And now, friends…you know why I love Shirley. This short paragraph alone says it all. The only thing that could possibly improve on this paragraph would be if Chicago’s local newsman, Dick Johnson, were to report on it on the Five o’Clock news.
And if they need a attorney, New Jersey’s **Dick Johnson Esq.**can handle it.
Hah! I watch that broadcast. One morning, they had a fluff segment on popular fake names given when people call to order pizzas (I gather that “Paris Hilton” was one), and he remarked that he tends to get disbelieving remarks when he calls for a pizza. The other people on the show chuckled and tried to figure out a decent segue into the next story.
I live to serve and have my speling erors made global.
Right back atcha babe.
Back to our originally scheduled thread:
I don’t eat enough brats or bacon to get in a battle over either, but I really, REALLY hate cheap hamburger. It’s strictly ground sirloin for me. None of this “50% fat” crap…
Our friends are not persuaded by the fact that half their purchase gets thrown out when they use the cheap meat. We go for a barbeque and she’s got the hamburgers all pattied up. Nice, big man-sized patties. Then she cooks them and they come out looking like charcoal briquettes C’mon! Get with the program!!! And don’t give me that “It’s expensive!!” sob story. You can’t afford NOT to buy the good stuff. Sheesh.
And I’m also very picky about my tortillas. If they’re not El Milagro corn tortillas, don’t even talk to me. Period.
A former coworker of mine got married to a Russian girl. For their wedding feast, she wanted tiramasu for the dessert. His mother told her, “Chris can’t have tiramasu. He’s lactose intolerant.”
Chris is a short, temperamental guy of Italian descent. When he told us about this, he started going to the upper octaves and volume 11 about the arguments he and his wife-to-be were having over this development. She thought he was just making it up. How could anybody seriously have such a wimpy disease like being lactose intolerant? While we’re laughing our asses off, he’s screaming at the top of his lung about the goddamned tiramasu.
We got him a card congratulating him on his upcoming marriage and signed it. When it was my turn to sign it, I drew a little cartoon of him strumming a guitar and singing to his bride, to the tune of Skip To My Loo: “Oh my darlin, tiramasooooo! Oh my darlin’, tiramasoooo! Oh my darlin’, tiramasoooo! I’m lactose intolerant!”
Just a few thoughts…
Eating fried baloney is acceptable.
Eating it with Miracle Whip isn’t.
Most foods it doesn’t matter what brand, however the only pickle worth eating is Valassic Zesty Garlic dills.
That’s so obnoxious - while I’m not vegetarian (I eat some meat, but only rarely), I can’t stand it when people try to hide meat in vegetarian food. And no matter what others say, I think that fish of whatever kind is still flesh. But that’s just me.
A few comments before I tell my story:
First off, ladies, remember that your man’s weiner is a sacred thing. Do not threaten the security of his weiner by bringing home a different weiner. I’m serious. Don’t fuck around with someone else’s weiner.
Second, frying baloney is the only way to go. Hot, greasy, and with little blackened flecks of carmelized goodness. It’s the only way to choke down that vile “meat.”
And for all you mayo perverts and ketchup commies, hello?!? Ever hear of mustard?
Anyway.
As all true gourmands do, I am a lover of the wonderful and irreplaceable Peanut Butter and Pickle sandwich. Years ago the girl I was dating was among the unwashed and ignorant uninformed masses that does not appreciate the true inner beauty of the well-made PB&P. And as any true PB&P gourmand knows, the only acceptable pickle is the sweet gherkin, king of all gherkins.
Of course people uninitiated in the carnal pleasures of the PB&P has no idea of the distinction. “Why can’t you just use garlic dills?” “Because that would be gross!” “Yeah, what’s your point?” Sigh. They just don’t get it. Morons.
So anyway, my girlfriend and I were grocery shopping when I got a hankerin’ for the sticky sandwich of the gods. I informed her of this fact, and after she crinkled her nose and called me weird, we agreed that she would get the pickles while I went in search for peanut butter.
Big mistake.
When we got home, I began to spread the love. Of the peanut, that is. On the bread. With the precision of a surgeon wielding a butter knife, I asked my “nurse” for the next tool of my operation. “Pickles”, I ordered, holding out my hand, pleased that the patient was coming along nicely.
I felt the cool glass of the jar in my hand, the heft of its liquid weight confidently resting in my palm. I turned my gaze to the beloved jar, confident that I would read the words “Sweet Gherkins” on the label.
I was left unprepared for the shock that followed.
“Bread and Butter Mix”, read the label. Underneath that was the designation “Extra Hot.”
WTF?!?
I hit the roof. “I wanted sweet gherkins, not this crap!”
She cowered in the corner like a scared puppy, then slinked off to the other room, with a frightened little “Oh get over it already.”
I looked inside the jar. Cauliflower. Broccoli. Carrots. Onions. For the love of George Washington Carver, there were onions. Hot pickled onions. I couldn;t live with that.
