The Dreaded Day Arrives...

The dreaded day has finally arrived.

Today marks a significant day in my life. As those of you who know me well, I love food. I am not so much of a connoisseur of fine and exquisite haute cuisine, as much as someone who just loves good, meaty, hearty, down-home-cooking type of cuisine. (Basically food that real people eat)

Ever since my first memories I can remember preferring meat to vegetables, dark meat (legs and thighs) to white meat (breasts), and fatty meat to lean meat. (Btw, Asians can perform the miraculous when it comes to preparing fat.) Over the years of training I have come to appreciate vegetables more and more. (First for their nutritional and health value, and now slowly for their taste. ) Eating Vegetables is like drinking wine, it's an acquired taste.

I remember in college I would eat a salad "naked", namely with only lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and no dressing, no bacon bits, nor croutons, or anything that were considered "excess". I would justify my eccentric salad eating habits to my friends by explaining that I ate salad strictly for health reasons and not for taste. I didn't enjoy it, but I needed it.

Well, to put it simply, a lot has happened since college and it culminated in what happened today. The moment I've been dreading as a kid and vowed that I would never do...

I had a salad for lunch.

I've had salad with many meals, but today against my better judgment and my primal instinct, I crossed over the threshold, I had only a salad for a meal. During my layover at O'Hare Airport, I passed on McDonald's, American Chinese food, Pizza, hot steak subs, healthier subway subs on my way to the salad bar.* What is going on?

It is a seismic event in my life; I feel the foundations of all that I've ever known shifting. My world is spinning, I need some time to process this, and I need some red meat.


*I hate to admit this, but I found my body and my mouth craving a salad today as I passed over my normal selections. Well, at least it was a chicken Caesar salad, not completely vegetarian, I loath the day when I eat a completely vegetarian salad!