Honey mustard pretzels are the perfect snack if you want something that is salty, but also a little bit sweet. The pretzel is split down the middle and glazed with a buttery garlic flavor and then coated with mouth-watering honey mustard. The best part is the little pieces at the bottom of the bag that are coated with extra mustard. The first time I ate them was on Christmas Eve when I was 6. I remember that night because it was our turn to have my grandmother with us for Christmas, as she had been with my aunt the year before and my uncle the year before that. The bowl of pretzels was sitting on a table and I peered over the rim of the bowl and sniffed the weird snack. I picked one up and licked it. Then, daringly, popped the whole thing into my mouth. I ate them as we laughed and decorated the tree with all of our weird ornaments. I wiped the pretzel dusted on my pants and my dad handed me the angel to place on the top of the tree. He hoisted me up onto his shoulders and I nestled the angel onto her little perch. Now every time that I eat honey mustard pretzels I think of that Christmas Eve and how we got the privilage of spending it with our beloved grandmother.
Whenever I eat anything, something in the back of my brain reminds me that there’s insects in every food we eat. Most of the time I simply acknowledge the fact and move on to more immediate issues, but sometimes I stop and think about the fruit flies and roaches and beetles that fell into big vats or containers at factories, and were killed and ground up into the various processed foods, never to be known again. When I see a bottle of ketchup, I imagine the broken legs and wings and pieces of chitin that float in one of the most bug-filled foods. When my mom eats her special figs from Italy, I think of the complex lives of the fig wasps that pollinate and make figs possible, and in doing so entomb themselves within the figs, eventually being dissolved by the acids of the fig. When I see lettuce, I am reminded of the story my friend told me of finding a caterpillar in a lettuce head, raising it, and eventually discovering that it was an uncommon Mexican species. When I, ever so occasionally, eat a bite of fish, I think of the myriad black fly larvae and stonefly nymphs that provide the bulk of the food for most freshwater fish, without which the fish would disappear. And when I see someone eating any other kind of meat, I imagine a world where the only kind of meat people ate would be insect meat, a world needing not the enormous land areas needed for livestock, nor the huge quantities of grain needed to feed said livestock.
I don’t like dairy products. Well, most of them anyway. Cheese and ice cream are good but milk is gross and yogurt makes me gag. When I was little I got sick, a lot. I was the queen of sinus infections, and for a few years there I got very sick on Christmas day, every year. As a result of being sick a lot, I have taken my fair share of antibiotics. As you might know, if you have been sick as many times as I have, antibiotics kill both the good germs and the bad ones. You also might know that yogurt helps to regrow those good germs. You might be thinking, well she doesn’t like yogurt because she had to eat it when she was sick. That is not the case. I heard somewhere that milk was made for calves not humans, and I would say the same goes for yogurt. So while now my dislike of yogurt might have been grown by my association with being sick, it was now made for me and I can tell.
I associate tomatoes with gazpacho, and therefore I associate tomatoes with Spain. I remember the first time I had gazpacho. It was our first day there, and we were down the block having croquetas and gazpacho on the street, in the sun, behind a famous building that was under construction. The soup was cool, not cold, and tasted not of tomatoes but of the spices used to flavor. Rich, thick, just a little grainy. Very, very good. Interestingly enough, the first thing that comes to mind when I think of gazpacho is not that first time in the sun, but one of the last times in the dark. It was teacher-class dinner night, and we were upstairs in a tiny restaurant. Edith, next to me, ordered ceviche. I remember it was white, green, and red, in little geometric chunks, and that there were still some bones in it. By that time, I'd had gazpacho several times over the month, and the soups were starting to lose their flavor and uniqueness. But that night, I ordered it anyway. Where we were, it was quiet, lowlit, an old Spanish building garnished with new accents. The bowl was dark, the soup cool, not cold, a deep, rich, Barcelona red, and it tasted of spice and bittersweet sorrow. My goodbye gazpacho. I had it once more, after that night of laughing sadness, but it wasn't as good, and hasn't been since.
