Profound Matters

1. Have you ever asked "what's for dinner?" while lunch was being served?
2. Have you ever wondered what to order at a restaurant because everything on the menu looked yummy, interesting and affordable?
3.Have you ever asked "when do we eat again?", an hour after a prodigious meal?

Questions you will always get from me, addressed to most often hubby or my dad, and sometimes new acquaintances:

When do we eat again? (This after I had just tucked in the last piece of cake)
Can I order an appetizer, soup and salad? (No, not to share, hubby)
Can I order a main dish and dessert? (After finishing off the appetizer, soup and salad)
Can we come back here to taste the other items you forebade me to order? (due to the fact that we've ordered enough for an army , and there's just the 2 of us)
Can I pass by Great? City Super? Santis? Rustan's? I just want to look at some stuff. I won't buy anything, I promise.
Why do you always question how much I order? I can finish everything. (Doggy bags please)
Why are you so kuripot (stingy) when it comes to food? We only live once. I don't want to die without having a good meal. (After the bill comes and they complain I've ordered too much)

Questions/Comments/Reprimands I always get:

Haven't you ordered enough? We can always come back.
I thought you were on a diet?!
Oh no, not a supermarket again! 5 minutes is always an hour, and not spending means a wallet-hurting grocery bill.
Are you sure you can finish that? We'll have to take it home again!
Everyone's looking at our groaning table. There's only two of us and 7 dishes!
What do you mean "where do we eat tonight?" After that meal, we probably won't!

Examples:
Cebu, 1999 - A friend and I entered a seafood resto at 1:30, famished. We ordered 1 whole grilled talakitok (good for 4), grilled squid, 1/4 kilo lechon cebu, rice, sauteed kangkong, and leche flan. We finished at 3pm, appeased.
Cebu 1999- Same friend. Same takaw-tingin and patay-gutom attitude. In a Japanese resto at a mall we ordered prawn tempura, miso soup, beef teppanyaki, chicken teriyaki, rice and udon. The table of 5 businessmen beside us were chortling.
Singapore 2002 - Hubby was busy with business, I was 7 months preggy with a license to wolf down anything edible. Thinking I only had one whole day to satisfy my cravings and curiosity, I ate Hainanese Chicken Rice for lunch at a roadside stall. After an hour I spied an oyster cake vendor so I promptly sat down and enjoyed my 10" oyster omelet, washed down with a fresh fruit shake. Setting off by foot to explore the Arabian and Indian Villages, by 4 pm I was aching to lie down in the comfy hotel bed. But I hadn't eaten anything Indian yet so I had a biryani complete with side dishes (eggplant and other mushy stuff) and a small serving of chicken curry. After that gastronomically exhaustng day hubby and his mates decided on dinner at Newton Circus. So it was po phia time, chicken and beef satay, chili crab, laksa and noodles.
The cab driver who took me to Jurong Bird Park and The Japanese Gardens cautioned me against eating too much spicy food because I was pregnant. His warning went unheeded. I probably gained a good 5 lbs that day, and 5 more after the trip. And no, little boy wasn't 9 or 10 lbs when he greeted the world, so all that weight just made my existing salbabida (love handles)even more noticeable.
Everyday of every year: I just HAVE to taste anything that comes my way, whether it's a teeny-weeny food sample in a supermarket; a streetside stall emitting smoke from sizzling grease offering HK10 tummy-fillers; a new bakery with the same old, same old displays of BBQ pork and tuna and corn bun; a hastily-opened pack of biscuits when I pay a surprise visit to a friend.

I live to eat. Food, in all its reincarnations, is an obsession. What to eat, what to order, how to cook, where to eat, when to eat, these are profound questions, to be taken seriously, especially when asked by this food junkie.