Photos from Saveur

Time: 1:00 p.m., January 26, 2003

Place: Svetlogorsk, Russia

Ladies who lunch by the Baltic Sea make a vodka toast over their winter picnic.

Photograph by Landon Nordeman

Time: 3:00 p.m., December 22, 1959
Place: Rome
On a break from toy store duty, Signore Claus and his, er, reindeer dine on spaghetti and oats.
Photograph by Bettman, courtesy of Corbis

The other day my mother spontaneously loaned me some issues of Saveur magazine, which at first I thought would go unread, but instead quickly got thoroughly perused. But the thing that snagged my emotions the most was the last page of each issue. It is a single-page feature simply called "Moment", where they print photos that exemplify an enjoyment of food in unusual circumstances.

My favorite is the top one, the Baltic version of "Ladies Who Lunch" which in New York City means something vastly different. Why haven't I had a picnic by the sea in winter? This seems important to me. Very sinfully I have long been daydreaming of unearthing an old fur coat and wrapping it around myself at the cabin. It takes hours for the log fire to heat the place up, even with the gas heat on in the basement, and I want to be like the children in Narnia dressed in a nigh royal robe of floor length fur. But I will not buy one and so dream I'll just come across one, in a trunk somewhere, magically. And then I will wear it to a picnic by the sea in winter and toast either my friends or just the ocean, with icy diamond-clear vodka.