speaking of sustenance

Chapter 01: alliumantic [2022-07-05]
Chapter 02: food stories [periodic]
Chapter 03: continued thoughts [present day]

i love you garlic i love you shallots i love you scallions i love you chives i love you leeks i love you onions in red and purple and white and yellow and gold and slices and pieces and chunks and half-moons and rings i love you yard garlic i love you pearl onions i love you black garlic i love you caramelized onions i love you unidentified sulfuric weeds i love you pungent sweet peppery herby leaves and roots and bulbs i love you alliums

the self-hatred leaving my body as i autistically dance around the kitchen to shostakovich symphonies making myself chicken salad

generational wealth (fridge full of hot sauce packets from getting takeout with grandpa)

2024 isn't a real year that's an expiration date on peanut butter

store brand everything is so fucking sexy

you leave me alone in the kitchen at night i'm gonna start horking kalamata olives out of the jar. i don't care. that's between me and god

maybe food is a status symbol. maybe food is fifty dollars at the overpriced bakery café. maybe food is a slice of cake for your mother, your father, your boss, your friend.

maybe food is a physical and financial therapy. the most basic of consumable, perishable purchases. maybe food is an exercise in adulthood drear. climb how many flights of stairs with how many bags?

certainly, food is a sensory experience. food is a series of notes presented through a texture, and it would be disconcerting if it were quite silent. food is most deeply enjoyable, i believe, when it is none decoupled from the act of eating. the messy, human act of eating.

the act of eating. the act of sharing. but sometimes, eating is a practice of solitude. a selfish subject, and a reminder to oneself. a refueling, even at the most annoying of times.

i regularly eat cheaply, messily, ungenerously. i consume a quesadilla wrapping a circle of salient onion along with a whole avocado mashed in those same garlic and onion powders. if i'm lucky, i remember salt.

that is to say, i only do this "regularly" in that when i do eat, that's how it's done. i don't exactly eat regularly. i don't exactly wake in the morning and prioritize my own stomach as an organ within my greater organism.

but this is not about the more horrible reality haunting behind the mask. this is about the joys we can find from food. the events we can make, in our own kitchens and living spaces. the ventures of sustainability and creativity. the combinations of almost unsalvageable ingredients buried deep within our fridge.

there are so many sweet stories we can tell ourselves. there is so much to be learned about ourselves in the vast landscape of those what sweet animal pleasures we love.

food is there to be eaten. plates are there not just to be dried or washed.

food is here to be shared with our own selves, when we are so lucky as to have it in abundance.

sometimes it's hard to be greedy, to take that privilege as it is offered.

but i would drive a friend anywhere for good food.