He was being kind of a dick, but the fact is, those places contain such unappealing, simplistic, overpriced garbage compared to real food that it is a shame to limit yourself to them because you’re afraid of change. I mean, try going to a farmer’s market, fish/meat markets, etc. and practice making food for yourself. Or at least order more interesting things from more interesting places. You’d realize how self-limiting you were. It’s like being afraid to visit a non-English speaking country.
Friday night, I marinated chicken breasts in a ginger/garlic/soy sauce and served them with Sriracha-spiked mayo. Saturday I made sausage biscuits for breakfast, then had fair food for lunch and Thai curry for dinner. The summer was spent making pesto and roasted tomatoes from the garden and trying out different quick pickle recipes using garden cucumbers. I know my favorite local meat producers. The freezer is full of peaches from the farmer’s market, from when I went and inspected all the peach-farmers’ produce and chosen the most appetizing-smelling, looking, and tasting fruits, then blanched, peeled, and sliced up about 30 pounds of succulent dripping peaches.
I freakin’ love food.
My walls have very little art on it, because I don’t much care for art. It doesn’t do it for me.
But you’ll never ever see me being a snob about what other people eat, because doing so is pitiful; and if someone is a snob about the visual art that I like, they’re also pitiful.
Considering that I don’t remember either of them ever jumping all over other people who post equally personal information, I might agree with you on this.
Me, too. Considering that this is a message board where people post threads like “In Which I Pop My Zit And Describe In Loving Detail The Contents” and “My Finger Has Turned Purple And Is Oozing Green Pus. Is This Bad?”, and I don’t remember ANY of the people complaining about Lynn having complained about threads like that, I have to agree.
You have a point. There *are *a couple of posters here who go “eeewwww -gross” at just about anything like that. But then, they’d have “eewwwed” about the Opening Post.
I see where you’re coming from. I mean, if someone never reads a challenging book or watches a movie without explosions, I might think to myself, “come on, maybe try and expand your horizons a little bit” but I wouldn’t go on a tirade about how they were an uncultured hack or anything. But I guess I just put food on a different level. If someone sticks to Applebee’s or McDonald’s because it’s familiar and comfortable, they’re just missing out on so much tastiness and pleasure. I guess another analogy I’d make is spending all of your time inside your house. You could get by like that, but it would be a real waste, IMO. Then again, the best approach isn’t to be a dick about it.
I think we’re pretty close to agreement, then. I find it personally sad in some ways, the same way that I’m certain some visual artists find my lack of interest in their (no doubt glorious) craft to be sad. But like you say, there’s no point being a dick about it.
That said, when I go on road trips along interstates, harsh experience has taught me it’s not the time to be adventurous. When I’m in a city for a bit, sure: I’ll wander around the downtown area for half an hour or so checking out restaurants and eventually backtracking to the most exciting-looking one, no problem. That’s one of my favorite parts of visiting new cities, in fact.
But when I’m trying to reach point B by nightfall, and my belly needs filling, and I’m not wanting to venture more than a half-mile from the interstate because I really want to keep going, adventurous eating is a bad idea. There’s no walking to be done, no checking out menus; all I can judge a restaurant by is its sign, and that’s a terrible measure of its quality.
I therefore limit myself to chain restaurants in such circumstances. If I’m in a hurry or feeling poor (the usual condition), it’s gonna be fast food, which I otherwise rarely eat–I think of fast food as road trip food. If I’m exhausted from driving and need to sit for a bit, I may well end up at Applebees or some similar chain. The food isn’t particularly good, but I’m not willing at that point to invest the effort into getting good food. I just want something filling so I can get where I’m going.
But sometimes the chance for tastiness and pleasure is more than counterbalanced by the chance I’ll have a shitty meal, which is something I’m just not in the mood for, and thus my knowing and intentional election is for the familiar and/or comfortable. For me, those times are when I’m travelling for work (by car, by myself) and have pulled off the road at eight or nine at night after a full day working and/or driving. I want a decent hot meal and a beer, and then I want to check into a decent clean motel, and I am not interested in unpleasant surprises in either case. So yeah, I’m going to eat at Applebee’s (or Chili’s or the holy grail of road food for me personally, Moe’s) and then go over to the Hampton Inn or the Holiday Inn Express. I might get better food, or a better room, at “Gino’s Local House d’Cuisine” or the local Dew Drop Inn, but I might not – and I am not up for “not.”
My poinyt is that not everyone who chooses the the adequate known over the unknown, does so for reasons of ignorance or provincialism.
Wrong, asshole. This is the internet. Your best friend isn’t going to tell you that they think you are being an incredible bore about food/movies/books/etc. Your mom still loves you no matter what.
That’s why we have internet message boards where people are unconstrained by “courtesy”. It’s like Dr. Phil but less bald and with a much bigger cock. You can try being polite and nice, but hey, sometimes a nice big
HEY DUMBASS
works better. And it’s far more entertaining to me than it would be if I were like that fat zitty bastard Left Hand of Tardness sitting at home masturbating to furry porn while rubbing frozen peaches all over his greasy obese body and trying to be the nice guy on the internetz in hopes of convincing some woman to touch his peepee.
So, you do your thing, I’ll do mine. You can be Bill Cosby, and I’ll be Lenny Bruce. And Left Hand Suzuki Style of Dorkness can be Bob Saget in his America’s Funniest Home Videos days.
Lenny Bruce…insane homeless guy who smells of piss and shouts random profanities at passersby…it’s all a matter of perspective, I suppose.
They’re nonnies. People at that board have this bizarre fanatical obsession with dopers’ eating habits.
Who knew that was all I needed to get over 40 years of food issues. Thanks so much.
Irritable bowel, dumb ass—what’s the difference?
The thing is, Ivan, even when you’re hilariously wrong, you still don’t crack teh funny.
Hmmm… had that the last time I was there. Never saw a pig that small before but I’ve seen squirrels that size. 
It’s interesting that while Lynn saw fit to discuss her defecation patterns, Ivn saw fit to actually void his bowels all over the thread.
I agree with gigi for the most part. I don’t care if I’m in the middle of Rome, if I want consistent pseudo Italian food that will be exactly what I want, I will go to the Olive Garden. Yes, that is an exaggeration, I’m unlikely to go to the Olive Garden in Rome, but maybe in an Italian section of New York. The fact is, when you go to an unfamiliar restaurant, no matter how highly recommended, there is a high chance you will get something you didn’t really want. It’s not even that the restraunt is bad, it’s just that the dish isn’t what you expected.
I love to cook, I love to try new food, I love to experiment even with styles I don’t usually like. My tastes change. I have never been terribly disappointed with a chain restaurant meal. Occasionally the service stinks. The margarita’s are watered down unless you get the $9 fancy one. It is still a very comfortable place to eat sometimes. I usually get the burgers. It’s hard to mess up a burger and fries. At the Olive Garden, the raviolis are just fine, and I always press the server to sample many wines.
And you popped out!
I want to know if has Captain_C died yet. If not how about getting on with it. Damn procrastinators.
This is very dependent on the individual. From people whose food tastes I trust, I don’t think I’ve ever been really disappointed in a restaurant meal. The surprise and differences are part of the fun. If I’m in New York, I don’t want to taste food that I can get anywhere else in the US. What’s the point? For me, the food is how I get to know the city, the people, the culture. I’m not saying my way is superior, it’s just that the blanket statement above (about a high chance of disappointment) doesn’t apply to a good portion of people. It depends on your personality and what role food plays in your life. I prefer the surprise of the unknown or the first-time experience versus consistency and predictability. Everybody has their hobbies, and for me, one of them is food.