Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts

Thursday, February 25, 2010

233 - People who think foreign food is disgusting


As I was growing up, I was always encouraged to try new foods. With having travelled quite a bit too, at this point, I very rarely refuse to try any cuisine, even if it is a bit out of the ordinary.

Being brought up in Hong Kong in both Chinese and international contexts, I learned very early on that consuming things like duck's liver, bird's nest, shark's fin, and turtle shell jelly (pictured above), was pretty weird to some people - specifically those that weren't local Chinese. But to me, my beloved grandmother, and the rest of my Chinese-side family, it was perfectly normal. (And yes, I've tried and love all of those things.)

Recently, I've been listening to a lot of people give China crap about eating things like dog, because they're a creature that the Western world has domesticated. Or things like scorpion or tarantula, because they sting and they're poisonous and they look too different from us humans. Give China a break, man, it's a big country, with the largest population in the world. I'd be surprised if all 1.3 billion of us were only eating cow, chicken and pig, animals we're 'supposed to eat'.

What, like the French don't eat steak tartare, escargot, or frog legs? The Spanish eat bull testicles. And the Texans deep-fry rattlesnake. Australians eat kangaroo, crocodile eggs and ostrich. The Americans use cod liver oil as a vitamin A supplement. And the English feast on pig's blood every morning in the form of black pudding.

The Americans invented chewing gum - I mean, if you really think about it, that's a pretty weird idea for someone to come up with.

Foreign food should not be looked at in disgust. I respect whatever your personal preferences are, or what you feel about certain animals - I really do. I mean, some things I find weird, too. For example, I find it weird that Ukrainians eat bear, Filipinos eat chicken fetus, Alaskans eat raw fat from whales, and Icelandic people eat puffin. I'm weirded out by it, but I would never feel disgusted by any of these things because it's just what different people in different parts of the world have become adapted to eating. If you're an animal rights activist, well, good for you for trying to conserve different species. If you hate spiders, that's fine as well.

But I'm not pressuring you to like these things. Just accept that others eat these things, just respect that others may even love eating these things. Nobody's trying to force-feed any of these 'disgusting' foods down your throat, so we shouldn't have to swallow our feelings of embarassment when you say that they're disgusting.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

232 - Dislike of rice


In my life, I've only ever met two people that actually said, 'I don't like rice.' When I hear this sentence, there are three things that tend to go through my mind very quickly:

1. The biggest export of the Phillipines is rice.
2. China consumes and produces more rice than India and Indonesia combined.
3. I am Filipino-Chinese.

I have probably eaten more grains of rice than there are people in the world. I don't understand what there is not to like. It's a staple food, just as potatoes are to the Irish, just as yams are to the Central Africans. Apparently, this peculiar disfavor may be due to the granularity of it. Small particulates bother people because they don't feel wholesome, they remind one of tiny insects or bacterium. Lots of tiny little things going into one's mouth... IS disturbing...

Some people also say that rice and couscous and similar foods make them choke easily. Yeah, that doesn't make you sound stupid at all. Others say they never know how long to cook it for. That doesn't sound cretinous either.

Another reason people tried to justify their dislike of rice was that it was difficult to finish it all, in that they couldn't possibly get every grain of rice off the plate. They're using spoons and forks, and are apparently people of modern civilized origin, so it amazes me that they are unable to clear the plate with the silver cutlery they are so accustomed to, solely because the foodstuffs are small. They guffaw as some rice is still leftover on their china and say, 'Imagine if I was using chopsticks instead!'

Ha. Ha. Ha.

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Sunday, November 22, 2009

192 - When tough-looking guys do non-tough-looking things

Every morning here at my university, I have a free breakfast that comes along with the fee of my accommodation. I love breakfast, and I get really crabby if I miss it. So, I make sure to be up at 7:30, and I get dressed and everything to leave my room at 7:55.

