For the uninitiated, the Pacific East West Mall in
Ranch 99 is the grocery store that anchors the mall. Since it’s an Asian store, instead of getting two choices of rice to buy, you get twenty. You may be accustomed to buying whole roasted chickens or have a sandwich made for you at the deli section of your local grocery store. Ranch 99’s “prepared food section” sells ducks and chickens hanging from hooks; the counter across the way sells tripe stew, among other intestinal delicacies of cows and pigs (over rice, of course).
Yes, we are standing in that line. S.O. waits patiently for his Stewed Pork Taiwanese-style over rice. It comes with spongy tofu, a whole egg and some type of preserved greens. (“Excellent!”). I’m craving animal protein and have reached my carb-limit for the day so I order a whole soy sauce chicken. The man behind the counter asks if I want it chopped. I nod my head yes and he proceeds to unhook a caramel-colored chicken from the dozen or so birds hanging by their necks behind the glass. Deftly and quickly, he hacks that sucker into bite-sized, uniform pieces on the large wooden block that looks like a cross-sectioned slice of a tree. I think to myself that my dream kitchen will have a butcher block just like that one. I’m sure that block of his has seen a lot of action.
Two dozen or so teenagers with Styrofoam containers (“3-items-over-rice”) descend on the small cafeteria setup just as we settle into our lunch. It must be an Asian church group or something like that because there were two adults (who didn’t look much older than the kids) doling out bottled waters; they were the last to sit and eat.
A collective steamy cloud rises, as the kids open up their containers. I look around and take an inventory of what everybody is eating for no particular reason; it’s just what I do anytime I go out to eat. The young chick next to S.O. is a slip of a girl, her eyes rimmed harshly in black liner and her lips, freshly glossed, about to get glossier from her lunch. Chow mein noodles, deep-fried crab croquettes, chicken drummettes, battered, fried and covered in a smoky-smelling sauce. Over rice. She also has a large eggy-looking bun wrapped in plastic next to her. For dessert, maybe?
I, being the age that I am, and knowing what I know from the countless articles and websites I read on nutrition and food, can recite the rules (sorry, I mean guidelines) they tell you should follow for a happy, healthy life. Don’t get me wrong—I am not a “hater”. So I can say this from experience and completely without bitterness, One day, her metabolism will catch up with her...
My S.O. and I eat until we’re just a little too full and I consolidate my leftovers into his Styrofoam bowl. He and I are both feeling kind of drunk from the meal and we make a pact to talk ourselves out of it next time coming to Ranch 99 sounds like a good idea. We bounce out of there, our thirty-something metabolisms, rapping us on the ass.
