Done!

I didn't realize I was about three pages away from the end last night, so I ended up finishing the book just a moment ago. One of the passages I enjoyed was:

"Only a smile. A tiny thing. A leaf in the woods, shaking in the wake of a startled bird's flight.
But I'll take it. With open arms. Because when spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time, and maybe I just witnessed the first flake melting."

And I hadn't realized how interested I was in their food. As most of my friends know, I don't branch out on food. It's either all American (pancakes, hamburgers, pizza, hot dogs, mash potatoes, turkey . . . ) or Mexican food (it's not even much a variety here really). And even then, I was extremely picky about what *kind* of Mexican food and what *kind* of American food. Chinese too has always been kind of a staple. I'm a sucker for plain white yummy rice. But now that I've become a bit more health conscious, traded white bread for whole wheat, white rice for brown, and so on. Once in a while, I'll treat myself to white rice =) The past few years, I've gotten a bit more into Thai food as well, and tried to branch out into more types of Latin American food: Cuban and Peruvian. It's interesting how the ingredients I grew up with (rice, beans, tortillas) can be done and substituted in so many different ways. Have I mentioned I also don't cook? Yeah, I'm trying to fix that, but I get bored and discouraged . . . also, I try to keep it healthy which is extra hard. Not even a year ago I had my first taste of Lebanese food. We went to a restaurant called Nicoli. I'd had hummus before and just this year I started to get really into it as an alternative to french fries at bars, "Hummas platter please" I'd tell the bar waitress. But at Nicoli, I had hummus, pita bread (omigod! why was I not introduced to this kind of pitta bread before . . . just another thing to add to my "I can't live without carbs" life!) a green salad with wonderful dressing and rice (not to spicy, I hate spice . . . yes weird, I know given my upbringing) and chicken kabobs. I think I'm a lot like my dad in that I like what I like and I don't branch out, but I think this is one place my dad would like. So I've decided I'm going to look up a few afghan recipes and see if I can't make a yummy salad dressing or learn how to make a different kind of rice or how to saute my chicken with different flavors. In the book they always talked about tea, and cauliflower or another vegetable to accompany rice or pita. I want to learn. I want to learn how to make vegetables yummy, how to add to a main dish.
Man, I should call this "she reads, she runs, she writes, she eats!"