When I get to the canteen at 8 o'clock, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, there's a guy there that works as a server. I'm about the height of his shoulder, barely, yet he's the one that serves me, a guy that's shorter and scrawnier, food.

I'm very wary of the fact that this guy's bigger than me, and it makes me uncomfortable asking him to perform a simple task like putting a sausage or an egg on a plate. There's something about big guys in the catering industry, especially at a university serving breakfast, that's deeply unnerving. I don't quite know what to think about it, because whenever I ask for some toast or some beans, he'll look at me with this menacing gaze that reads, "I don't actually like to work here. I hate this job, but I'm doing it because I need the money."

It's very discomforting, and I almost want to resort my breakfasts to only the other days of the week, when a smaller, friendlier Vietnamese girl works the line instead.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

181 - When you're assigned the role of treasurer when you go out to eat

Here's the typical scenario: it's one of your friend's birthdays. The friend chooses a restaurant for everybody to eat in, and then everyone gorges on seventy-five percent of the menu. After desserts, coffees and teas are consumed by the end of the meal, the check comes, and gets passed around, until it lands on the table in front of you, because everyone else is apparently too busy chatting or laughing or picking their teeth to do the adding up. It's up to you to calculate how much each person (except the birthday person, of course) owes to the collective sum of money being charged on the bill.

When dividing by any number greater than four or five, you get difficult amounts of money owed, because the total at the bottom of the check is never a nice number that is easily divisible, or a number that, when divided, can be easily rounded up or down to a pecuniarily manageable figure. There will always be one or two people that do not contribute their part, due to the fact that they ate less than everyone else, or because they simply don't have enough money, and so you must go and seek out people that are generous enough to cover for them, or you just collect whatever money those cheapskates have, then divide the rest of the bill by the number of people left.

Then the birthday person makes a halfhearted attempt to pay, and everybody spends twenty minutes trying to convince him that it's alright, because for one, his birthday is everyone's treat, and second, he/she isn't even allowed to know how much the birthday celebration he/she is responsible for costs. You count the money seventeen times just to make sure it all adds up, only to have a nominated acquaintance count the money once more because she's known to be extremely responsible with her own pocket money. This is then followed by her boyfriend adding it up for a nineteenth time, because apparently, he took up an accounting class at school.

It never adds up, people have underpaid and overpaid and people want some change back. You have to listen to stories about how people have lost their wallets, how people have just signed up for a new debit card, their thoughts on the new design of the $10 bill, and countless other stories. You also have to deal with the asshole who wants to pay for one twenty-third of the bill using his credit card. After the check is settled after what feels like forever, you tiredly rub your forehead and temples with your palms, which to your mistake, leads to your overlooking the event in which two girls in the corner order an apple martini to share, which is then followed by the birthday person's best friend ordering a round of apple-flavored shooters...

Your job as treasurer isn't over yet, but at least there's alcohol on its way.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

180 - Catchy songs that play in restaurants

There are many times as I'm sitting in a fast-food restaurant, a pub, a bar, a club, or a high-end, fine dining establishment, when a catchy song comes up and plays as you're eating or drinking. You want to sing along, but you're half-hungry, as well. You want to mouth the words of the song, and see if your company is mouthing them, too, but you want to take a sip of your drink at the same time.

You end up doing a sort of half-chanting, half-consuming showcase, where you cut up your food while singing, but at the moment you would normally bring the fork to your mouth, you wait - you wait until one of your favorite lines go by, before you actually perform the act of ingestion.

Then you get tired of this routine. So you try and anticipate the breaks in the song, the intermissions, interludes and instrumental solos, and only guzzle up your food as fast as you can when there are no lyrics - only to find yourself struggling to swallow quick enough in order to make it for when the chorus of the tune comes up again. You want to sing, but food awkwardly dribbles out of your mouth, drinks go up your nose, you look weird, food is not being chewed, the food is ruined, the drink becomes ruined, and the song gets ruined.

It's even worse when you're dancing in a club. How are you meant to drink, and dance, and sing, all at the same time? The body is only capable of so much!

