2008-04-16

Foodz.

It's spring, because Mish and I had ice cream sammitches for lunch today. It will be the first of many such lunches between now and Labor Day weekend.

I never claimed to be a gourmand.

Basically, I am the easiest person in the world to cook for. There are only a handful of things I WON'T eat (cauliflower and water chestnuts), and if you give me, like, tater tots and a grilled cheese, I'm happy as hell, no shit.

In terms of dining out, the lines are a little fuzzier. As a rule of thumb, I don't do chain restaurants. The Cheesecake Factory is every bit as abhorrent to me as WalMart, and I don't see the appearance of either one in my community as evidence of change for the better. In this sense, I'm a complete and total snob. On the other hand, I'm a big fan of loading up on crap at truck stop convenience stores. When I was singing with Bleu eons ago, I was all about making them Truck Stop purchases -- food that I would ordinarily never consider otherwise. Swedish Fish. Pringles. Beef jerky. Diet Dr. Pepper. Oh yeah.

I won't eat at a chain restaurant, but some of the fancier places around here just puzzle me. Deeply. Mish, Laura and I had dinner not long ago at a well-established, well-beloved restaurant bearing the name of a rather flighty mythological character, and when our entrees arrived, it was really almost funny...except that it kind of wasn't. It was every joke you hear about fine dining, with the HUGE plates and the tiny, tiny vegetables and the 3 slivers of lamb the size of Post-It notes. So there's the chain restaurant with its grotesque, massive portions. And there's haute cuisine, which makes you want to hit up the burrito place afterwards because you're STILL HUNGRY.

(But Jon and I both had the steak frites at the Gaslight this past weekend, and that was just sex on a plate, that's what that was. And just enough of it, too.)

What it comes down to is that I love to eat. I like GOOD food, made by people that love to make good food. But recently I was thinking about the bizarre stuff I used to eat...I think because I've been reading one of the "Mortified" books and thinking about my childhood and early adolescence, when I first started keeping a diary.

I was a fat kid. I would sit up in my room and write in my diary and eat Doritos, those infernal little Entenmanns chocolate chip cookies, and pretty much anything else I could shove down my gullet to keep myself from howling. That's really neither here nor there. What I was really thinking about was some of the stuff I "invented" to eat, which I've since discovered was not all that unique. Still:

I wouldn't last two seconds in Hell's Kitchen.

lisamcc at 4:02 p.m.



7 comments so far
Spooney
2008-04-16 18:02:11
We never did eat those chocholate covered crickets that we had in Crackpot Notion, did we?
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LisaMcC
2008-04-16 18:08:36
Spooney - BWAH HA HA! I seriously found mine when I was packing up to move back in September.

I, uh, didn't eat it.
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scurvyann
2008-04-17 00:04:32
C6 and I just had pickle spears wrapped in ham the other day! I thought *I* invented it!!!! (still as delicious as ever, FYI)
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lj lindhurst
2008-04-17 09:44:06
Sherm Edwards Chocolates (www.shermedwardscandies.com) has chocolate covered sweet pickles. Those are pretty good, actually!
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vikkitikkitavi
2008-04-17 16:30:44
Hey, Miss Salty-Sour, I used to eat pickled okra spears with anchovy filets wrapped around them. They were yum.
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Houseboy
2008-04-17 22:20:47
If you add cheese to the pickle spear and ham, isn't it essentially the same thing as the secret family recipe thing that Jeff brought to our Christmas party?
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Lynette
2008-05-19 00:36:09
Oh gads. That pickle in ham things sounds pretty damned good. Especially since I have some amazing ham in the fridge. But I'd want to go get some killer gherkins. Why did you make me so hungry at 12:35am?
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