In Which Raw Fish Is Safer Than Spinach

I've been missing Greece for a number of reasons lately, as one might expect. However, there is also one way in which I have been missing Greece that one might not expect; I'm pretty sure the spinach in Greece is not contaminated.
You've probably read about the whole spinach E.coli scare which has taken hold of the U.S. lately. (I certainly hope you have if you are currently in the U.S.) It seems that all fresh spinach carries the risk of contamination, and nobody dares eat the stuff until it gets sorted out. This has been going on for about a week now, and I have to say, I'm very upset about it.
I am a dedicated spinach eater. Baby spinach salad, Saag Paneer, Spanakopita, spinach couscous; all are important parts of my diet. In fact, my sister has been known to complain that everything I cook is a variation on spinach and feta cheese (this was before I went to Greece, so you can imagine what I'm like now).
Now, way back when mad cow disease was causing Americans to panic, I decided that anyone dumb enough to eat beef was courting disaster, and I shook my head at people too weak-willed to resist a hamburger. This was very easy for me, as I do not eat beef. When bird flu showed up in northern Greece, I eliminated poultry from my diet for a good few weeks before giving into the temptation of a chicken gyro. That seemed reasonable, as cooked meat wasn't supposed to carry the disease anyway. But now I am faced with a much more serious situation; spinach definitely carries a risk, and it's not easy for me to avoid the stuff.
My boyfriend did survive the consumption of a spinach and mushroom pizza the other day, a fact which gives me great hope. Two or three days later, when he still did not appear to have any signs of fatal illness, I decided that if he could do it, I could too. This is the sort of logic that they warn you against when you learn about drug use in middle school.
I ordered eggs florentine for breakfast soon thereafter, and was turned down by the waiter, who explained that they were no longer serving spinach due to the risk. I became indignant; who were these restaurant owners, to deny me my contaminated vegetable matter? The nerve of some people!
It was last Friday night, after five spinachless days, when I reached the point of true desperation. My boyfriend and I were looking for a place to eat dinner before going to a birthday party, and we were wandering aimlessly through the East Village, reading menus.* Finally, we settled on a Japanese restaurant. The only problem, was, I didn't know what to order.
I am not a picky eater, and I rarely find myself at a loss while looking at menus, even in unusual restauarants. In fact, I am particularly good at finding foods to eat in unusual restaurants. I know what Indian foods I like, what Ethiopian dishes are good, where to get good Caribbean food, and so forth. If a week goes by and I have not eaten food from at least three continents, I start to get bored. However, I somehow never became very well acquainted with Japanese food, and looking at all those sushi dishes was all Greek to me, by which I mean I could get a general sense of what the menu was getting at, but I couldn't be entirely sure that a highly unconventional bit of fish anatomy wasn't going to show up on my plate anyway.
"What should I order?" I asked Joe. Being employed by a Japanese company, he regularly eats Japanese food of all varieties. He suggested the bento box, a sampling of all different foods, several of which I had never heard of. However, as he had suggested it, and he is generally more particular than I am, I decided to try it.
The bento box arrived several minutes later, filled with dumplings, tempura, teriyaki, seaweed, rice, and some suspiciously rare-looking pieces of fish. Joe explained that it was sashimi, raw pieces of fish that you are supposed to eat with wasabi and soy sauce. He failed to explain why he is able to calmly discuss the consumption of seafood that is practically still wriggling when the idea of perfectly grilled octopus sends him into a panic. But that's another matter.
The point is, I ate raw fish. I picked it up with my chopsticks, dabbed it with wasabi, dipped it in soy sauce, and ate it. It tasted, well, it tasted like fish, but it tasted raw. Honestly, since I've tried tuna that's really really rare in the first place, it wasn't such a shock. I don't think there's anything about the color or consistency of raw fish that particularly freaks me out, it's just the knowledge that food poisoning could occur. However, when spinach suddenly carries a serious risk, I think my sense of what is or is not good for one just goes out the window.

*I had suggested falafel and schwarma, but that just led to a long and heated discussion about the difference between the difference between schawarma and gyros, and why the gyros at the steet fairs on broadway are not the same as the gyros in Greece, even if they do have posters with pictures of the Parthenon on them.

In Which My Subconscious Surprises Me

Three days ago, I returned from a trip to Grinnell, where Brad and I gave a presentation about our year in Greece. It was great to be back in Grinnell, and also a little bit odd. I felt a little bit like a student, a little bit like a guest, and a little bit like a ghost. I loved talking about Greece and hearing from classmates who traveled through Africa and Asia in the past year. It enjoyed talking with professors and a Greek Grinnellian or two. However, I did find it a bit weird to walk through campus and not see very many people I know. Worse, I kept seeing people that I know that I know, but don't know how I know, and wondering if I should go up to them and say hello. Is it worse to say hello to someone who has no idea who you are, or to say hello to someone who does know who you are and then have to explain that you don't know who they are? I haven't come up with a solution yet.
However, all of this led to a really interesting dream last night. Here's how it went. I was back in Iowa, but nobody could see me. I was invisible, some sort of ghost of Grinnellians Past. I decided to watch a performance in the theatre department, and it turned out to be a Greek tragedy. Since I was invisible, I had no qualms about walking up to the stage and watching the performance very closely, particularly during the exciting parts. (Strangely enough, there was a lot of fighting in this particular tragedy, even though onstage fighting never actually happens in ancient Greek theatre. My subconscious must be uninformed about classical theatre.)
During a particularly heated fight sequence, one character turned to the other and announced, in perfect modern Greek "I went to the supermarket! Your supermarket!" Then he attacked the other character with a sword.
After that, I went to the dining hall, which had been converted into a Greek taverna, but they wouldn't let me leave until I opened my purse and showed them that I had my cat with me, and that she had all of her official European union cat paperwork. That's right, in the dream, I carried Calypso in my purse. What's more, when asked to find her, I actually had to look around for a little while and fish through some papers and keys and things. I even had to dig her out from under my cell phone. I woke up and she was sleeping right next to my face.
I don't know what Freud would say about this, but going to the supermarket has never made me angry enough to kill someone in a toga.