THE EGG YOU DIDN’T KNOW YOU NEED – PART I, CARBONARA 2.0
I understand what it’s like. It’s totally okay. Happens to everyone.
We venture into unfamiliar, “exotic” markets coming from strange corners of the world, seeing bewildering ingredients for the very first time of our small existence, feeling intrigued, curious, excited even, and then at the end of a good thorough lap we walk out of the markets with our sparkly eyes wide open and our shopping bags, utterly empty. Hey, I do it all the time, like last week in an Indonesian grocery store, and then again yesterday in this “sports goods” shop? It’s no fault of our own, actually if anything, only human nature, to take caution with unfamiliarities. It’s survival instinct 101. As far as I know, no one has ever died from tomato sauce in a jar or freezer-section pizzas, right? I guess I’m just trying to say, I can relate.
NESTED WITHIN, IS A JEWEL, DENSE AND COMPRESSED WITH THE ESSENCE OF ITSELF, HIDDEN TO BE EXCAVATED FROM THE BLACK SALTED EARTH
A RED DIAMOND
But growing up from two distinctively different backgrounds and cultures also means that, I too, relate to the other side, perhaps from your perspective, the scary side, the side that is teeming with strange and unfamiliar ingredients, flying pig-parts and deeply rouge sauces that hurt. Being a Taiwan-born, Canada-fed then New York-aged piece of mind, one foot half-in half-out on all sides for as long as 25 years, naturally, you know for my thighs’ sake, I want to find ways to close the distance between each, a distance that is all but illusions and narrower than anyone thinks. Because I’m also from the other side that knows stuff that you don’t. The other side that tries to shout “Hey there’s good stuffs here, really good stuffs, and you should try it!”, but often times in inaudible volume with a world that is too busy to investigate.
It’s not anyone’s fault. We didn’t shout loud enough.