I was fortunate to have been born into a family of adventurous, free-wheeling eaters. We have incredible appetites and meals can stretch over hours, sometimes blurring into each other. We plan meals while eating meals. We are never far away from a snack. My husband calls this trait “eating like a Tandoc,” and it’s a foreign concept to him. He’s one of those people who eats only when hungry, and then only enough to be full. He also has distinct preferences about what he actually will eat. He and I are truly from different universes. Luckily for him, I didn’t marry him for his eating habits.
I love spicy food. I love it when I eat something so hot that I get a little high from it, or start to hallucinate just a little. I want to sweat and pant as I eat. It may seem sadomasochistic to you, but it’s my kind of fun. If I eat enough chilies, people seem funnier and prettier and project fuzzy pink auras. I’m not kidding. I do it all the time.
I have found that most people like to talk about food. If you can’t think of anything clever to say at a party, you can always break the social ice by asking people what they like to eat. It’s a nice way to start a conversation, and you might even learn something.
I’ve been walking a lot lately, and not just because the weather is finally behaving. I’ve been trying to balance the amount of exercise I get with the number of popsicles I have been eating. This summer was the summer of the the paleta for me. A paleta is a Mexican popsicle, and I have been quite obsessed with them, to the point where I was eating one a day during the month of August, hence, the new exercise regime.
If you didn’t already know this, I’m half Asian-- half Filipino, specifically. I grew up eating rice with every meal, fish with heads on, chicken with feet on, fermented things, and every soy product known to man. My parents are adventurous eaters, so my brother and sister and I ate all kinds of weird stuff from the get-go. There is no food I won’t try at least once.