A culinary wishlist.

I ate a bean paste sandwich for lunch. To be more precise, this was the 5th bean paste sandwich I have eaten for lunch in as many days. 

Every day, I pack my bag for work: computer, check. Water bottle, check. Notebook, check. Then I walk to the sandwich shop. They immediately reach for a piece of pita bread, slop in the bean paste, and wrap it in a piece of discarded homework paper. Every day at 11:05, I reach into my bag, unwrap, and eat. A bit mind-numbing, but filling.

It could be worse.

Thinking back to a particularly traumatic scene in Life of Pi I read last night in which another castaway attempted (unsuccessfully) to cannibalize the main character, I recognize that I still have a long way to go before I reach levels of real desperation. A steady diet of bean paste sandwiches might eventually lead to a sort of insipid insanity, but I don't think I'll start gnawing on my roommate's forearm anytime soon. 

Preparing for my trip back to the Motherland for Christmas, I have already begun daydreaming about the vast culinary variety afforded to me by my mother's Mary Poppins-style pantry and the wonders of imported vegetables. Flipping through a book of ESL curriculum last night, I actually lost my train of thought as pictures of fajitas, pizza, and apple pie tantalized me from the glossy pages under the heading, "Lesson 5: What do you eat in your country?" 

Oh, what I could eat!

Less than a month away from touchdown at O'Hare international airport, I would like to officially register my culinary wishlist with Baba Noel:

-Anything that once had a cute curly tail and cloven hooves: ham with brown sugar glaze, a BLT sandwich, Bacon waffles, sweet and sour pork, pigs in a blanket--I'll even take a full-on Hawaiian pig roast. Bring on the unclean meat.

-Chicago Pizza (preferably with a Guinness)

-Cottage cheese, cream cheese, ricotta cheese, Parmesan cheese, Swiss cheese, and--most of all--fresh mozzarella. 

-While we're at it, a dozen bagels with aforementioned cream cheese. Blueberry bagels sound nice. Actually, blueberries sound nice, too. Add a side to the order. 

-American filtered coffee. Pumpkin spice lattes. Eggnog lattes. Eggnog. Eggnog with rum. 

-Muffins. Big muffins, bite size muffins, muffins with the crumbly sugar stuff on top. Blueberry, almond poppyseed, bran, apple cinnamon--and a muffin pan to bring back with me to Cairo.

-Waffles. with maple syrup and butter. 

-Steak. Not fried, not boiled, not with any bones still included. Fresh from the factory to the frozen section of the grocery store--not hanging from a meat hook in the street.

-Frozen peas that I did not shell myself. (True story. I am now shelling my own peas. To all my doubters who never believed I could make it in the kitchen--may you forever keep your peace. AND... I used a mortar and pestle to grind my own cloves. How bout that, hmm? As an aside: mortar and pestles might be the most BAMF and useful kitchen appliance ever. I'm bringing one back to the States with me. Hear me roar.)

So, with the help of Baba Noel and my mother's grocery list, I will hopefully be sampling all of these great American foods I have been missing here for the past several months. What, that's a lot of food, you say? Oh, I am disciplined.  In nature, the relationship between a female and food rivals only the relationship between a mother and her offspring.

So, a Bon Apetit  to all of you, dear readers. For now, please hand me another bean sandwich.