Nostalgia: A Largely Culinary List

Tamales
Limp, steamed corn husks; a soft second home

Beans
The gelatinous bottom of bean cans, recycling, kitchen control

Tillamook Medium Cheddar
A surprise in the cheese basket of a Delhi grocery store, a space-time catapult

A Waifish Bicycle
From the market home, via the bookstore, to toast and paper and balloon; blue sunglasses

Strawberry Lemonade
A summer appropriate for stickiness, a thirst for freshness

A Big Glass Pickle Jar
A scoby, rice flour, a miscellaneous metal lid drawer, the craft beer takeaway across the street

Tacos
A wrist-to-elbow hot sauce drip on a cold night

Jim Beam
Avenue C, alone, a precious pack of Goldflakes distributed outside, dance-envy

Cilantro
The garden, the grocery store, the battle over coriander comparisons

Avocado
Earth butter, aesthetic wonder, the fruit that birthed a person

Cactus

Mexican food is always bittersweet. You eat, cry, remember.

You loved him because he improved you. You aspired for better. She was, and you hated that. They played the music you wish you listened to. You tried harder. You loved her because she was like you. You built upon yourself. You hated him because he destroyed you. They denied their own magnificence and accused you of delusion. You failed again and again to be original. Mariachi made you blue.

They rode swift, beautiful bicycles and pretended it was nothing.

Platanos are best eaten through tears. On the floor, in underwear and a party sombrero that covers your eyebrows and disappears you. You see yourself in an imaginary and spit out a suddenlaugh. A speckle of fried outer shell lands on your ankle as though it were a target. Through the hurt you realise you still prefer yourself.

You feel relief at the resurgence of ego. You rip spitefully into a burrito.

You read. You flip backward through the pages and gape at the parallels. You've written it all before. You wonder about your envy. You wonder about the merits of outward confidence. You wonder how convincing you are. You figure you must be. People tell you you are cool. You hold on to the dregs of your disbelief and call it humility.

You romanticize yourself. You put flowers in your hair. You try on improbably high heels in unaffordable shoe stores and pretend to tango. You sing like you see a Billie Holiday in the mirror. You look at strangers as though you remember their naked bodies.

You roll words around in your mouth and marvel at your tongue. You lick anything within reach. You sleep with nails digging into the back of your neck. You wear collared shirts to facilitate breathing. You disappear behind thick glasses. You emerge like a potato from an old brown coat. You breathe in frozen air as though it were absinthe.

You start to forget, but continue to love and hate. (Both.) You make plans and abandon strategies. You persist. Then one day you put chip to salsa and nothing happens. Your winter lips scream at the jalapeño, but nothing else stings.

What is the purpose of life?

Everybody has got 5.5 liters of blood.

Certainty in Lentils

When everything else is uncertain, it is miraculous to know that if I boil five parts water and one part moong, let it get mushy, and then add butter, sliced chillies, grated ginger, chopped coriander leaves and salt, I can access the exact flavour of home.