Category: american diet

Why eating in America Sucks #4

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Our reliance on disposable product.

Not just disposable, but as an additional insult to our mother earth, non compostable. I know you don’t want to throw away those overcooked eggs left from brunch, but think about the environmental impact of that Styrofoam container that is your to-go bag.  I understand that you didn’t pick that vessel, but that is what exists and that is what you are going to get.

If I do take my divine leftovers, I ask for it to be wrapped in aluminum.  Straight-up.  When the server comes to the table, I say please just wrap it up like a burrito in a sheet of foil.  All restaurants have tin foil and it is the least amount of packaging available that can serve as a doggie bag.  If they won’t do that, then I don’t want the rest of my plate.

Also, to mention, I am pretty sure that you are not supposed to microwave Styrofoam because of toxic chemicals in this lightweight plastic mutant.  I understand that Styrofoam was developed and is so widely used because it is spectacular for thermal insulation, but unfortunately this hexagonal crunchy structure of  probably hydrogenated plastic is not the right answer.

Every Styrofoam container should come with a warning label, like the kind found on cigarette packages.  Warning: this product will certainly add to global warning, pose a hazard to wildlife, contains carcinogens and release some 57 chemicals with the heating of this foam that can lead to cancer.  How would that change the food service industry?

It’s not your fault portion sizes are too big, I know, but maybe try a small plate and split your American meal designed for one.

It’s not your fault, but you are part of the circus.  You didn’t interview for it, but that doesn’t matter.  Styrofoam is not acceptable under any circumstances.  This goes beyond our dependence on plastic, this includes an active role to cut down on waste that will continue to haunt the world for millennia.

Throwing away food is wrong, but so is compromising the environment because we don’t know how to responsibly store food.  Do your part, and do not support this closed cell polystyrene foam system that is so convenient for handling hot foods, being both lightweight and strong.  It is not responsible, especially since you know that this “disposable” product is not biodegradable and there is no recycling practice in place.  If you aren’t swayed by the health risked posed to mother earth, be swayed by the health risk posed to yourself.

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Is This the One?

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I don’t want to curse myself, but I love my new job. For so many reasons.  I know what you are thinking, you always say that when you always start a new job. You seek the full bounty of establishing your queendom in the kitchen, but it never turns out to be the fairy tale you have devised.  As one of my favorite people said, bore-O.  You are going to get bore-O and the luster will loose its polish.  More than I hope not, I need to remain clear headed about why I go to work everyday: it is my art, and it is for my sake mostly. I do it because eating is as close to divinity that we can get on a routinely daily bases.  Give us this day 3 times hopefully, our daily sustenance.  Since we eat so often, it’s nice to be given a surprise still, to indulge and whole heartedly enjoy food.

This is one: My friends went to dine there.  I was not working, but knew at least they would get dessert on the house.   They sent me a picture of my friend eating the last bite of a chocolate cake with a huge smile on his face.  All I could think of was, they gave them the best table in the house.  Thanks guys, for making my friends, whom you don’t know, so welcome.  I love that.

Olfactory desires and health.

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I love tacos to death do us part.  If I were to have a last meal, it would be tacos and tequila, hands down, maracas shaking, for sure.

Paleo tacos.  Shredded green plantain. Soak it is salt water, the fry like tiny hash browns.  It is crispy and tastes like sweet corn.  The smell is even reminiscent of the great corn tortilla.  Which says a lot because the smell of corn tortilla cooking and charring slightly is my favorite smell of all time.

What’s your favorite smell?

Eating in America Sucks #3

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Ketchup.

Heinz ketchup.

Heinz ketchup has single-handedly brainwashed every American.  Do not ever say foodie to me, ever, because I swear that you do want ketchup on that damn fine burger.  Don’t give me this a ‘hot dog doesn’t get ketchup’ bullshit when Heinz is in every kitchen across ‘Merica, from casual dinner, to upscale diner, to Artisanal burger bar, to high-end restaurants.

The thing is, nobody wants house made ketchup.  Every one secretly and openly wants Heinz.  Not the 27 variety spiel, just that one uniquely bland taste of tomato paste and corn syrup goodness.

Because everyone is addicted to sugar, that smooth sweet paste is craved by all.  Even you.

Hence we are all brain washed.  It has created such an understated niche monopoly on food culture, that we are hesitate even to notice how pervasive this product is.  Understand, there is no other ketchup. Heinz is ketchup like Bandaid is bandage and Rollerblades are inline skating.

I think it is time to buy stock in this company.

Alarm Clock

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Get up, go to work, iron out the day.  It is hard to start the rolling motion, but once you find a small hill of inspiration, it’s clear sailing, smooth somersaults.  Once you get over the lull of the nighttime dream, once you break the sandman’s spell, the daylight is not so harsh.

This is why I don’t understand those people out there who don’t drink coffee.  What’s the buzz to your alarm clock?  Where is the wind in your espresso flight?  What is the deep roasted root to your bitterness?

Shake shake shake off the chains of the heavy dreams, and lighten your daylight with a fresh cup.

Eating in America Suck #2

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Americans have an unhealthy obsession with plastic and it has to stop.  I do not understand why so much disposable plastic is produced and wasted by everyone all the time.  EVERYONE ALL THE TIME!

Why does everything have to be wrapped in plastic?  People feel a weird sense of security when their food comes all bundled up like a chirstmas package.  Please do not let the outside world touch my food!  This food has been grown in a labaratory and has never been exposed to human hands, or pollution, or chemicals, or dirt of any kind.

