I Like What I Like

I'm not exactly what you'd call an adventurous eater. I grew up in a household where....well, I've told this part of the story before. Anywho, it's very hard to get me to try different things. I tend to go back to the foods that I am positive that I will enjoy. It is a near-constant source of frustration for The Wiff who is much more apt to try a new dish and/or food combination. Basically, I'm a culinary chicken-shit. With that in mind here is a short list of things that you should avoid putting into a meal that you want me to try.

Water Chestnuts - God I hate these things. My aversion to them is three-fold: 1) Texture. That wimpy crunch they have is bad enough but I cannot abide that slightly squeaky sound they make in my head when one makes it past my filter and gets into my gob. 2) Taste. People say that the water chestnut has a subtle taste and absorbs the flavoring of sauces easily and readily like a little crunchy diplomat. I say they taste like someone dropped a chunk of drywall into whatever it is they were cooking and said, "Meh, no one will notice". 3) They are sneaky. As I alluded to earlier, I can spend a good 5 minutes clearing what I expect to be a chestnut-free path in whatever I am eating and invariably one of these tiny, edible terrorists will infiltrate my defenses and blow up my mouth with it's shitty, fake foodness. They mostly appear in Asian food but I have run across them in surprising places before (a salad for instance and once in a chicken wrap). They are banned from my plate. Take them away.

Cilantro - As garnishes go I don't mind large leafy bits of cilantro because I can usually pick 'em off quite easily (same goes for parsley with which some chefs go completely overboard). I'm not a complete dunderhead. I can appreciate presentation when it comes to food. It's when cilantro is incorporated into the actual recipe where I object. I'll be enjoying a lovely burrito and suddenly I'll hit a patch of what tastes like Ivory soap. Except it isn't soap, it's motherfucking cilantro ruining everything for everyone. I used to complain about a certain local restaurant's tomatoes tasting like they had freezer burn on them. This was not the case after all. Turns out their salsa was infested with cilantro and that was making the tomatoes taste evil. Stop using it. For the record, I'm not a huge fan of coriander either. This whole plant can just go fuck itself.

Caraway Seeds - What is the best way to ruin a perfectly lovely sausage? Stuff it full of caraway seeds, that's how. Rye bread is sometimes infested with these evil fuckers. Recently I bought a helping of potato gnocchi here at work (at the lovely Cafe Fail) and much to my chagrin some twisted bastard had dumped caraway seeds into the sauce. Why? So unnecessary. I spent the bulk of my lunch time liberating my little dumpling friends from the unpleasant influence of those pungent bastards. Some of them had of course overwhelmed the lovely blandness of the potato and ruined the poor buggers. I probably still ate all them though.

Peas - Nasty, nasty peas. By far these have the worst texture of all vegetables (I don't care if they are technically a fruit according to my Wikipedia research). That mushiness is what appeals to some people (the Brits love 'em) but I cannot stand that texture. I'm very texture-sensitive it would seem. The Wiff has tried several times to get me to try different variations of peas, "OMG, these are SOOooOOooO fresh! You'll LOVE them!!" No. No I won't. I have never, ever, ever liked them. As a kid I used to put them under my plate thinking that would trick my mom into thinking I had eaten them (that didn't work by the by. All it did was create a plate-sized pea pancake that, if left to cure for 15 minutes, would adhere the plate to the kitchen table with the tensile strength of a low-grade wood glue. Nasty). Quit trying to slip them into other foods that I enjoy. Get them the hell out of my shepard's pie. I don't care if the recipe calls for them. Don't use them please please please. A thousand times please. She doesn't listen to me though. So I must separate the diminutive green fuckers from the stuff I want to eat. Damn you, Wiff.

Corn (off the cob) - Ok, this is a weird one, I'll admit. If you are serving some wonderful corn on the cob count me in as interested. I'm not saying I'm a super enthusiast but I'll gladly get slightly messy munching on a nicely buttered corn on the cob (cob of corn? That sounds wrong somehow...slightly sexual perhaps). But if you were to take that very same cob and slice off the corn kernels, well then count me the fuck out. I want nothing to do with free-agent corn. I like my corn in cob form only. I have no further explanation and I don't believe that one is needed. Keep 'em on the cob or I'm gonna pick 'em out. Simple as that.

Why yes! Of course I'd love some!

Holy shit get that away from me! What's wrong with you?

Now if you'll excuse me I have to go see if there is anything I can complain about that doesn't really matter to anyone else.

What's for Dessert?

