cravings of all varieties

Some days I just want to eat a very specific type of food.  Usually things you can't get here.  And since I can't just go to a restaurant and order whatever it is I'm craving (come here, you Wendy's Junior Bacon Cheeseburger!), I usually have to be patient.  At least long enough to find a similar recipe online, go to the store and buy what I need (if it's available here!), and cook.

Like this past while: I've been wanting Chinese food.  Not even a specific dish, just something.  Maybe sweet and sour pork, honey garlic pork, or ginger beef (mmm... I love ginger beef!).  Or even chicken fried rice.  Or chow mein.  So in the end, I made us honey garlic meatballs and rice, with green beans, for supper last night.  Oh was it potent.  But so, so good.  I guess ten (small) cloves of garlic will do that: both potency and extreme goodness.

Now I don't usually claim these to be pregnancy cravings, more just living-overseas-cravings.  I remember feeling this way when I lived in the Middle East, too.  And I was most definitely not pregnant then!  But for the entire time I was there, I just desperately wanted to eat a pepperoni pizza from Panago.  Problem being, of course, that was no Panago.  The only pizza restaurant served pizzas with toppings like hot dog, tuna, and corn.  Any pepperoni you could buy was halal, and just didn't taste quite the same as our North American non-halal stuff.  And, I really wasn't much of a cook back then, at least not when I was cooking for just me, which was all of the time.  (Thankfully making a good pizza from scratch is now a skill I possess.)

Oh there are some days when I have pregnancy cravings.  Those are different.  And usually more urgent.  And often nutritious.  Like when I crave oranges or milk.  (But not together.  Ew.)  I'm very thankful that we can now get amazing, juicy, delicious imported oranges from North Africa.  Until they showed up on the scene we only had green, tough, not-juicy, local oranges to eat.  Phew.  Thank you Jesus for imported oranges!

I guess that's just a bunch of rambling with no real purpose.  Aren't you glad you read to the end?!  I'm making myself hungry...