A few examples:

Please be sure that you do not place any naturally wrapped food (which will peeled prior to cooking or consumption) directly on that dirty, god forsaken conveyor belt at the supermarket.  That thing is made out of rubber, and you know what they say about rubber.  Rubber really gets around.  Its nothing like pristine plastic.  Plastic is super clean.  Godly clean.  Pastic wrap is pretty much the closest thing to god that we have.  Nothing like that devil rubber conveyor belt that has touched literally everyone else’s food.  Gross.

For bulk buying, or food service demands, that thin membrane of the grocery store plastic bag isn’t strong enough to support the contents in the bag.  So please put fragile contents in a cardboard box.  But you know what they say about cardboard boxes, they are unreliable.  So mind as well wrap that cardboard box in plastic.  Godly plastic saves the day again!

I am not joking or exaggerating.  Plastic bags placed in boxes that are wrapped in plastic.  This is like normal.  Every day.

Oh, it continues, this PLASTIC rant.

Be sure to save the uncooked/unconsumed/ unused product in plastic.  As for your leftover dinner, be sure to also cover that in plastic.  That way, when you go to reheat it in the microwave, all you have to do is press a button.  Or course it is perfectly safe to eat things out of plastic.  Plastic is godly, and definitely does not cause cancer.

Clean up is a breeze when everthing is wrapped in plastic.  You don’t have ANY dishes to do whatsoever.  Simply take the plastic, and put it in the plastic garbage can that is lined conveniently with a plastic bag.  Dont worry, the plastic will disapear completely with no threat of getting into our food supply.  It’s magic, it’s godly.

So much plastic you can’t even imagine, I know.  It is sick.  We have a plastic problem.

Eating in America Sucks #1

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Reason number 1: Grocery Shopping.

I am well versed in the art, efficiency, #foodlife, #cheflife, convenience of grocery shopping.  I am basically an all around bad-ass when it comes to grocery shopping, saving money, feeding everyone, being amazing in my personal eating life.  Extracurricular duties consist of bagging and personal transport of product to the house, non-conditional of stairs involved or personal weight limit. I am fortunate to live in a neighborhood where I have an extensive access to ethic and individually owned stores.  But, alas, jewel exists and you do frequent it.  And when you do, you remember…

Food here sucks.  This is one of my many installments “Eating in America Sucks.”

Today’s lesson: Potato, The Lost Staple

Seriously the only options for starchy veg at the Jewel-Osco is the potato.  This classification is further limited to seriously 4 varieties under the exquisite umbrella of potato.  Idaho, Grade B Red, Sweet Potato, Mixed Medley Of Very Small Potato Resembling Thing.

That classic baking potato, the Idaho.  The quintessential Midwestern mashed, the Irish Racism Potato, Idaho no You Da Hoe.  But like honestly, it is the most boring kind of potato ever.  Do no get me wrong, I love, love this potato, but this is number one boring.  More bland than a potato.  Get it?

Moving on to grade B potato.  This is like that golf ball sized red potato, that small red apple resembling thing,  that tastes subtly sweet with a delicately creamy texture.  The grade B red potato is like that, but a step down.  It is larger and it’s silky taste has been genetically modified into the semblance of the hoe from Idaho.

Sweet potato is great but that is the old stand by.  I had sweet potato yesterday.  I came to the store hungry and wanting something slightly different that the same thing I eat everyday.  Been there, done that sweet thing.

Alright are you bored yet? Drink some coffee because this dissertation on the cooking grade potato found at the chain, corporate grocery store in not yet over. Rounding up our potato misadventure is that small, almost rotten bag of medley potatoes that are you last choice, your life saver, the possible one!  First of all, the potatoes are so small that there is no way the potato had time to develop any flavor.  It looks like it would taste like a green strawberry.  Secondly, this potato is too tiny to have any flesh beneath the circumference of the skin’s orbit.  The skin makes up the just about the entirety of the miniature potato.  I am not entirely certain, but I do not think that the peel is commonly preferred as the favorite part of the potato.  In fact, I think that it is common practice in the USA to peel the potato and throw the outermost layer away.  Garbage.  Since most potatoes are peeled, and most peels are garbage, the fate of our skin potato is, how shall we say? Compromised? Delicate? Uncertain? Not me of course, I like the skin, but I still do not want a potato consisting mostly of skin.

Yeah that’s it.  Those are the only potatoes offered, sorry for the lack luster list.  Out of the 5,oo0 cultivated variety of potatoes agriculturally grown, our most influential food retailer offers up a humbling 4. (Seriously 5,000, ask Wikipedia). OMG boring.  But really more than uninspiring it is insulting.  Dear lord I am not paying $3 a pound for a shitty baking potato.  The Tiny Skin Potato Medley of Sorrows is a dismaying $4 a bag.  Are you out of your mind??

Anyway, no other options for a starch element to add tonight’s dinner.  There were no parsnips, turnips, plantains, god forbid a celery root, or rutabaga.  What the hell do you do with that?   I dunno, ask the damn Oracle and use it in place of the uniformly bland white guy.

I must imagine how foreigners and visitors and immigrants and travelers must feel.  Do they feel bad for us?  I mean if they do I understand.  I am an American and have lived exclusively in the Midwest and I still feel like I am missing out.  Missing out on variety. Missing out on freshness.  Missing out on spontaneity.