Tag Archives: health

Mar 29 2012
25 Comments
Fiction, Miracles of British Cookery, Two minute read

How to Make a Scotch Egg

A quest for the best.

You cannot mine for truth in a quarry of lies. Likewise, you cannot search for an authentic Scotch egg recipe on Google. Even articles from reputable sources like the BBC and Allrecipes.com are wormy with deceit, indicating that mere boiling, wrapping, and frying exercises are all you need to make a Scotch egg. Do not be fooled.

A real Scotch egg can only be found through questing, and the journey is not for the faint of heart.  A long time ago, on a night like this, my babysitter told me how to seek the egg.

Should you think yourself brave, you must set out for the darkest part of the forest with nothing but a case of cheap beer, the collector’s set of American Pie movies, and a small pouch full of Sacajawea dollars, the most unpopular coin in America’s history.

In the forest, you will find a bare breasted bro* living in a tree trunk. Midway through his M.B.A. program, this bro partied a little too hard one Thursday night and lost a series of bets that led to his eternal banishment. He owns one baseball cap and lost his t-shirt months ago after trying to wash it in the creek. All he can do for entertainment is bulk up and watch sports on his iPhone. Be kind to him.

The journeyer must present the American Pie movies and beer as an offering. After accepting the gift, the bro will immediately want to have a drinking contest, but you must resist no matter how goofy he is or how much fun he promises getting hammered in the forest will be. One must retain all their wits for the next part of the journey. Politely refuse, promising him you can do it another night. Should you prove successful in your offering and bro-conversation, you will be granted the location of the magical farm. Don’t let him follow you.

Night falls as you approach the farmhouse, which appears to be abandoned.  You knock on the door and hear no answer….you try the handle….it’s unlocked. With silence in the pit of your stomach, you enter the house and find, illuminated by soft yellow light, a gleaming basket of Scotch eggs on the counter. Be careful. Do not act foolishly in your egg lust.

Look behind you!

It’s the Scotch Egg Monster protecting its litter! Throw a handful of Sacajawea dollars at the beast, grab the basket of eggs and RUN. Do not stop. Run past the bro in the tree and throw an egg at him. He needs the protein. Keep running until you are home in bed.

Catch your breath.

Devour the litter.

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Mar 21 2012
30 Comments
Anecdotes, Egypt, Three minute read

Jam Quest

All the sweetness of sugar, with a hint of fruit

What started as a quest for 70% fruit jam ended with me hopelessly lost and asking a gas station attendant for directions to the Nile.

When I first came to Egypt, I had a peasant’s understanding of the world and was content eating jam that was merely tasty and cheap. To me, jam was just a colder and more gelatinous form of candy that happened to contain the occasional hunk of fruit. However, here in Cairo I encountered people who subscribed to a different jam-philosophy. Oddly, they believed that jam should taste like fruit, not sugar. I heard the term “fruit percentage” for the first time as they sneered at jams that consisted mostly of artificial coloring and sugar.

Because of them, I was forced to try a jam that contained 60% fruit. It was a strange experience. My taste buds, accustomed to being blasted and then numbed by the sweetness, instead found themselves underwhelmed.

I enjoyed it on an intellectual level, but my ignorance had not yet been beaten out of me and I  wanted my sugar jelly back. However, something strange had happened to me. I had been afflicted with the sugar-guilt. Now when I went to the supermarket, I secretly craved the cheap, facemeltingly sweet jams, but the sugar guilt haunted me and I purchased the sixty percent instead. I thought maybe the reason I didn’t love it as much as my friends was that there wasn’t enough fruit. Perhaps if I tried a jam with more fruit, I would see the wisdom of jam snobbery.

I had heard rumors of Mom’s jam: a 70% wonder found only at a place called Dina Farms. Months ago I had seen this store, and after spending too much time inside one day I decided to go on a jam hunt, relying only on my memory and my innate directional instinct. I set out confidently and within ten minutes found myself completely lost on the edge of what seemed to be a forest in the middle of Cairo. “Where did this come from?” I wondered.

Then I thought to myself, “The Nile. I must make towards the Nile. I will use its mother banks to as a great trail of breadcrumbs.”  I happened upon a gas station attendant and asked him where the Nile was. Confused at my apparent confusion, he asked me where I was trying to go and I said resolutely:  “I want to go towards the Nile” He pointed me in the right direction and soon I saw the glimmering waters in front of me. I was happy to be on my way home, albeit jamless.

Later on, I considered how ridiculous it was that I had just used a 4130 mile long river as a landmark to find my 2 person apartment. I imagined my reaction if a bedraggled tourist in downtown Oklahoma City asked me where the Rocky Mountains are and decided sometime’s it’s better just to leave such matters be.

P.S. Vote for Belle at Educlaytion’s March Movie Madness. She’s up against Atticus Finch, and let’s be honest here…she deserves to beat that sucker.

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Mar 20 2012
53 Comments
Fiction, Humorous, Stories

Prophecies in the Bathroom

Speak and we listen, oh wise oracle

My roommate’s loofah is an oracle.

As it sits unassumingly on the bathtub’s rim in all its rough, spongy banality, it communicates with the gods and is our mediator, though I do not presume to call it our friend.

Its strange shape– the mysterious internal chambers, the bizarre woven texture, the evenly regulated rippling of its exterior—is designed to absorb the gods’ will and disperse it throughout the bathroom as if in a fine prophetical mist. How many times have I been in the bathroom when I am visited by intense revelations: insights into my future after I return from Egypt, novel birthday gift ideas, meals I should eat later on in the day, the appropriate length to which I should cut my bangs?

