Witz Pickz: Fry-Day -- A Food Post

Eff it-- let's talk food. I had a grilled cheese and fries for lunch, which was awesome, because it's delicious, and it was also telling, because eating a grilled cheese and fries at work is like screaming, "DESPITE MY THOROUGH HATRED OF SCHOOL, I STILL YEARN FOR COMFORT FOOD THAT REMINDS ME OF MY CHILDHOOD AND THE SCHOOL CAFETERIA BECAUSE I'D RATHER BE THERE THAN HERE TODAY!*" Here are some other food thoughts:

We Want Food Within Other Food: If there's one thing my twenty six years on this planet have taught me, it's that us humans want our food served the way we expect to be at the end of the meal-- stuffed. If we are immediately able to deduce what our food is, simply by looking at its exterior, then something is drastically wrong. Thanksgiving is the perfect example:

JOHN SMITH: Whoah whoah whoah-- what the hell is this gaping hole in the turkey? Now that we've ripped out all the guts...why WOULDN'T we stuff something else in there??
SQUANTO: Sounds logical-- I vote for seasoned bread cubes!
JOHN SMITH: Good call, Squanto! (They high-five)

But it doesn't end there. Chicken Cordon Bleu suggests that when we eat chicken, we're all secretly disappointed that we aren't eating ham. Chicken Kiev suggests that we secretly want butter hidden inside everything, and for that butter to surprise us in a painful explosion of burning hot liquid. Eating a pepper and eating rice seems ill-conceived, so why not throw the two together? I'm sure everyone will still eat the pepper and not just the rice...Most recently, I have discovered goat cheese and walnut stuffed figs...that were wrapped in prosciutto. I don't even have a joke for that one-- I'm just really excited they exist, and it just goes to show that the stuffed food theory is thriving.

Mr. Phipps' Pretzel Chips: I wonder if Mr. Phipps was fated to make pretzel chips just for the sake of end rhyme-- like maybe he would rather have made scones, but that was not alright with his food company. I imagine him saying to his Dad, "When I'm older, I'm going to make SCONES!" and his Dad angrily replying, "Goddammit! You're a Phipps! You will make chips, like your father, and my father, and his father before him!" and Little Phipps screaming, "I hate you! I hate you!" and running to his room. Sad.

Breakfast for Dinner: Was anything more falsely exhilirating growing up than "breakfast for dinner?" I have vivid memories of my mom popping into the kitchen after a long day, usually in her sweatpants and a sweatshirt, and whispering to my sister and I, "Hey...let's do BREAKFAST FOR DINNER!" as if her parents were going to run into the room at any moment and tell her to behave like a respectable adult. Maybe she was whispering because she didn't want my Dad to hear, as if he would put a stop to such shenanigans, but the only reason I remember him sighing whenever my mom said, "Let's be ridiculous! BREAKFAST FOR DINNER!" was because it meant he was the one who had to make us omelettes.

Which was the thing-- Breakfast for dinner never meant our ACTUAL breakfast for dinner. If it meant our ACTUAL breakfast for dinner, we would have had to jump up excitedly and shout, "HELL YEAH! TOAST FOR DINNER!" or my mom would have had to say when we got home from school, "Now don't spoil your appetite before we have YOGURT FOR DINNER!" Because actual breakfasts consist of cereal or less. I do that NOW. I have breakfast for dinner because I can't afford more or can't drag my ass to the store to fix myself a real meal. If my mom said, "Hey kids, what about breakfast for dinner??" and it meant toast and cereal, I'd have to ask if we had suddenly become ass poor. "Jesus, Mom, breakfast for dinner? What happened? Were we robbed? Did Dad go Willy Lohman on us? Do-- do I need to get a job to help support this family?...Because I'm eight." But that wasn't the case. Breakfast for dinner meant eggs or omelettes, and fruit, and bacon and maybe even waffles or pancakes. Sometimes it meant bacon, egg, and cheese on a bagel, which my dad served like it was gourmet and Dunkin Donuts serves like it couldn't care less.

"Breakfast for dinner" should be the rebellious slogan of a generation. When 50's values were thrown to the wind in favor of the unconventional, the indulgent, and the syrupy freedom of post-work waffles.

The Color of Cheese: Not the name of an unpublished Toni Morrison novel and not a collection of Maya Angelou poems, the color of cheese is actually a sensitive issue within our society as a whole. On numerous occasions, I have run into people who have a problem with yellow cheese, and as a kid, I remember PREFERRING yellow cheese to white cheese. I'm pretty sure Velveeta and Kraft capitalized on this color rift and succeeded in putting a greater divide between those on the left (yellow/orange) and those on the right (white). Well, I'm gonna put myself out on a limb and solve this one once and for all: THERE'S ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO! It's just food coloring. If you can taste the difference between orange and white cheese, then you can taste the difference between blue and brown M&M's and that means you need to either join the marines so your skills can be put to greater use (I have no idea how this would be utilized) OR you need to tell us which M&M is the best, because I ASSUME that it's blue, but that could be waaaaay off and I think marketing has a lot to do with it. Also, you must waste about 80% of your M&M's.

Sweet N' Low: When I was little, my friend Zak Jazz and I were at a Friendly's and proceeded to take all of the Sweet N' Low out of the holder and hide them in the cracks in the booth. When the waitress came over and asked us what we were doing, Zak shouted, "Uh, we're stopping CANCER!" because we believed Sweet N' Low caused Cancer. The waitress looked at us blankly, because that's probably the last thing she expected to hear and because what can you say to that really? You can't say, "Well, put it back," because then you're Pro-Cancer. So she left. The point of the story isn't whether we were brats or whether or not I now realize how annoying we must have been to a sad, tired Friendly's waitress. The point is that I still have no idea of Sweet N' Low actually contributes to Cancer, and I'm not sure I ever truly will.

Top Chef: The newest season of Top Chef has started, which is cool, because it's the only socially acceptable show to watch where people cook amazing food. If you sit watching the Food Network for too long, you a) can't talk about it with anyone and b) feel like a tubby bitch. "Hey, what'd you do last night?" someone asks you the next day. "Oh, I sat around eating dinner, watching people make more dinner, and then felt hungry because theirs was better than mine." Not cool.

Top Chef is acceptable because it's a competition. It's like The Real World if everyone on the show was super responsible and focused on their careers. All these chefs from around the country/world compete to out-delicious each other. They very rarely create drama and when they do, it's usually because someone turned the oven up too high or they're out of cumin. Despite the omnipresence of knives, nobody ever attacks anyone else, they just yell in a way that would make my family say, "Amateurs," and then they go back to making their five course meals. It's not dramatic, but it's enjoyable. Because these are people who can cook really effing well. They are the MacGuyver's of the culinary world, and since we all eat (mostly-- Sorry India!), we all can connect with what they are doing.

Plus, at least for me, it makes me want to cook. After I watch a season of that show, I'm downstairs, laying out my ingredients, doin' a little meal prep. Then, at the end of the night, you can walk in, see me surrounded by vegetables, herbs, empty meat cartons, shredded cheese, heaps of coriander, covered cutting boards, carved out cans, and a sink full of dishes-- and you can ask me what I've made, and I will inevitably tell you, "Toast." Because, as it turns out, I am no top chef. Yet. But at least I can have breakfast for dinner.

Have Delicious Weekends...Better Posts Next Week,
Witz



*hahahaha..."today"