CONSIDER HOW YOU

ARRIVED AT THIS BOOTH. The foodie responds to positive buzz, Yelp, pins—things that sound like torture but taste like glory. The hungry

reacts to a growling stomach, sees an Open sign, and takes a seat.

CONSIDER THE MEAL’S

PREAMBLE. Menu!perusal for the foodie takes longer than eating the meal does. There are questions, accusations,

apologies. There is the promise of organics and the denial of antibiotics. The hungry orders swiftly, blindly nodding as the waiter describes the specials in agonizing detail. There are no food allergies for the hungry. While waiting for the meal to arrive, the hungry’s hands grasp for phantom bread baskets. They never have real ones at places like!this.

CONSIDER THE MOMENT

THE MANNA DESCENDS. Chewing is as much a hindrance as an aid for the hungry, all but inhaling the

meal. A foodie savors, pausing to detect subtleties, to try and self-generate a bit of nostalgia, to appreciate the lack of chemical additives, to think about all the vowels in the word gastronomy, to wonder about the pig whose life began on a simple farm and ended as tender!chorizo.

CONSIDER THE

VOCABULARY USED. The foodie takes notes, deploying French words like mélange, yearning for something beyond the five universal ways to taste. Why oh why is there no name for the limpid region between umami and bitter? Eventually, the foodie settles on words with the letter x at their chewy centers: complex, exquisite, oxen. Alas, the hungry never considered the meal’s creation, interested only in its destruction, conveyed in grunts and groans.

CONSIDER THE MOMENTS

FOLLOWING MASTICATION. While!the foodie indulges the taste buds by letting food linger on the tongue, the hungry’s tongue is fatigued from being used as a fleshy backhoe. The foodie inhales lingering aromas; the hungry nose-breathes so the mouth can rest. The foodie extends a practiced index finger and bids farewell to the jicama dim sum and tests the Tasmanian kangaroo slider for springiness one last time. The hungry’s spare pinky dabs up stray crumbs.

CONSIDER YOUR DESTINY. No matter your current path, no avenues are closed to you. Perhaps a punk chef in a distant land decides that the humble potato is best savored raw. The foodie boards a red-eye on a quest for the uncooked and “underappreciated” tuber; meanwhile, the hungry wakes up ravenous after days on deadline and bites into the only thing in the kitchen—an uncooked Idaho!spud.

YOU ARE SITTING IN A MULTI-HYPHENATE FUSION RESTAURANT

IN A FORMER DONUT SHOP NEXT TO THE CASH-ONLY GAS

STATION IN THAT “UP AND COMING” NEIGHBORHOOD. YOU ARE

STARING EXPECTANTLY AT THE KITCHEN DOOR. IN THIS

WORLD OF POROUS BORDERS, YOU MUST ASK YOURSELF:

AM I A FOODIE, OR AM I HUNGRY?

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