as the month of march lies behind us and we step towards april, originally the second month in the roman calendar, i read through the email of a friend who is in her last travelling legs of south asia, and hear about her adventures...her thoughts of asia, especially india, where the beauty of the ruins (both physical and human) took a while to get used to. i can imagine the culture shock she went through...and at the same time, ican't...me! having lived in asia for eighteen years! but unexpectedly, my childhood memories come flooding back...

trodding through the "fresh" market with my mother and grandmother, sometimes aunts in tow...learning to step gingerly between the puddles of water mixed with blood, sometimes from a cow or a pig but most likely from a chicken with its head recently sliced...looking into the eyes of the fish with their mouth gaping wide as if in a final plea to free them from their icy confinements...aaah the memories of food before they were food. how many of us have had the privilege of being so closely connected to what we eat? how many of us choose to?

as the month of march (and food) bids us adieu, i can't help but think...if we cannot look at food straight in its face before it becomes food...does that mean we are in denial about our own existance?