way that Georgians completely fell into the trap. Now, reading my book of recipes, I simply cannot shake a feeling of homesickness for a place that wasn't really my home. I miss it. Life in Georgia was awful, and amazing at the same time. It was extreme - boredom, panic, frustration; and also acceptance, exploration, and wonder.

Canada seems so prosaic by comparison. The most culture shock I'm finding is that the price of boneless skinless chicken breast is $6.99 a pound, no matter where I go. That's it. The price of meat. And then I read the recipe for Atcharuli khatchapuri, and I'm back in my town, sitting in the cafe, eating a billion calories of bread, cheese, butter, and egg, and I miss it.

Being a global nomad certainly has its benefits. But now I'm feeling a bit of the cost.