Episode 3: Happy Father's Day

As one would expect, I strongly resemble both of my parents. I have my mom’s smile, her inability to understand where the TMI boundary lies in everyday conversation, and her desire to share music with everyone. From my dad, I have his long arms, hairy legs, habit of saying a walk is only one mile when it is four, and his love of food.

My dad is from Flushing, Queens. He grew up in the same housing project that my grandparents lived in until they passed; an apartment I was lucky enough to visit regularly during my childhood and teenhood. Queens is literally one of the most diverse places on Earth, and it only took a walk up four flights of stairs in his old apartment building to smell the variety of ethnic cuisines my dad grew up eating. One floor smelled like Russia, the next like Italy, a third like Korea, and my Grandparents’ like kosher cuisine. At the risk of over-romanticizing things, I won’t leave out the constant smell of stale stairwell pee that accompanied each of these aromatic encounters.

From the day I could chew, my dad strove to pass his diverse palette on to me and my siblings. Baby bird style. Just kidding, not baby bird style. Okay, sometimes baby bird style. Sure, it was impressive that I could play some standard violin concertos by the time I was ten. I don’t mean to brag, but I also was in the elementary school geography bee and on a winning dance team and whatever. My dad, however, took pride in the fact that his children never ordered off the kids menu, we loved hummus and baba ghanoush, we weren’t dissuaded by the gamey tang of lamb shanks or goat cheese, we could handle chopsticks better than most of our first-generation, Asian friends, and we knew better than to leave the marrow resting in the bone at the end of a meaty meal.

As a teen in rural Southeastern Connecticut, eating with my dad was our main bonding activity. Every Wednesday night, my dad drove me an hour each way to New Haven for youth orchestra rehearsal. I was usually grumpy the entire car ride, a terrible conversationalist, and always forced him to listen to whatever violin piece I was obsessed with at the moment (on tape!).

After the three hour rehearsal came the highlight of my week: Restaurant Time With My Dad. New Haven should have been called Food Haven because it was so resplendent in its ethnic cuisine options. Sometimes we went for sushi, my dad never flinching at the potential micro-bacterial and tapeworm threats even though he’s literally a microbiologist. Other times we had Indian food, and dad made sure to point out how rare it is to find a joint on the East Coast where the tandoori chicken isn’t dry. On occasion we had Ethiopian food, and I am so glad he was there to explain how to utilize the Injera to deliver the mounds of saucy goodness into my mouth. More often than not though, we had mushroom pizza with root beer at either Sally’s or Pepe’s. By the way, if you don’t know what Sally’s or Pepe’s is, please google it. Then go visit New Haven to experience it.

I don’t want to paint my dad to be some sort of idyllic nice guy. He wasn’t. He had a bad temper, and when we kids misbehaved, he was the ultimate authoritarian. He was the wielder of the wooden spoon, the determiner of time-out lengths, plus he could yell very, very loudly. One time I told my dad to “shut up” and he grounded me for a week and took away my toys. One time I had a nightmare and he still made me sleep in my own bed with the lights off. One time I wanted to watch TV and he made me go outside instead. Okay, so I didn’t get in much trouble as a kid (see the previous entry, “Be Good), but my brother did so I know what type of yelling, grounding, and spanking my dad was capable of.

I read an awful book a couple of times entitled The Best Little Girl in the World. It was the exact thing I never want to write: a fictional narrative that is supposed to make anorexia seem horrifying but instead it gives you a step-by-step guide to your very own eating disorder. In it, the dad tries to fix the illness of the main character by yelling and grounding and spanking. As I began my own path down dietary-restriction-lane, I anticipated the same reaction from my dad. I expected him to hold me down at the table and scream until I finished the food he had worked so hard to furnish. I thought it likely he would levy punishments or barter with rewards to get me to eat.

Instead, I think I broke his heart. Have you ever been dumped and you feel so numb that you just start walking mindlessly and suddenly you’re at Old Navy and you’ve bought three pairs of pants for no reason (#askingforafriend)? I could feel that level of heartbreak as I passed on his Thanksgiving dinner, his famous curried salmon, or his from-scratch waffles. Feeding me was the way he could show his love, eating was the way I could receive it, and I had shut that door in his face.

During recovery, it took me some time to enjoy eating again. At first, I had a zinc deficiency which was messing with my ability to actually taste anything. After that, I had to push aside a bunch of eating rituals that I had developed. These meal-time rites preoccupied my brain so it wouldn’t have the bandwidth for feelings of enjoyment, as feelings of enjoyment lead to repetition of an action and we wouldn’t want that now would we? Finally, I used the technique of mindfulness to retrain myself in detecting the good flavors and textures that lead to eating enjoyment

Mindful eating is great and here is an exercise for you to try. For every food, there is an ideal amount to put in your mouth at once to achieve optimal flavor and texture. So pour yourself some goldfish crackers. Experiment with eating just one, then two, then way too many at once. You want to discover the exact amount that gives you a perfectly cheesy and salty flavor profile. For me it is four. Then experiment with how long you chew this ideal amount of crackers. You don’t want to swallow too early in the masticating process or the sharp edges of cracker might stab you in the throat. You don’t want to crunch for too long either or the whole thing becomes paste-like and sticks to your throat. Good! Now let’s try it with beef tartar...

The first food I enjoyed during recovery was a maple and brown sugar granola bar. I was so happy to enjoy a food that I went to Build-A-Bear and built and bear and named her Maple.

Today, my dad and I are happily re-bonded over our love of food, and this bond is probably my favorite thing about recovery. I’m always excited for him to visit me in Chicago so I can take him for char-grilled lamb at my neighborhood Persian kabob joint or blood sausages at the Argentinian steak house. By that, I mean he takes me to these places because I can’t afford them. When I go to my parents’ home, I gratefully accept the love he dishes me as he orders the type of pizza that only he and I actually like: one topped with olives, mushrooms, artichoke hearts, and garlic.