Before I knew the truth, I thought these moments of brilliance were the result of my own cognitions. Now I know they came from the sponge.

The oracle is ancient. Before this apartment building, before the city of Cairo had even been conceived of in thought or deed, the oracle quietly existed. In the time of the ancient Greeks, sandaled men and women would journey on foot for days with baskets and pots on their heads just to seek the oracle’s presence, and if they were lucky, its prophecies. It was revered by all, though they feared to worship it because of the gods’ anger.

The oracle itself did not want their worship; it wanted quiet. It longed to cease answering the absurd petitions of man and meld its consciousness completely with that of the gods. Daily and nightly it was pulled out of its reverie to a brash existence, greedy humans grubbing after what was not theirs to know. Who could ever truly understand the will of the gods?

The Greeks came and went, as did countless other civilizations, the piles of rubble growing and shrinking with the ages, until Cairo came, and the sponge was once again lifted up, into our bathroom, onto the bathtub’s rim where it now sits enigmatically, an endless stream of communication flowing between it and heaven.

I now realize I misspoke. The loofah could not belong to my roommate any more than the Rocky Mountains could belong to the United States. These kinds of things are not simply owned. Indeed, because the loofah oracle did not belong to me, I assumed it was my roommate’s and she likely assumes the same.

This is the wisdom of the oracle. It quietly leads us down paths of assumption, all the while safeguarding its own peace. It does not even pay the price of having to scrub elbows and backs and instead gently perfumes the air with knowledge, leading us to greater insights.

And today is the last day it gets a free ride. As far as I’m concerned, things are about to get exfoliated up in here. Just wait until the weather gets warm enough for everyday sandal wearing—I don’t care much for prophecies but I do need something to sand down the horns that grow on my feet. Thanks oracle!

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Mar 14 2012
39 Comments
Fiction, Humorous, One minute read

Is Peanut Butter Good For You?

This is enough peanut butter for roughly three days.

Yes. It’s what we in the medical community call a “healthy food,” and it should form a significant portion, if not the majority, of your diet. Most white, male doctors recommend eating 4-8 tablespoons of peanut butter a day (32- 64g) in order to maximize its health benefits. These include decreased excess energy, facial sprouting, peanut mouth, and a heightened sense of disclarity.

If you’re trying to lose weight, female doctors say you should replace two meals a day with half a cup (64g) of peanut butter and wash it down with one cup (128g) whole milk. In order to see the best results while using peanut butter, you should also avoid eating vegetables or other bulky foods like whole wheat and oatmeal, since they will only hinder your body from taking in more peanut butter.

In addition to being a nutritious oral food product, peanut butter is also scientifically proven to have effects as a hair treatment, carpet cleaner, and virus removal software for your personal computer.

Just as peanut butter performs the sacred cohesive act in a sandwich made with crustless white bread, it is also a driving force of social cohesion. Countries whose populations consume a high amount of peanut butter, like the United States of America and Mali, are generally referred to as “paradises on earth,” which is sociologist speak for “a great place to live.”  Countries with low rates of gross peanut butter consumption, like Belgium and Egypt, are more prone to social unrest and mayonnaise based diets. Even though mayonnaise is a nutrient the body needs, basing an entire nutrition system on it will undoubtedly hinder the television production capacities of said countries.

If you have any more questions about whether peanut butter is good for you or not, please re-read the paragraphs above and don’t call me at home.

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Mar 06 2012
18 Comments
Egypt, Humorous

I Am a Meat Flavored Chip

Hello there. I am a meat flavored chip, a food even most animals avoid. I see you’ve come to the shop for a snack, and luckily for you, we have many delicious offerings: tea biscuits, sawdusty wafer crackers, baked goods that smell slightly of garbage, refrigerated Snickers bars, and most importantly, all varieties of MSG laced chips: the Chipsys and Doritos and what have you. Sure we have the ketchup, chili lime, cheese, shrimp, and salt and vinegar flavors, but have you considered trying something slightly more repulsive? What you’re really looking for is me: a meat flavored chip.

Don’t think about it too much, about how this piece of fried vegetable matter has the distinctly smoky taste of leftover oil from a kebab grill or about how the almost fulfilling meaty taste and irresistible crunch leaves you deeply dissatisfied and spiritually drained, or about how you know your tongue will start to feel raw as your taste buds inevitably dull from the cocktail of chemicals that imbue me with my meaty flavor against the will of God.

You know that I’m an abomination, that this kind of taste should not exist on a chip. You know that your entire body should shrink away from me in disgust and recognize me for what I am, something wholly unnatural, a deviation from all that is wholesome. Furthermore, you know how you’ll feel about the whole affair in just 5 minutes, after your wave of hunger has subsided and you’re left tasting the chemical after notes of the artificial kebab flavoring as it bubbles up over the next hour.

But you’re hungry and your mind is not functioning quite right. The part of your brain that would recognize the horror of what you’re about to do is busy watching the food channel and drooling. Nothing can stop you and I’m so close. I’m right here, behind these bags of chips covered in far less carcinogens, the black color of my bag hinting at the evil that lies within, the evil that will soon be within you, creating in your stomach a veritable cesspool of laboratory substances.

Forget everything. Forget how you felt the last time. Forget that I am a meat flavored chip, nature’s scandal, and think of me only as the snack that you need right now. And the next time you want to spend a few hours in a bathroom, you can try out my buddy, the Doritos T-Bone Steak and Curry Collision. Treat yourself. Because you deserve something reprehensible.

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