The Ones that Matter

There are billions of species of crawlers, lurkers, trotters, climbers, swimmers, wrigglers, gliders, wanderers. Beyond one enormous marble of soil, water, air, and fire, there is a vast array of spinning and suspended rocks. A billion other suns, burn and explode with rage. Gems and precious rocks and metals of the earth; all the complexities of biology, chemistry, and physics; the arts and sciences of colors, lights, sound, music, reason, passion, and every single thing that have already been before we were even born -- all gloriously from the mouth of God, out of nothing... but in the grandness and splendor of all those, I doubt that any of those matter to Him as much as these:

You, me, all other people, sin, redemption, salvation, holiness, worship, love.

The Guilty Pleasure

Image from here

After culinary school, I totally realized how much of a big deal it is when food is handled well or not. Well handled food deserves "respect" for the service and badly handled food deserves otherwise. Respect for the skill of someone handling your food can be awarded in different forms. One form could probably be a personal commendation to the chef, another can also be a recommendation to other diners, and of course, the most basic would be the willingness to pay (no matter how costly) for the superb service and for taking time to perfect and master excellent food handling. But before this paragraph turns into a snooty snooze fest, let's cut to the chase.

Image from here

Let's just put it this way: lately I've been exposing myself to food that's properly cooked (by someone else) and am willing to pay for it, even at a price. However, even as a budding culinarian (yes, aside from being a newbie trying-hard writer), there are just some things I'm used to, and they do come cheap. By things, I mean food; by used to, I mean try my best to have them regularly; but by cheap, I don't mean handled really bad. After all the snoot fest I've been training my palate to get used to, I regularly return to my culinary guilty pleasure -- Chinese Takeout.




There is something about the Chinese cuisine that I feel is superior over a lot of others (especially Western). While others impress themselves as posh and pinkie-up snootiness, Chinese cuisine (and a bunch of Asian cuisines, for that matter have) has a regal sophistication and oriental respect to ingredients, at some point, even a science to it. And when you get all these properly made for a few bucks, packed in boxes and have them while you work or go to school or just for dinner with your fellow geeks, boy oh boy, have you hit the jackpot.

And so, while some may look down on Chinese takeout, I'm sorry but my amateurly sophisticated taste bids well to the properly made stir-fry in a paper bucket as gourmet that is worth every cent, no matter how few the cents I shell out. Haha! Now excuse me while I finish my left-over dumpling from last night's take out. :p