2. Reading

I share with the great Renaissance masters, Michelangelo and Leonardo, just one trait: the inability to finish anything. I appreciate a good read every once in a while but something in my eyes or brain causes me to fall asleep every time I open a book.

Nevertheless, these books sit in a towering pile on my nightstand. The first of these is Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace, which I've been trying to read at the gym. The emphasis here is on 'trying'--holding a thousand-page-long book while bobbing up and down on the Stairmaster and getting sweaty is, well, tiring. But I swear, one day, I'm going to finish this book.

My favorite thing about this book is the author's vocabulary. Wallace will use a phrase from contemporary slang or 'low-brow' diction right next to words I've never seen in my life. I try to write these words down so I can define them later. While I could mask this as a pursuit of knowledge, (like the good Honors student I am), I'll admit right here that I'm doing it so I can sound less stupid when I communicate verbally. I'm trying to fill the lacunae (thanks, David Foster Wallace) in my personal word-bank. I like to think that from a cultural standpoint, I appear curious and interested in self-improvement. And I suppose I'd like to differentiate myself from the 'likes' and 'ums' of other people my age.

It's hard for me to write about the book thematically, even revisiting this post months later, because I still haven't progressed past the first chapter. But for some reason, it's still sitting on my nightstand, begging to be read. The act of reading, then, not the actual content of the book, shows a lot more about my culture. Because I can't manage to set aside time to read Wallace's book, it makes me embarrassed how little I actually read. For all my professors' griping about how 'kids these days' don't read enough books, they don't allow me enough time to take a break from their assignments to actually read for pleasure. School is overwhelming for me, a struggling Honors student, who isn't quite smart enough to understand David Foster Wallace, and who has to balance school, homework, my artwork, and two jobs. But one day I'll get there.

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One other book I'm reading is Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. It's great because he doesn't dumb down cooking like so many other chef personalities do. And he doesn't censor it either. The result is a funny, intelligent, and sometimes abrasive look into cuisine and the food industry.

I can cook. I don't know how to flambé but I can broil, bake, and sauté my way into a decent meal. I like complex flavors, and foods from all over the world. I'd say a lot of my tastes were inspired by Anthony Bourdain and his book. He shares his contempt for people who order well-done meat, and for cooks who cover up their slightly-rancid fish by smothering it in hollandaise sauce and put it on 'special.' The book delves into the "underbelly" of the restaurant industry, revolving around the grungy, oft-tattooed staff that makes a restaurant work. These are not the Rachel Rays and Martha Stuarts on TV.

I guess the reason I liked it is that I can relate to it. Like most kitchen staff, I never went to culinary school. My kitchen isn't decorated with tissue paper flowers and I don't have multiple wall-mounted ovens for making cute tarts with. Cooking in my kitchen is fast, aggressive and dirty. There is a lot of improvisation and taste-testing. Picky eaters are not tolerated in my kitchen. No one should limit themselves to hamburgers and chicken. I love Vietnamese food, Turkish food, real southern barbecue... I love it all.

1. Choosy Moms choose Jif

Normally, when one thinks of family heirlooms, one thinks of a certain piece of jewelry, furniture, a portrait, etc. But over the last half century, peanut butter has become one of the things to add to that list.

In North America, peanut butter evokes fond memories of childhood, family, and home. Elsewhere in the world, peanut butter is an unsavory American oddity. It's enormously popular here--some 75% of Americans have some in their pantry right now. And like Judaism, baldness, and a number of other things, many of us inherit our peanut butter brand loyalty from our mothers.

Most consumers of peanut butter seem to be strictly loyal to one brand or another. Advertising seems only to have a small part in it, considering two of the top brands, Reese's and Peter Pan, rarely advertise at all. What causes us to stick solely to one brand, then? Is it in our DNA?

I have eaten Jif for the last 20 years. Any other brand makes me cringe.

For more interesting data on peanut butter brand loyalty, market share, and advertising: click here.


Feedback: When I got feedback from Laura, she automatically assumed that my loyalty to Jif was something caused by nostalgia for the lunches my mother packed for me. I don't mean to criticize her assumptions, but my mom never made my lunch while I was in school. I suppose she was the one who bought the food, but I loathingly got up every morning and made my own PB&J. It's not the good memories that keep me coming back. It's a more complicated mix of advertising, tastes, cost, and convenience. But most of all I think it's based on the decisions of the person who buys the household's groceries: stereotypically and probably most likely, the mother.

0.5. Communion

Going to church was very natural to me. My family went two or three times a week, and skipping church was not an option. Most of my friends went to church too, and so did all of my coworkers when I worked at Camp Wesley Woods, a Methodist church camp.

Most of the kids at camp were Methodist too. But the camp would give scholarships to needy kids outside the church, and we hosted a lot of groups from organizations such as the Boys and Girls Club. Most of them were Christian but many of them had never been to church.

Thomas, though named after an Apostle, was one of those kids. While praying as a group before embarking on a caving adventure or horseback riding, I'd look up to see him glancing around, unaware of what was going on. The rest of the kids, like me, methodically closed their eyes and lowered their heads because it was what they knew to do. The bible lessons confused Thomas. He usually forgot that we had to bless the food before each meal. He was there to ride horses and climb rocks, unaware of the camp's purpose of influencing young people's spiritual lives.

On Thursday nights toward the close of the week, we took communion. To many kids, communion is a part of their normal church service, and though they don't always understand the symbolism, they understand that they are supposed to eat some bread and drink some grape juice and then pray. Like applauding after a concert or speech, it's almost involuntary.

My co-counselor passed out small pinches of bread to each of our campers. I held a small cup of grape juice and followed his lead. "The body of Christ, broken for you." The kids sat in silent reverence, waiting for me to come around with the grape juice to dip the bread in. "The blood of Christ, shed for you." Communion by method of 'intinction' is unfamiliar to some kids but they generally get the idea by looking around and seeing what other people are doing.

Unfortunately, Thomas was first in line. As he received his bread, he promptly stuffed it in his mouth, so that when I came around with the grape juice, he had nothing to dip. He put his hand in the chalice and slowly looked up at me and whispered, "What do I do?" I laughed and pulled his sticky hand out of the juice and moved on to the next camper, but it didn't hit me till later how funny a tradition Communion really is, to someone who has never experienced it before.

0. Max

I always thought Max was just "weird." My best friend in kindergarten, Max, and I shared an affinity for Skittles and all things Power Rangers. My favorite Ranger was Kimberly, so when we would play at recess, naturally, I wanted to be Kimberly, the pink Ranger. But Max would insist I be Trini, the yellow Ranger. It was irritating, but I shrugged it off. My classmates always noted that Max was "weird," but that was the only word we knew for it. His flailing arms and head tics were funny but strange, to us conscious, yet inexperienced 5-year-olds.

The summer after kindergarten, Max and I went swimming at the Y. He insisted he could swim in the deep end, so he swam out to the middle of the pool, struggling to keep his head above the water. He would flail and yell and his mom would rescue him. Then he would go back and do it again. And again. And each time, he would have to excuse himself to the bathroom because he'd swallowed so much pool water. That was really the moment when Max went from being just "weird" to "different." I still don't know exactly what was going on in Max's head, but when his mom transferred him to the "special" school the following autumn, I realized that not all people were like me.