Weight, Weight, Don't Tell Me

"So," he asked on the phone recently, "have you lost any weight?"

Long hesitation - then honest reply.

"No. If I only ate the Chinese food, I would be skin and bones (mainly because that is all they eat!), but here's the deal," I said.

"We go out to the cafeteria where I have stewed pumpkin, steamed cauliflower, and boiled string beans. A perfectly healthy meal.

"But, then I come home, I'm starving! My body just can't take health food, so I finish the meal off by gorging myself on Oreos (which I've never really liked until now where there is no Taco Time to fill the stomach hole), Chocolate marshmallow cookies, peanut M&M's - given to me by a neighbor before we left (they're disappearing fast), pecans which we brought from home, Pringle's potato chips,and a Danish butter cookie.

"So that is why I can't lose weight!"

But, on the other hand, Chye, who was already skinnier than a rail, told us last night, he has lost weight. He is in food heaven. He's getting all the comfort foods of his childhood growing up in Malaysia. He cannot understand why I start crying every time we walk out the door to go eat. He is as eager as a boy on Christmas morning to get to the cafeteria.

Last night, we walked down a street we have never been on before. It was a long, long street literally filled with restaurants teeming with: seaweed, little meat balls of indescribable meat, live beetles waiting for you to pick the one you want and have it cooked before your eyes, lettuce dropped and boiled in oil. Chye can hardly wait to go eat there tonight. Seriously, the man's face lit up as we walked down the street, filled with teenagers/students/shoppers/families and the smells of many things being cooked in the open air. "It's just like where I grew up," he said.

So, tonight we will go back there....fried beetles, anyone?!?!


How could I deprive a man of his comfort food.

And, as soon as we return to our cozy apartment, I will head straight for the choclate-marshmallow cookies!