7. Reading: Comfort food

  

 

Katie: So what are three foods that you absolutely have to have that you can't live without?

 

Gilda: I would say that I could not live without arepa. It's like my daily breakfast in Venezuela.

 

Katie: What's that?

 

Gilda: Arepa is made of corn flour, and it looks like a hamburger. So you put anything you want inside and it's very tasty. And I would say like 95 percent of Venezuelans eat arepas every day. Well, it's kind of like a high-carb diet in my country. So I need rice also for lunch, and bread. Bread is another thing. In the afternoon, a piece of bread, sweet bread with coffee is kind of like mandatory.

 

Katie: So lots and lots of carbs in your diet.

 

Gilda: Yes. What about you? What about in England?

 

Katie: Well, English breakfast is not the healthiest of breakfast. It's like a big plate with fried eggs, fried sausages, hash browns, like hash potatoes, beans, just everything fried and everything delicious. And I would say that I can't live without that, but if I ate it every day, then I would probably not be able to leave my house because I would be so, so fat. But it's definitely a food that is in my top foods of all time. That's probably my favorite. But recently, I've been eating lots of tofu. It's breakfast.

 

Gilda: Oh, okay.

 

Katie: Yeah. So a little bit of tofu, a little bit of soy sauce just for breakfast, which is just – it's a bit of a boring breakfast. But it's really healthy, I guess. So I've been eating that a lot every day. So I probably can't live without that recently. And also, pizza. Pizza.

 

Gilda: Oh, pizza. Yes, very good.

 

Katie: Pizza. I think everyone can't live without pizza.

 

Gilda: Yes.

 

Katie: Pizza is the best. Pizza is definitely a food that I can't live without.

 

Gilda: Yeah, I try to have pizza probably once a week, I would say. Yeah.

 

Katie: What's your favorite topping?

 

Gilda: That would be cheese.

 

Katie: Cheese. Classic.

 

Gilda: Definitely. Bacon.

 

Katie: Cheese and bacon. Oh it sounds good.

 

Gilda: Yes. Very, very tasty.

 

Katie: Just cheese and bacon or anything else?

 

Gilda: No, no. I'm going for anything actually but I will always need to have cheese and bacon on my pizza.

 

Katie: Pizza is not pizza without cheese.

 

Gilda: Yes. Yes.

 

Katie: It has to have cheese.

 

Gilda: So what else do you have? So you said tofu, pizza, what other food can you live without?

 

Katie: Well, my grandma is part Italian. So we have lots of like pasta and lasagna in our family. So I try and eat – well, I try not to eat a lot of pasta because I'll get really fat. But pasta is definitely something that I can't live without. So good.

 

Gilda: Yeah. Italian food is so good.

 

Katie: Yeah. And again, lots of cheese.

 

Gilda: Yeah. We also do a lot of lasagna but, well, we call it pasticho.

 

Katie: Pasticho.

 

Gilda: It's a different name but it's the same lasagna. And it's also very tasty.

 

Katie: So good.

 

Gilda: Yeah. But high fat food.

 

Katie: So like a real like comfort food, isn't it? Lasagna.

 

Gilda: Yeah. Yeah.

 

Katie: So good. So what would you say is your comfort food?

 

Gilda: My comfort food – that would be arepa, again. Yeah, definitely.

 

Katie: You said you're going to have lots of like fillings in that.

 

Gilda: Yes. So my favorite would be black beans with cheese inside. It sounds a little bit like a mix up of things but it's really, really tasty. We do eat a lot of black beans every day in Venezuela. It's very common. What about you?

 

Katie: My comfort food, I can't eat it as much as I would like to these days but it's probably my mom's spaghetti Bolognese. So good. It's so good, like lots of pasta, lots of tomato, lots of herbs, lots of cheese.

 

Gilda: Sounds good.

 

Katie: It's amazing. I would like live with my parents if it meant I could have spaghetti Bolognese every day. So good. So tasty. I think it's the best.

 

 

1. Gilda: Arepa is made of   , and it looks like a hamburger.

 

2. We do eat a lot of black   in Venezuela. It's very common. What about you?

 

3. So good. It's so good, like lots of pasta,   , lots of herbs, lots of cheese.