favorite food (s)

Since I could eat, I have loved eating. Since I could open

my mouth and shriek for sustenance I have been in love with food.

And it has always loved me back -

tacos, grilled cheese, steak, sushi, matzo ball soup,

food of all names has made its way onto my plate,

whether it be plastic or polka dotted or ridged with white. I love

being fed and feeding myself, three meals a day,

always and forever.

Because this is really one of the things that is always

and forever, a rare permanence

in our fleeting food-focused lives. We will never not need to eat,

and we will never not want what we eat to be beautiful.

Even if it's not. Even if it's a granola bar on a Saturday morning

or reheated curry at night or lemon shaved ice

melting onto the sidewalk or challah without enough salt

or if it's perfect,

which, despite it all, it often is. And I love that. 

I love that food to us is at once culture and freedom and family

and expression and art and survival and needed and delicious.

I love breaking bread after the Yom Kippur fast

and being full to bursting after holiday dinners. I love

cooking, being the reason someone asks for the recipe

after they finish. I love watching other people cook and their face

glowing with pride when it all turns out. I love food

and I love getting to be there

when someone else discovers they love food too.

If we're only here on earth to love and eat,

what we eat should also be what we love.

And by that I mean eat. And love. And feed each other

because you love each other, because food

is an extension of love and is quite possibly love itself,

because toast and paneer and tteokbokki 

certainly aren't going to eat themselves. We are. And we will,

always and forever, permanently,

and I will never choose a favorite food because ultimately,

there are too many to count.