I absolutely hate it when this happens. It makes no sense for a restaurant to do that to its customers. Do you hate it too?

Saturday, September 12, 2009

170 - Having no common sense

Just recently, I discontinued my post as a bartender in a Belgian restaurant. I was so good by the end of the three months in which I worked that a part of me didn't want my first ever job to surcease. The restaurant I worked at was already a little bit understaffed, and I felt like I was abandoning a team, like an integral cog in the Belgian machine.

Seeing as this company has treated me well, I agreed to help train this one guy who was hoping to replace me in the bar.
He came in for a lunch shift to try out, because lunch is an easier time to go through everything than dinner, due to fewer customers. I thought it would be fun for me, to run through all the morning, afternoon and closing duties with him, to guide him, and to encourage him, and to observe, in an evident way, how much I actually learned in the short space of three months.

By the end of the lunch hour, though, I wanted to tear my hair out.

Speaking honestly, and by that, I mean without exaggeration: he was soooooooooo bad at this job. He would open a bottle of still water, pour a glass of Coke and produce a cup of coffee, and for every little thing, he would bring it to my face and ask me, "Is this okay?"

Uh, hello? It's a glass of Coke. You put ice in a short glass, pour the Coke in, and place a slice of lemon on top. Easy, quick and simple.

As for the coffee, you get the jug of filtered coffee, pour it in a coffee cup, place it on a saucer with a small coffee spoon. A bit more complex, but nothing a full-grown man cannot perform, right?

But come on... to open a bottle of water? You get a bottle opener, position it on the bottle cap in any number of ways, apply some pressure to achieve some leverage, until the cap pops right off. Voilà, the bottle of water has been accomplished. Not exactly rocket science, now, is it?

For each and every small detail, he would ask me to confirm that it was okay. But you know what the funny thing was?

The funny thing was that the stuff he brought to the pass were not okay. He put iced lemon tea in a short glass, when the diameters of the lemon wheels are practically the same as the height of the glass. Where's the fun of poking three lemon slices to the bottom of a short glass that's already filled to the brim with ice?

And why would you place a lemon slice garnish at the bottom of a glass of Coke? Does that not defeat the purpose of using it as a garnish? It goes: ice, Coke, lemon... not lemon, ice, Coke. Can you remember that? Is that going to be alright for you to handle?

And you know, even your still water has fault in it, because the order asked for sparkling water. The two words are quite differently spelled, maybe you have ADHD?

And listen to this... He poured the milk, and the brown sugar, into the coffee, for the customer, before he served it. Some people may not want milk, some people may not want brown sugar, and everyone doesn't want you to stir their coffee for them. They might think you're poisoning their drinks.

Oh, my God, I thought these things were common sense??? I THOUGHT THESE THINGS WERE COMMON-DUH!-SENSE. You don't have to work in F&B at all to know these sorts of things. All you need is a brain.

It's funny because the trainee told me that he prepared well for this job. He told me he's worked in a few places before, and has taken a bartending course.

You don't need to take a course to tend bar. So, what, if you memorize two hundred cocktails? Chances are people are going to ask you to pour a beer, or get them a glass of Coke, and, uh, maybe have a chat? Bartending is not that glamorous of a job, and it's not always about fancy bottle juggling and mixing drinks. 98% of the time, you pour a beer, or you get them iced water. So, what the Hell, if you memorize two hundred cocktails? And if your school is so good, tell me, i
s that how they taught you to serve iced lemon tea at the Bartending Academy?

The job is about customer service, and confidence, and quick thinking, and you can't learn these things at school.

