Interview

Eater: What are American daily meals like?

Hallelujah Truth: As a culture, I think that we citizens of the United States don't have similar daily meals. What a person eats depends on his/her idea of what is healthy, tasty, and convenient. My breakfast consists of cereal or eggs or fruit and yogurt. My lunch is typically leftover dinner from the night before. Dinner in our household tends to be vegetarian as we don't cook much meat in our home. We eat a lot of vegetables, beans, rice, and pasta. We try to eat a green salad at every night. Are we typical American eaters? I'm not sure.

Q: Do you have a experience to use food as a surprise?

Hallelujah: I am not a "foodie"--that is a person who enjoys the pleasure of food in multiple ways. I don't care much about how food is presented, what it tastes like, nor the expertise it takes to make it. I could eat the same food over and over again throughout the week, the month. I think you are a "foodie," so I know you will find my opinion about food unsatisfactory. Sorry. That said, it is nice to be taken out to a restaurant to a nice dinner, but I weep over the cost of paying for it. The value of good food just isn't worth it to me.
Q: What is the most special meal you have ever eat?

Hallelujah: In recent years, I have acquired a taste for Korean food. For my husband's birthday this past year, I took him out for Korean barbecue at an authentic Korean restaurant here in Atlanta. They cooked the beef and chicken at our table. The sauces and vegetables we had with this meal were sensational.

Q: What do you think about Chinese food? What is your favorite Chinese food?

Hallelujah: I love to eat Chinese food. My husband likes to cook it, so I am lucky. Probably what we eat in our home and call Chinese food, you might not! I love pot stickers. Back in the late 1980s, I had a Chinese roommate from Shanghai, and I learned a lot from her about eating Chinese meals.

Q: Does the meal always cooked by wife not husband ? How is your husband's cooking skill ?

Hallelujah: My husband enjoys cooking, and it is his pleasure to cook for me. He will read cookbooks and find new recipes. He will also do the grocery shopping. Aren't I lucky? I think I am a good cook, but I would rather spend my creativity and time on my art and not in preparing food.

Q: What do you usually eat to celebrate some good news?

Hallelujah: I'm drawing a blank on this question. We celebrate good news with a good beer or wine. In Atlanta, there are a lot of local craft beers, and they are delicious and fun to taste.

Q: What's your opinion about food is a kind of art?

Hallelujah: I totally believe food preparation and presentation fall into the realm of the arts; however, I am just plan bored by food. I know others, like you, really enjoy it and I admire that. But please don't ask me to get excited about it.

Q: Do you think different food is a sign of some special meaning? Do you have some examples?

Hallelujah: Wow, I know in your culture that you might eat long noodles at birthdays as symbols of longevity and you eat the pot stickers for good luck ( representing gold and silver coins). Here in the southeastern United States, some of us were raised eating black-eyed peas on New Year's day for good luck. If you don't eat them, you might not be as lucky as those people who do.