New Experiences at Home by Nick Gugliotta

Nick Gugliotta is a 27 year old working student from Marlton, NJ. He is employed as an auto detail shop manager, while pursuing a bacholors degree in history from Fairleigh Dickinson University. In his free time, Nick enjoys cooking meals for himself and his beautiful girlfriend Natalie. An avid "foodie" Nick loves to travel out into the world experiencing as many new flavors as possible.

Food is something that we discuss in terms of how it pertains to our five senses.  Sometimes we forget the other attributes that food can contribute to our daily lives.  Food is a medium that changes people.  Food changed a negative time in my life into a positive one with one simple meal. A Hawaiian dish called poke taught me to let go of petty jealousies and start looking at the positive situation in my life. 

One of the only negatives about graduating high school was watching my friends go off to big-time college universities, while I stayed home and went to community college.  It didn’t feel fair to me at the time that I had to miss out on the stereotypical “college experience”. My grades were not horrible.  My father couldn’t afford to send my off to a big university, so we opted for the much more affordable Burlington County College.  I had to watch my best friend leave for the University of Hawaii, while I was stuck living in my parents’ house.  No doubt I was extremely jealous.

As our first college semester was underway I quickly fell into the same old routine.  I would vegetate in front of the television for hours.  Life was boring.  Jon came home from Hawaii over winter break for the first time since he’d left.  I was excited to see him, but also reluctant because I knew that I would be jealous listening to all the fun he was having in Hawaii.  I decided to hold in my bitterness and go see him.  We exchanged common pleasantries and both shared a willingness to get all of our friends together for a dinner while everyone was home.  I’m extremely flexible when it comes down to “what’s for dinner”, so I let Jon choose the menu. 

Jon wanted to make a meal native to Hawaii called poke.  My jealousy crept up for a quick second when in my head I thought “here he goes rubbing Hawaii into my face”.  I held the thought down and asked him what poke was.  One of Hawaii’s most famous chefs Sam Choy calls poke “Hawaii’s soul food”. (Poke 1)  The dish consists of several ingredients including raw Ahi tuna, green onion, seaweed, soy sauce, and sesame oil.  I thought he was joking when he said it.  “I don’t eat sushi or seaweed, Jon, I’m Italian,” I said.  “Just try it bro,” he replied, “you’ll love it”.  Now I didn’t want him to think that I wouldn’t do something that he would, so I gave in.

We got back to Jon’s house right before everyone arrived.  We did so much preparatory work in getting the ingredients that the day ran out of time for us.  The great part about poke, I quickly found out, was that it required little cooking time because we didn’t have to cook anything.  Other than washing and cutting the tuna into cubes, the only work that needs to be done is combining all the ingredients in a large bowl and then serving it cold.

Our friends arrived while the poke was sitting in the fridge getting chilled.  We stood around reminiscing for a minute than gathered around the dinner table.  Jon grabbed the large bowl of poke and passed it around.  When it arrived to me I was hesitant.  I gave the bowl the smell test first.  Not bad, mostly the soy sauce comes through.  I scooped some onto my personal plate.  I figured if I was going to try it than eat fast.  My first bite was surprising.  The poke did not taste anything like what I expected.  It was great.  The raw tuna was fleshy and tender.  The taste was not a pure sea-like taste, but rather a sweet treat.  The seaweed was also quite tasty.  It reminded me of a normal green vegetable I am used to.  The mix of soy sauce, sesame oil, and chili flakes added a nice savory flavor with a little spice.  The sauce complemented the sweet tuna and earthy seaweed flavors well.  We ate the meal primarily with our hands eating the dish cube by cube.  It was so sweet a taste it reminded me of candy. 

At the moment I became proud of my friend Jon.  He showed me through the poke that there are positive things happening all around me and all I had to do was go out and find them.  Poke at first sounded like an exotic dish from a beautiful island paradise that would never be attained in a suburb of Philadelphia.  In actuality it’s only a few ingredients bought at markets within reasonable driving distance.  I realized that day that I lived in a great place, and the only thing holding me back was me.  Poke to this day is a reminder that great things can always be found close to home.