But most important of all, and I suspect the case is the same for all fields of work, to be a bartender, it requires common sense. Imagine if you were a customer, and serve drinks like you're serving your own mother. All you need is horse sense, and the rest is simple.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

129 - Overly healthful kitchen

Ever since my aunt, Ph.D in clinical therapy, moved back to Hong Kong, I have had almost nothing to eat in the kitchen. She specializes in geriatrics (the branch of medical science that deals with diseases and problems specific to old people) and nutrition most of all. Because I live with my grandparents, who have problems with their blood sugar and liver, our household has become very mindful about what we have in our kitchen and what we eat. I totally support a healthy diet for my grandparents. I don't want them to be diagnosed with diabetes. But I would like to go to the kitchen and find something that isn't healthful, and just tastes good.

Everything in my kitchen is either vegetarian, fresh, organic, unsalted, unprocessed, unflavored, low-fat, low sugar, low calorie, low cholesterol, non-alcoholic, decaffeinated, soy, skimmed, steamed, whole wheat, and/or high in protein, glycogen, antioxidants, fiber, vitamin A, B, C, D, E and K, and/or potassium, iron, calcium, sodium, phosphorus, magnesium and/or iodine.

Do you see something wrong with that?

The first thing in that list is what bugs me the most usually. No meat. No chicken wings, burgers, ribs, steaks, hot dogs, pork chops, bacon, minced meat to go with lasagna or spaghetti, luncheon/corned meat (like SPAM), pastrami, salami, or ham. It's meat. I want to come home and eat some meat! But there isn't any, and that's what makes me sad.

Everything is just too nutritious. I know it's for my grandparents...

But please add something to the grocery list for me.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

116 - Burnt smell of food

That smell is rancid, wouldn't you agree, dudes and dudettes?

I bought a hot dog today at this street vendor thing, and the sausage was all burnt (and tasted disgusting by the way). I smelled the putrid odor as it was cooking on the grill, and saw the billowing smoke that wasn't really inviting, but hey, what can I say? I mean, I was very hungry for sausage. (All together now: that's what she said!)

It was just horrible, and it reminded me of all the times I've ever smelled food that was overcooked. I don't know how to make this post any more fruitful, in terms of descriptiveness, but I just really hate the smell, especially when I'm the one who burns food in the microwave. I bet you've had the stink of burned food in your kitchen emanating from the toaster, or the microwave before, right? It's terrible.

Oh, and the stench of burnt pork chops, to me, is so evil-smelling that it makes me imagine happy, innocent pigs being kicked into a big bonfire in a pit in the ground.

Oh, and the smell of charred toast is probably the last, least effective, smell on Earth to use, if you wanted to turn me on. (Have I said too much again?)

Anyway, a Google search tells me to boil one quart of water with two cups of vinegar to reduce the rank, repulsive foulness. And to swing a wet towel over my head if there's a need to eradicate dispersing smoke.

But doesn't the smell of burnt food just ruin your appetite and day?

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By the way, Anita Helen over at Heart Attack In A Box, managed to take
a screenshot of the most fitting Word Verification ever while leaving a comment on one of my other posts. It's pretty cool. Take a look, and click to enlarge:

Monday, February 23, 2009

115 - Not being 100% economical

I usually take a shower in the morning because I'm the kind of guy that needs to go to bed once he gets home, and needs to be splashed with water in order to awaken and be ridden of his drowsiness. And this morning, I was squirting out shampoo from the shampoo bottle while I was in the shower, and after I had taken my share and artfully smooshed it all over the top of my head, I checked to see how much shampoo was left, and it was empty.

...Or was it?

You see, I knew there was still shampoo in that thing, there's always some leftover inside, right?

So, I turned the nozzle counter-clockwise until the nozzle came off, and I let water go in, I rinsed it out and poured it all over my head, so I could save what my family would probably have thrown away upon discovery of the bottle's vacancy. I was being resourceful.

But sadly, this seems to be the only way I can minimize wastage. I hate how we can never really get all the butter out of a tub, or all the peanut butter out of a jar. When the ketchup or mustard runs out, I just know there's a couple of milliliters of sauce stuck on the insides, but lack the fluidity to ooze all the way downwards to that little opening. Similarly to squeezing sauce out of the sauce packets you get from fast-food chains, all the strength you can muster and apply to a flexible toothpaste tube will never get all the toothpaste out.

