Tag Archives: food

Sep 12 2012
9 Comments
Food, Humorous, One minute read

How to Defeat Salad Anxiety

There’s nothing more terrifying.

Lately I’ve been eating salads. Don’t ask me why or how that’s happened, just accept the fact that it has, that sometimes the salads are salty, and that I eat them along with a slice of buttered bread. I think the roughage has cleared out the macaroni and cheese residue in my brain, which is why this blog post is hilarious.

Salads as a food item have always stressed me out. Something about a plate full of leafy greens puts me on edge and all of the sudden I feel like there’s no way in spades that I’ll be able to eat all of it, because it takes so freaking long. The leaves are so big, and the dressing is spread unevenly and the toppings are always the tastiest but they’re hidden in a forest of vitamin K and if I want to chop up the salad in order to make it physically edible that’s going to take at least 2 minutes but the problem is I’m hungry NOW. Anxiety and resentment result. Lunch takes a vicious left turn for the worst.

That’s why recently I developed a new way of viewing salad-eating. No longer do I think about chopping it up or eating it with anything close to the pace of a normal meal, because salads are not a normal meal. They are a challenge. Even though I’ve never quit eating a salad because it took too long, I always feel like that’s a possisibility and I, alone in the world, hate losing.

I’m going to beat you, you dumb leafy monster.

So now, when I see those hand-like organic gems piled high on my plate, instead of even pretending to behave like a normal human being, I take my fork and pound that mother narker down, literally shoving the leaves into my mouth in order to forgo the waste of time it would be to cut them, chomping them like my bovine cousins (cows, not my actual cousins).

As a result, I’ve beaten every salad recently in ever shorter amounts of time, but I’m now also afraid to eat salads around other people, for fear they will judge me for my salad-pounding prowess. But that’s another struggle for another blog post.

Today I defeat the salad. Tomorrow the world. And on Friday, I take a break and go to the park. It’s me time.

Tagged , , , , , ,
Sep 06 2012
16 Comments
Food, Humorous, Writing

The Horrifying True Story of How My Sister Ate My Fingernail

I already threw these away. I promise.

Dearly beloved, I have gathered you here to tell the terrifyingly, heart-wrenchingly, skin-crawlingly true story of the day my sweet, sweet sister ate a fingernail, my fingernail. Come with me, if you will, all the way back to that that fateful, surprise-filled day in July.

It is Monday and I am in San Francisco. I flew on the big steel bird all the way to fogtown, a place I still unknowingly call Sunny San Francisco. It is not sunny here, but oh it is to be even more cloudy and dreary in Suburb, Oklahoma.

Backstory: For years I’ve had the charming habit of forgetting to throw my fingernails away immediately after clipping them. This simple action tends to slip my mind, along with the middle names of significant others. The pile of clippings sits quietly on the coffee table, or desk corner, or languishes in the crease of a newspaper until I spot it a couple of days/weeks later and think to myself, “the socially appropriate thing to do here is to throw it away” and then throw it away. There are rumors that friends invited to social functions at my home have been forced to stare at piles of fingernail and/or toe trimmings, piles that are within broad view of God, myself, and the guests, while they interact with me. I deny these rumors.

But woe to my dear sister, my poor, sweet, innocent sister as she eats a sandwich on that Monday. She is famished and eats with gusto. Growing up in a family with four sturdy children, we learned to not let food linger on our plates lest it be snatched by another sibling. Wasted food is unheard of. As she wreaks the final justice on her sandwich, the moment of despair approaches silently, for a fingernail clipping lies on the very table where she eats, a keratin sliver I had charmingly and endearingly forgotten to remove before my departure to the West Coast.

The sandwich gone, my sister’s hunger not quite sated, she pokes about for remnants of her quickly-eaten lunch, checking for substantially sized crumbs and perhaps a scrap of ham that has fallen to the wayside.

But beware dear sister! Not everything is as it seems upon this lunch table! Danger prowls outside your door!

Alas, my warning goes unheard, typed months later in a blog post on the internet.

She picks up a crumb of notable size and unusual shape and eats it.

