Kasha as a metaphor for something

There is an informal personality test, of sorts, with three questions: Your favourite pet, favourite wild animal, and favourite food.  Asked these questions one day in university I responded to the last quite honestly with kasha (toasted buckwheat groats).  The young woman administering the test expressed a preference for a kind of spicy soup.  If you're familiar with the test in question, you understand why I might regret my answer.

I stand by it, though, because buckwheat is awesome.  I grew up eating it in my mother's kasha varnishkes which I to this day reproduce as best I can; I'm told kasha's an acquired taste, and I guess I acquired it.  Like the movie Torque, no one I've introduced to it has taken to it quite the way I do, but I continue to evangelize.  There's going to be quite a bit of kasha, as well as soba (100% buckwheat soba is amazing, though costly) to be found in my coming posts here.  It's easy to make, filling, flexible, and as a dry good it appeals to my desire not to go grocery shopping too often.  Most of all, though, I just enjoy the distinctive nutty flavour and like garlic I think it goes with just about everything.

There will also be a lot of spicy soups, though; in fact, expect to read about the two in combination once in a while.  Let it not be said that I didn't learn anything in university.