I don’t cook food, I heat it. That is, if you call partially hydrogenated soybean oil, sodium tripolyphosphate citric acid, yellow no. 5, artificial flavor and modified starch food. Those ingredients, by the way, are a fraction of the products
I don’t cook food, I heat it.
That is, if you call partially hydrogenated soybean oil, sodium tripolyphosphate citric acid, yellow no. 5, artificial flavor and modified starch food.
Those ingredients, by the way, are a fraction of the products used in Kraft Easy Mac’s cheese sauce mix, a staple in my kitchen cabinet.
Even when I do try and prepare meals, I don’t do that particularly well.
Baked potatoes come out raw. Stir-fried vegetables stick to the bottom of the pan. I’ve been known to burn toast.
Then, I usually sear the top of my mouth because I can’t wait two minutes to let my dinner cool down from the 500-degree toaster oven it came from.
If the directions don’t read “microwave on high for four minutes,” I’m screwed.
Since I moved out on my own, my diet has relied on a steady flow of frozen entrees, instant noodles and whatever takeout restaurant was on my way home from work.
It’s not because I was raised in a house with parents who did not cook. My mother would end a nine-hour day at work with a hot plate of food on the table.
My father would send my brother and I off to school with a homemade lunch after he made sure we ate a well-balanced breakfast of fruit and oatmeal.
These healthy habits left me when I had to fend for myself, and somewhere along the way shoveling a bus-sized burrito down my throat while watching television became the norm.
I lost intimacy with my food.
Dining out was viewed more of a convenience instead of a treat.
I envy those who enjoy preparing three-course meals and have the patience to spend more than 10 minutes making them.
To re-kindle my relationship with food — you know, real, wholesome food — I visited my first Sunshine Market.
Walking around the open-air market made me feel infinitely better about myself and new food choices. The colorful selection was a sensory overload.
It was much more fun to shop outdoors for fruits and vegetables than the expensive, crowded supermarket I usually visit.
Local farmers talked me into trying new fruits and vegetables I would have never touched before, which included a selection of rambutan, starfruit, daikon and jabong.
Best of all, they assured me I didn’t have to spend much time preparing these foods.
The rambutans were mildly sweet, the starfruit was more sour then I expected, the daikon tasted crunchy and the jabong had a strong, citrus taste.
With a variety of Sunshine Markets on the island — one every day except Sunday — I don’t have an excuse not to go.
Visit www.Kauai.gov for a schedule of Sunshine Markets.
• Andrea Frainier, lifestyle writer, can be reached at 245-3681, ext. 257 or afrainier@thegardenisland.com.