Things that come in tiny granules like baby powder, cheese, sugar, flour, artsy glitter, and salt and pepper, tend to get stuck to the bottom of the container, or caught in between the lid and the rim. You never use it all up.

With food on a plate, everything on mine has to be swallowed, not a single grain of rice left, not even a little broccoli bud, not even a teensy weensy tiny puddle of soup in my bowl. I eat the lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes salad that go on the side of satay or chicken wings. I lick the spoon, the fork and the knife (this is not allowed, though, right?) after eating. I chew on the residual ice after hydrating myself with an iced beverage.

But the one uneconomical thing that irks me the most comes from drinking drinks out of an aluminum can.

Let's say you take a sip, slowly. You grasp on to the can, and feel the cold condensation on the sides. You kiss the rim of the can, and feel how your lower lip just fits right there on to the curved edge of it. You raise your chin in a manner that looks like your hair's being pulled from behind, and you feel the liquid trickling out of the can, maybe on to your tongue (if you're French kissing the can), and down your throat so fluidly.

You set the can down, and wait ---
what's this? ---
WHAT'S THIS?!?!?! ---
there's some liquid STUCK on the rim where your lips used to be! ---
OH, MY GOD!!! ---
OH NOEZZZ!!!11 ---
oHeMGee1111 ---
lik dat iz so wacki duuuuuuuude ---
gar ban ugdgdgwengo gwengo eneeko????? ---
^!$!&&!$!$#*$!#%$# ---
.....
....
...
..
.
*ahem*

Yeah, I hate the residual liquid that comes after ever sip. I have to make sure I suck it up every single time, but it's well worth it for me.

I also have a big problem with rubbish that piles up in a rubbish bin. I reckon this is just me being weird... I usually reach for a tissue, place it on the top, and flatten everything down so that more can be placed in a given volume. Makes sense, right?

But then, I take it too far sometimes, and I guess I don't know my own strength. You'd be surprised about how much litter you can actually fit in a bin...

Sunday, February 15, 2009

109 - Bombarding vegetarians with questions

I don't know if there's a handful of vegetarians out there that actually nibble on a chicken wing every now and then, but seriously, "So you don't eat any meat?" has to be one of the most idiotic questions to ask a vegetarian, or a human being.

Some would say I'm just jealous of the attention vegetarians get, but really, I mean, asking them when they last ate meat, what they think meat tastes like, why they chose to be a vegetarian, what do they do to get protein, what do their friends and family think of vegetarianism, what happens if they eat a hamburger, will they encourage their kids to be vegetarians, blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah... I don't think it's really that great a topic. I don't think it deserves that much focus by a pair or a group of individuals.

Come on!

Are you really that interested?
... Really?

Sigh, well, as they say, small things amuse small minds.

... I suggest you just shut up, and drink your soup.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

108 - A conversation about the difference between a vegetarian and a vegan

One of the most repeated discussions I've ever been involved in is the discussion that concerns the difference between a vegetarian and a vegan. I get sick of people asking what the difference is, and I get even more tired of all the people that claim to know what the difference is, pretend to be a smartass, only to present an incorrect answer or an answer that is sort of correct, but not quite.

So here it is: Vegetarianism is the dietary practice that excludes meat, fish, seafood and poultry. Veganism is a form of vegetarianism which excludes all animal products, including meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, dairy products and honey. Vegans usually do this out of support for animal rights, and therefore, tend to disapprove of the use of fur, leather, wool and silk.

Please, I do not want to have this discussion again. Please, please, please, not again.

Friday, February 13, 2009

107 - People who eat loudly

When I was seven years old, I spent my winter holidays in Toronto, Canada. I have two aunts there, and one of them once took me to the movies to see The Prince of Egypt.

On the car ride to the cinema, I was chewing gum, and my mouth was open, so my aunt could hear that horrible sticky snap every time my upper jaw and lower jaw moved away from each other.

