Saturday, June 23, 2007 Degrees of heat By Ober Khok
TERMS of endearment bring two people close; heart-to-heart, mind-to-mind, breath-to-breath.
There can be no confusion when you call your significant other as “sweetie, teddy bear, honey, dearie.”
You are confident that daily usage has accustomed his or her ear—which is connected to the heart (I’m sure of this, or why does my heart beat so?)—to the real meaning of “teddy bear.” The two of you know how the endearment came to be your private mode of legal tender where feelings are concerned, igniting it to different degrees of heat.
The words may not, in their original use, bear a resemblance in meaning attached when used as a term of endearment. How can a girlfriend be your “laurel bunch” or a boyfriend be your “chocolate bar”?
No way San Jose! But you use these coins of endearment to assuage a hurt feeling or to remind the other just how much you value him or her.
Now, let’s go to the dirty kitchen. Roy, my cousin, told me of a trip in New York (he lives in New Jersey, which is a State near The Big Apple).
“I had a visitor, Perla, who is from a southern city in the Philippines. Naturally, my stateside friends and I took time off to let her see the NY skyline but at the same time let her taste the city we know.”
What do you know; they ducked into a Korean restaurant where they seated themselves in cavernous lounge chairs. Roy said Perla buried her head in the menu, which had English translations.
They made their selections and told the Korean-American waiter how they wanted their beef, fish vegetables and noodles done.
“Perla said she knows that Korean food has three degrees of heat: spicy, more spicy and extremely spicy. So, she took it upon her head to have her noodles with fresh bok choy minus all hell’s fire, the pepper, the chili, and more chili.”
She repeatedly told the waiter: “Please, don’t serve my noodles hot. I don’t want my noodles hot.”
The waiter nodded in understanding, but Perla, ever the meticulous perfectionist, repeated her instructions like your typical grade school teacher: “I don’t want hot food, so please, don’t make my noodles hot. Make it not hot.”
The waiter gave her a puzzled look but nodded just the same.
It took a bit of time for their order to arrive and by the time it landed on their shiny, black table, they were hungrier than piranhas.
Roy had his Korean steak with sesame seeds; his buddy and roommate Mik had his vegetable galore; and the rest of the gang had their steaming plates of food asking to be devoured.
My cousin said they were surprised why Perla had not started to eat.
“Look at my noodles!”
They all laughed. Surrounding the big bowl of soup were cubes of ice—literally “to make the soup not hot.”
Roy said, “Mirisi—serves her right for not using the right kitchen term. She should have said ‘spicy.’ I told her that, and we all laughed. Oh, what a wonderful experience it was for all of us, Perla included.”
I will bear this in mind when one day I will go to New York. Spicy is the term to sue, not hot.
Hot always refers to body temperature for me; the effect of terms of endearment used at the right time, at the right emotional moment. It is a wondrous sensation that courses all over the body.
Spicy is the effect of chili peppers upon my tongue, and aphrodisiac beliefs aside, it doesn’t affect my feelings really.
