Food food food...............

It's fun, coming back.
Coming back to where I began.

Why did I leave the States when I was young?
If I sum it up in one word, it would be CONSUMERISM.

I was young when I left the States. I looked around and saw too much buying, and wanting things, and waste. I was looking for a more simple and natural life. AND I found it: in Italy.

Now, when I come back and see the consumerism, rather than bother me, I am somewhat delighted.
Not REALLY "delighted" but entertained. It is funny and fun!! I still don't agree with the waste, how can one really?? But it is like watching a television series, with absurd scenes, with interesting characters, with exaggeration. It is SO SO different from what I see in Italy, and things that are different, to we artists especially, are stimulating and fun.

Last night went to the SOUP PLANTATION. What a place.
It was like being in Vegas, in those places where you can eat as much as you want (a buffett) for a certain price.
Last night the price was $8.99. Not much for a dinner out.

First there was the salad bar. A long row of cut-up vegetables that included croutons, salad dressings of many kinds, and already dressed salads, as well as sunflower seeds, raisins, onions, and just about every vegetable you can imagine (raw mushrooms, beets, etc etc).
I filled my plate, making a small, let's call it, HILL.

Others created monstrous MOUNTAINS. And not only that, but you could COME BACK as many times as you wanted and create mountain after mountain of food!!

B U T
the food-fun did not end with a salad. Further into the restaurant was the soup bar -- clam chowder (delicious) barley potato, onion, chili!!, some kind of pea soup, vegetable, and others. Of course there was stuff to put on the top of this -- crackers, or topping or you could ask for more. But of course, after this there were baked potatoes with more garnish, and next to that (Italians would have DIED SEEING THIS!!) pasta, being tossed around in creamy cheesy perhaps, sauces. I stared, not wanting to seem too much like a real foreigner, but it was very interesting...how all of that GOO could be absorbed by that spaghetti and still be edible!!
I know I missed plenty here, what was next to that! Ah yes, brownies, corn bread, other little sinful fattening cakes or breads to eat along with...whatever!!
If you turned around 180 degrees you would find the most disgusting toppings for icecream that you could OOZE out of a machine. It made a tiny little mountain shape that you would pour into a cup. The toppings were caramel sauce, chocolate, and to one side was a hideous pink goo that looked like cottage cheese dyed pink, smashed up. There were broken cookies, peanuts, toffee chips, and other various snack foods to sprinkle for a delicate effect over your ice cream or your pumpkin whatever-it-was kind of apple crisp.   I had a small amount on ice cream from an ice cream  machine....when I asked my sister HOW DO YOU DO THIS? she cleverly replied STRAIGHT AHEAD!! Instructions just like a commander of a ship!! The command worked, and my ice cream hill squeezed out, which I then decorated with toffee bits and caramel sauce that really was delicious!!

I saw people (I saw myself as well) go back and get refills of anything they wanted, and they kept going!! Plates of food were filled, many empty but you can imagine the waste as well. It was fun for me, but just as I have seen in other food orgy places, there still is a lot of waste of course! How can one fill their plate and expect to finish every single bite. It is not "human" to chose the right amount, people want to take as much as they can get when it says ALL YOU CAN EAT, and always people's eyes are larger than their stomach.


So, here I am in front of the computer writing about this food-adventure. And now the question is: what is for breakfast?