by Gail Shepherd

A good meal should bond you with the person, or people, sitting at your table. In the same way, it should bond you to the earth you live on.

I worry about food. I live in the richest country in the world-theoretically, a world that is my oyster. I'm not in any danger of starving. I might let my health insurance lapse, or go without fancy shoes, but I'll never scrimp on organic groceries; I won't forego dinners at my favorite Vietnamese café. I'm pretty sure that good food and good sex are roughly equivalent pleasures, only you have to work a little harder to get good food.

Still, I worry. Since I finished reading Fast Food Nation, I can't eat commercially produced meat or chicken anymore-I keep thinking about the guy crippled by a lifer's job in a meat packing plant, how the industry ground him up and tossed him down the garbage disposal. Then, there's the whole question of World Hunger. And World Thirst. American companies are going into poverty-stricken countries and privatizing their water systems. And not only poor countries. According to both The New York Times Magazine and The Nation, trans-national companies have privatized the water in Atlanta, Berlin, Bolivia, Buenos Aires, Casablanca, Chattanooga, Houston, Jacksonville, Jersey City, Lexington, Ky., Peoria, and San Francisco. They also own the rights to whole bodies of water, including the Midwestern Ogallala Aquifer, Blue Lake in Alaska, and Canada's James Bay. I'm not usually so paranoid-but doesn't the idea of a handful of big companies controlling the world's dwindling fresh water supplies make you a little nervous?

And as for food, well, a United Nations report produced for the Earth Summit last month found that the world is "failing to produce enough food for a global population of 6 billion, with almost 800 million chronically undernourished. That number is declining. But the world's population is projected to reach 8 billion by 2025." 800 million chronically undernourished!

The environment? Genetically engineered corn has shown up in places where it's not supposed to be, like in Mexico, where it appears to be thriving in fields of native corn. Guess which strain of corn is projected to beat its rivals into gasping submission?

I try to imagine how much corn, and soybeans and vegetables, the earth will have to produce to feed 8 billion people. Like in a fairy tale: Some plucky kid has turned a magic stone into a pile of golden wheat so vast and high it disappears into the clouds-enough to make bread for the whole hungry village. Only the magic stone is in the hands of Monsanto.

But not all the news is bad: There's the slow food movement in Italy (a band of rebels fighting to save rare olive trees), and nobody I know eats at McDonald's anymore. Organic farming and seasonal buying are in. A couple of weeks ago, an issue of The New Yorker had stories about a nun who makes raw milk cheese (more or less illegal in the U.S.); a guy who spends his life searching the corners of the globe for rare fruit (he got into the business hoping it would help him win back the love of his life-it didn't); and an Englishwoman in her 80s who has made a career of the archeology and painstaking preservation of Mexican home cooking.

The other night, I had a couple of friends to dinner: very simple-linguine Puttanesca, rosemary-laced bread, green salad and purple onions tossed in lime juice, olive oil and sea salt. And two bottles of red wine and maybe a half a bottle of brandy to go with the ice cream and berries. What is it about sitting down to a beautifully arranged table with people you love, and drinking and eating and drinking and eating and drinking and eating? The next morning, I couldn't clear the table. Every time I passed it, the empty wine bottles and crumbs on the tablecloth, the crystal glasses with their faint red rings, and the crumpled linen napkins, gave me a rush of complete happiness.

There's a kind of generosity of spirit that goes with sharing food, or having it shared with you. I suppose that's more or less why I keep going out to new restaurants, looking for love. Which isn't as pathetic as it sounds. A good meal should bond you with the person, or people, sitting at your table. In the same way, it should bond you to the earth you live on. If you pay attention to the gracefulness-there's no other word for it-of what you're eating, the experience can feel like a blessing.

The staff at a restaurant should assist this process, which is, after all, a very delicate matter. The idea is to connect. The question is: Can you weave that connection when you're wondering why your waiter is being so surly, or why the chef has sent you a piece of half-frozen fish? I don't think you can. But so few restaurants know this or care. You're rushed. You're obliged to listen to your server's life story. You sit ignored by waitresses you have over-tipped 100 times. You can't hear anything-people at the next table are actually screaming above the electronica. You have to wait in line in a hot parking lot, in a cloud of exhaust fumes, because for some reason-a baffling mystery-the place doesn't take reservations. You know in advance you're going to drop a C-note-at least-for dinner for two, but what happens to you between now and then is a game of chance.

I want to help increase your odds a little. What I can offer here is a much too short list of places that will take care of you, in a very sincere and unobtrusive way, if you visit them for dinner. They'll clear a wide and pleasant space for you and your loved ones to breathe, and they'll put a few things in front of you that will make breathing worthwhile.

PALM BEACH

Cucina Dell'Arte
257 Royal Poinciana Way, Palm Beach
561/655-0770, Moderate $$
A chef from Italy, an owner who cares.
Chez Jean Pierre
132 North County Road, Palm Beach
561/833-1171, Expensive $$$
Classic French without pretense; sit for hours over your crème brulé.


BROWARD

Victoria Park
900 NE 20th Ave., Fort Lauderdale
954/764-6868, Moderate $$
Husband and wife team serve loving, eclectic American/Continental.

Cafe Vico
1125 Federal Highway, Fort Lauderdale
954-565-9681, Moderate $$
Big family enterprise in an exquisite Italianate setting.


MIAMI-DADE

Rumi
330 Lincoln Road, South Beach
305 531-7406Expensive $$$
Floribbean with flair, graceful service, but late nights get noisy.


Hosteria Romana
429 Espanola Way, South Beach
305/532-4299,Moderate $$
Rustic Italian sidewalk café; kick back in the sunset.