Patience is a Virtue: Food

It seems to be a common notion that singles living alone thrive on cheap, easy-to-prepare food. I got the memo about the first one, but easy-to-prepare? Pssh. I've done way more cooking here than I ever did in the States.

When I first got here, my meals consisted of rice, rice, and, er, rice. I've been experimenting with a lot of flavoring options since then. Garlic, curry, egg, onion, basil/oregano, taco powder, mayo and barbeque sauce, seaweed, peanut butter & jelly, black bean, red bean, soy sauce, brown sugar, and so on. I've already eaten about 28lbs of rice in these 3 months. Who knows what new deliciousness I'll come up with yet? Now, even though rice takes ~30 minutes to make, I don't quite consider it cooking.

Since coming here, I've developed a whole new way of looking at meals. Rather than "eating what you're in the mood for", you eat what's in the fridge. This can vary a lot from week to week depending on who I've been seeing and what kind of gifts they kindly gave. A lot of the vegetables I get (eggplants, onions, radish leaves) would be a chore to eat on their own, so instead I chop and throw them into soups, salads, and the daily dose of scrambled eggs.

Now that I can make 7+ meals out of the contents of my freezer-sized fridge, I really wonder how I was ever able to look at the brimming fridge back home and say "there's nothing to eat!"