The Louder the Better

“Put down your plate,” my Aunt Lorrie whispers through laughter. She had taken me—and me alone, not my brother and my sister—to IHOP. I forget why I was singled out, but I felt special.

This was during the early years of my decade-long pancake obsession (from about age 6-16) and after the last of the pancake was in me, I slanted the plate toward my face and started to lick the remaining syrup.

This was clearly not appropriate in a Southern Jersey restaurant. Okay, no jokes. In any US restaurant. We just don’t show that sort of oneness with our food.

It’s probably from our stuffy British ancestors. But in America we have certain stoic standards of eating. Plates and bowls are kept on the table. No noises should utter from our mouths, except maybe a soft mmmm.

Being a dramatic type, I will show my appreciation through an extended closing of the eyes so that I may tune out the rest of the table to fully concentrate on the bite within me. I may utter a slightly-louder-than-normal mmmm. But that’s all. That’s all we do to communicate deliciousness. Well, and tip. But that’s another story.

Meanwhile, in Japan they’ve realized eating is a full-body sport. Chopsticks become an extension of the hand in a way that sharp metal objects cannot. It is fully expected that when eating one will bring a bowl of rice or noodles up to her face. Shoveling in rice. Slurping up noodle soup.

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A Second Round of Heart

pig

So Im in Osaka and I cant find the apostrophe on the keyboard so just go with it.  I will tell you a quick story before we start our day here.

It was our first night in Japan. Tokyo. Fourteen fucking hour plane ride. We find the hotel, which is of course a story itself, quickly pull ourselves together and walk around our tiny section of  Shinjuko. Its a maze of restaurants and bars with very little English signage.

We circle the area about six times, too scared to walk in anywhere. There are no other tourists in this area. We have not heard a lick of English. But we smell deliciousness all around and are ready to wash away the processed plane food.

We walk into a long narrow place with about 15 tables. The 20-something-year-old cooks greet us with wide smiles and something in Japanese. We smile. Show two fingers (as in there are two of us) and we are brought to a high-top.

When the waitress arrives the best we can do is bring our hands, in a cup shape to our mouth, and pretend we are drinking. We say beer. It works. We are brought out two drafts and are given menus. Everything is in Japanese.  I look and laugh. 80 laughs.

We try to order and Im not even sure what we say. We just kinda giggle and our 20-something waitress with thick fake eyelashes and a scrounge in her hair giggles back. She walks away and 80 and I are like – what the fuck do we do. Fuck.

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