Love languages

I know Gary Chapman says the love languages are quality time, acts of service, physical touch, giving gifts, and... ummm...
...words of encouragement! That's it! (Came up with those out of my head; very pleased I didn't have to look them up.)

But I submit to you there are at least two more love languages. For example, Big Frog's mom's primary love language is quantity time -- not necessarily doing something or having an experience or going somewhere, just being physically together. Words are not even necessary; being in the same room and each, separately, reading a book is just fine. That's quantity time.

I recently discovered in myself just how strong my Chinese grandma love language is. This arguably could be any culture in the world: Yiddish, for example, or German, or Polish, or Italian. I have had grandmas of many different heritages¹ and all of them speak the all-important love language of food.

1 We lived geographically far from our biological grandparents, so we adopted local grands -- people we knew from my parents' work, from the neighborhood, etc. We had literally dozens of grands.

I also grew up in a food culture of the family table, everyone tries some of everything off everybody's plate. It's by request and exchange, we're not reaching forks across the table to spear our favorites or anything, but Big Frog did not have that experience growing up. So when we eat out, I usually want a bite of his whatever, which he gladly² gives, but he usually resists trying mine.

2 Or at least graciously.

Just yesterday, at Purple Fiddle, he didn't want to try my apple-turkey-pesto-hummus sandwich and I was forced to remind him, "Ily food!"

And then today at Tip Top Cafe, he gently declined to taste yet again. I had a brioche bun with, among other things, local proscuitto, provolone, leeks, and morels. And Big Frog said, "No thanks," yet again. He is polite, I'll give you that.

But this sandwich was amazing. Yesterday's sandwich was amazing. How can you turn this down? This IS the good stuff!

So I had a little outburst:

Why are you fighting me on this? It's like God's hot pocket!

He tried the sandwich.