When my brother died and after emergency services and all that left we went to my grandmother’s house down the road and she ordered us all chinese food. The pamphlets for cremation and urns were still on the table, and my mom didn’t eat but rather sat in the livingroom staring at the wall.

I found myself alone in a motel in a southern state in Christmas day.

The only food I a could find was a can of chef boyardee at a shady convenience store. It had a pop top so I could open it.

I had to tear apart the plastic cup in the motel room to use as a spoon.

I had to do an elimination diet before testing for food allergies. For two weeks I had a cup of rice for all three meals a day. Now I really like rice but on one of these days I had to attend a working catered lunch with some coworkers. It was incredibly embarrassing eating my small cup of rice in this meeting while all my coworkers had an amazing catered lunch. I got a whole lot of “you’re really committed to your diet” comments.

A bowl of microwaved frozen peas. More than once.

I remember it well. My student loan payments had just started, and we were already struggling to make ends meet. My lunch every day at work for a week was a pack of instant ramen and an expired multivitamin. That first meal absolutely crushed me. I like ramen every so often, but having to eat it out of necessity really changes everything. After the income based repayment finally kicked in after a few weeks, I was able to upgrade to a $1 pack of tuna and some crackers.

I am not looking forward to October.

A full plate of pork ribs (almost) I was out to dinner with my gf and her parents (first time I had meet them) at a fancy restaurant, and her Dad was paying, big guy, didnt say much, picture Ron Swanson but bigger and bald. Anyways I love pork ribs and as soon as i saw the menu i had to have em, altho as soon as i ordered them i realized they were a full serving (not a half, so one whole side of pig!) And that it was the most expensive item on the menu, it was at this point i knew i had f’ed up. I tried my best but could not finish this behemoth plate of beautifully cooked pork rib cage while under the scrutinizing eye of one red faced, barrel chested, potential farther in law. I sent a half eaten plate back to the kitchen only to turn round and see the look in his eye that said i was nothing but a waste of money to him and that i deserve nothing less than the colossal meat shits that was coming for me. We then went home and i couldn’t even hug my gf in bed as my guts set about the task of converting 3 pounds of pig flesh into a glorious song of digestion featuring frequent trumpet solos for my gf to enjoy into the night…we lasted a month

Went to visit my gf in college once a few hours away. On the way back I put every penny I had into my gas tank in hopes it would be enough and it barely was. While at the gas station I mixed some ketchup packets, salt, and hot water for “tomato soup” because it was all free.

Emotionally: Ice cream as a kid once. Offered to me after being denied it the day before as punishment for something I didn’t do. No amount of ice cream can ever make up for having no way of defending myself against false accusations. No way to avoid punishment because I was guilty until proven innocent. Its a shit feeling.

One week old McDonald burgers

Big mac for christmas dinner. My wife was at the hospital at the time, heavily pregnant with our first child. There were some complications wit the pregnancy too. Didn’t wanna leave her there alone so I sat there with her. She had to eat hospital food and I snuck out to McDonalds, with her permission I must add. Sat in my car at the car park, listening to radio and eating the saddest burger ever.

I went on a tour of Malaysia with a cheap Chinese tour company once. Food in Malaysia is AMAZING but you wouldn’t know it from this tour.

They’d take us to these warehouse-like empty restaurants on the edges of towns and would serve us the worst Chinese food I ever had by a mile. I love Chinese food, but this was just soul-crushingly bad. And because we were basically stuck with staying close to the bus, we had no choice but to eat there.

Two dishes stand out in my mind. One was stir-fried lettuce that had so many block spots it looked like a pointillist work. The other was a mapo tofu that looked so awful, I couldn’t help thinking the chef had broken it up by chewing it and blowing it out of his nose.

I spread shredded cheese on a plate and microwaved it. More than once.

The day my mom passed after a 2 year battle with cancer. My wife and I were running all day, from something like 5am. We finally get home about midnight and realize we hadn’t eaten anything at all that day. We look in the cupboards, fridge, etc and there is absolutely nothing but a single can of chef boyardee ravioli. We were so tired, we stood at the kitchen eating them cold, right out of the can. About half way though the can we both started crying as we hadn’t let the emotions touch us yet. So through our tears of grief, we ate cold ravioli out of a can.

A rice sandwich.

I grew up very poor in Greece, and my mom used to give us a slice of bread that had poured white sugar on it, and… olive oil. It was many years later that I realized that these were deconstructed donuts.