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The summer before I started year 9, Chong and I apparently spent a little too much time indoors watching cooking shows and not enough time outside setting fires in backyards and harassing the neighbors, because somehow the notion that we could cook was implanted firmly in our brains. We eventually discovered a CD of 1001 recipes, so we sat down one afternoon and went through each category picking out dishes that looked decent from the pictures and designed a full 5-course meal. After convincing our families that yes, we were going to cook them dinner and no, we weren’t going to poison them (at least on purpose), they agreed to let us serve dinner the following night.

The next afternoon, we inventoried our kitchens and made our way to the grocery store to pick up what we didn’t have. After grabbing everything needed, we realized we were missing two things on the list. Chong went for the tomatoes and I set off to find an extra box of noodles. I quickly spotted an elderly man going through a stock list the next aisle over and figured I’d save some time and ask him where they were. He saw me walking towards him as I was halfway down the aisle and asked if there was anything I needed, so I went ahead and asked him if he knew where the noodles were. Seeing as how I was still 40 feet away from him and I always equate anybody over the age of 50 as having bad hearing, I initially shouted out my question to him. He looked mildly shocked, but also had the classic “Na, he didn’t just say what I think he did” look upon his face, so he asked again what it was I was looking for, pretending he didn’t hear me the first time. By now, we were face-to-face and I again repeated my query for him. Yet, again, he didn’t answer me and instead looked up at me as if I was the Great Satan himself. After a few seconds, I began to wonder if he was stunned by my birthmark or maybe having a silent heart attack, or even worse, maybe he recognized me as the kid who chopped down a tree in his back yard to build a bridge over the creek. We never did find out who lived in that house. Anyways, I broke the silence and figured I’d give him one last chance to snap out of it.

“Uh, sir…do you know where it is? I’m making dinner for my family tonight and the only thing my siblings will eat is junk food and noodles, so I really need a box of this stuff.” It was right about then that Chong came whirling around the corner and ran up to me half panting from his sprint and half gasping for air from laughing so hard. “Dude, what’s wrong,” I asked, trying to figure out just what in the hell was going on in this store. As he regained his breath, he glanced over my shoulder, saw the elderly employee’s look, and kneeled over with renewed laughter. I spun around to see that every ounce of blood in the poor man had drained far, far down into his body resulting in his face color turning a nice shade of pale-old-white-man. His eyes were so large they were pushing his nose out of place and I finally had had enough. “What in the hell is so goddamn funny,” I demanded a bit too loud and this only fueled Chong’s bit of the funnies. I didn’t know whether to pull a Homer and just start laughing because everybody else was or to start yelling at the old guy. I choose the later. “What? What did I say that is making my friend over there act like a little school girl and is making you look as if you just saw the Titanic pull into harbor? What did I say? AND WHY ARE YOU LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT!?”

“Sir, I believe you are looking for Angel Hair pasta, not Angel Dust. The first is food, the latter is a drug that kids like you do these day. I certainly hope you wouldn’t be looking to score your siblings any drugs.” And so from that day forward, I’ve always called it Angel Dust pasta.

But how did the dinner go, you ask? It was fantastic. Everybody pretended to enjoy the food, there were zero cases of food poisoning, and the desert was delicious, which is why I started writing this post in the first place. You see, everything we cooked that night, we made from scratch. From the appetizers to the desert to the freshly squeezed water from the faucet, we both had our hands in every dish served. If I could remember what the desert was, I would tell you, but the only thing I remember from it was the fact that it called for a dose of pure molasses. Sweet, succulent molasses…at least, that’s what I thought it would taste like. If you’ve never tried molasses straight from the jar in its pure form, then you’re doing your stomach a favor. Chong and I both scooped out a spoonful and downed it at the same time, thinking we were about to eat pure sugar in liquid form and experience a new heightened sense of awareness. The only thing I remember experiencing after that was the desire to vomit. I’d never dry heaved over a kitchen sink before that fateful bite, but I was able to check that off my list of things to do before I die that afternoon.

Fast forward seven and a half years into the future to just last week. I was hanging out in the corridor and stopped off at Karen’s room to see what was up. Josh, a fellow American, was sitting on her bed chatting with her and noticed that she had some Vegemite in her cupboard. He asked if he could try some and being curious, I stuck my finger in the jar and scooped some out as well. Just as we both were giving it a go, Karen turned around from her computer, saw what we were doing, and gave a futile cry of “Nooooo” Within a few seconds, Josh and I realized what she was trying to keep us from doing. My mouth sent an urgent message to my brain to spit whatever the hell was in there out and to never, ever again try to ingest it. I summoned up my lougee spitting skills honed from years of contests with my friends and mom and launched the Vegemite straight into the rubbish bin. After brushing my teeth for approximately 90 minutes, I returned and asked how in the hell anybody could eat that stuff.

Yesterday, Sarah and I went on an adventure to make toast. After almost setting middle floor West on fire, we returned to our corridor with the browned bread and sat down to watch Kill Bill 2. After a few minutes, she asked if I wanted a piece and I turned to see my arch nemesis staring me in the face. The toast was covered in butter with a thin layer of Vegemite on top. As I shuddered thinking of my previous experience with the crap condiment, I politely told her there I had no wish to hurl all over her room and that she could keep it all to herself. When she started making fun of me, I told her of my earlier experience and she promised that was no way to eat this “yummy” yeast extract. The only way, she pleaded, was to eat it with copious amounts of butter on toasted bread. I hesitantly plucked the toast from her hand, closed my eyes, and took a bite.

I now have a jar of Vegemite sitting in my cupboard, right next to the bread and butter. Maybe when I get home I’ll give Molasses another try.