We do this to express affection.

I understand that Thursday is Torah day, nonetheless I am just after midnight and watching Tompopo again. It’s not vegan but it’s compelling. And a truly beautiful film with a long tail that stays with you forever and appears again and again and in strangest moments.

And as I am writing these words, they are singing their friends off on their adventure.

I’ve been eating one meal a day and I seem to be pretty happy with it. It’s been the same meal all week. It’s all I want and I’m happy to have it. Bursting potatoes, field greens and some buckwheat. That gets some oil treatment which is finally doused exactly at the correct moment. Noodles in, salt and spices in, heat in if you’re feeling it and it’s enough.

But that’s not really the news. The news is toasted grains. You don’t have to hydrate and cook your grains or even small dried legumes. You can just heat up a skillet nice and hot and spill some in there like you were planning on making porridge. Just don’t add the water and keep moving the pot around or keep things stirred up until everything turns golden brown.

Crunchy. Delightfully crunchy. Delightfully flavorful and very crunchy. Enjoyably crunchy. Crunchiness that you crave when it’s over and all you want is to return to that crunchiness.

This is the snack I’ve been looking for my whole life. For exactly whatever reason we have to snack, whatever the schedule or whatever the life situation, we snack. And the corporations make a godzillion dollars off of us because of our addiction to snacks. We eat when we are upset.

This stuff rules all. This is the texture and the aftertaste and the digital manipulations and the act of bringing the spoon to your mouth or tilting the bank as you like. This is as inexpensive as anything and though I understand I can do the same thing with some oil and salt to satisfy those needs. I can even go oil and salt and a wild variety of spices to drive you simply insane.

Toasted grains and beans. Who would have thought? Or better, why did they make this go away?

And quickly for the colon people, yes, bada bush. Yes. Fiber. Yes.