Food Food Food Makes My World Go 'Round

Food is a daily necessity, essential to human survival. For me, I'd say it's more of a hobby. I love food.

My favourite ethnic food cultures are Korean, Chinese, Greek, Italian, Thai, Indian, and Canadian (eh?). My mom usually cooks Korean or Canadian food and brings home all kinds of tasty meats from the Chinese grocery stores Yuan Ming and T&T. My family also eats out at a lot of Chinese and Korean restaurants. I also love eating out.

I pretty much covered all of the major Asian foods except for Japanese. Well, personally, I find that Japanese food is skimpy and more for the presentation than the taste. They also come in those tiny little bento boxes, which rarely fill me up. Then again, after eating Japanese food, I kind of lose my appetite anyway.

Whenever I have to order fast food at one of those food courts, I will likely order from a Greek place. If you haven't tried it, you MUST try the gyros (pronounced year-ohs). It's my favourite Greek item. In fact, the shawarma is similar to that-not sure what culture that is from. I suppose my love for Greek food has also tricked me into loving olives and tzatziki sauce. At Greek restaurants, I also like to order the spanakopita just because they yell opa when they light it on fire. I suppose this perk is inspired by one of my favourite movies "My Big Fat Greek Wedding".

Also, my family used to eat at a lot of Italian restaurants. We kind of stopped now because my dad has a sensitive stomach to all the garlic they add to their dishes. This is probably responsible for sparking my love of pasta. I used to always order pastas whenever I went to Italian/Caucasian restaurants. I prefer the pastas with a bit of meat, a nice wine sauce, and some flavourful garnishes such as olives or capers. :) However, I have more recently tried to expand my horizons and order the sandwiches or meat dishes.

In terms of Thai and Indian food, my family doesn't really eat at these kinds of places too often. This is mainly because my dad has a really sensitive stomach, something which I have unfortunately inherited. These cultures tend to use a lot of spices and different flavourings in their food that my family is not used to, so it upsets our digestion. Still, I eat Indian food with my friends or other occasions with extended family whenever I can because it just tastes so good. A little stomachache or diarrhea?...I'll tough it out as long as the food is good.

OH, and I am most definitely a MEAT LOVER. I cannot even explain how important meat is in my life. Let me put it this way, I am the vegetarian's nemesis, and I don't understand how they survive. Basically, I assume they are one of those picky eaters who doesn't eat much. Plus, it's so difficult to eat with vegetarians whenever you go to a restaurant, since there are so many different degrees of vegetarianism: vegan, "I can eat seafood", "I don't eat seafood", etc.

Religious reasons, I can understand, but just random vegetarianism, I find it plain ridiculous. People can choose to eat the vegetables in whatever meat dish the non-veggies order--in fact, that's what my mom does. She's not a big meat fan, and she loves vegetables, basically a health nut. Besides, I know you vegetarians are secretly eyeing and want to have the meats we're having!! Why not just make the more practical lifestyle choice of reducing the amount of meat you have in your diet instead of cutting it out altogether? That way you can eat what you want, and you will probably have a healthier and more balanced diet than us tragically flawed meat lovers. Anyway, I pretty much need a good portion of meat in everything I eat, otherwise those better be some darn good veggies!

I understand that the healthiest lifestyle consists of a solid breakfast, a heavy lunch, and a light supper. Me, I choose my own lifestyle. In terms of mealtimes, my favourite meal is dinner. I see lunchtime as more of a midday snack. The typical lunch meal consists of soup and sandwiches, maybe complemented by some veggie sticks and dip. Speaking of this menu, YOU MUST VISIT PANERA AND ORDER THE SOUP IN A BREAD BOWL IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY. Awesome food, comforting atmosphere, highly recommended. :)

Anyway, I usually skip breakfast. This habit stems from my inability to wake up at a decent hour in the morning--again, a topic for another post. Besides, the rare times I do wake up early in the morning, the breakfast menu rarely interests me. In elementary school, my mom used to leave the house really early, so my dad would cook us breakfast. He made us "egg and rice" pretty much every single day for about...8 years? It was basically egg, rice, soya sauce, and sesame oil mixed together. It tasted really good, but after the same thing for 8 years in a row, I'm sure you can understand why I'm not that much of an egg fan anymore. Furthermore, I'm not a big fan of fruits or the grain foods like cereal, toast, bagels, or any of those weird muffin things. I don't care if it's a fruit explosion muffin! I DON'T WANT IT! Since my family doesn't have cable, we tend to watch a lot of movies, late at night. I usually get a nice pop and chips mini-meal in around this time. :)

In terms of my taste buds, I like spicy and savoury foods (meaning salt). Somehow I thought that all Asians were expected to eat spicy, but apparently Koreans have a spicier reputation than most. I at least know that non-Asians find Kimchi pretty spicy, whereas, I could just eat it by itself like chips (if I was hungry enough to have a meal that boring). Also, a lot of our chigaes (stews) are pretty red looking, although it may not be as spicy at it looks. Still, if you find kimchi spicy, you will definitely have a hard time with those.

My least favourite taste is sweet. I find those sweet n' sour dishes kind of weird, but sometimes tolerable because it at least has meat in it. One exception to this rule is that I really don't mind the sweet and sour soup at all. Oh and for those who didn't know, I don't really like chocolate that much. I'll admit I have a few sugary favourites: twix, turkish delight, and white chocolate, but those don't count cuz they're too good! Other than that, I don't really like chocolate, and I'd choose chips even over those chocolates any day.

Another characteristic of my food preferences is that I'm pretty cheap to feed. I'm not that much of a steak and sausage fan, but I love dumplings! You can get 5 packs at the Yuan Ming Supermarket for $10. At the Korean grocery, you can get one of those big packages of chicken dumplings for hmm...around 3 bucks I think. In fact, my Korean elementary school friends used to nickname me mandu (Korean for dumpling) because I brought it to school everyday and shared with them. Good times :) Also, I don't like seafood or other strange delicacies like chicken feet, which my boyfriend has attempted to forcefeed me on multiple occasions (luckily his mom was there to save me). I assume that seafood and steak are probably the most expensive things to buy, at least in Canada. If you ever want to keep me as a pet, I will be happy with cheap dumplings, Korean appetizers, or Greek gyros pitas!

Anyways, that's all I will write about my love of food for now. I hope you have increased your appreciation for all the variety of food that is available to us here in Canada just by reading this post. Here, we have so many options: homecooked meals, restaurants, fast food, different cultures of food, etc. I could never imagine living in a developing country where there are only two options: take it or leave it.