All right, here we are again, another year, another column. Not that I'm complaining, or anything. I like doing this sort of thing. But there are only so many words in the English language, and I think I'm really close to my legal limit.
Oh, and a big "Hi-de-ho" kind of welcome to everyone who's new at AU. Just in case anyone's wondering, this is a food column ... most of the time. I suppose, you could call it the philosophical commentary of someone who's convinced there's more to food than eating.
You know how it gets this time of the year. You're fresh from the summer, the rest of the academic year is sprawled out in front of you and you have plans, big plans. Plans about how well you are going to do, plans of all the people you're going to keep in touch with when you're away at school and plans about how you can do pretty much what you want now that you've left your parents behind at home.
But that was a couple of weeks ago. Now you're running around wondering where your next class is, you've yet to write to anybody and your mom calls you everyday just because she had some dream in which your professor never gave you a grade higher than a "D." Hey, it happened to me, and I may be kooky, but don't worry about it. Having plans about your future, contrary to popular belief, does not detail an itinerary of what you should do, but more so a direction you could take with your life.
Nothing turns out the way you planned. That's just the way it is. Well, maybe not always. Think of the time when you cooked by actually following a recipe, word for word. The good thing is, it always tasted great, the bad things is, it always tasted the same. It's pretty much the same thing if you have a detailed plan of your life. It's going to take too long getting all the ingredients and it's going to have the same, bland taste anyway.
We all should have some sort of direction in our lives, but not a detailed report where you plan to get your Ph.D. at 25 and be a research fellow at MIT by your 30th birthday. It makes for irritatingly boring dinner conversation if nothing else. It's OK to know what you're going to do with yourself but a few supermarkets have all of the ingredients you need and if yours doesn't, you improvise because trying other supermarkets may just be a waste of time.
So, go ahead and put some chili peppers in your brownies or some orange juice in your spaghetti sauce. You never know if it'll turn out to be something you like. In the unlikely event it doesn't, then you don't cook it again and keep playing around with other ingredients. At least you know better now. Taking the safe route in any venture is well and good, but safety is no substitute for experience. Personally, I'd rather experience a bad meal (if it's at all possible!) than eat the same thing day after day.
All I ask is for you to look at your life and see what it more closely resembles.
Is it a square-bound collection of recipes that you break out every time you feel hungry or when guests drop by? You've used all of them before, but they detail everything down to last tablespoon and you can't go wrong. The food tastes bland, but it's also familiar and you know you won't get heartburn with these recipes.
And you almost never order out. Why? Probably because you don't want anyone else preparing your meals for you since you have no idea what'll go in it. You'd rather not eat pizzas because it's not in your recipe book and therefore you shouldn't.
Or is it a three-ring binder listing food you like to eat and possible ways to prepare or acquire them? You know pretty much what you want, but no one thing tastes the same twice in a row because you've got lists of ingredients but not the proportions.
Or this binder of yours may also have delivery menus because if you can't prepare General Tsao's Chicken, you'd rather know where to get it than go without.
But you don't care, because it all tastes fine anyway. And you're always adding and removing recipes and information from this binder but still remain perfectly happy as long as you have a three-ring binder of food you like.
I don't know about you, but I'm not exactly prone to planning my meals far in advance and relying on square-bound volume for my gastronomic comfort. I'm probably the only person around here who goes through the day craving for a Pizza Boli's Stromboli or a Domino's Deep Dish Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza. Then on other days, I come home open up my fridge and go "rice, mixed vegetables, Italian sausage and spaghetti sauce . . . that'll work."
As always, I'm e-mail accessible at Nanther@aol.com for any reason at all. For those who're still waiting for my listing of all-you-can eat places around here, I ask that you be patient for a little while longer. I chance upon more places every week and I haven't included all of them yet. But please e-mail me and prod me to action.
Now if you all will excuse me, I have a three-ring binder that requires my attention. Until next time, then.
Nanther Thangarajah is a senior writer for The Eagle.
