I’m a Jinius

I don’t trust a man who eats less than me.

I may be all of 5′1 but I can eat like a football player the night before a big game. (Hello, I can finish a whole Asian burrito at Momofuku Ssam bar and those things are the size of a quarterback’s thigh.) And aside from quantity, I am also willing try anything as long as it didn’t once serve a sexual or cognitive purpose for the animal.

I also don’t trust men with dietary restrictions. Vegan? Forget it. Why would anyone willingly eliminate the gustatory pleasures that life has to offer? Like pizza! Or gelato! A man who elects quinoa over cream can’t be a fun person to be around. How can I make such sweeping generalizations? Um, have you tasted quinoa??? I am also suspicious of men of who are scared to explore ethnic food terrain. The ones who grimace at sushi or scowl at kimchee. I’m sorry but a man who is unadventurous with his food is unadventurous in life.

I am also wary of men who are allergic to dairy. I’m not talking about lactose intolerant, that is entirely different. No, a person who is allergic to dairy actually breaks out in hives and swells up like Hitch. “But, Jinius,” you may be asking, “how could you be so insensitive? The man has a legitimate food allergy! He could die!” Well, what if I was on a date with my lover, lingering over a bowl of creamy, chocolate mousse, and I suddenly felt seductive and urged him to take a lick off my spoon? The moment would be ruined by his massive fits of coughing and choking. Some people call that insensitive. I call it inconvenient.

I embarked on this topic today at lunch.

When my dear friend Ms. B asked if I would like to have lunch with her at the Google Cafeteria for their Peter Luger special, I pounced on the invitation like a priest to a choir boy. Even though my office was on the other side of town and I had to take two subway lines and walk over three avenues, I was not going to pass up a chance to eat at the mecca of corporate cafeteria food. Oh, and did I also mention it’s free? And the food is from local, organic farms.

(On a side note, I’d like to mention that I saw Gavin Rossdale on my way to the Google office. He is hotter in person.)

The Google office is kinda like math camp meets Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Only instead of gawky, nerdy kids you have geeky, hipsterish boys. Employees will whiz down the hall on a razor. There are lego and nintendo stations. You’ll pass dry eraser boards with binary equations scribbled all over them. There are free food stations with all kinds of cereal, luna bars, smart water, and Odwallas for your consumption (yes, I took one for the road).

When I entered their cafeteria, Hemispheres, I felt like a kid in a candy store. A candy store with pulled pork sandwiches and quesadillas and bottles of kombucha–all of it free. Ms. B gave me the layout of the stations and told me where I could find the salad bar (pass!) and the grilled meat section (yes, please!)

Here’s what I had:

spicy tuna handroll
roasted corn and sweet potato quesadilla
pulled pork
white cheddar risotto
hamachi sashimi with lime vinaigrette
grilled porter house steak from peter luger steakhouse
german fried potatoes
angel hair pasta pomodori
peanut butter cookie
crepe with berries and chocolate whip cream
sparkling lemonade

We ate outside on the terrace, taking in the striking view of the Empire State building and the sticky, late summer air. We caught up on what was going on with our lives (her’s was much more exciting than mine!) and got to talking about boys and their dietary restrictions. (The Google Cafeteria is definitely not the place for men with cautious taste.) We could commiserate because she had also dated a boy with dairy intolerance. She knew that relationship wasn’t going to be smooth sailing. She said, “I mean, if he can’t handle dairy, then how is he going to handle me?”

And that’s when it hit me. Food is not always pretty or inviting. Sometimes it looks and smells funny and gives you weird sensations in your stomach and you wish you had paid attention to the expiration date. But sometimes it gives you unexpected pleasure that you would otherwise not have known had you not decided to be adventurous and take the risk.  That’s how I feel about relationships. It may be all rosy hued and musical in the beginning but it’s also going to be rough and ugly. You can choose to play it safe and stay with the familiar or you can be adventurous and try something new.

It takes a certain kind of man to stomach all kinds of food. It also takes a certain kind of man to stomach a relationship with me.

(Photo taken from Epicurious.com)