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Foodies not so foreign

I have a colleague at work who’s a self-described foodie. This intrigues me. Twenty years ago, or perhaps even 10, I would not likely have heard of a foodie. Even now, I’m somewhat perplexed.
Barbara Gunn
Barbara Gunn

I have a colleague at work who’s a self-described foodie.

This intrigues me. Twenty years ago, or perhaps even 10, I would not likely have heard of a foodie.

Even now, I’m somewhat perplexed. A foodie, as I understand it, is someone who has a particular interest in food. This strikes me as curious, given that everyone I know has a particular interest in food, since food is generally regarded as something that health-conscious people are wise to put in their mouths. Unlike pencils, say, or romance novels.

Heck, I know of no one who doesn’t like food.

Whatever. I suppose what distinguishes the colleague is not that he likes to eat, but that he likes to eat well. He’s also on the cutting edge of edible trends.

The colleague, let’s just say, does not eat fluffy rice. He eats crunchy rice. The colleague, let’s just say, was making avocado toast while the rest of us were thinking only of guacamole.

The colleague knows what gremolata means.

I have ketchup, oregano and soy sauce in my pantry, but the colleague has other things. Like sambal oelek, say. And tamarind paste. And nigella seeds.

I have sesame seeds and sunflower seeds, but I’ve never met a nigella seed.

Don’t get me wrong. Where cooking is concerned, I’m thinking I rank a six out of 10. I make a darned good roast of beef, and my mac and cheese is to die for.

The colleague, on the other hand, would rather walk on burning coals before he’d make something as pedestrian as Shake and Bake.

Nope. When he wants to whip up something “easy” for dinner, he doesn’t think of crumbs and a plastic bag.

He thinks of duck poutine pizza or Mediterranean fish en Papillote.

Long before there was a pho restaurant popping up on every other street corner, the colleague had mastered the dish, and even preferred it to Shreddies for breakfast.

“You down with that cold that’s going around?” he asked me the other day. “You should make some pho.”

This wasn’t something I’d considered. Cough drops, yes. Pho, not so much.

I decided Mr. Foodie had a point.

He gave me a recipe and it looked pretty good. Not an ingredient I hadn’t met before. I thanked him and sat down to write my grocery list.  Chicken. Cilantro. Green onions. Rice noodles. 

Heck, maybe the foodie thing’s not odd at all. Perhaps it’s just all about food.