mouthfeel

Deep-fried softshell crab salad — homecooked meal prepared by mama. Light ponzu sauce on the side and a bowl of seaweed soup. Extreme homesickness, dear god.

I already rhapsodized about the In-N-Out burger, but you should have a visual of the animal-style fries in the background. Sorry that I couldn’t get a pic of the innards; I was starving and impatient at this point.

Pretty sure nothing beats mom’s home cooking. Look at the marbling on that (incredibly thin-sliced) meat! Say yes to American beef! (This exclamatory statement made sense in Korea six months ago.)

Conversation with 7-year-old nephew, thrice-removed:
— What grade are you in?
— I wish I could answer that question.
— … What?
— I’m finished with school.
— Oh, does that mean you’re a grown-up?
— … Yes… yeah… yes.

Behold — the Flamin’ Hot Cheeto. The scourge of public schools everywhere (spicy foods cause a high!), this extreme snack reigns supreme over other Frito-Lay titans. As a young sixth-grader with newfound access to a middle-school Student Store, I ate one bag of these heartattacks every day for a semester until I developed a double chin. The following summer, cut off from the sybaritic indulgences of scheduled lunches, I inadvertently lost the weight by replacing one piquant addiction with another — the relatively calorie-free bibimnaengmun.

When I was a kid, the best way to eat the Flamin’ Hots was to use only your thumb and forefinger on one specific hand so that the crimson crust of spiciness, layered over your chosen digits through repeated usage, could be licked off after the bag was done, leaving a telltale pinkish dye for about 24 hours. Nowadays, it’s no good to have twentysomething-old fingers stained in such childish ways. Use a wet napkin, and wipe after each bite. That’s what being an adult means. Unfortunately.

(mouthfeel returns with more entries for this Very Special U.S.A. Edition! Update your bookmarks!)

Um, another terrible picture, but a preview of my brother’s wine and cheese party tomorrow night. Hook’s twelve-year-old Wisconsin cheddar (the card is mistaken), so I was eleven when it was made! Crystallized salt forms over time within the otherwise smooth-textured cheese — nay, to call Hook’s twelve-year cheddar, “cheese,” would be to disparage its perfection. It’s like I never knew anything about ANYTHING, EVER, before.