Haley Jo, I loved your description in this piece. The way you described the gazpacho made me feel like I was eating it too, especially when you describe it as “cool, not cold” and then repeat it at the end. I also like how you include emotion, and color with the taste in your line “The bowl was dark, the soup cool, not cold, a deep, rich, Barcelona red, and it tasted of spice and bittersweet sorrow”. I think this sentence was the best line because it really showed the connection to the gazpacho and your experience as a whole. I understand what you are saying in your last sentence now, but I had to read it a couple times because it was a little unclear at first. Awesome post though!
Over the last few years, I have been to my fair share of elegant dining establishments, usually without incident. I have never soiled my dresses or used the wrong utensil. But once, a year and a half ago in France, I had an arguably even worse disaster. We were on the amuse-bouche, right at the very beginning of the meal, and there were plates in the center of the table with various bite-sized delicacies. One of them was a small, round ball on a little white pedestal. The waiter had said that it had a liquid mushroom cream in it, so it had to be eaten in one bite. By the time I picked mine up, however, I had forgotten whether the pedestal was edible or not. Due to the size of the ball and how it had to be consumed in one bite, I didn't have the choice of taking a tiny taste of the pedestal. I debated for a minute before I decided that I would be missing out if I ate the pedestal after the ball, so I stuffed both into my mouth at once (I don't know what I was thinking; that wasn't proper etiquette on top of being a bit stupid). The mushroom ball was delicious. The pedestal, I learned quickly, was solid salt. Somehow I crunched my way through it, and emerged almost coughing (but not quite because that would not have been appropriate). I drank some water and told my family to on no account eat the pedestal. They all found the situation amusing. What I wonder, however, is what the staff thought when they realized that there were only three out of four pedestals left on the plate.
I stand close to the Brooklyn tower now. The stones are glowing different shades of black and red. The bright lights of Manhattan glitters behind it, giving an overshadowing feeling that makes me feel lost and whole at the same time. For a moment, I marvel at how strong this bridge is, how stable, how grand. Surely, it will be able to lend some of that energy. My hand reaches toward the stone, attempting to draw from its majesty. The cars rumble underneath my feet. And although the sound of honking and screeching tires fills the air, the boardwalk is almost empty. It seems that even though a hundred souls pass beneath me and Manhattan stands before me, I am the only one for miles. Taking advantage of this moment, I grab the pen from my pocket and run to the railing as the song of the bridge echoes inside my head. It seems that I am not in control of my body. My legs act on its own accord and my hands follow suit. Soon, I am writing hastily on the steel railing. My handwriting is a mess in the dark, only legible by the smallest degree. I don't realize what I write until I step away to look back at my handy work. And, although, the sky is dark and there is only a small halo of light from the street lights above, I can still see clearly. The words “It's not permanent” gleam, stark against the silver metal.
My grandmother was the one who taught me how to cook when I was younger. I grew up standing in her kitchen, spoon in hand, trying everything she made, and then going on and learning how to make it myself. Ever since then, I have associated all things food related to her, and that kitchen. She was the one who let me use a knife first, and she was the one who taught me that the best kind of cheese is the smelliest. Now whenever I smell cheese, I think of when she used to serve me Grana Padano on apples for my snack when she would babysit me. Whenever I chop herbs, I can hear her voice telling me to tuck my thumb behind my other fingers so I don't accidentally slice it off. I remember her bringing the little step stool into the kitchen so I could actually reach the stove. Now I am almost taller than her. The kitchen has been renovated, and I am too old for her to babysit me anymore. We go to their house for dinner maybe once a month, but still to this day, whenever I hear that we are going, the only thing I think about is what we will be having for dinner.
