An Important Tangent- A Celebration of Junk Food and Life

This is a slight departure from most of the other posts. I wrote a FB post today that led me to further understand my obsession with food. Here is an excerpt:

“This past year is as tumultuous and painful as the first year I was in the US.

I was 15-years-old when I came to study the violin in Manhattan School of Music, by myself with very basic English knowledge. I stayed with a host family who did not like me, did not feed me, left me to fend for myself to figure out the Port Authority and the subway, and did not come to my aid when I was lost at night. Yet I remembered smuggling the Entenmann’s chocolate donuts from the school cafeteria (the only other place I had access to food) to hide in my closet, reading ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ and looking up every other word in the dictionary, to practicing the word ‘Horizontal’ a thousand times to rid of my accent and to excelling in everything I did.

This past year, I was separated, became single and began to rebuild my life and my identity.” Due to custody arrangements, I move from one place to the other multiple times a week, hence making no place feel like home. I have come to live the life of a gypsy, with a car trunk full of shoes, clothes, gym gear, and sometimes food and water.Through the emotional roller coaster, I have come to live on some junk food that got me through nights of horror, refueled and sustained me.

I know I am a long way from the 15-year-old fresh off the boat Taiwanese girl. I know I am a long way from Entenmann’s chocolate donuts. I am who I am today, a food loving blogger because of the strong food culture in Taiwan and because of the chocolate donuts. Let there be popcorn, ice cream, chocolate, peanut butter, candies, and energy bars. Let’s celebrate the wonders and importance of junk food in our lives.