Monthly Archives: April 2009

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Did Food just stop caring about how it gets bastardized into chemical food products? Oh, wait that was us, the ones who keep buying that crap.

Now, I don’t know how those guys eat normally and I will never stop loving hot dogs and potato chips, but I could never eat them often enough that whole stores are devoted to their existence. Nor will I ever need to eat at the gas station picnic tables, but that’s just me.

I am not much for Desserts. I would much rather eat a three-pound bag of Sour Cream and Cheddar Potato Chips. But the very last cup of Chocolate Mousse demanded from across the cafeteria that I run over and grab it before anyone else does. And I did. And I am very much excited by it. I don’t know that it is so exceptional, but it is quite good.

When I was about four years old, my father took me somewhere in Florida. My Nana and Pop-Pop were vacationing there. Two of my Nana’s sisters were visiting from Ireland. I remember some very specific things from that trip. People kept thinking I was a boy, and my Nana went out and bought a bunch of pink barrettes. I think that was the last time wore pink. I remember running in and out of the water with my great-aunt, who may have been around 70 years old at the time.

What I remember more than anything else was ordering Shrimp Cocktail every night for dinner. Followed shortly by a smooth, melty Chocolate Mousse.

My grandparents and my aunts are gone now. But it is nice to know that a Tuesday afternoon snack can reacquaint me with people I miss.

With my Sailor off being a sailor, I find I need to take myself out to dinner.  No one else is going to take me.

Tonight I took myself to a local Japanese restaurant to have some Sushi.  I may have had the large Kirin also, but only to have a quiet little toast to my Sailor. Like most people who sit at the Sushi bar, I never even bother looking at the menu. I usually chat with the Sushi chef and ask what happens to be good that day. And tonight, as I savored my Beer, waiting for the chef to surprise me, I started chatting with the couple sitting to my left. They are probably just a few years older than my parents and are now my new favorite adults.  They told me I was really “sparky.”  Imagine that!

By the end of their meal, they had decided I needed to come over for a lunch made from things from their garden.  They even told me they would send me home with some fresh Eggs from their hens.

As they were leaving they introduced me to their friend sitting to my right.  He was from Turkey.  We shared a Beer.  And then he offered me a fried Prawn head.  I am not sure “yum” would be the right way to describe it.  There is something about eating something whose little black eyes are starting back at you that is not so appetizing. I really just wanted to take a picture to show you.  Now I have to buy a camera.

Well, this meal that normally might have taken me about an hour, lasted a very social three hours.  Not bad for taking myself out to dinner.

Here I am, getting ready to tell you about last Fridays little taste of heaven.

My friend Elise and I had planned to meet for happy hour a Ama Ama in West Seattle. I had checked out the restaurants website, mostly to decide if it was a place to wear high heels and to find the address. I had made plans to drive to West Seattle during rush hour on a Friday? From where I am living, it would take less time for me to drive around the whole island of Oahu going 25 miles per hour.

Anyway, Friday night, I put on my high heels and planned to get on with my journey. And then I got trapped in the garage.Ok, the car got trapped in the garage, not me. This is normal. Anyway, I found the complex maintenance guy at the management office. He just thought this was the funniest thing, all three major working parts of my electric garage door opener up and decided to snap at the same time. And this had happened to several other residents the same day. The warranties must have just expired.

Ok, you’re tired of reading and wondering where the Food stuff is already…Well, if I missed happy hour I would miss the 75 cent Oysters. Oysters! Even with my tumultuous relationship with Food, I cannot think of time where the idea of Oysters didn’t make me want to skip in circles around the table every time I ate one. Thankfully, for Elise’s sake, I did control myself that night.

What is it about Oysters that I love so much?  I grew up “down the shore” in New Jersey. Summer days brought long hours in the ocean with crabs nibbling my toes. Summer nights brought sweet revenge, when I could suck down the mouth-watering nectar of all the crab legs my little belly could handle. Crabs were certainly not the only sea creature to meet such a luscious demise. Mussels in butter and garlic, broth dipped steamed Clams, grilled Scallops. (I know my brother, Denis, is reading this, salivating from the memory of the Scallops wrapped in bacon that I made for his recent birthday.) Oh, the succulent Lobster legs. The legs? Yep, my favorite part, don’t even need to bother with the tail.

But Oysters elicit even stronger taste memories for me. Yes, they are decadent and exquisite (especially since Elise and I needed Champagne to go with them). Oysters take me to some place I would always rather be. That first moment an Oyster’s soft, moist body touches the tip of my tongue, my eyes close and every nerve ending explodes. I can inhale the briny smell of the ocean, and feel myself wrapped up in the softness of a summer sunset over the bay. In that one flash of perfection, no matter where I am, near or far from the actual ocean, my life relents and I can exhale.

Then I ate six more.

A girl just can’t have too many Oysters.

My dad’s family moved from Ireland to the US when he was about 12 years old. My Pop-pop was a butcher and I think my Nana ate potatoes every day of her life. In quiet rebellion, my father has been cooking as much Italian food as he could since he was allowed in the kitchen, but he still makes the only corned beef I will ever eat.

My mom grew up on canned fruits and vegetables but had a gnawing feeling that it would be better to have a garden and grow the vegetables to make my baby food. She believed in the “healthy plate” model way before it was trendy and always had a bowl of green beans or snap peas on the counter for my brother and I to snack on. So we were off to a pretty good start as far as Food was concerned.

But Food and I never really got along; we just couldn’t find that “happy place” with each other. In fact, for all my mother’s hard work in the garden, I still vividly remember sharing boxes of pastaroni with my friend Suzanne for dinner in college. That’s certainly not the worst. There were way too many nights where cheetos and a cherry slurpee were dinner and there might be a late night run to 7-11 for a hot dog. I am a little nauseated just thinking about it.

I lived in Manhattan for years and I never even owned any silverware. My father did have the foresight to know that the cooking bug was deep down in me somewhere and bought me a wonderful set of very good knives. But still the only thing in my fridge was a water pitcher and ketchup, and the occasional six-pack of beer.

When I moved to Honolulu in 2005, I was vegan, and pretty much all my meals came from an awesome vegetarian natural market. Something happened when I met my husband, though. I am embarrassed to admit, when we moved in together I had this enormous urge to cook for him. All the time. And since he is a submariner who was living on the naval base, he encouraged all the cooking I could find the creativity to accomplish. He and Food are fantastic friends.

More often than I care to admit I found myself getting up with my Sailor, at what still feels like 4:30 in the morning, making some enormous lunch with my own version of a veggie burger with lots of sprouts and avocado, lots of fabulous local fruit, like lychee and bags of tamari almonds or wasabi veggie chips. Just the other day, three years later, he told me he really wanted one of my veggie burgers. I must have been doing something right, at least with lunch.

Dinners were a whole different, frequently inedible, story.

I find myself living in Seattle now, working on my masters in nutrition, coveting my Japanese santoku. I still crave cheetos, but get a little excited when my weekly veggie box arrives.

And Food and I, sometimes we hold hands along our little journey together, sometimes we are not even close to being on speaking terms. Occasionally I think I could find myself madly in love with Food. Maybe if I had more time and a few people to cook for. Regardless, these posts will give you a glimpse of how Food got into my head and how it is finding its way into my heart…and my belly.