Danishes

As I got into the C terminal this morning, I was taken by the smell of pancakes, bacon and eggs. Though now understanding of why I am vegetarian, sometimes there are some smells that permeate so deeply into my collective memory that make me long for something that I now know too much about how it is made. I just remember so many mornings waking up to the sun shining through the kitchen windows, and Dad would be in the kitchen, donned in his morning apparel of rounded glasses and Redskins sweatpants and his moccasins, getting breakfast ready for our morning hunger. Sometimes I would even help,and I would accredit my pancake making ability these days towards all the mornings I spent flipping flapjacks for so many weekend mornings.

As said before, sometimes I know my food too well, and then moral ambiguity gets the better of me in my decision-making processes. Next to the steaming masses of pale yellow scrambled eggs and a pile of limply-cooked bacon was an assortment of muffins and other breakfast confectioneries. Though I am still doubting my swallowing capacity and am mentally struggling at times to get over such a concern, the bright red, attractively flaky crust of a selection of danishes drew my attention immediately. In the midst of not eating anything more then some stonewheat crackers with hummus early last night, I felt that "hunger" prevailed over "the mind" for this situation. I ordered one from the counter staff (how do these people get up this early in the first place?) promptly.

Now, all these things have gotten me thinking about my history of danishes. The most pertinent memory that comes with danishes comes with all the Go-Ji-Yas and feasts that I have attended with my families where this was always a breakfast item. In retrospect, it was actually an "anytime" item. There were some unique characteristic about "these" danishes that made them incredibly delicious and fulfilling. They always came in those gigantic "Costco" packs, as these were always giant feasts, and anything smaller then a Costco size was not acceptable by Rez standards. The danishes came in an assortment of flavors. The cherry was always going to be the most delicious, the most prized, and often the quickest to go. Apple danishes had their own unique sour quality to them, but were subservient to the cherry danishes. Anything with lemon was automatically discarded to the last of the selection to be consumed only by the hopelessly hungry. These danishes often sat outside with the rest of the food, and as the mornings became cold, the condensation would make these danishes stick to each other, sometimes in some gooey mashes. For me, danishes were always the first part of breakfast, probably because they were the most accessible food, and more akin to some sugar addictions (which for me was difficult to moderate), they fed my cravings instantaneously. Bite to loving bite into the last licking of my fingers of the last sugary frosted remains made one delicious memory after another.

Back to here at DIA, my danish awaited consumption, all wrapped inside a white paper sack meant for wrapping up pizzas. Grease spots had begun bleeding through the sides, but it was one of the times where the sight of this further pushed my hunger. The first bite instantly hit familiar territory, and I felt it okay to swallow, as if I was reintroducing a common memory and something "OK" into my body. Things started to crawl into my head, thinking "do I need to drink some water after every bite? Can I eat this whole thing? Does it have butter?"

No way any of this was going to hold me back from something that was a part of me. God bless the Scandinavian culture.

-c