Thursday, July 14, 2011

Generosity, Texture, Frying, and a Little Bit of Philosophy

I was at work the other day, and famished. The usual overload of food laying about just wasn't happening, and I had about 5 minutes before I had to be back at it, present and "on", without specks of food in my teeth. At that moment, a co-worker came in the back kitchen, in the same situation, with a plastic bag and a couple tupperware containers. She asked if I was hungry, then proceeded to fry corn tortillas in a copious amount of oil, spread them with black beans and salsa, and top it all with cheese, another tortilla, and flip the whole thing in the pan. Yes, she was making us decadently fried quesadillas, and as she so givingly shared her lunch with me, we talked about how important that good fry is: the crisp texture yielding to the soft insides is what childhood food memories are made of (another friend's quote: "There are two types of people in this world. Those who put chips in their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and those who hate life."). Not only was the snack technically flawless, her act of feeding us was just so kind. That little bit got me through the rest of the afternoon, specks in teeth or not.