WHO: 99 THINGS THAT BRING ME JOY
WHAT: A COMBINATION OF FLAVORS YOU LOVE
I have not always been a fan of food, or a foodie. I do not even consider myself to be a foodie today. I do enjoy eating good food, more so now than I did as a child, & I do post pictures of certain foods on my Instagram account. However, I do not consider myself to be a foodie or any sort of connoisseur.
When I was a child, I was probably the most pickiest eater you would have ever met. Everything I ate had to be plain & boring; a bowl of white rice, all other food on my plate had to be separate & could not touch the rice. I would eat a bologna & cheese sandwich on plain white bread with no mayo or spread of any kind. Yeah, I was that kid who would eat pasta noodles straight from the strainer, no butter, no sauce.
As I got older, I had been so inexperienced in trying new foods, plus add on that I was a little chickenshit scaredy-cat, which meant that I was still a picky eater. Well, I guess I was more of a stubborn eater, only eating the foods I was familiar with. It was a good thing my mom introduced me to eating different kinds of Chinese food dishes, so I wasn’t completely living on an island of bland & boring foods.
My parents had always tried to introduce me to new cuisines & new food experiences, but I was just too stubborn to get out of my comfort zone. I didn’t travel far from the lemon-butter-garlic-herb-blah-blah-blah flavor categories, but at least by then I was now eating pasta with actual sauces. It wasn’t until I met Jian, & that was when my culinary experience really cracked wide open like an earthquake fault line.
Image courtesy of: Google Images & Disney Pixar
When Jian & I first met, I was trying so hard to impress him, so I made myself become more culinarily explorative. Jian loved (& still loves) to eat all kinds of foods, & I was desperately trying to win his heart & hand. Therefore, I forced myself to expand my boring food pallet, & it literally changed my life & unfortunately my waistline (no exaggeration). Whenever Jian wanted to try a new restaurant or eat a different type of cuisine, I would always go along with him, & it really opened my eyes to new tastes & flavors that I deprived myself of during those years in my early twenties when I should’ve been more explorative & imaginative in the food category.
Image courtesy of: Google Images & Disney Pixar
Since having Jian in my life, I’ve gone from eating chicken nuggets & plain french fries to eating foods I can’t even pronounce with Google Translate. I used to consider myself an American-Chinese girl who grew up eating classic American comfort foods (eg. meatloaf, hamburgers, hot dogs, sandwiches, etc.) & the limited Chinese dishes my mom knew how to cook at home (eg. scrambled egg fried rice, rice porridge, steamed ground pork with salt cured duck eggs, etc.). However, Jian changed me & my taste buds, & now I can say that I am a Chinese-American woman who loves Southern Chinese food from Jian’s hometown, & I have stepped out of my Italian-American-Bucca-di-Beppo comfort zone to try foods from so many different regions.
Image courtesy of: Julia Kuo, Google Images & Disney Pixar
This 99 Things That Bring Me Joy journal has asked me to list a combination of flavors I love. It’s hard to pin down which flavors I love the most, but I’ll try to list a couple of flavors that pop into mind first:
- Ice Cream on a sugar cone: There’s just no other ice cream cone for me! The plain cone tastes like cardboard, & the waffle cone is just too sweet & turns soggy/soft way too fast.
- Black Tea with lemon: Sorry, Brits & Hong Kongers (a.k.a. Hongkies). I’m not a tea with milk/cream type of person. I like my black or red tea with lemon. If it’s in iced form, I will sometimes add sugar, but rarely.
- Yogurt with honey: My favorite types of yogurt are Greek & French. A little dollop of honey sweetens up the plain yogurt better than fruit preserves.
- Seafood with those oh-so-famous lemon-butter-garlic-herb flavors: As much as I am seriously allergic to shellfish, I still love to eat it (all of it except crab). All I gotta do is pop an allergy pill beforehand & no more seized up throat. I could never stay away from my beloved lobster!
- Chicken with the Asian garlic-ginger-oil dipping sauce, or the South African peri-peri spicy sauce: Both sauces take your mouth on a permanent vacation to flavor town!
I still won’t eat french fries with ketchup, or a hamburger with whatever restaurant’s special made sauce, but I’m more adventurous in trying new foods now. Some of my current favorite dishes come all the way from France, & one of my favorite Bay Area restaurants serves parts of an animal you wouldn’t even want to think about let alone see on your plate.
So as I end this blog post, I am reminded of these past couple of days, when I was glued to my bed in the throes of mild food poisoning. It was my own stupidity that led me to get sick from eating improperly cooked food…food that was supposed to be of the heat-in-the-microwave-&-serve variety no less! I have finally regained my appetite after two & a half days of dry heaving & tossing my salad into the porcelain mixing bowl called a toilet. It is now time for me to officially end this post, & satisfy my newly regained ravenous appetite. Until the next meal blog post, cheers!
Oh, & P.S…. I wanted to really end this post with a beautifully delicious illustration drawn by Polish artist Elżbieta Moyski on Tumblr. Please check out her Tumblr page, & show her some love!
Today’s song of the day:
Rabbits & Foxes 