Childhood Obsessions: Part 2: Food

I'm not sure how many parts of my childhood I feel like documenting over the next couple journal entries but one thing I want to make sure I had down were traditions before I forget them. These occured during my childhood that faded away over time either because I had grown out of the traditions or my parents and grandparents didn't see the need to continue them any longer because of how our lives had changed since we came to America.

One thing that I do want to remember from my elementary school experiences was how I treated food. Like in my previous entry, I had a great dislike of Chinese foods because of the huge amount I had to consume all the time yet at the same time adored the McDonald's that my parents fed me twice a day along with the cakes and doughnuts I got for breakfast and snacks. It truly is some kind of miracle that I didn't develop Type II Diabetes but as a result, I do have much bigger problems with digestion and going to the bathroom more than anyone else in my family does, along with other digestive tract problems I won't disclose here.

One of the most magical things I discovered when I was young was gum. I treated gum differently then than I do now. This was because yesterday, I bought a pack of gum that I hadn't tried in the longest time and this was the first brand of gum I ever tried (and swallowed).



After this past year of going through countless packets of the endless flavors of Stride, 5, Dentyne, and Eclipse, the moment I popped a piece of Wrigley's in my mouth, the soft creamy sensation sent me straight back to 2nd grade when I cycled around the driveways of the town houses in San Jose as my super old grandparents stood outside and yelled at their friends in Chinese to stay for a few more hours. It was one of the most nostalgic feelings I had in the longest time and it made me miss a lot of the traditions I had in my childhood, which is totally a whole different entry. So this moment solidified that I will not be satisfied with any other gum unless if it's the cheap 25 cent gum from Wrigley's and it will actually stay in my mouth for more thatn 5 minutes.

The second childhood comfort food that I had was one thing that my mom often made then but doesn't make much of anymore. It was the combination of having Bovril and porridge. Since the whole Mad Cow Disease fiasco in Europe, Bovril had to change the composition of its extract from yeast instead of bovine. The extract would be added to the porridge and I would drink bowls of this at a time like it was water. It was the one Chinese dish I liked as a child, and the repeated exposure to Bovril made it that to this day, I cannot have rice or porridge unless it's been overdosed with condiments.



The next thing on the list was sugar doughnuts and Chinese pastries that my mom often brought back from work because the someone at work always brought too many in, and because my parents really struggled with finances when we first came to the States, all of these sorts of foods were inexpensive and made it easy for us to fill our stomachs up quickly before we could manage to eat out all the time like we do now.

Despite all of the different flavors of doughnuts that I encountered during high school and even the Krispy Kreme phase, my absolute favorite is still the sugar doughnut, followed by the cheap glazed kind. Not the kind that Krispy Kreme kind where the layers were perfect, but the kind where the glaze fell off the doughnut when you picked it up and the layer was barely noticeable on the piece itself.



Then, came the Chinese pastries that my mom often ordered every time we went to Ranch 99 Supermarket. The Swiss roll came in many different flavors like vanilla and strawberry. I was always arguing with my mom at ends about which one to pick because my mom preferred vanilla, while I preferred strawberry. She usually ended up having her way because it was her money.



There are two other ones I signficantly remember: flavored bread and this one cake where one side was chocolate, the other side was white, and was sealed in the middle by a thin layer of vanilla cream. I remember always eating the chocolate side first (or not eating it at all) and then save the vanilla part as the best for last. I never liked the flavored bread that much as a kid so I never ended up snacking on it like my mom hoped I would.

An honorable mention to this list of childhood comfort foods I had was the white pomfret that my mom often ordered grilled from the Chinese supermarket. This is still probably my favorite fish because of the influences I had from my childhood. Chinese dinner would be the best in the entire world when the white pomfret was involved and it was something I always requested from my parents whenever I could.



Lastly, was the classic McDonald's Happy Meal that never let me down. I always had to get the toy that came with the package and the cheery M signs never ceased to make my day. It was the standard: hamburger/cheeseburger, fries, and a small drink that I had for lunch AND after school. I would also go to McDonald's or Burger King for breakfast (although BK was more of a breakfast tradition) and try to collect as many of the Monopoly pieces as I possibly could hoping one day to win something greater than a medium-sized soft drink. That never happened. However, I remember there being this one McDonald's in Sunnyvale that I would go to all the time as a child and everyone in there remembered me by name and had my order ready before my dad could pull the car up to the drive-thru window.



I remember also arguing with my parents every time I ever decided to get the 6-piece chicken nuggets. My parents would only get me Sweet-and-Sour sauce, which I was accustomed to until my friends in elementary school introduced to me BBQ sauce. For some reason, my parents didn't like that and again, they usually ended up having it their way where I ended up dipping all my food in Sweet-and-Sour sauce but when they're not around, the BBQ sauce returns. Another quirk I had as a child was also removing the pickle in the center of the hamburger whenever I could. I never liked vegetables in my sandwiches for some reason, and having a pickle in there disrupted the balance.

McDonald's breakfast was also a slice of heaven especially since I every time I went there, I would have my predictable combination of 1 Apple Pie and 2 hashbrowns or just as many hashbrowns as I could handle. I loved both Burger King's and McDonald's and often couldn't decide between the two, but I was never sold on the pancakes and the Egg McMuffin's. I felt sick when I ate them as a child so my options were pretty limited then and it frustrated my parents seeing that I preferred just a pile of hashbrowns rather than a sandwich, the same way that I preferred a pile of French fries over a hamburger (even though I enjoyed both just as much).