I just made a really bad decision. Lately I've been a bad boy and have not been bringing my lunch in to work. I've just been super lazy about it. The guilt that I feel over the truly unnecessary expenditure of $7+ a day when I should be bringing in food from home is palpable. I have to suppress it and blend it up with the ball of regret and shame that I keep just in the center of my chest. That's the one skill set that I can trace back to my Catholic upbringing: the ability to see exactly what the problem is and yet ignore the issue and hope that it will somehow solve itself. It's how I self-diagnosed myself as being lactose intolerant for awhile as my gall bladder not-so-silently got closer and closer to killing me. I didn't say it was a good skillset.

Yea, so anyway. There is a cafeteria on the top floor of the building where I work. And although it is cheap, it is not a good cafeteria by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it's pretty shitty. The food is marginal to bad and the people who work there are surly and/or disinterested. Also, they continually fuck up the french fries. This is unforgivable. The goddamn french fries are always slightly under done and too greasy. How do you fuck up fries? When I pick up a fry, it shouldn't sag over sadly onto one side and then start to sweat oil. That's nasty. The good news on this front is that the company that currently runs this cafe has been told to hit the bricks by the company I work for. See ya Sodexo. Go eat a bowl of dicks.

Here's why I can't go upstairs to the cafeteria: Sodexo knows that they have lost this contract and are slated to be out of there by Oct. 15 so they have seriously slacked on stocking things to eat and drink. Plus, I can't help thinking that if they were so apathetic and shoddy when they thought they were in like Flynn then what level of quality can one expect from them now that they know the jig is up? I don't want to find out. So I decided to go grab a couple of slices of pizza with the guy I share this office with (pardon me while I dangle that preposition). On the walk over I announce that "I'm gonna get 3 slices!" to which Seth warned "Don't do it man. I did that yesterday and holy shit did I pay the price. I was useless the rest of the day." I chose to ignore this advice. "Feh, what does he know anyway?," I thought to myself. "Nothin', that's what. Plus, lookit the guy, he's all slight and shit. I'm strong like bull and almost as big. This'll be fine." Can you see where this is headed? Of course you can. We all can. All except "in-the-past" Mark. He's forgotten that he is a 40-year-old man who has no exercise regimen to speak of (unless you count getting in and out of a Jetta). Let's see what happens!

I sat down at the tiny table with my 3 glorious slices of pizza and started in. This place makes really good pizza so the first 2 pieces went down easy. By the time I had finished my second piece, Seth was done with his sub. He said "Are you sure you want to eat that one too?", which I of course took as a challenge to my manhood. "Hell yea, I'm gonna eat that one." I said confidently. "No problem." But by this time I was already full and in need of a nap when I took the first bite of that last slice. I have watched quite a few episodes of that show Man Vs. Food and I always put myself in his place when he takes on those crazy-ass food challenges. The conclusion is always the same: No fucking way would I eat all that shit he has in front of him. Not even if I could be sitting directly on a toilet at the time. It just won't happen. I charged through 3/4 of it and then I hit the wall.

I put down the rest of the slice and sat there regretting being dumb. Seth looked at my plate and said, "What, you're not going to eat the crust?" I said that no, I can't. He replied that if I don't eat the entire piece, then I lose. Lose what you ask? If you have to ask then you are not a competitive douche like me. I knew that I cannot lose no matter what. I must win the non-existent prize. This challenge will not go unmet. I stared at the crust of the pizza slice and lemme tell you it looked huge. I sighed, gathered myself and jammed that mofo into my mouth in two bites (my parents would be so proud. Oh wait, I think I have the wrong word there...whatsitcalled? Mortified? Too harsh. Disappointed? Yes! That's the one).

We then immediately walked back to the office and I'll tell ya, that was the worst thing I could have done. I should have just sat there at the table for another 10 minutes or so and let what I just did to myself settle down. By the time we got back to the office I was a wreck. The pizza was just sitting in my gut like a bowling ball. Thank Christ I didn't have any meetings or anything like that to go to because for the next hour I was barely able to function (my boss doesn't read this does he?). I just had to do stuff with folks on the phone so they couldn't see how I was all greasy with pizza sweats. Sorry ladies, I'm spoken for. Ah the Wiff is a lucky lady.

It's been over 4 hours since I ingested that meal and I am just now starting to feel relatively normal again. Lunch shouldn't do that to a person. I hope this new contractor/catering company is better. I will be making more of an effort to bring in lunch but I also know that I'm inherently lazy and will slip from time to time. As long as the new people know how to make a decent batch of french fries I will be happy.

Care for Some More Meat Gum?

