Quality

"It's the best thing that you've ever had..

the best thing that you've had .. is gone away..."

Radiohead -- High & Dry

Food snobbery is a wonderful thing.  To learn to appreciate some of life's greatest pleasures.  The finest sake, the freshest fish, the most tender green.  

Yet, it is restricting.

Some simpler pleasures, little tastes you used to enjoy, just don't compare any more. 

Not to mention the expense.  The expense tends to alienate you from those who don't appreciate good food, or who just can't afford to join you.

To that, I compromise.  Eating should be social.  You should be enjoying your meal (and tastes of those around you).  Likewise as they should for you.  Why?  Because there aren't enough meals around to try a restaurant's menu one meal at a time for every place worth eating.  Even tasting an entire menu for a night, you still wouldn't be able to try it all.

To this end, a great meal falls on a sliding scale of food quality and good company.  Carne asada fries at 3am with some good friends.. or the head chef's choice with one or two kin spirited foodies.

I leave you with one of the lasting impacts of food quality on my life.

Salmon.

One big regret in my life is not having had more fresh salmon while living in Seattle.  To be fair.. I lived an hour away by bus, and I figured taking fish back on the bus would be a bit of a pain.  Oh what a fool I was in my youth. 

But oh, one bite of fish here or there takes me back.

I can still taste that last morning's sockeye salmon.
A little bit of butter, lemon, and dried dill.

SO F'ing GOOD.

I was not prepared for the flavor, the warmth, the aroma, the blood redness.

I was instantly filled with grief that I was only then discovering what I would be leaving and missing. 

Something to be craved or to be excited for. 

Something I would go back to look for on interview trips.

Something that would make salmon from most establishments just not worth it elsewhere in the country. 

If you don't like fish, you've probably just been eating bad fish. 

Man.. sockeye salmon sashimi was delicious.   DELICIOUS. 

Sometimes.. there is no substitute for quality.

Cravings

"Cause I want it now

I want it now

Give me your heart and your soul"

--Muse - Hysteria

What is a craving?  Can you crave something you've never had?  Can you crave an idea, an ideal?

Why.. at 1am do I suddenly want a turkey wrap like I used to get from the college dining halls??

Mad shout out to Ro*Tiki and the monkey.

My theory is that we all operate on two levels.  The conscious and intellectual, and the subconscious emotional. 

Cravings are a vehicle to achieve nostalgia.  The nostalgic feeling reminds us of good times in the past, they bring comfort. 

I think as the conscious represses the desires of the subconscious, a force bottles up until it can no longer be contained.  That force .. is a craving. 

When you feel your faith erode.

Purpose

"PURPOSE,

IT'S THAT LITTLE FLAME

THAT LIGHTS A FIRE

UNDER YOUR ASS.

PURPOSE,

IT KEEPS YOU GOING STRONG

LIKE A CAR WITH A FULL

TANK OF GAS.

EVERYONE ELSE HAS

A PURPOSE

SO WHAT'S MINE?"

-- Avenue Q

As I was walking back from 7-11 today.. an idea struck me.  An idea for what this blog is all about really.  Besides being somewhere to put down thoughts about the things that interest me. 

What better thing than to think about humans and what they do.  What they believe.  And how they do it by their own expressions in music and eating habits through some self reflection. 

Swing on a Spiral

As below, so above and beyond, I imagine.

Drawn outside the lines of reason.

Push the envelope. watch it bend.

Over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind.

Withering my intuition leaving opportunities behind.

Feed my will to feel this moment, urging me to cross the line.

Reaching out to embrace the random.

Reaching out to embrace whatever may come.

-- Tool - Lateralus

One of my favorite songs.  Ever.  

What's it got to do with food?  Or anything, you say?  

.. It's a philosophy of life .. one I try my best to appreciate.

And of course.. why would it be here if it didn't relate to food?

You know the friends who can't eat certain things, nay, refuse to try this food or that food.. 

They're missing out.  Maybe they can't help themselves.  Maybe they need a push. 

One of my favorite favorite eating experiences involves just trying things.  Specifically.. 

蚵仔煎 .. or Oyster Omelettes.

Sounds weird huh?  Gross?  Maybe.

But it's DELICIOUS.  To my great surprise too.  I'd always battled against sometimes disliking mollusks because of the tendency to get crappy ones with a gritty or sandy texture inside.  Yuck.

So what is it?  It's a simple egg omelette with oysters and generally the stalk of a green leafy vegetable.  A little bit of corn starch for some textural effect.  And topped with some magical sweet/sour ketchup-y sauce that pulls everything in together.  The egg, the oyster, the veggie.  It's blissful.  But I can't really tell you how it tastes.  In fact, trying to think of the three individual pieces.. and their tastes, and then trying to mentally combine them.. utterly fails to capture the beauty of the whole.  

I'm pretty sure if anyone had told me what was going on before I tried it.  I wouldn't have. 

But.. if you want to live.. you have to reach for the random. 

Nostalgia

So some friends think it may be enjoyable for you to read me talking about food.

What is nostalgia?  Something that reminds you of your past.. in a good way.  Something that evokes that feeling that isn't explained with words.  Something just fantastic.  It's uniquely personal. 

Though I want to point out a difference between nostalgic food.. and good food.  Sometimes they're the same.  Sometimes they aren't.

Oftentimes the first taste of something, provided it's not just completely horrid and prepared in such a way to just be a mockery of the real thing, even if not the best, will just strike such a resounding chord in your memory that you search for that taste. 

Turnip cakes are a good example.  I still have not had a turnip cake in CA that I have enjoyed more than the ones I grew up eating as a kid in KY.

For me.. one of my special dishes is Taiwanese Beef Noodle soup.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beef_noodle_soup

As my mother used to make.. stew cuts of beef tenderized in beef broth w/ soy sauce & five spice.  Topped with Chinese style flour noodles & slightly wilted vegetable (generally bak choi).  One of the best ways to end a trip outside in the middle of winter.  Just sitting down to a large bowl and breathing in the wonderful aroma from the five spice, especially the anise.  Then that perfect bite of noodle with a nibble of beef.. just to get all the flavor in.  And snatching a piece of veggie in after.  And slurping some broth in one of the big wide soup spoons..

The beef should just fall apart.  Melt in your mouth.  The good stuff.

Since I left home, I've since had better beef noodle soup.  With shank even (stewed down til it just melted too)...

With a side of pickled mustard (the proper condiment for this sort of thing) and homemade thick noodles.  Each noodle is slightly different from the rest.  Unique.  Different.

But it all reminds me of those early bowls at home.  Sadly, these days, even my mother doesn't make it like she used to. 

But times change.  The memories remain.