* My Bourgeois Palate

I grew up in north Rapid City, SoDak (informally, the largest Rez in the state, I swear) eating potted meat sandwiches and mayonnaise sandwiches and government commodity canned & boxed goods—including commodity powdered milk: could you EVER get the lumps out, however much you stirred?! And what WAS bulgar, anyway? And why did canned commodity beef always smell like dog food? I remember getting food poisoning at Garfield Elementary: the school nurse drove me home first, to drink some milk, but when I told her sheepishly, as we stopped at my mailbox, that I'd have to mix it up first, she drove me straight to Sioux San (the Indian hospital).

Well, my tastes have remained pretty simple through the years, still including an occasional Totino's "dollar" pizza—the staple of my college years. But the English Department has introduced me to (Asian) Indian food, and frankly, I'm a fanatic about it maintenant—thanks, in part, to my wife's further "enabling." I also have two home-eating "vices": brie (or camembert)—which I buy once every few months, to spread lasciviously on French bread—and NOW, olives stuffed w/ garlic! Yes, they're damned near $5 a jar, but OH, they're good. My excuse is that they're not quite as expensive—or "decadent," to use the wife's word—as many of the sweets that she covets. But then, I don't like sweets, anyway. (Did we ever get commodity "candy" as kids? Not that I remember.)