I was 16. I’m the stoned looking one in the middle.

I tried sardines today, for no other reason than the fact that I haven’t before. They’re not as bad as you might think – certainly better than mushy canned tuna fish – although the little marinated spines freak me out a little bit. But the flavor of the sardines was rich, milder than I expected, and very meaty. It’s filling and I’m hoping the omega-3′s do lovely things for my hair and skin. As I forked a fillet o’ sardine into my mouth, my grandmother and sister watched me carefully, with intermittent groans and no attempts to conceal their horror.

It’s because I’ve been reading Fuchsia Dunlop’s books about Sichuanese cooking, and she talks about the difference between Chinese palates and Western palates – and how the Chinese have ‘weird’ things in their food because they have a different attitude toward the odd textures, the offal, and the strangely chewy meaty bits. Instead of thinking of them as less desirable or gross, the unusual textures are carefully prepared to emphasize their own unique culinary adjective. I was at a Taiwanese restaurant in Provo one time, and I ordered a bowl of beef noodle soup. Because I ordered in Chinese, and asked for extra xiancai (pickled vegs) on the side, she asked if I wanted the beef in my soup the Chinese style or the American style. “You know how Americans are about their meat,” the Laobanniang said to me. “They don’t like the healthy meat.”

I did know what she meant. In China and Taiwan, the pieces of meat with fat, gristle, and tendons are relished in a long stewed broth like beef noodle soup. The collagen in the meat releases into the broth, giving it a silky mouth feel, and it’s supposed to be good for your hair and skin. Americans, however, prefer their meat lean, clean, and free of any other reminder that their meat is actually meat, from an animal that used to be alive. We call pig meat pork and cows beef – what’s so wrong with being honest about what you’re putting into your mouth? I chose the Chinese style.

I remember sitting on a bench in the park with my aiyi, chopstick shoveling braised beef over rice that she had brought from home. “Try this,” she said, handing me a clear, glistening, golden noodle like thing. It was chewy, salty and delicious. “What is it?” “Tendon,” she said, handing me another piece. As I chewed, she looked at 6 year-old me with a peculiar satisfaction and said, “Ni chi de hao xiang ah.”

I don’t really know to to translate that – the Chinese character (which I can’t figure out how to get into WordPress) is xiang – the word for fragrant. But like so many Chinese words, the context of it changes subtly, depending on how you mold it into your conversation. When my aiyi said, “You eat so fragrantly”, she didn’t mean that I emitted perfume as I ate – rather, she was experiencing that particular joy of sharing food with someone who is open enough to connect with the food in a pure way – responding to taste and nourishment on a purely corporeal level, without the fetters of preconceived cuisine boundaries. To eat fragrantly is to show honest enjoyment, a gusto that makes other people want to enjoy it also. I’ve been thinking about that lately, wondering if I’d feel the same way now – if someone handed me a glassy pipe of cooked beef tendon, would I stick it in my mouth, savoring the way it saltily resisted the pressure of my teeth? Or would I let some arbitrary cultural notion of what things should be like get in the way of experiencing something new and possibly incandescent?

People, I’m in some manic state here.

I’m sitting here at my desk, unsuccesfully fighting back desk clutter, hopped up on Godiva chocolate and string cheese and I’m designing away, while watching the Closer (so brilliant), and fighting an ant infestation with Avon Room & Linen spray (in Lavender). I have all of my hair (and I have a lot of hair) piled on my head and clipped up in a mad topknot, and I’m wearing full blown disco-ready eye makeup. In the last 40 minutes I’ve designed my dream studio (it includes an atrium and lookout tower!), planned the human resources hierarchy of my future empire, and found a recipe for jalapeno cheese bread. I’m hoping to replicate the bread I had last week at a bakery in San Luis Obispo that was so unbelievably… buttery and spicy that I’ve been day dreaming about it ever since.

My sister Angel flies in from Salt Lake City tonight, and I leave tomorrow morning for Chicago – I’ll be gone for two days, terrible timing, since I’ll miss the first part of my Angel’s visit.

And, I might be burning dinner. Gotta go. CIAO!

I was link surfing (theme: scrapbooking) today, when I came across Sonia Pitt’s great blog – A Bit East – and I’m looking through the tons of photos she has on her site, and I was like.. that looks familiar. She and her beautiful family live in my old Beijing neighborhood! The picture that tipped me off was the one at Ritan Park.

How surreal is that?