Foodie

I'm going home this weekend for the first time this semester, and it's not seeing my family or my dogs that I'm the most excited about. Nope. It's not attending the baby shower for our crew chief's wife either. It's going to the grocery store and getting the foods I can't find here that I'm looking forward to the most.

Seriously. I miss so many foods. There's these peach candies that only one store around the city sells and they only have them every now and then and I've been craving them since the beginning of February. And there's this type of cheese that my mom gets sometimes that I can probably take half a block of. And there's this bread that I bought once at a bakery downtown and it's all herby and wonderful and it's the perfect size for sandwiches.

I don't mean to make you all hungry, though I certainly am while writing this. And I don't mean to neglect all the wonderful foods that can be found around campus either. But I'm a foodie. It's what I look forward to when going places - the different foods you can find. Like when I pass through STL, I try and have lunch with B. And we usually go to a sushi place near his house. When anyone comes to IN with me, I bring them to a famous local burger joint. When I visit Chicago, I always always stop for a Jamba Juice on the way. Going to California? Round Table is a must, if I can't make it all the way to Willow Street or that place up in Truckee. And when my brother and I visited Colorado, we just walked into different food places for dinner until we found a place we wanted to eat at.

But none of this seems very typical "foodie" to me. When I think of a foodie, I think of someone who eats organic 90% of the time and goes out for fancy lunches at local non-chain restaurants (still haven't broken my habit of spelling that in Japanese first) and upon seeing a menu in French, can order without much difficulty pronouncing anything. They cook dinner every night and there's always some new recipe that they're trying out...that's a foodie, right?

But I think there's this sub-section of foodies without means, and that's where I place myself. I don't quite have the time to be cooking fantastic meals every night, though with a little practice I have no doubt in my abilities to do so. I suppose I could start going to the farmer's market and buying fresh produce every week, but it just seems such a waste when I end up having frozen meat taking up space for months at a time.

It just seems sad to me that I satiate my desire for exceptional foods by snacking on pita chips and gouda and nice dinners out with my dad when he's around on business and perhaps spoiling myself every once in a while by going to my favorite local deli. This is a college town and they totally cater to our hipster appetites. I should be able to be a successful foodie here. Any ideas for me?