Food Memories

As I sat down with the kiddos to eat our leftover Chinese food for lunch, memories started flashing though my mind. At this point they were mostly memories of previous experiences with Asian food, however it got me thinking about why did these memories just a pop in for a quick visit?

I've heard that your sense of smell is the strongest sense when it comes to memories. I understand that probably many, many moons ago we needed to smell a predator, or something rotten, then remember, "that smell meant something bad for me, run away!" (Yes, I'm a Monty Python fan).

However, this time it was more a visual experience that got me remembering the past. Since I'm a vegetarian, I have had to replace my beloved Orange Chicken with Orange Tofu, either way it's still spicy because of those red little peppers. For those of you unfamiliar with those dry, red peppers of intense pain and suffering, (if you eat one) they are szechuan peppers. In my opinion, they make a jalapeno pepper seem more of the bell variety.

The act of fishing them out of my meal, reminded me of a dinner with the hubby. MD and I had one of those rare date nights you get after having children, so we decided to go to our favorite little Thai restaurant in Monterey, CA. (Pacific Thai if anyone is around or living there - wonderful restaurant). I can't even remember what my husband ordered, I just remember looking over at him at some point because the conversation stopped abruptly. His face was red and he was on the verge of hyperventilating.

Immediately I thought he was choking and started to freak out. Fortunately, before I could create a scene, he dug out (or hacked up) a slightly chewed version of those nasty little red death peppers. I realize at this point,  I probably should have asked him if he was okay or needed water, you know, any of those caring things. I, on the other hand, started laughing and saying, "You aren't supposed to actually eat those!"

MD learned a valuable lesson and I had a wonderful date story to share with the world!

My other memories came after lunch was finished and we managed to find the fortune cookies we hadn't eaten the previous night.

I remember eating at a Chinese restaurant with my parents when I was young, maybe more people were there, I'm not sure. After dinner when that lovely waiter brings the fortune cookies around, it is normally a time of excitement and joy.

This time, it was a little different. We each grabbed our designated cookie and opened them to see our futures or words of wisdom.

My dad read his, we chuckled. I read mine, we chuckled. My mom said she didn't get one. Wuh?

Originally we may have thought it was embarrassing so she didn't want to share, but after further investigation she really didn't get that piece of paper in her cookie. The waiter noticing our distress, came over with another cookie. We laughed about it and awaited patiently to see her new fortune.

The second cookie was empty.

I hate statistics with a passion, however I'm pretty sure the odds of this are astounding. This awful no-fortune-in the-cookie was repeated yet a third time with no luck. At this point, the waiter turns to my mom with a straight face and says, "I guess you have no future" then he walks away. My mom being my mom, shrugs it off and decides to be excited about the fact she got three cookies.

I believe this was also the same restaurant where during dinner, my mom asked for a fork - we hadn't become the chopsticks ninjas that we are today. The waiter explained that "the fork" was being used at a different table right now. Wow!

Maybe somewhere in the deep recesses of my scary mind, the sight or smell of lunch just triggered those thoughts. Either way, we had a good lunch and my bloggers and the kids got to experience some cool memories brought on by food.