When we reached a four-way junction, she stopped for a red light and turned around suddenly and screamed at me, and told me to stop chewing so loudly. She looked so angry, and I cried, and I never chewed gum with my mouth open again.

This goes for all food, in fact. I don't slurp my soup. I try not to make those horrible noises with my straw when I've nearly finished a beverage. I don't create nails-on-a-blackboard sounds when I'm using a knife to cut food on a plate. I don't make sucking noises when I'm trying to get all the meat off a chicken wing. I eat crackers, and potato chips, without crunching. I don't suck up long pieces of spaghetti. Even something as simple as gulping water has to be silent as well.

My best friend says that these noises make a meal more enjoyable. The noise adds an acoustically pleasant component to the dining experience.


I think that's a load of bullocks. Eating should be quiet.

A lot of things should be quiet for me. I hate the sound of high heels, and whistles, ruffling sheets of paper, dogs barking, people sniffing, everything.

My best friend jokes that in my ideal world, everyone would be ninjas.

And you know, that is precisely what I want. Don't you think that would be awesome if the world was all as stealthy as ninjas?

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

71 - Not using the scoop to make balls of ice cream

It hasn't been a happy new year so far, folks, as you may have noticed from the subject matter of this blog's posts and those of my other blog. But I promise (myself) that that will change. It needs to change because otherwise this will just become another personal blog where my confuséd teenage thoughts mix with my writing like oil and water, where all my tears fall on to the ingredients to be used in a recipe, leading to a service of salty noodles, soggy toast and dilute milkshakes. I don't know where I'm going with this, I really don't...

Oh, but anyway, get ready to go back to the olden days of Do you hate it too? where I poke fun at the stupidity of strangers around me, 'cause I'm going to do a week's worth of fun posts. (I swear!) As the Joker says: "Why so serious?"

Without further ado, today's post is about something we all lov
e: ice cre—wait a minute. Love? Yeesh, what's this 'love' doing on this blog?

What I meant was that today's post is about something that I absolutely loathe, and this something is the negligence to use a ice cream scooper to achieve its maximum potential. I hate it when people do not use the scoop to make spheres with the ice cream. I always make a perfectly round ball of ice cream because the sphere is such a perfect shape for ice cream, such a perfect shape.

I hate the lines you get in buffets by the freezer where boxes of ice cream are there for you to scoop for yourselves. The process is slow when there are only one or two scoops to go around and space for two to stand at the thing. What amazes me is that there are so many people that don't even attempt to make the perfect ball. They're happy scraping at the rim and on the sides for tiny shavings of ice cream, and settling for their irregularly shaped chunks of ice cream. Why pay such a long visit to the ice cream dispenser if you're not even going to try making a sphere?


Do you see how pretty that is?

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

65 - Poor translations for Chinese food

Beef pie.

Sugary biscuit.

Doughnut.

Fried noodles.

This is actually what it sounds like exactly. Tofu with stinky additions.

It says "Ovi fermented Glutynoes Wheat". I've forgotten what it was.

I think it's red bean paste wrapped in pastry.

lol.

It's 'Heartbroken noodles', literally. '凉粉' is the 'noodles' part, and literally means 'Cold powder' as it says on the sign.

Simply, boiled noodles.

Typo.

Rice cake. Nothing else.

That is really what the Chinese says, too. It's just a fancy name for a dessert.

Very weird use of the em-dash and not a hyphen. It was fried rice.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

8 - Gluttony

After a week of complaining about other people's misdeeds, I thought it would be interesting for all of my readers, followers and random pop-by visitors to learn more about some of my own bad habits. I said a week ago that everybody has dysfunctional behavioral tendencies and myself is included! To my good friends that know me outside the blogging world: you knew a self-dissing post was bound to be written some day. But instead of just one, I will be writing a full week's worth of posts demonstrating the hypocrisy in me. That's right. Seven entries about the things that I hate doing, and I hate the fact that I do them too. (I'm getting a little bit scared of where this might lead...)