I made my sandwich anyway. I figured that if I ate it in front of her and dropped dead right then and there from Gross Food Syndrome, then she’d be sorry. She’d never buy me pickled hot cauliflower for my PB&P sandwiches again, I guarantee.
It was the perfect plan.
I took the first bite of my sandwich in front of her. “Ha”, I thought, “Watch me die.” Instead of dying, however, I had a second bite. Then a third. I ended up finishing my sandwich…
…then went off to make another.
One weird food thing I thought of - my husband is constantly putting spicy sweet ketchup in his mac & cheese. Is this usual? It’s so…icky.
See, after hearing Annie’s anecdote about the miniscule amounts of crabmeat … I have just re-affirmed my position of never ever eating anyone’s cooking other than mine, my family’s, or some kind of restaurant’s.
I swear, if anyone tried to slip me food that I had told them I didn’t like, I would no longer speak to that person. I’m not here for you to ‘engineer’ my food tastes.
I agree completely, CandidGamera. I’m not a picky eater, and I would probably eat what was put in front of me regardless, but hiding stuff in food that you know people won’t like/are allergic to is so far beyond rude that rude is a faint memory to these people. I can’t imagine making food for people and me deciding what they will and won’t eat - “So, think you’re vegetarian, eh? Let’s just see how you like these bacon bits I’ve slipped in the salad…MWUAHHAHAHAHAH!”
On the related note of food “fights” … I have an aunt and uncle in Columbus. I like them, and they’re friendly, but just just don’t think about other people sometimes.
Frex : Serving lasagna… which was in fact vegetarian lasagna. A minor trespass, but I would’ve liked to have known. I suppose they’ll just have to forgive me for spitting out the first bite in my napkin and not eating any more of it.
Frex2 : I had some pizza one evening from my favorite Columbus pizza joint, and had saved a small portion in a box in their refrigerator. I intended to eat it the next morning for breakfast … Hah! I wake up, my aunt asks what I want for breakfast, I say that I’m going to be having my pizza… at which time my uncle mentions that he’s already eaten it.
Thinking he was joking, I said, naturally… ‘You’re kidding.’
“Nope…”
Grah!
Spam! Yum!
Some serving suggestions:
Peanut butter, fried spam, and orange marmalade sandwiches (on toast).
Diced and fried spam omelets w/ onions and peppers.
Korean-style spam stirfry w/ a side of kimchi
Fried spam in barbecue sauce on a bun.
Spam, poached egg, and cheese on an english muffin or a bagel.
Ground spam and pickles mixed with mayonaise as a sandwich spread.
Diced spam and fish sauce with ramein noodles.
The list is virtually endless. Spam is an infinitely versatile foodstuff.
Do you really not eat food that has been prepared by “other than family” or restaurants? No neighborhood picnics? No baking items from work? Nothing?!
I guess I’ve never known anyone who has that rule.
LOL, Pennsic War, August, Coopers Lake Campground, near Pittsburg =)
I think first night’s HarbigerBash is going to be about 65 people this summer=)
There are, admittedly, occasional exceptions. There’s a hot dog sale at work here… but everything comes out of storebought packages which are plainly visible.
Chocolate chip cookies are also an exception, provided the person in question verifies that they contain no nuts, oatmeal, peanut butter, or anything other than baked cookie dough and chocolate chips.
Apart from that, yeah… I don’t have any food allergies or anything either, I just don’t tend to trust other people to not make things with horrible unexpected ingredients. (“Yeah, I use seaweed as a thickener for my pizza sauce!”)
I am pretty sure that my husband married me, not for my culinary skills, but to de-pickle his hamburgers we get from various drive thru’s.
Which is good. can’t beleive I’m going to confess this cause I loves pickles.
Bologna is sliced from what is essentially a giant hot dog. When’s the last time you ate a cold hot dog?
Hey, don’t knock New Jersey–there’s been a lot of European immigrants over the years, so there’s a lot of good European food to be found if you know where to look. The best bratwurst I’ve ever had was made by a German butcher in NJ, though I think his Hungarian sausage was even better.
Well, I suppose one way to address this would be for your former coworker to indulge in loads-o-dairy, then lock his wife in the bathroom with him as his digestive system deals with the lactose, so she’d get an up-close-and-personal experience of what it’s like to live with someone with lactose intolerance. Of course, another option would be for him to just take some Lactaid.
[Insert obligatory comment about how you probably just haven’t had the good stuff.] Seriously, some bologna can actually be quite good, but it’s hard to find. Supermarket baloney is nasty. The same is true for bacon–there are companies that make very good bacon, but it’s pricey and relatively hard to find.
I’m not sure I’m parsing this right. Is it (a) It was supposed to be vegetarian lasagne but they hid meat in it, or (b) You just don’t like vegetarian lasagne?