In addition, the French Toast sticks at Burger King was also another comfort food, and those are something I'm sorely missing today, which is why I probably compensate every time I go to Denny's. I always end up ordering French toast no matter how bad it was for me. And I always ran out of syrup.

Childhood Obsessions: Part 1: Beanie Babies

Something that used to intrigue me when I was younger (and still somewhat has a strange spell over me) were stuffed animals. I remember that when I was a kid, I used to tell my parents that the reason why people had a lifelong fascination with stuffed animals was because they mimicked life. They had a face that we could relate to so we feel that something intangible is staring back at us whenever we look into their black beady eyes. My parents probably thought I was crazy and just gave me more stuffed animals to have fun with.

Out of all the stuffed animals though, only select groups really grabbed my attention. The biggest focus of this entry though will reside with the infamous Beanie Babies of the late 90's. I have over a 100 of them and have probably spent more than $2000 worth on them because of the current hype and my dad's unusual fixation with wanting to buy everything as a collection, which is why he has stacks of completely useless books like Paganism, Dog Dictionaries, and Heraldry in his office and at home that have only served the purpose of collecting dust. He bought into the hype like I did and also spent that extra hundreds of dollars keeping the majority of my Beanie Babies in those plastic cases because they were all 'future investments'.

Even though I hardly recognize any of the new Beanie Babies that were out, these ones that I bought were my very first ones and they will always have a special place. One of them was unfortunately stolen back in 5th grade, but I'll always remember the original two that started it all.
These two are my ultimate two out of my three favorites because not only did they start it all, I took these two everywhere with me. They had a meaning that was more special for this than any of the other ones that my parents got me. Ironically, I don't have Zip, the black cat, at all because it was stolen so long ago. For some reason, I never ended up replacing it.

Then, came the Teenie Beanie Babies promotion that was run at McDonald's. I don't think I ever had so much McDonald's in my life and I don't quite remember if I collected all 10 that everyone went crazy searching for. I just remember people being super excited about trying to collect all 10 Teenie Beanie Babies and throwing away the McDonald's food in the process. Incidents like this was only support that I should have ate myself into Type II Diabetes but miraculously it never came, and soon after the promotion was over, I stopped going to McDonald's for a while.

Several other Beanie Babies had a special signficance for me because of the context that surrounded their purchases. Therefore, here's a list of Beanie Babies I've valued over all the others for different reasons. Zip and Inch.

Scottie was the black terrier that my dad's father bought for me when my dad refused to in front of all our relatives. My grandfather decided to act like a grandfather and spoiled me with getting Scottie. I remember I didn't even like this one that much but because he got it for me, I've always reembered that act of grandfather-liness that this one had more meaning than the other ones did.
Bubbles was one of the more prized possessions of my Beanie Babies because of it's value and how I discovered the art of deception by making an unfair trade with one of my friends to obtain it. Around the time when Pokemon first started emerging into the scene, my dad returned from Taiwan with a bunch of unreleased Pokemon games (versions Gold and Silver) in Japanese. My guy friend in 5th grade, Garron, wanted the untranslated Pokemon games so badly and I couldn't decide whether or not I wanted Bubbles or Goldie (the two original fish). Of course, the deception was that I didn't tell him that I had another set of the untranslated Pokemon games, so I hyped up the trade as if I would be on the losing end if the trade were to happen. He agreed and every time I look at Bubbles, I think of how I had successfully and hilariously at the length I had gone to commit my first significant act of lying and deceiving a friend.

The next few were ones that I adored regardless of the reasons I bought them. There was something about them that made me completely infatuated with them from Day 1, and whenever I dig through my closet and lay eyes on them, the same feelings I felt from the moment I bought them could be felt today.

My mom was vehemently against my purchase of Beanie Babies that my dad and I would often have to hide them from her authority. However, there were two that she had bought for me. Ziggy was bought at the San Francisco International Airport when we were waiting for my dad to return from an overseas business trip and Nanook was bought at a store next to my mom's favorite store, Ross. Nanook doesn't really quite make the list but the signficance is the same to me.

The last four that make up the list that really sort of defined my collection was Princess Di and Brittania. Princess Di was the most my dad has ever allowed me to spend on a Beanie Baby. I don't think he ever told me the real price of it, because every time I've asked him, the number always seemed to change. It went from $50 to $100 and one time, I could've sworn he said $150. To date, it was the most I ever spent on a bag of beans, and it's my third most prized bear that my dad has given to me. Britannia was the one Beanie teddy that I had always coveted but was never able to have until many years later. I have a long wish list of Beanies that I still wished to have but none of them reached to the level I wanted from Britannia.


Valentino and Erin are in their own categories not because one of them had a name that reminded me today of a familiar couture designer that I happen to worship every season, but because Valentino was my first Beanie Baby teddy bear. I remember buying it for $20 at the Sunnyvale Mall at a store that is beyond bankrupt and closed by now. Erin was the 2nd most I had ever spent on a Beanie Baby that my dad had to buy from a colleague for $70 because she was sold out everywhere at that time. As much as this was a sign that I was probably way too spoiled for my own good, I really appreciated today how much my dad was willing to go out of his way to be ripped off by his own colleague to make sure I was happy with getting the Beanie Babies that everyone else wanted. I can't imagine doing this for my own kids but it makes me appreciate these select few even more.



It's funny how I did crazy things in my childhood experiences but I felt that the Beanie Babies I bought were proof that my parents had it in them to really believe that there was a face to each Beanie Baby, which made them so unique and that we strived so mcuh to have them all together in one collection. Of course, we were never able to achieve that but it was certainly fun at that time, and it did bring us together somewhat over all the many Happy Meals and the many conventions we went to that sold these things.