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.

Yes, We Let Our Kids Watch TV

Our almost six year old is on a Phineas and Ferb kick right now, and all I can say is: thank God.

1.) P+F is hilarious and 2.) Caillou—that whiney, tinny voiced little urchin whose part was read by a girl—is finally gone from our living room. The love affair with Caillou lasted far too long. Caillou (the show, not the kid) exuded simultaneously emasculating and Larry Craig-esque qualities. Caillou's mother, thick in both the waist and belly but with the breasts of an 11 year old, was stripped not only of sexuality, but any personality whatever. She did not appear to have a job, friends or interests outside her family and wore the same outfit every day, a sure sign of depression.

Caillou's father, hairless, nippleless and also strangely thick in the waist, constantly carted Caillou off to meet "special friends" like the local fireman, farmer and cowboy. Mom never came on these trips, probably opting to consume a gallon of low fat frozen yogurt while her husband frolicked with sailors. Dad and said fireman/farmer/cowboy would typically spirit away for a several few couple minutes, leaving Caillou alone to play with a goat or fire hose.

Adieu Calliou!

I'm A Blogging Fool Tonight

Two things I Saw On A Short Walk:

1.) A young woman cussing out an older woman whilst carrying a huge potted fern.

2.) A billboard: (more or less quoted verbatim, my memory isn't what it used to be) "Recession 101: Interesting fact about recessions: They end." There was no attribute on the billboard, so I didn't know if it was a movie trailer or installment one of a new cell phone ad campaign or a secret message from Obama's socialist home planet, or what.

Post Script: after posting this post, er publishing this post, I thought: there is no excuse for ignorance when you've got the Google, so I googled the Recession billboard. According to a NYT blog, the billboards are a lighhearted response to the economy “funded by an anonymous East Coast donor who was depressed about how the country was reacting to the economy’s tailspin.” Depressed? Lighthearted? Which is it?

OK, but—according to Outdoor Advertising Association of America Inc. dot org (oaaa.org), "Recession 101 is the latest public service campaign available to OAAA members. OAAA members and printers are encouraged to donate space and materials to post this uplifting and inspirational creative in their markets." Can you have an Inc. in your name and still be a dot org? This whole thing gets fishier and fishier.

I wonder what would the potted fern girl would think.

Mary's Book Club

My new favorite author is Tim Gautreaux. I just finished The Missing, which I checked out from the library initially due to its cover (lovely) but then I noticed on the back cover both Annie Proulx and Richard Russo called him the latest greatest author of the century or somesuch praise—I cannot remember exactly the words. But when Proulx and Russo are supplying your blurbs, you're kicking ass.

As a story, The Missing was not amazing—full of unreasonable demands to believe particular characters would do-say-react in particular ways at particular moments. Plot driven, I'd go as far as to charge. But the writing, oh the writing. Really fine writing. You could practically eat it, so good.

Then I realized Proulx and Russo were actually raving about a different book of Gautreaux's: not The Missing, but The Clearing. This excited me, there was potential now for good writing with a good story. I am only on page ten or so of The Clearing, but so far, so good.

I Want It All

Are delicious and cheap Chinese food contradictions in terms? It seems there used to be such a thing and I thought the new Pan Asian mega restaurant in the strip mall by my house was going to be it. They have a yoooge laminated spiral bound menu with little photos of each dish that make each of the gobjillion offerings look more delicious than the next. Most for under 8 bucks!

Here is the chicken fried rice, served up on a plate at my house.


Mmmm, brown—my favorite flavor. The red splotch is not a pepper, it's an arrow pointing out a green onion, the sole non-brown in the dish. Some of the other green specks are actually the pattern on the plate showing through, not more green onions. And didn't fried rice used to come with egg and sprouts ? When did this change? This dish tastes better than it looks and the large ($6.20) is enough for three meals, so if I could get it together to keep green onions and sprouts around the house to toss in, I think I've got a cheap delicious Chinese meal.

Emboldened by the idea that I'd found my yummy take out, the next time I ordered Thai fried spring rolls. What do you picture when you order Thai fried spring rolls? Spring: sprouts maybe, tofu, cellophane noodles, a lite spicy dipping sauce, cilantro? WTF is this?

It looks like the goop I scrape out of my drain after washing dishes. I didn't have my glasses on when I popped the first bite into my mouth, so I had no visual cues to prepare my brain for what taste it should expect, and my taste buds entirely failed on this one. Texture, they said. I put my glasses on, scraped the filling out, and spread it across the counter. My eyes were no help either. This thing could be filled with anything from sawdust to meatloaf.

As usual, lessons learned were things I already know.
You get what you pay for.
You can't have your cake and eat it, too.
Of quality, speed and cost, you can only ever get two out of three.
But so sad—the little menu photos are so gorgeous.