CANTONESE AMERICAN WOMAN FOOD THING

Important disclaimer or whatever: Because I am Dutch American, neurotic, and somewhere on the spectrum (Aspergers syndrome is quite common among the Dutch I believe, probably because if you are Dutch you are more closely related to yourself than most other Northern Europeans, and that leads to "things"), I tend to recognize patterns that might not actually be there. Which means that what I'm going to describe next must be taken with a grain of salt.
I may be full of cotton wool in this thinking.

Cantonese American women have an obsessive food thing going on.

My apartment mate, a Cantonese American woman, obsessively keeps the refrigerator over-stocked. Our landlady, a Cantonese American woman, recently gifted us with a giant box of specialty foods from her favourite delicatessen in New York. Three friends are married to Cantonese American women, and from what I keep hearing, all three of them are swimming in food. In the case of one of them, his wife walks poorly because like a typically stubborn Cantonese American woman she disobeyed doctor's orders after hip surgery and it healed stiff and unwieldy, but he and I believe that there is a great chance of improvement if a good Chinese seafood restaurant opens up a block or two further from their residence than she presently likes to walk, but close enough that driving there and looking for parking would be ridiculous. The temptation of fresh lobster, or grouper steamed with a splash of scallion and ginger in boiling oil poured over to sizzle, would probably do the trick.

It would be therapeutic (for both of them) in any case.

My apartment mate's ex boy friend is a lean man. I am a lean man. My landlady's husband (also white) was a lean man. My three friends are all lean white men. All five of the Cantonese American women are trim, no excess plumpitty whatsoever.

This is at the forefront of my mind right now because for many months I've been telling my apartment mate to slow down on the food-buying, the freezer is far too full, and we'll run out of space in the fridge if we don't watch out.

Please do not buy anymore food!

She's concerned that I'm not eating enough, and being a stubborn Cantonese American woman, she's completely disregarded my sage words regarding food storage space. When our landlady gifted us the box recently, I struggled to get it all into the fridge, and firmly told my apartment mate: "please, don't buy any more food for at least the next two weeks, we don't have any room in the fridge!" So the very next day, which was yesterday, upon returning home she said to me "I hope you're hungry, there is food in the kitchen." And of course there was far too much. Today, upon returning home, I noted that she's gone ahead and bought more food.

And there's another huge tin of Belgian cookies in the teevee room now.

Let me reiterate that all five of these ladies are trim. So trim that the typical white woman would be green with envy, and a black woman or Chicana would dwarf them. And none of us "middle aged" white men are fat. During the holiday season especially, food is on everyone's minds, and stocked up on, bought in in large quantities, and overstocked. I'm afraid that my apartment mate, my landlady, and other Cantonese American women within the extended circle (because Cantonese American women all know other Cantonese American women, and this part of the city is slim-majority Cantonese American to begin with) will "feed" me out of house and home. There is not an inch of extra space in the refrigerator!

Despite my near-paralyzing fear of what will happen in the next four weeks -- an excess of edibles overwhelming our poor chilled storage capabilities and making it impossible for me to find the jar of chilipaste I might be looking for, where the devil has it gone, there are at least five or six jars of sambal I don't want to eat right now, it's probably hidden behind these jars of whatever -- during my days off work I will purchase some more vegetables as I always do, and throw out the vegetables we did not use which are past their prime. At least three types that keep well. Also potatoes. We have no potatoes.

There is NO lap yiuk. Well, hardly any. This is a worrying oversight.

Plus I need to get some more hot sauce and chili paste (sambal). The one I've been adding to my plate is nice, but not hot enough. And I ran out of the squirtable kind. Also I'm thinking we need some more dried fish, plus one or two more cans of various things. Stuff which I'm sure I can fit on the shelves. Canned dace with dausi. That's it. One can never have too much canned dace with dausi. It keeps forever.

Maybe some more tinned luncheon meat. For a rainy day.

There is just too much damned food. She needs to stop doing this.

And by the way, I am not scrawny! Not even close.

Get your eyes checked.



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