Every Christmas my dad is in charge of filling our stockings. He grew up in a family where you could barely even see the floor come Christmas morning because of the amount of presents. My mother is Jewish and never experienced a warm, welcoming, present filled Christmas morning in her adolescence. And so, my dad buys most of the gifts and stocking stuffers. He buys gifts we want, don't want and never even have heard of. He does not do this by mistake, he does this because we should "just try the in-the-shower-foot-massager, I bet you'll really like it!" or because "everybody needs a copy of The History of Black People in Maine, it's slow but a really great read." These gifts are confusing if not charming and we hug and thank him as we hide our amused looks. Along with these gifts, my dad strongly believes that the birth of Christ goes hand in hand with chocolate. He pours bags of chocolate coins and shovels fistfuls of Hershey's bars into our leg long knitted "stockings." A six inch solid chocolate santa here and a foot long Toblerone bar there. As my mom, my four siblings and I open our useless presents and shove handfuls of sugar into our mouths the smile on my dad's face could not be any bigger.
Last weekend, I went to the Cumberland fair. The air was filled with a combination of greasy, fried food and the smell of cows, but my mind was set on one thing - maple syrup cotton candy. I associate maple syrup cotton candy with Jane, a family friend and riding instructor. She passed away almost four years ago and that was the last gift she gave to me. I remember sitting on a hay bale in the crisp, autumn air as Jane trained one of our horses to canter on command. The cotton candy clung onto my fingers, and I smelled it suspiciously before closing my eyes and placing it in my mouth. It reminded me of pancake breakfasts on late Sunday mornings, so I placed it in my mouth, welcoming the smell of family and home. I was surprised at how quickly it dissolved in my mouth transforming into the warm syrup I had grown up around, filling all of the pockets in the waffles, cascading over ice cream, still maintaining the slightly burnt flavor of the sugar shack. As I ate the first bite of maple syrup cotton candy, I closed my eyes once again, immediately overwhelmed with the same memories. This time, I also thought of her.
Honey mustard pretzels are the perfect snack if you want something that is salty, but also a little bit sweet. The pretzel is split down the middle and glazed with a buttery garlic flavor and then coated with mouth-watering honey mustard. The best part is the little pieces at the bottom of the bag that are coated with extra mustard. The first time I ate them was on Christmas Eve when I was 6. I remember that night because it was our turn to have my grandmother with us for Christmas, as she had been with my aunt the year before and my uncle the year before that. The bowl of pretzels was sitting on a table and I peered over the rim of the bowl and sniffed the weird snack. I picked one up and licked it. Then, daringly, popped the whole thing into my mouth. I ate them as we laughed and decorated the tree with all of our weird ornaments. I wiped the pretzel dusted on my pants and my dad handed me the angel to place on the top of the tree. He hoisted me up onto his shoulders and I nestled the angel onto her little perch. Now every time that I eat honey mustard pretzels I think of that Christmas Eve and how we got the privilage of spending it with our beloved grandmother.
ReplyDeleteWhenever I eat anything, something in the back of my brain reminds me that there’s insects in every food we eat. Most of the time I simply acknowledge the fact and move on to more immediate issues, but sometimes I stop and think about the fruit flies and roaches and beetles that fell into big vats or containers at factories, and were killed and ground up into the various processed foods, never to be known again. When I see a bottle of ketchup, I imagine the broken legs and wings and pieces of chitin that float in one of the most bug-filled foods. When my mom eats her special figs from Italy, I think of the complex lives of the fig wasps that pollinate and make figs possible, and in doing so entomb themselves within the figs, eventually being dissolved by the acids of the fig. When I see lettuce, I am reminded of the story my friend told me of finding a caterpillar in a lettuce head, raising it, and eventually discovering that it was an uncommon Mexican species. When I, ever so occasionally, eat a bite of fish, I think of the myriad black fly larvae and stonefly nymphs that provide the bulk of the food for most freshwater fish, without which the fish would disappear. And when I see someone eating any other kind of meat, I imagine a world where the only kind of meat people ate would be insect meat, a world needing not the enormous land areas needed for livestock, nor the huge quantities of grain needed to feed said livestock.
