Yuccanasia

Today I woke up around 1pm. Spent the usual 30 min browsing FB and the news in bed. Then got up and got dressed to experience the first meal of the day. Excited to go to the local Thai restaurant I hadn't visited in a week. I've established a relationship with the owners, which I don't think I've ever done. I guess I always thought of those relationships as relegated to TV shows, or other people. The owners are a couple and they have a half-Thai-half-white little girl that is adorable. The father is from Long Island. He and I seem very similar, personality wise. The mother is from northern Thailand. I don't know their whole back story yet, but I'm very curious. The most memorable thing about them is that they appear to be in love, based on their body language. Maybe it shouldn't have surprised me, but it did. Made me like both of them more. I guess I would assume that a couple with a 5 year old, that works together all the time, that comes from different cultures, and that has gone through the no doubt arduous process of opening and running a restaurant, would not be so in love; that the spark would have gone out by now. But they sneak kisses in while passing each other behind the Thai ice cream counter, and hug each other while watching their daughter play on her laptop. I tell myself that the fact that they are an inspiration to me does not bias my very positive review of their food, but it probably does.

So I step outside towards this restaurant and am immediately hit with the hot and humid weather. I play hopscotch with the shadows down the street and work my way towards their blue door. The door was closed, so I was looking forward to the air conditioned interior. I open the door and get a waft of urine. "Urine?" I thought. "Why urine?" I like this place to much to think of it as unclean. I try to power through it but it's not just the entrance, the entire restaurant smells like a subway platform. I look around and there are other patrons sitting and eating, seemingly oblivious. Another woman enters and I watch her closely to see if she makes any faces about the smell - nothing. I start a conversation with the Thai girls behind the register and ask "What's that smell?" "Oh yeah, I know it smells weird, it's because we cooked fermented bamboo." I say "Is that on the menu?" "No, we cook it for ourselves, it's a local dish. Why, what does it smell like?" First I didn't want to say, but she pulled it out of me. At that time my disgust turned to curiosity, but the fermented bamboo was not available to customers. So ordered my favorite spicy curry and lapped it up back at home.

After depositing a few checks, I stopped by the grocery store to grab a few raw roots to try. This requires a bit of explanation. I was vegan last year. An experience that heavily affected my perception of what's healthy. I'm off the wagon now, but always looking for more vegan/raw things to incorporate into my diet. I'd already been snacking on raw peeled jicama, a habit I picked up while in Mexico. Yesterday I tried raw peeled sweet potato and it was actually pretty good, tasted like carrot. So today I perused the fresh veggie section, looking for the weirdest looking roots I could find. I picked up a yucca and a normal potato. Got home and peeled the yucca first. Took a few bites. It was ok. Not much taste, really. A bit of a starchy/pasty after taste, but I had to reach for those adjectives. I think it had less taste than anything I've ever tasted, which is a strange and suspicious feeling. After a few more bites, I moved on to the potato. Having boiling these so many times growing up, I was extra curious. I bit off a piece and was surprised how juicy it was. They're so dry after boiling. This one was juicy like an apple; and crunchy, like an Asian pear. The taste was more starchy/pasty than the yucca. This one I clearly did not like - check. Then I set them both down and ate a few mangoes and came back to my laptop.

For some reason I started googling "eat raw yucca" and "eat raw potato". I was having visions of the scene in Into The Wild when he eats those seeds that end up being poisonous. First I searched for the yucca and immediately saw "Cassava [yucca] can never be eaten raw. Bitter, or wild, cassava contains enough acid so that it can be fatally poisonous if eaten raw or undercooked." Holy shit. This fear just went from being paranoia to serious. Then I do a few more quick searches, because I was in denial and didn't want to have to do the deed. All other googling produced the same result. Shit. Well, I can't let yucca be my undoing - that just sounds ridiculous. Although it would be a funny tombstone: "Yucca was his undoing". But, in all seriousness, it was time to pretend like I was bulimic. I haven't done this in, well, about 15 years, so far as I can remember, when I ate a steak that smelled funny. I'll spare you the details of what happened next. On second thought, no I won't. Let's just say that regurgitating spicy Thai, in a bathroom that reminds me of my college fraternity, was my lowest point in a few weeks. I just gained a whole new respect for eating disorders. For that to be better than digesting the food, wow.

Now I get to wait to see if my body absorbed anything. Symptoms are stomach aches, nausea, cramping, etc. What if this is it? What if I absorbed enough and these are the last few hours of my life? Obviously I don't think they are, otherwise I'd be high-tailing it to the hospital. But, hypothetically, if these were the last few hours of health, what would I do with them? What would you do with them? A few hours isn't much time. A few days or weeks can be planned out and maximized, but I can't even see friends in a few hours because they're working. Aside from calling loved ones to say goodbye, I guess I'd do exactly what I have been doing for the past month during my "break" from the workforce. I wake up whenever my eyes open, exercise, have a leisurely first meal, mess around on the internet for a few hours, which either involves reading/researching random stuff or writing in some form (e.g., long emails to friends, atheist-Christian websites debates), then I usually watch a documentary, then I'll read on my kindle, then I usually see friends or go on dates at night. I guess that is exactly what I would do if I could do anything, because I can do anything and that is what I have been doing. Although, that desire is not constant. It's been evolving. I've slowly been replacing "break" with "creations" the past week. Be it a painting, this blog, or whatever comes to mind (or whatever Jeannie proposes). I'm very much in a "why not?" state of mind right now. I look forward to the future - and I'm hungry again.