As you've probably shrewdly figured out already, one of the annoying things that I do, but don't condone myself is being greedy when it comes to food. I remember an end-of-year party we had at school, where everybody in the class brought in candy, nachos, Lay's, Pringles, tortilla chips, soft drinks, Cheetos and pretzels to celebrate the fact that we had successfully completed another year of school. We moved the tables together to the middle of the room, and laid down all the food in the center. The teacher put on a movie and turned on the projector, and we sat down around the table of junk food and began to watch it.

Being the end of the year, we had no work to do, nothing to stress us out. Of course, the movie was nice, but we took this opportunity to chat as well before the summer holidays would separate us for two months. While everybody was chatting, I sneakily moved the food around so that I could sit right in the middle amongst all the food. Like an octopus, I reached in all directions, grabbing different potato chips and other snacks to keep my mouth interested and my stomach constantly at work. My classmates, one by one, began to see my dreadfulness, but they just let me be and in the end, I distinctly recall a Coca Cola chugging contest with one of my friends, although I don't remember exactly how that happened...

I can remember many times where I have asked the waiter to bring me more food than I actually needed (often, when the food is not going to be paid for by me). I will hog the popcorn at the movies, seize four-sixths of a whole pizza and take advantage of buffets by giving myself very generous portions. When I'm on a plane, I will press that button twenty to thirty times, thus summoning the air stewardess so that I can ask for peanuts and tomato juice for the entire flight's duration.

I hate seeing this greediness in other people, and looking back at my own gluttonous behavior, I hate seeing it in myself too. I'm surprised nobody has ever accused me of this before... I guess my friends and family are all being kind to me. I like spending time with others that love to eat as well. That way, I don't feel so guilty and I have someone else that can't control their appetite, however, when dining with people that can moderate their hunger, I find myself very unjust and self-indulgent.


It is a matter of self-control, self-control that I have never been able to find in myself, self-control that I have never needed to have because food is there for me whenever I want it. Even if people can have food whenever they want it, they still shouldn't eat more than their fair share, or eat more than they actually need to make them full.

What do you think, readers? Do you hate it too?

Saturday, November 1, 2008

5 - Doing things that people have specifically told you not to do

The main source of inspiration for this hate of mine is rooted in a particular dinner I had, at which my mother and I ate at Ruby Tuesday (mmm). If I remember correctly, we had salad, potato skins, spare ribs, beef lasagne, fries and garlic toast, which were all in great, big portions and in addition to that, I drank a lot of Coca Cola, since you know, you can ask for refills. As the night went on, I ingested more and more food, to the point where I felt full, to the point where I took off my belt and put it in my bag, to the point where I had to stand up and take deep breaths, and finally to the point where I just couldn't possibly eat anymore. I ate so much, I couldn't move and I was in a lot of discomfort. I had to take ten minutes just to stand up, to physiologically prepare myself for the journey home.

We stepped outside and my mother put her arm around my waist since I'm tall and that's what mothers do to their tall, teenage sons. I told her, "Don't press on to my stomach" lest I might vomit. Can you hazard as a guess as to what she did the very second she heard my warning?

...that's right.

My dinner went splash.

Why is it that people have this compulsion to do what is contrary to what other people have requested?

You start off an embarassing story with, "Don't laugh at me, but there was this one time..." and then they find it amusing and laugh anyway. You tell someone, "Oh, I don't want to talk about it" and they reply with, "No, tell me! Come on!". You ask for your friend to stop that incessant whistling and they take it as a sign of your appreciation for their music, prompting them to put their face closer to yours and whistle even louder. You ask someone, "Please don't feel sorry for me, it's not your fault" and however convincingly they reassure you that they aren't, they do.

Why do people do this? Does the message not get across to them? Do we need to punch them in the face, cry our heart out, or regurgitate our dinner in order for them to get the idea?

Who knows?