If I am what I eat, thank god my tastes matured

David Halberstam, the famous Vietnam War correspondent, came of age as a food person Saigon.

"The pressure of the job was so great, the friendships among colleagues so important, and the food so astonishing that my life changed," he wrote in "The Boys of Saigon," "and I began to appreciate the things that I scarcely could have imagined when I first got there."

I'm not deluding myself to think my job and life in Tianjin compare to the culture of war Halberstam lived and chronicled, but I can compare to the experience of dining and how it mirrors a traveler's evolving lifestyle. Like Halberstam, food is my barometer of personal growth.

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