Food Thoughts

I was at the gym, rowing the rowing machine with a bank of flat screen TVs in front of me, all with no sound and closed captioning. The only sound I heard was Grace Jones pounding "Pars" through my headphones, a song that gives me chills no matter how many times I play it, which is a lot. On one of the TVs a man was saying watermelon is waaaaaay too expensive and why buy watermelon (mostly husk) when you can snack much more cheaply on: Oreos.

Oreos, watermelon. Watermelon, Oreos. I thought maybe this was a joke but no, not only is watermelon—mostly water—criminally expensive, but (and here he holds up a sandwich bag of Oreos) watermelon doesn't travel like Oreos, which fit neatly into small bags. He had a point, but I don't think he thought his argument through completely. Because you know what else is cheaper than watermelon, fills you up and travels nicely in bags? Gristle.

Next he moved on to turkey. Why buy a little bag of sliced turkey at the deli when for a few dollars more you can buy the entire turkey, he asks. Good point, I think, but now we are comparing turkeys to turkeys which I didn't think was the leitmotif of the show, comparing one actual thing to another of the same actual thing. He should have compared deli turkey with cheesecake.

Then driving down Clark St. I notice a new Chinese restaurant (my workout is over, if you didn't make the leap)—large, clean, big windows. Could this be the good cheap Chinese food of my dreams? But the restaurant is called China Hut, and for reasons that are self-evident, I don't trust food coming out of a restaurant named after a dwelling—house, hut, shack, den, cave, lodge, castle, inn, that sort of thing.

Back at my dwelling, I cooked up a chicken, asparagus, and angel hair pasta dinner. It does not travel well in a bag but is much more economical than bouillabaisse.