Breakfast for Five

When I was a kid, it was all about Sunday mornings. I would sneak into my brother’s room and hover over him, not waking him up, but wanting to. He always knew it was me and without even opening his eyes would ask, “what’s up Ash.” It was a mixture between annoyance and big brotherly love. I would always reply “Mom’s almost done with breakfast.” He would always tell me to go wake up Michael, our other brother, but I never did. Besides he was always mean and didn’t deserve a breakfast like this.

The aroma of cinnamon from the french toast filled the air, the extra crispy bacon that was going to be devoured lay in the middle, potatoes roasted to perfection sprinkled with green herbs, toast edged with perfectly browned corners situated next to the glass full of bright orange juice, and eggs yellow and fluffy with speckles of pepper announced “come and get it while its hot.” I would look at my Mom in awe and when I look back I am still in awe, how was she able to keep everything so perfect and so warm all by her self? It is a question I ask myself every time I cook. She even had the look in her eyes, “it was nothing.” The thing was… it was something, these Sunday breakfasts’, when everyone was together and everything seemed so perfect, these were the memories. Just as rice is the staple in Japan, Sunday breakfast was the staple in my family.

The funny thing about the mountains of french toast drenched in powdered sugar and sweet maple syrup, crispy bacon next to roasted potatoes, and clouds of eggs and houses of toast is that this memory draws me to a reoccurring theme of the present: “Nothing tastes as good as the past.” Maybe it’s that I know what it takes to make meal now and I am no longer naïve to the hard work. Maybe it’s that everyone is grown up and things have changed. Or maybe just as in article The Breast of Aphrodite, the economic process has left our food altered and changed into ordinariness. Whatever the reason is, the sweet aroma of a homemade Sunday breakfast will always remain to me, a memory of the better days.

A is for Aesthetics!

I thank my mom for my ability to see beyond food, of course in the aesthetic sense. She got my brothers and me use to the idea that food didn’t have to look appetizing to be appetizing. Deep, almost putrid, purple colored cabbage…meat loaf in the all-American way, not the gourmet way…and of course the “ethnic” dishes she tried to conquer without aesthetics in mind. I have to give it to her, she is one of the best cooks in this world, if you don’t count the “this dish looks delicious” factor of course. Thinking back the only aesthetically pleasing dish she did serve was the scoops of mint chocolate chip ice cream. However, her aesthetic consciousness did arise when we had a Japanese exchange student stay with us for one year. Junko was able to endow in my mother a sense of visual awareness to all her dishes; a theme my mom would always describe as simplicity is beauty.

After this weeks course on bento boxes and its cultural significance, I thought I was equip for the creation of my own box. Ideas scrimmaged through my head of what my final creation would look like and what additions I would bring to the table. However, I learned very quickly that it’s not as easy as it looks. This made me think of all times my brothers and I would poke fun at my mom’s not so beautiful dishes. It becomes a fast and competitive game of aesthetics or taste. I now have a new found appreciation for my mom’s dishes, which I might add she has gotten better at combining the two elements after Junko’s help. With my bento box I had to take into consideration allergies of my partner, broccoli, which just happened to take a part in my imagined creation. So now that the broccoli was left clear of my concoction, taste and style had to battle each other for the lead. In the end, I think that style won over taste. But, I could always use the excuse from the readings that I was getting my partner use to foods she didn’t necessarily like.

After making bento boxes and reading about the significance behind the actual creations, I have a new outlook on food, not just Japanese. We live in a culture where things have to look beautiful to be in the same vicinity as us. This made me think of what Ann had mentioned in a previous lecture, about how many different varieties there are of apples (thousands and thousands), but of those the couple hundred we consume because of the aesthetics. I thought this exercise and lesson would make me be more aware of aesthetics of food and it has but in the opposite sense; I now wont judge a book by its cover… in relation to food.

Hungry-Sick for Home

It had been about three weeks since I left home to study abroad on a cruise boat to ten different countries across the globe. I missed home, my family and friends, and everything that reminded me of home - food especially. I remember how every meal on the boat my new friends and I had grown accustomed to talking about foods from home. Salads, burgers, paninis, pasta’s and especially restaurants we missed like Cheesecake Factory, CPK, In-n-Out, and even just the simple Subway… you name it and literally while we were eating the bland cafeteria food we would talk and talk about it. A club, a powwow of stories, or just a group of homesick (or rather hungry-sick) people grown close by this discussion and collaboration of food and its stories.

The Bahamas passed and so did the hopes of decent food. Then was Puerto Rico with flies digging into our would-be meals that already didn’t look so appetizing. Things were not looking good for us or for the hopes of good food. Even in the beginning of our days in Salvador, Brazil there were just restaurants after restaurants with undercooked meat and vegetables we couldn’t even identify. My two friends, both named Anna, and I would always travel together within the countries. If we would have known wait awaited us in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil at a little restaurant called Calvados, I don’t think we would have been as hesitant to by our plane tickets.

It was always an adventure to find a restaurant that wouldn’t get us sick and tasted okay, something that over the course of three and a half months had drawn us very close together. One can only eat so many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before they go crazy. We decided on Calvados, it looked clean and the owner spoke English, always a good sign. However, it was next two restaurants that had dead pigs and other animals on display, kind of freaking us out. You know when you haven’t eaten a good meal in so long that any decent meal will taste like the best food you have ever had? This wasn’t the case, it literally was the best food we have ever had. In the time it took us to eat our steak and potatoes, we didn’t say one word to each other, but our smiling faces spoke loud enough. It was in this journey and more importantly this silence of appreciation and happiness that we created a strong social connection.

We still talk about this meal all the time when we see each other, something all our other friends on the boat will never know. It is something that as silly as it sounds, holds such a special place. After we left the restaurant to today, we leave talking about it in perfect harmony

Pistachios: From Trickery to Memory

Obtained on Flikr by "pmpistol89"

Pistachios, not many people know they are actually grown on trees and begin as little fruits. I didn’t …until now. It’s interesting to think what foods are foreign and which are domestic, even in the scale within our own lives. Originally these fruits trees were cultivated in the Mediterranean and Middle East, and it wasn’t until a mere thirty years ago that they started production in the United States. To some, this food might be foreign, but in my household they were always a common good.

Growing up, my mom always found the most ridiculous things to keep us kids occupied, breaking open the shells to obtain the prized pistachio nut was one them. I remember countless days that I would just sit with my mom eating pistachios and even today when I see those little tan things inside the comfort of the shell, I can’t help but pick up a bag, even if they just sit in my kitchen. Childhood memories, a time I often wish I could resort to. But now life is consumed by “real” occupation, not the one that consists of breaking open shells for a prize. And every time I see an association with pistachios, I already feel emotionally invested into the product, a feeling that draws me toward.

The funny thing is, even now, with this blog and title I still resort back to the correlation between food and memory. But, the memory lives on and continues because food is all around and so are pistachios. And to my amazement every time I fly back home and step into my mom’s house… she always has those pistachios ready.