ReplyDeleteI don’t like dairy products. Well, most of them anyway. Cheese and ice cream are good but milk is gross and yogurt makes me gag. When I was little I got sick, a lot. I was the queen of sinus infections, and for a few years there I got very sick on Christmas day, every year. As a result of being sick a lot, I have taken my fair share of antibiotics. As you might know, if you have been sick as many times as I have, antibiotics kill both the good germs and the bad ones. You also might know that yogurt helps to regrow those good germs. You might be thinking, well she doesn’t like yogurt because she had to eat it when she was sick. That is not the case. I heard somewhere that milk was made for calves not humans, and I would say the same goes for yogurt. So while now my dislike of yogurt might have been grown by my association with being sick, it was now made for me and I can tell.
ReplyDeleteI associate tomatoes with gazpacho, and therefore I associate tomatoes with Spain. I remember the first time I had gazpacho. It was our first day there, and we were down the block having croquetas and gazpacho on the street, in the sun, behind a famous building that was under construction. The soup was cool, not cold, and tasted not of tomatoes but of the spices used to flavor. Rich, thick, just a little grainy. Very, very good. Interestingly enough, the first thing that comes to mind when I think of gazpacho is not that first time in the sun, but one of the last times in the dark. It was teacher-class dinner night, and we were upstairs in a tiny restaurant. Edith, next to me, ordered ceviche. I remember it was white, green, and red, in little geometric chunks, and that there were still some bones in it. By that time, I'd had gazpacho several times over the month, and the soups were starting to lose their flavor and uniqueness. But that night, I ordered it anyway. Where we were, it was quiet, lowlit, an old Spanish building garnished with new accents. The bowl was dark, the soup cool, not cold, a deep, rich, Barcelona red, and it tasted of spice and bittersweet sorrow. My goodbye gazpacho.
ReplyDeleteI had it once more, after that night of laughing sadness, but it wasn't as good, and hasn't been since.
Haley Jo, I loved your description in this piece. The way you described the gazpacho made me feel like I was eating it too, especially when you describe it as “cool, not cold” and then repeat it at the end. I also like how you include emotion, and color with the taste in your line “The bowl was dark, the soup cool, not cold, a deep, rich, Barcelona red, and it tasted of spice and bittersweet sorrow”. I think this sentence was the best line because it really showed the connection to the gazpacho and your experience as a whole. I understand what you are saying in your last sentence now, but I had to read it a couple times because it was a little unclear at first. Awesome post though!
DeleteOver the last few years, I have been to my fair share of elegant dining establishments, usually without incident. I have never soiled my dresses or used the wrong utensil. But once, a year and a half ago in France, I had an arguably even worse disaster. We were on the amuse-bouche, right at the very beginning of the meal, and there were plates in the center of the table with various bite-sized delicacies. One of them was a small, round ball on a little white pedestal. The waiter had said that it had a liquid mushroom cream in it, so it had to be eaten in one bite. By the time I picked mine up, however, I had forgotten whether the pedestal was edible or not. Due to the size of the ball and how it had to be consumed in one bite, I didn't have the choice of taking a tiny taste of the pedestal. I debated for a minute before I decided that I would be missing out if I ate the pedestal after the ball, so I stuffed both into my mouth at once (I don't know what I was thinking; that wasn't proper etiquette on top of being a bit stupid). The mushroom ball was delicious. The pedestal, I learned quickly, was solid salt. Somehow I crunched my way through it, and emerged almost coughing (but not quite because that would not have been appropriate). I drank some water and told my family to on no account eat the pedestal. They all found the situation amusing.
ReplyDeleteWhat I wonder, however, is what the staff thought when they realized that there were only three out of four pedestals left on the plate.
