As a teenager at home, I avoided the kitchen. Believe me, kitchens and implements are fraught with perils for a dyslexic. I have had a life-long handicap, when combining sequential actions with time factor built in, would always rattle me and reduce me to accidents and tears.
As a foreign student in North America, I missed rice. It was so bad that I dreamed often about Yong Chow Fried Rice. Every opportunity I had, I would cook a student version of fried rice. My partners in the dormitory kitchens were Choo Lien Li from China and Cookie Lee from a city 200km from my hometown. Cookie was a name given by a Cypriot fellow student. We would pool our resources and walk 2km to buy cheap ingredients. A bag of long grain rice would cost $1.12. Two big onions would cost $0.25. A tray of minced meat could be $2.83. A thin stack of egg roll wrappers could be $1.75. With that, we could have a feast of American college fried rice and deep fried wantons. I would volunteer to walk to Kroger. After one disaster of burning something, I was relegated to only wrapping wantons and dish washing.
We were each really tiny in size. Yet with a few dorm mates sampling our food,there was nothing left of what we cooked, except some uncooked rice. None of us were plump. But how we could eat! We really enjoyed our own cuisine. I forgot to mention that the cooking oil came from our appreciative food tester Marion who lived in Okinawa for two years. Soy cauce came from Katherine the self-professed Chinese-take-out queen. Tabasco sauce came from Lee's room mate who loved Cajun food. For readers who tried to estimate the cost, each partner paid $2.00. There was five cents or a nickle left for the next purchasing trip.
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