Welcome to my little corner of the Internet! I’ve been thinking vaguely about starting a blog for a couple years, but the idea never fully formed. I don’t have a target audience. I don’t even know if I’ll have an audience.
So what finally prompted the decision to sign up? A couple friends posted a Washington Post article titled “How it feels when white people shame your culture’s food — then make it trendy” on facebook, which I then shared (reshared?) with the following preface:
Yes yes yes. I ate cafeteria lunch from kindergarten through junior year of high school to fit in. Senior year, I decided it didn’t matter anymore and started bringing leftovers (last night’s home-cooked Chinese food), which my dad would heat to piping hot every morning, wrap in a kitchen towel, and pack in a neoprene lunch tote. It was still warm at lunch. I think at first my friends thought it was a little odd, but I’d like to think that via osmosis the food of my culture became a little more familiar. But more importantly it was the best I ever ate at lunch in 13 years of school.
Food is such an important part of cultural identity. So much of what’s trendy now was born of the necessity of economy in the past. If you find something you like at some fancy fusion restaurant, please seek out the real deal. Bring a friend. You may discover a part of town you’ve never visited, a small piece of someone’s family history, or the yearning to travel to a faraway land. I promise it’ll be worth the adventure.
It garnered a surprising (by my nonexistent posting standards) amount of likes in a few short hours, so I’ve decided to share more about my love of food and the stories it tells. This blog should probably really be called “thingsamylikes”, but all the experts say the blog name is supposed to be clever. So, here’s my attempt to write about cooking (especially the Chinese food my parents raised me on — hence won tons, though really we mostly ate dumplings), travel (wanderlust and just enough of the miles/points/credit cards game to make it easier), and other things that catch my interest. Posts will probably be much shorter than this one.
Along the lines of my senior year lunch story, I want to share the food that I pack for lunch. I work in trading, and I am the only person in my immediate 40-ish person vicinity who packs a lunch every day. I announced on my fourth day at my new job here in the big city that I was not paying $15 for a salad at lunch every day. My new coworkers thought it was either insane or adorable to try packing. They gave it two weeks. At this point, I’m more than a month in and haven’t missed a day, and different people have on different occasions commented that they want to order whatever I’m eating, so I guess in the age of the Internet, that gives me enough authority to write about it.
I hope someday this inspires a young professional to use lunch as an opportunity to explore grandma’s recipes rather than the sandwich shop downstairs. I’ll be sharing my meal prep methods, menus, recipes, and pictures. It should all be easy and accessible if you have a little ambition. I generally cook and pack a week’s worth of breakfast and lunch every weekend. More on that in the next post!