This, dear friends, is my fingernail.

Less than a second passes before she realizes her critical error, her tongue discerning the grossness and general inedibility of the fingernail, which used to be part of my very being. She spits it out, stunned, the now moist fingernail lying on the table as innocuous as a polka-dot.

How had it come to this? Who is to blame here? The absent-minded but generally lovable sister for leaving fingernail clippings out past their due? Or the blind hunger and gastro-greed that led her to clean the table of crumbs?

She asserts it is the former. I also assert it is the former, but I believe we have all learned a lesson here.

Be more careful of the crumbs you eat. You know not which body parts you might be ingesting.

Tagged , , , , , , ,
Aug 22 2012
16 Comments
Food, Humorous, San Francisco

High-End Restaurant Concepts from Children

Lunchable themed restaurant?

San Francisco is a bizarre place. Everyone complains about not having enough money while eating out four times a week and spending $100 each weekend on drugs and alcohol alone. Based on my armchair research, this phenomenon is the result of a large population of parentally wealthy young people, people who are used to a high standard of living but don’t make enough money to support it. For that reason, they save nothing, spend 50% of their income on housing and the other 50% on going out.

These yuppsters demand tasty, childhood-nostalgic food, leading to eateries such as a restaurant that only sells macaroni and cheese, one that specializes in carnival-inspired food, and a pirate-themed bar, concepts that children ages 5-12 would also enjoy. As a money-making scheme, I briefly considered getting kid’s opinions on restaurant concepts and then stealing them, but instead I opted to imagine what a 9-year-old would think and forgo frequenting playgrounds where I would undoubtedly raise parental suspicions while conducting interviews.

Note: If there is anyone out there who is inspired by these ideas and wants to take them on, please shove it because they are mine.

1. Slime: At this restaurant, not only are there a variety of slime-inspired food items like Slimey Cornish Game Hen and Slime Shroom Soup, but every patron enters the restaurant knowing that he or she has the chance of being slimed for no extra charge. Showers provided at the YMCA down the street for a nickle.

2. It’s your birthday!: The hostess chooses one birthday boy or girl out of each party. The birthday person wears a funny hat, commands the conversation with pre-chosen discussion topics, orders his or her favorite foods for everyone in the group, and gets to blow out as many candles as he or she wants on the cake. Due to San Francisco law, no singing is allowed.

3. Candyland: All food items are made solely from candy, with dishes such as Flambeed Heart of Reese’s on a Bed of Twizzlers Scented with Hershey’s Syrup, or Braised Lindt Truffles Smothered in Peanut Butter and Topped with M&Ms. For beverages, only milk, hot chocolate, Bailey’s and their combinations are offered. Insulin provided upon request.

4. Outerspace: Featuring space ice cream and all the weird, dehydrated, astronuat food that has been turned delicious using the magic of science. For an extra fee, groups can reserve an actual space shuttle and go to Oakland!

5. Camp Swampy: Everyone’s camp favorites such as fish sticks, mashed potatoes, biscuits and gravy, meatloaf, and French fries done up all fancy like and served to you by a staff that still doesn’t care. Truffle oil on everything! Sole sticks! Gravy with hand-made sage sausage from a pig named Phillip! Coolaid made with top shelf rum!

6. Eve: Formed around the holiday of Christmas Eve, this restaurant is open to people of all spiritual backgrounds, because presents are more important than religion. Not only does the restaurant serve up some of the most indulgent holiday treats, but for a fee, everyone has the chance to open one present! Enjoy the holiday atmosphere but watch out for Santa—he might slime you or take your wallet!

Anyone have any other ideas for high-end restaurant concepts inspired by children? What do real children think?

Tagged , , , , , , ,
Aug 06 2012
21 Comments
Food, Humorous, Writing

Please Let Me Watch You Eat

A million donuts? Two? When would they be satisfied?

