My First True Love Has Grown Stale
Food. When you're growing up there's so much to hate about it. Onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, and anything that smells different than cereal. Your tastebuds crave sugar, and entrees go down smooth without any spices or seasoning. At this point, you're happy to be eating something not from a fist sized jar.
Growing into our teens we're confronted with new sensations. During this period of our lives we sample almost the entire menus of various fast food restaurants, chips, snacks, and anything we can eat quickly and without preparation. Mushrooms, tomatoes, or onions are still on the "no" list for most of us. We simply don't feel like trying to eat them.
College. Figure out how to eat on three dollars, and you'll start tasting some dishes that you've never known to exist. How about some tuna in your mac and cheese? Or a hot dog sliced up in your Ramen? Let's get dangerous here: I think I can fit an entire row of crackers into this bowl of chicken noodle. And when we can splurge and go to Subway, we try putting the tomatoes on. Fuck it. We ask for the tomatoes, we ask for the onions, we ask if they have any mushrooms in back. We don't know when we'll be eating again.
Out of college, a new dimension opens up to us. We get a full time job. We've got no homework in the evenings. We get 40 hour paychecks. Enter, the Dining Out Era. We eat at every franchise known to man: Applebees, TGI Fridays, Ruby Tuesdays, Bennigans, Hooters...then move on to more local joints. We evolve to begin to seek out only the places that at minimum there is one light broken, the cook is always angry and yelling, and the wait staff is seldom seen. We call these places "hidden treasures" because there must be no where else like it. Shit, we've been everywhere else and can attest there's nowhere else like it.
Then we start cooking at home. Thusly completing the cycle. So here I am, having ran the gauntlet of the first third of my life feeding frenzy, and I'm bored. Eating is turning into somewhat of a conundrum these days. I no longer have a favorite food. I don't want to eat high fat items. I don't want to eat anything processed. I don't want too much sugar. I don't want to waste the time cooking something I've eaten 1000 times before, but I don't want to blow 50 bucks on ingredients to cook something I've never tried only to get it wrong.
Is this how it happens? Is this how I'm going to turn into one of those skinny little dudes that somehow get by on the nutrients in beer alone? I've known these men, and have been puzzled at how they merely exist on such a diet. To think they must have been viral, strong, and vibrant masters of meals at one point. Now they turn to beer because its the only thing they care for.
No, thats not me. I'll figure it out one day, hopefully soon. But until I do, I mourn the loss of my first true love: food.
Growing into our teens we're confronted with new sensations. During this period of our lives we sample almost the entire menus of various fast food restaurants, chips, snacks, and anything we can eat quickly and without preparation. Mushrooms, tomatoes, or onions are still on the "no" list for most of us. We simply don't feel like trying to eat them.
College. Figure out how to eat on three dollars, and you'll start tasting some dishes that you've never known to exist. How about some tuna in your mac and cheese? Or a hot dog sliced up in your Ramen? Let's get dangerous here: I think I can fit an entire row of crackers into this bowl of chicken noodle. And when we can splurge and go to Subway, we try putting the tomatoes on. Fuck it. We ask for the tomatoes, we ask for the onions, we ask if they have any mushrooms in back. We don't know when we'll be eating again.
Out of college, a new dimension opens up to us. We get a full time job. We've got no homework in the evenings. We get 40 hour paychecks. Enter, the Dining Out Era. We eat at every franchise known to man: Applebees, TGI Fridays, Ruby Tuesdays, Bennigans, Hooters...then move on to more local joints. We evolve to begin to seek out only the places that at minimum there is one light broken, the cook is always angry and yelling, and the wait staff is seldom seen. We call these places "hidden treasures" because there must be no where else like it. Shit, we've been everywhere else and can attest there's nowhere else like it.
Then we start cooking at home. Thusly completing the cycle. So here I am, having ran the gauntlet of the first third of my life feeding frenzy, and I'm bored. Eating is turning into somewhat of a conundrum these days. I no longer have a favorite food. I don't want to eat high fat items. I don't want to eat anything processed. I don't want too much sugar. I don't want to waste the time cooking something I've eaten 1000 times before, but I don't want to blow 50 bucks on ingredients to cook something I've never tried only to get it wrong.
Is this how it happens? Is this how I'm going to turn into one of those skinny little dudes that somehow get by on the nutrients in beer alone? I've known these men, and have been puzzled at how they merely exist on such a diet. To think they must have been viral, strong, and vibrant masters of meals at one point. Now they turn to beer because its the only thing they care for.
No, thats not me. I'll figure it out one day, hopefully soon. But until I do, I mourn the loss of my first true love: food.