Eating

So it has now been a full week of my stay in Puerto Rico.  I’m 20% done, as Kate has put it.  It has been a nice experience, but for sure, a tiring one too.  I’m a hungry boy; always have been and as long as I live on Darwin’s green Earth, I trust and hope to continue to be a hungry boy. 

Thus, busy schedules, such as the one I am immersed in now, must be met with swift diligence and premeditated culinary executions.  For me this has translated into a lot of eggs, a lot of egg sandwiches, and a lot of sandwiches with eggs.  Cereal and some yogurt/milk make up my breakfast, and my big meal—lunch—are usually taken at the UPR student cafeteria.  For under $5 you can get a huge meal, enough to make sitting through the afternoon lectures a serious challenge.

As tonight marks my first weekend night since the field school began, this hungry boy was feeling special.  So I went to a bar across from Campus and ordered a nice Churrasco with very yummy fries.  The piece of meat was probably 8oz, neither huge nor tiny.  “Damn”, I thought with my last bite.  “Damn, I could eat another one.  Nah…”

So I exit the establishment, and I remember then and there, that they sell pizza nearby.  “A slice will do it.”  I enter the next door business, and see if it’s the pizza joint.  “No, here we sell the tripleta.”  Well I, like you, have no clue what a “tripleta” is, but the confidence with which the young man informs me makes me feel like a philistine for not knowing that, yes, of course, I had just entered the house of tripletas.  Almost with regret (for I don’t want to appear foolish or disrespectful towards tripleta folk)—but also with a sense of urgency, as I know that I have about 20 minutes before my stomach notifies my head that I am “full” (stupid hypothalamic-pituary-adrenal axis!)—I ask, "well what is this tripleta that you speak of with so much pride?"

“It’s a sandwhich with chicken, beef and ham.”

“I’ll have one to go.”

He prepares the meats on a nice big aluminum-looking thing, like the ones you see in diners and fast food joints, rolls it up for me, and $4 down and 3 minutes later, I climb into the van the field school has rented for us, and curiously open up my tripleta.  “Shit, might as well have half here in the van, in the dark, right now.”  The first half down, I conclude that I’ve comported myself with excellent finesse and that the night is going quite well.  Stupid stomach, still have 15 minutes on you.

Three minutes later (t-minus 12, for those keeping track) I down the second half over the kitchen sink in my little duplex.  Well you see, these triple meat sandwiches can get awfully drippy and messy.  Now I sit on a fluffy green couch, seeing my stomach communicate with my brain.  It’s saying I’m full, thanks. 

Not a fancy night, some may say.  But to those that may say such things to me, I reply in turn, this tripleta and I are now friends. 

Bon appetit