The Olympics is a nationalistic meathead’s dream. Every four years, thousands of top athletes from all over the globe gather and bodily compete with one another, determining the greatest countries through sheer sweat and muscle, swimming, rowing, clawing, and back-flipping to the top of the doggy pile and victory dancing on the bodies of lesser countries. Thousands of pounds (kilos) of muscle writhing with one another in a city famous for tea and stony-faced soldiers: what fun!

Regardless of which Olympic event I’m watching, my reaction is always the same.  “Whoaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh……………they’re so fast.” If I were an Olympic broadcaster, my narrative would go something like, “This woman is very fast, Bill, very fast. Did you see how fast she’s going? You know what, they’re all really fast. They should all get medals. Bill, the last time I ran, my knee started hurting after about five minutes so I stopped and went home. I’m 23, Bill. That woman is 39 and she is going very fast. Let’s go get her a medal.”

After going gaga over the sheer speed and athleticism, the fact most of these people could outrun various wild beasts and then spear them and carry their carcasses to the nearest hibachi grill at full sprint, I immediately move to the next logical topic of rumination: how much they eat. Seriously, how much food could a team of male gymnasts consume? Or female swimmers? What about the long-distance runners when they’re gearing up for a race? These “humans” are made entirely of muscle and work out for 90% of the time. Their caloric intake must be huuuuuge.

My Olympic dream is something quite simple: I want to go to an Italian restaurant with a group of Olympians, male and female, from all different sports. I want to point to the menu, say “We’ll have everything.” Minutes later, the entire staff of the restaurant emerges carrying silver platters loaded with mountains of pasta. And then I would watch, in awe, as the hungriest people in the world ate.

What would it be like? Would people lose limbs and wear protective goggles to prevent eye injury? Would they be civil but determined? How fast would it take to demolish the food on the table? When would they be hungry again? I have so many questions burning inside of me. Each time I turn on the television, they strike me again with the force of a discus. I see a man running, I wonder what he ate that day. I see a woman playing water polo, I imagine her going to town on eight big macs for breakfast. I MUST KNOW THE TRUTH.

We all know that the only true benefit of exercising is being able to eat more without gaining weight. Is the whole “Olympic” thing just a way to mask these people’s food addictions? And is there enough food in London for them to feed hordes of hungry Olympians? How much pasta would it take to satiate their appetites?

I exhaust myself with questioning. Perhaps I will never know. I turn to my oatmeal, and eat quietly.

Tagged , , , , , , ,
Jun 20 2012
19 Comments
Best blog posts, Food, Humorous, One minute read

God in the Kitchen, Making Casserole

This is from The Far Side. Please don’t sue me.

This is the concluding post of the Miracles of Midwestern Cooking series.

Sometimes I think of the whole world as one big casserole, assembled in a glass dish God purchased at Wal-Mart and set to cook at 350 million degrees Fahrenheit, with all of the  creatures, both plant and animal, bubbling together for millions of years.

North America is the cream of chicken soup. England is cream of mushroom. France supplies the butter and cream, while Italy comes up with some carbs and Germany throws in its brats.

India and China add spice and Japan classes it up. North Africa brings the sweet with the salty, West Africa tosses in some peanuts, South America beefs it up and adds the lime juice and beans.

Other regions mix in their own special beats, the carbs and proteins they love best and all of the roasting and toasting and broasting they do to get them just right.

We’re topped with a combination of cheddar cheese ozone and fried onions that sizzle and melt under our very own star.

As the goop swims around we learn stuff, finding that some things are delicious on their own, but most often they taste better together. That’s why there should be world peace, because cream of mushroom soup is a physical abomination by itself and spices need something to go on.

I’m not advocating an Indian-spiced cream of mushroom soup, but you get my point.

And in the end maybe a casserole isn’t the best metaphor for earth, because casseroles can be kind of gross and uncivilized. Then again, so can humans.

Probably the best reason the casserole metaphor falls apart is because each of these regions developed at the same time over many years from the same primordial cream of human soup instead of being added separately. None of us could be where we are without the other.

But I still like the image of God in the kitchen, mixing together the most epic casserole of the day. I hope it tastes good.

Tagged , , , , , , , ,
← Older posts
Newer posts →
Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started