This was an adventure that began when I lost my taste buds.  Or maybe not necessarily the buds, but the buds weren’t working like they were supposed to.  I was working late in the library, where I was busy trying to categorize the phases of the human heart.  I had gotten through all the subtleties of infatuation, and was working my way into crushes on possible people, when I started to hear a faint rustling from the stacks.  I am not prone to visions of angels late at night, but this would be a rare exception.  Somewhere between the monographs on Meso-American art, I came across a set of footprints that were written on the floor in gold dust.
This is not usual in the library, not the ones I frequent, so I followed, because it seemed like it might be important.  There was a cherub, sitting distinguished and collected, crying over a volume on paintings dedicated to certain rain gods, and I asked him what was the matter.  He didn’t speak, but wrote notes in the dust, and indicated that I would not find any happiness until I understood why restaurants that specialize in Japanese cuisine.  He also seemed to mention Singapore, although I don’t know how I came to understand that piece of information.
Not being given to accepting the advice of crying cherubs at face value, I went home and made my usual portion of frozen salmon with ranch dressing and gluten-free noodles, and watched the weather channel until I was tired.  I didn’t realize that I could not taste at all, and this lack of sense would gradually get more keen over the next few months, until I was quite tasteless.  I have never been in love, because with my job I consider it a conflict of interests, but when the librarian asked me one night to go to Singapore because a cherub told her to ask me, I took the offer because my head felt suddenly too large for my body.  And I discovered soon after that my love for the mix of sweet and sour is exactly right for this life, this moment.

Japanese Food Reinvents Taste is a post from: Mountain Monkeys

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