YOUR DEFAULT CUISINE IS BOILED THING!

Last night the apartment smelled fabulously of chicken. Not my chicken. My apartment mate was fixing food for her boyfriend, for later this week. Because the kitchen was off limits, I feasted on cookies and coffee.
This, really, is bachelor living at its finest.


Some people just don't eat socially. Not by ingrained habit, but by accident or apathy. One could pursue social eating, I suppose, but I've described the things I consume on my days off to various people -- stirfried dishes, stews, steamed items, baked goods, savoury roast meats, plus tea, rice, and hot sauce -- and the reactions have ranged from surprised distaste to outright sneer at the foreign muck I mention. Mostly distrust, quite

[Claypot rice. Bitter melon fish. Roast duck or goose. Tomato porkchop rice. Little piggy buns. Mui choi kau yiuk. Shrimp paste chicken fried rice. Cheung fan. Steamed meat patty. Baked Portuguese chicken rice. The full gamut of Chinatown pastries.]

My own cooking style is Dutch, Indonesian, Chinese, and heavily reliant on chilies and condiments. Slapdash, with rice, tea, and hot sauce.

Bittermelon, fuzzy melon, long beans, mustard greens. Salt fish.
Fatty pork. Roast bird. Fish. Black bean paste.
Dumplings, and noodles.
Sambal.


I think social eating in this country is mostly McDonald's plus sweet and sour pork. Or very expensive stuff at the hippest new restaurants. I have eaten with other people in the past, but other than a few select individuals most people head directly for the lowest common denominator.
Often that's TGIF, Applebees, and The Olive Garden.
Plus Chevys, for birthdays and adventure!


Inoffensive, and fairly bland.


Teenager, or elderly Wasp.




==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================