As a child I didn’t care much for food. I’ve always preferred to play outside with all my animals on the ranch, and meal times were more of a nuisance than anything. Thus, when forced to eat, I would inhale my food so quickly that I choked quite regularly. My mother used to hold me by the legs and flip me over to get the food out of me, which was such an unpleasant experience that as soon as I felt something lodged into my trachea, I would immediately run away from her. It’s a miracle that I’m still alive today.
I liked simple foods such as eggs with tomatoes, French fries, and cheese sandwiches. That list slowly grew as I grew older. When I entered middle school, my mother had to take care of my new baby brother and sister and thus stopped cooking as much. Home-cooked meals became so rare that I started to love my mom’s traditional foods, mouthwatering dishes of rice accompanying well-seasoned meat and vegetables. I ate as much as I could whenever she had the chance to cook. I took left over dinner to school when there was any, but I mostly had to rely on school lunch for sustenance. These school lunches consisted of pre-made poorly cooked meals, which were so bad that my classmates and I had competitions to see who found the most foil in their school served lasagna. From then on I asked my mother to pack me frozen TV dinners for lunch, which while better than school lunch, were not the best. I also delighted in any food my friends would share with me and thus I learned about Persian, Pakistani, Indian, and other types of Arab food.
In early high school I restricted my diet and became a kind of vegetarian, or pescetarian to be more accurate. My father is a butcher and I often help him out with his business, so I know firsthand about the animal abuse in the meat industry. From then on, I vowed to eat meat only from the animals at my ranch since I know they’re well cared for and the process involved is humane.
As soon as I was able to drive, I’d go to various restaurants with my vegan best friend. From plant-based food only restaurants to fun taco joints, this expanded my culinary palette even more. She’d also let me help out with buying groceries and preparing food so I learned a bit about cooking. I still don’t know much about cooking, but I appreciate the effort it takes to prepare a meal and let no food go to waste.