When it comes to fascinating confessions, very few can top the latest divulgence from Los Angeles Times food critic, S. Irene Virbila. She writes today that despite a bleak childhood seemingly spent entirely at the ironing board, she has since found inner-peace by turning a once gloomy chore into an act of self-meditation. Her secret: she gives herself over to the all-healing powers of napkin ironing. Sure to be the hottest trend since aroma therapy, The Virbs unabashedly endorses this humble act of housecleaning, saying, “Somehow I find the act of smoothing those cloth squares with the hot iron oddly soothing.”
To be fair, S. Irene wasn’t always such an ironing fiend, but still, her penchant for all things serviette-related goes back a self-professed twenty years to the times when, as a young women, she’d troll the brocantes of Alsace, plucking out napkin sets with the reckless abandon of a junkie in search of a sweet, sweet fix. However, even after pillaging countless flea markets and sundry linen stores, S. Irene still only used the humble paper napkin at home, relegating her prized cloth napkins to a dusty drawer where they’d remain until a special occasion (ie. a fireside indulgence of caviar and buckwheat blinis). Then one day, S. Irene’s sinful friend Mary led her down the rabbit hole of everyday cloth napkin usage, and the intrepid food reporter has never been the same since. In no time, S. Irene picked up her worrisome napkin ironing habit, and now it seems there’s no turning back. “Such a daily pleasure,” she writes. Fun.
• Napkins [Daily Dish]
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