I stand close to the Brooklyn tower now. The stones are glowing different shades of black and red. The bright lights of Manhattan glitters behind it, giving an overshadowing feeling that makes me feel lost and whole at the same time. For a moment, I marvel at how strong this bridge is, how stable, how grand. Surely, it will be able to lend some of that energy. My hand reaches toward the stone, attempting to draw from its majesty.
ReplyDeleteThe cars rumble underneath my feet. And although the sound of honking and screeching tires fills the air, the boardwalk is almost empty. It seems that even though a hundred souls pass beneath me and Manhattan stands before me, I am the only one for miles. Taking advantage of this moment, I grab the pen from my pocket and run to the railing as the song of the bridge echoes inside my head.
It seems that I am not in control of my body. My legs act on its own accord and my hands follow suit. Soon, I am writing hastily on the steel railing. My handwriting is a mess in the dark, only legible by the smallest degree. I don't realize what I write until I step away to look back at my handy work. And, although, the sky is dark and there is only a small halo of light from the street lights above, I can still see clearly. The words “It's not permanent” gleam, stark against the silver metal.
My grandmother was the one who taught me how to cook when I was younger. I grew up standing in her kitchen, spoon in hand, trying everything she made, and then going on and learning how to make it myself. Ever since then, I have associated all things food related to her, and that kitchen. She was the one who let me use a knife first, and she was the one who taught me that the best kind of cheese is the smelliest. Now whenever I smell cheese, I think of when she used to serve me Grana Padano on apples for my snack when she would babysit me. Whenever I chop herbs, I can hear her voice telling me to tuck my thumb behind my other fingers so I don't accidentally slice it off. I remember her bringing the little step stool into the kitchen so I could actually reach the stove. Now I am almost taller than her. The kitchen has been renovated, and I am too old for her to babysit me anymore. We go to their house for dinner maybe once a month, but still to this day, whenever I hear that we are going, the only thing I think about is what we will be having for dinner.
ReplyDeleteEvery Christmas my dad is in charge of filling our stockings. He grew up in a family where you could barely even see the floor come Christmas morning because of the amount of presents. My mother is Jewish and never experienced a warm, welcoming, present filled Christmas morning in her adolescence. And so, my dad buys most of the gifts and stocking stuffers. He buys gifts we want, don't want and never even have heard of. He does not do this by mistake, he does this because we should "just try the in-the-shower-foot-massager, I bet you'll really like it!" or because "everybody needs a copy of The History of Black People in Maine, it's slow but a really great read." These gifts are confusing if not charming and we hug and thank him as we hide our amused looks. Along with these gifts, my dad strongly believes that the birth of Christ goes hand in hand with chocolate. He pours bags of chocolate coins and shovels fistfuls of Hershey's bars into our leg long knitted "stockings." A six inch solid chocolate santa here and a foot long Toblerone bar there. As my mom, my four siblings and I open our useless presents and shove handfuls of sugar into our mouths the smile on my dad's face could not be any bigger.
ReplyDeleteLast weekend, I went to the Cumberland fair. The air was filled with a combination of greasy, fried food and the smell of cows, but my mind was set on one thing - maple syrup cotton candy. I associate maple syrup cotton candy with Jane, a family friend and riding instructor. She passed away almost four years ago and that was the last gift she gave to me. I remember sitting on a hay bale in the crisp, autumn air as Jane trained one of our horses to canter on command. The cotton candy clung onto my fingers, and I smelled it suspiciously before closing my eyes and placing it in my mouth. It reminded me of pancake breakfasts on late Sunday mornings, so I placed it in my mouth, welcoming the smell of family and home. I was surprised at how quickly it dissolved in my mouth transforming into the warm syrup I had grown up around, filling all of the pockets in the waffles, cascading over ice cream, still maintaining the slightly burnt flavor of the sugar shack. As I ate the first bite of maple syrup cotton candy, I closed my eyes once again, immediately overwhelmed with the same memories. This time, I also thought of her.
ReplyDelete