If Loving You is Wrong, I Don't Wanna Be Right

I love food. I mean I really love food. Like really really. From heart attack having-fried goodness to raw greens and “rabbit” food, I don’t discriminate- I love it all. I’ll eat any cuisine, prepared any way, from any kitchen, any time of the day (well almost).

I think my appreciation for good food came from my lack of quality food as a child. Now don’t get me wrong, my mother can really throw down in the kitchen (or parking lot, or beer store, or wherever she can get a fire going and a pot) but having to work so much, she didn’t have much time to cook for us and the few meals she did cook were traditional Cambodian dishes (MMMmmm MMMmmm and MMMmmm!!!), leaving my siblings and I to fend for ourselves on a next to nothing budget.


Growing up, my meals primarily consisted of either:
· Soy sauce with rice and a fried egg (occasionally we would change it up with a hard-boiled egg and if we were lucky, we had some Chinese Sausage *pause*);
· Raman noodles (or the Thai/ Cambodian equivalent… Mii Mama... ahhh);
· Bread dipped in sugar; or
· Whatever my parents brought home from their jobs at 7-11

When I moved away to college, my life changed:
1) I had access to a card allowing me eat anything of my choosing from a cafeteria style eatery (shout outs to the South Campus Dining Hall)
2) I discovered cable TV (and subsequently The Food Network), and
3) I met my nick (who happens to be a darn good cook!).

From that moment on, I never looked back. I started experimenting in the kitchen more, whenever I ate out at restaurants I would try to decipher the different flavors and recreate the meals at home and I cooked for friends and family often.

Fast-forward a few years later, and here I am- 24 years-old, living in a cramped DC apartment, daydreaming about my next meal.