Cilantro Wrapped in Soft Peanut Candy: Unexpected Delight!
You come for one thing and leave with another. I’m sure that we’ve all experienced this before…maybe in a thrift store? Flea market? Those teacups are just too cute to pass up (yes, they were next to the other kitchen wares, which are already my Achilles’ heel, but they caught my eye, and I had to have them). Maybe it’s peanut candy in Tainan (台南) when you initially were craving something salty, or a nice rain jacket when you were browsing used clothes for nothing in particular (heavens, it came in handy, let me tell ya because Taiwan was wet this winter!). But at some point or another, I feel like we all have entered some place, or some situation, with one set (or no sets!) of expectations and left that same place-situation with a different-than-expected outcome. This miniature surprise (or maybe it’s hardly miniature, but colossal, (and maybe it’s not a surprise, but anticipated)), or turning on our heads of what we thought we could expect, changes us in some way. Maybe it catches us off guard when we discover an interest in buying many more little charms than we could ever think we needed: teacups, house plants, peanut
