My boyfriend has this joke where the only time I’m not talking is when I’m eating. Then when someone asked him for advice in getting a girlfriend, his answer was something along the lines of, “You play with her hair and you give her ice cream. Then she realizes that she might like you as much as she likes ice cream and then you go from there.” That might not have been an exact quote, but my point in telling all this is that I really love and appreciate food.
I had the intention of writing this blog yesterday, but my day was so busy it’ll be coming out today. Yesterday was National Eat What You Want Day, and I have to say that if I live my life in any sort of style, that would be the style I would want to live it.
Food Is My Love Language
The people who first teach us love are the parents. In my case, my parents were working so much that my grandma taught me what love is, and for me, love is food. Love is being in the kitchen together, learning and helping each other to make something great. Love is the warm bowl of pho waiting at the dinner table after an evening of playing in the snow. Love should be savored in the same way that one savors the crispy shell of a banh xeo as it breaks apart against the tangy filling. Just thinking about it makes me hungry.
Whenever it comes to anything that I do, I always look forward to the food aspect of everything. It’s a comfort for me, so much so that when my literature professor asked, “If you just spent 15 years in jail, what is the 1 thing you would ask for when you got out?” my response was, “I couldn’t just pick 1 thing. I would want a multitude of things. I would want a feast of food made by my grandma.”
You Can Have Your Cake
As an observer, I think that there are lots of different types of relationships with food. The media always has some sort of new fad diet that’s trending, and the mental health industry wants a level awareness for people who have dangerous relationships with food that range from anorexia nervosa and bulimia. I’m obviously not a professional in any sense of the word when it comes to food, but I feel like the way I live my life works for me.
A while back, I had a realization while I was on the 1X1X1 diet. It’s a common saying that moderation is key, but I think it’s a little more than that. Yes, you can have cake if you want it, and don’t eat too much of it, but you also have to remember to get everything you need. So when I crave a burger, I have to make sure that I’m not getting a double, and maybe instead of standard fries, I’ll opt for a side order of sweet potato fries so that I can get some extra vitamins in me. That’s how I live my life in relation to food, and I think this works for me.
“If you really want to make a friend, go to someone’s house and eat with him…the people who give you their food give you their heart.”
Cesar Chavez
When I was single, I loved first dates. I loved them because they were exciting, you meet new people, and I always learned something about myself. I feel like I often hear from friends that a first date should not be a dinner date, but I disagree, because dinner dates can be very revealing. I honed in on what I wanted in all my dinner dates.
So many decent people will say that they don’t want to date the person who is rude to a server, but there’s more to it than that. I don’t want to date the person who will badly tip the server, because they are trying to spend money to have an experience they don’t necessarily deserve and I’m not trying to live my life that way.
I also learned that while I want a nice guy, I don’t want the guy that is too nice to speak up for what he wants. I went on this one date to a Tijuanna Flatts type of place once with this guy, and because I knew what I wanted, I went ahead and ordered and then got a table and everything. This guy comes to the table after I had gotten my drink and says, “I’m sorry, I would’ve paid for you, but you were too fast.” No, dude, I’m sorry that you weren’t assertive enough to take 3 steps as I placed my order and then just order right after. After that, every other thing he said was a compliment of some sort, which was nice, but also felt a bit like overcompensation.
The most important thing I learned is that I would want a guy who is willing to share his food with me. The thing about me is that when I go to a restaurant, I usually want to try a couple of things on the menu, but I can’t order all the things because I won’t finish all of it and that might put a dent in my wallet. I also don’t expect to literally split the plates down the middle, I just want to sample it to say that I tried it. The guy that I met before my boyfriend, I thought he was the love of my life, and then at one dinner he decided he didn’t want to let me have a taste of whatever he was eating. Because I’m a girl and thought he was the love of my life, I told myself that no body is perfect and that it would be okay. Looking back now, I realize that if he wasn’t going to share a bite of food with me, and that meant that there was no way he was going to share his life with me. It’s all for the better.
All that to say, I’ve also started a food blog in the past year and I’m trying to get it off the ground. It’s entirely inspired by my grandma, but I will say that I’m worse at updating that blog than this blog. If you want to check it out, you can visit anvoisau.com. I’m trying to get it together, so thanks for checking it out if you do.
What would you say makes a good food blog? How would you describe your relationship with food? Out of all the foods that you have tried, what would you say is your favorite thing ever and why? Tell me in the comments below!
As always, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to read this blog post. If you enjoyed it, be sure to let me know by liking this post, commenting down below, and sharing it with your friends. You can even make my day by becoming a subscriber, which means you will automatically be notified every time I put out more content like this (which because I’m trying to keep up with my blogging challenge, should be as soon as tomorrow).
Love Always,
Kristi My
Kristi My Dao 