I was IM'ing with my sister Mary and the subject of our mother's cooking came up (no pun intended). Our mom had a busy household what with four kids (all fussy eaters), my dad and her mother (good ol' Nana. My first roommate) all living in what was technically a 2-bedroom apartment. We had converted the dining room into another bedroom to give the illusion of having 3 bedrooms. In the 16 years that I lived in that apartment my bedroom was at one point or another located in every room except the bathroom and the kitchen. The bedrooms and the living room, which we called "the parlor" (although that summons an image of a pristine place that is only for "company" and off-limits to kids. This was not the case in our house), swapped locations several times during the time we rented the place. Often she would change the rooms while everyone else was at work and school. Mom would just decide that the front room was now a bedroom and the living room would now be located where the bedroom used to be.


This is ye olde homestead as it looks today. Our apartment
was on the first floor. Back then the house was green and
somewhat less dilapidated. There used to be a half-dead
tree in the little yard on the right too. Check out all the satellite dishes!

She tried her very best to make meals that were, at least in theory, edible. We were poor but, as evidenced by any pictures of us kids from back then, we didn't go hungry. The main obstacle in her way was the fact that no one had ever taught her how to cook properly so she made shit up with limited success. That sounds fairly harsh but honestly I didn't know any better until much later in life that the food I grew up on was ... let's just say "limiting". The first inkling that perhaps there was at the very least better tasting food out there was when I stayed over my Aunt Janie's place and she made lunch for me and my cousin David. She made macaroni and cheese and it was so goddamn CREAMY that I thought that there must be something terribly wrong. Mac and cheese at our house was usually clumped together and relatively dry. Y'see, my mom would take a gallon of milk (which she would send me to the corner store to buy every few days on my bike) and strrreeeeetch it out into 2.5 – 3 gallons of milk by using powdered milk. I thought that milk was supposed to be thin, semi-lumpy and sort of grayish. We had milk at every meal too. It didn't matter what the meal was, milk was going to be the beverage of choice. It seemed perfectly normal back then but now it seems bizarre to me. I haven't had a glass of milk in years. It doesn't appeal to me in the slightest.

There were other clues that maybe the culinary arts was not my mom's medium. Pork chops come to mind. In my mind to this very day pork chops are associated with sawdust-dry withered things that would wick all the moisture out of your mouth the instant you popped a piece in. Whenever The Wiff says that she is going to make pork chops she has to remind me that they will be delicious. I guess I make a face or something every single time. All vegetables were to be boiled until opaque. I remember the first time seeing what broccoli was supposed to look like and being totally shocked. Hey! This broccoli snapped when I bit it! How come it didn't just go away in my mouth like it's supposed to? And why is it so green? Fresh vegetables back then usually meant the can was opened that day. There are lots of square, canned veggies in my past. And wax beans. Jiminy Christmas the wax bean is not only a horrible name but it is the most revolting vegetable known to mankind. Or perhaps the lima bean is the most revolting? I'm guessing that it'll be a legume of some ilk.

But the worst offender in my mom's arsenal was her steak. She would pop it in the broiler (yes, the broiler) sans any seasoning and leave it in there for hours. What would come out was a gray, shoe-leathery facsimile of a steak. To call it "well done" is an understatement. It was certainly "done". So tough was this meat that no amount of chewing could break it down. It would become what I called "Meat Gum". You could chew that fucking thing until your jaw hurt but it wasn't going anywhere. I've gagged on a number of pieces of rubbery steak in my time simply because I was tired of chewing it and I knew that trying to spit it out was forbidden. It was so bad that I was convinced that I hated steak. Back when The Wiff and I were dating, she invited me to her mom's place for dinner. When I asked her what they were going to serve she said "Steak". My heart sank. Oh god, not another fucking meat gum horror show!

But imagine my surprise when what was served to me was NOT an old piece of a shredded tire found on a highway somewhere but a juicy, beautiful, succulent cut of perfectly prepared meat. It blew my mind. I literally had no idea food could be this good. Plus, there were fresh vegetables that had flavor and color. Amazing. I have to say though that I still have to re-learn that steak can be great almost every time someone brings up the idea of having one. I have to think to myself "oh right...this will not be like gnawing on a demon's scrotum" and then I can order the steak.

I do have to give Mom her props though. She was a decent baker and could whip up a batch of french toast (using the whitest of white breads of course) like no one's business. Her soda bread ruled. She baked us a cake for every birthday too. Plus, I can't cook to save my life so I really shouldn't be mocking anyone's attempts let alone the woman who raised me. But all that stuff just makes me think about how much I miss her. I would gladly eat a plateful of her horrible cooking, meat gum and all, just to have a chance to talk to her again. And maybe even get in a game or two of Boggle or Yahtzee.