For class, a little something about my eating habbits.

1. What I Eat
Jaclyn M. Marchisella

2. I love food.

3. Really, I do.

4. I was raised in an Italian American family.
There are some stereotypes that are true:

5. I often hear:
“Fogetta’bout it!”
“...yous...”
“I says to him I says...”
and, “funcula.”

6. The wooden spoon was used for cooking and for correcting bad behavior.

7. Most importantly

8. My grandma (mi nona) was a bomb ass cook!

9. To my grandma food is a part of the family.
It took time and dedication to prepare.
Eating it took just as much time and dedication.
Ever hear the myth about not eating at
an Italian person’s house, if you don’t eat
you’ve surely pissed someone off.
Well,

10. it is not a myth.
If there is food and you don’t eat it
you have successfully insulted someone.
In my case, grandma, so you always eat.
Even if you are not hungry, eat, and eat seconds.

11. No, really, eat seconds.
If you don’t go back for more,
it’ll seem like you don’t like it.

12. Luckily, for me, grandma was a damn good cook,
and Italian food is awesome.

14. Shit, I’d go back for fourths, and my grandma would
always be happy, “God bless her, I don’t
know where she puts it all. Grandma will cook
for you anytime.”

15. My life was happily filled with
pasta, bread, sauce, cheese, meatballs,
sausage, salami, pizza, bruschetta, gnocchi, etc.
The joy kill in that sentence is “was.”

16. Apparently, the fantastic, delicious, mouth-watering
edible joy I mentioned on the previous page are
not the healthiest things I could be consuming.

17. In fact, I can rarely enjoy eating those foods I love dearly.
My life now consist most of:

18. Don’t get me wrong, salad is good,
but, salad is what you eat while you
are waiting for your pasta.

19. I have had to change my diet drastically.
I went from just about everything carbs and fantastic
to just about everything leafy and cold.
This is breaking 21 years of conditioning.
If my grandmother knew about this...

20. ...remember that spoon?

21. The reason why I am doing this is because
I am a performance dancer and
I need to maintain a healthy and fit psychic.
Honestly, it’s not so bad. There is a lot of healthy food I enjoy.
I just really want some pizza right now.
Damn, I’m hungry.
I cheat every now and then, which reminds me of
a quote from Deconstructing Sammy a book
about Sammy Davis Jr.,

22. “but, he continually exercised bad judgement,
which undermined his efforts (p.43, Birkbeck).”

23. I may be exercising bad food judgements at times
that may be slowing down my getting into better
shape efforts, but I’m cool with that.
I love food!

24. This is actually the Baked Ziti my mom made me a couple of weeks ago
when I went for a visit. Pasta covered with meat, sauce, and cheese...
...what else do you want in life?