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Category: Food/Drink

I Have an Unnatural Aversion to Foods That Are White

The other day the boys wanted to dye Easter eggs. Fine, I said, so we went and got all of our supplies together : Eggs, Paz dye, other artsy implements in case someone was feeling creative were all gathered. We got the water to boiling and carefully dropped the eggs into it, waiting a good amount of time before removing them in case they weren’t completely solid (which is always a bad thing). While letting them cool it hit me like a brick in the face – the smell of those nasty things.

Yuck. I had to leave the kitchen.

Man, I hate the smell of hard boiled eggs, don’t know why, it just smells terrible to me. Like this earthy, wet, warm smell that permeates the entire kitchen. About twenty minutes later, with the aide of a full-torqued celing fan, and the kitchen was no longer a no-man’s-land for my nose.

But this brings up something that I have been dealing with for a long time – my unmitigated hate of white foods.

There is something about the color white, when applied to something someone is eating, that churns my stomach. Milk, eggs, yogurt, marshmallows, when served by themselves, just do a number on my reflexes. When served with something else, though, it’s not so bad. Marshmallows by themselves? Couldn’t look more upappetizing, but when mixed with chocolate and graham crackers, they become something heavenly.

Plain milk? No. Chocolate milk? Oh lord yes.

Popcorn is another issue. I love popcorn, which, in it’s natural state, is mostly white. However, it is delicious and usually buttery/salty, two flavors that I could eat for days together.

Maybe this is really about how I hate hard boiled eggs. Consistency, smell, the shell you have to crack, that nasty looking tennis ball colored yolk in the middle of them. If anybody ever sent me to Guantanamo, all they would have to do was boil some eggs and give me a big glass of milk. “Excuse me, sir, I’ll tell you whatever you want. Just get those things out of here.”

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The Potbelly Sandwich Shop is Terrible

I am a sandwich guy. Love sandwiches. I could live off of them for days and weeks given the opportunity. I even like creating new ways to make sandwiches. Grilled chicken and spicy mustard on a grilled cheese comprised of provolone and mozzarella? Why not?

Jason’s Deli, Which Wich, chopped beef, sliced turkey with honey barbecue, I love them. And if they were sentient and could feel love, they would love me too.

And so I was at Potbelly Sandwich Works the other day with Kim. I ordered the Pizza Sandwich and she got the Turkey Skinny. I had to go back to the house so I took mine with me and she met a client. About twenty minutes passes.

I eat the sandwich when I get home.

Seriously? They call this a Pizza Sandwich? Pepperoni, marinara sauce (whoever put that on pizza?), provolone (again, who put that on pizza?), mushrooms and Italian seasoning. Those are the ingredients that make up the vaunted “Pizza Sandwich”.

It was terrible. Possibly the worst sandwich I’ve ever bought at an establishment that purported to be a sandwich shop. It didn’t taste like pizza, and it didn’t even taste good. It was like the bread was a wet sponge and the “pepperoni” (all two slices) was so low rent that it needed a bailout.

I talked to Kim later and told her the Pizza Sandwich was terrible. She immediately retorted, “My sandwich was terrible too!”

So goodbye and good riddance, Potbelly Sandwich Work. You’ve been in business for 32 years but hopefully you’ll go out of business very soon and stop polluting the world with your crummy “sandwiches”.

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Why Does the Black Eyed Peas’ Service Have to Suck So Bad?

Last Sunday Kim and I took the kids over to The Dixie House, a longtime established Dallas restaurant in the heart of the Lakewood area. They were well known for their chicken-fried steak 1And don’t try to call it “country-fried steak”. That’s for wusses.] back in the day, but then they got bought out by another restaurant chain, The Black-eyed Pea and were amalgamated into the fold, only retaining their name and little else. After adopting the same menu as their new owner they lost much of their signature character and they really became just another Black-eyed Pea.

Which is sad. For the past few years or so every time I’ve eaten at the Black-eyed Pea the service has been terrible. The food is *okay*, I suppose, and since there are few restaurants around that still serve the Southern-style food that most of us Texans grew up on it was like a strange oasis in a sea of Asian fusion and California Pizza Kitchen-type places. Like I said, the problem is the service is terrible. Several weeks ago we went in, again on a Sunday, and were sat fairly quickly, but then our waitress, who looked like she was charged with seven or eight tables, came by and said she’d be right back to take our drink orders. Five minutes, then ten minutes passed, no waitress, no drink order. We eventually flagged the hostess and asked if we could just have some water and rolls, since the kids were getting antsy and angry.

Ten more freaking minutes passed and no waitress to take our order. And so we left.

Jump back to last Sunday. We’re sitting at The Dixie House. It’s around 1:30 in the afternoon and there are probably eight tables full and three of the wait staff to shephard over them. Our waitress came, said she’d be right back with our drinks. Another table is sat in her section, they order drinks and then get them before we get ours. Five more minutes pass, no drinks. We finally flag down our waitress and ask where our drinks are and she stumbles over what we’d ordered. She then gets them out. The food is alright but still the service is incredibly lacking.

So we’ve made a pact: no more Black-eyed Pea. Ever.

We’re never going there again. I’ve wasted far too much money on a crummy establishment. I’m done with them.

So if anyone reads this and has a suggestion of where to find this mysteriously hard to find Southern cuisine in the Dallas area, leave a comment. If it’s good we might even ask you to go with us sometime.

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The Chewy Chips Ahoy Cookie

Oh, prepackaged moist cookie made by Chips Ahoy, how I love thee.

But you ask, why do I love you so?

Because of your very name – “Chewy”. Through some sort of chemical process which, I’m sure, is bad for you, they (being Chips Ahoy) made a cookie that “tastes” like it was “freshly made”. The Chewy Chips Ahoy cookie is like the Easy Cheese of cookies.

But my lord, I love them. I hadn’t eaten them in 20 years, but out of the blue I ate one the other day at my in-laws’ house and before I knew it I had scarfed down 6 of them, which I’m sure shortened my life by a couple of months, but then to further put myself into an early grave I went out and bought my own bag of them to keep at work this morning, hidden away inside of my desk. I’ve had 3 already today, and in the name of C. Everett Koop, hopefully that will be all of them that I eat today.

Chemically, the Chewy Chips Ahoy is far different from the generic Chips Ahoy chocolate chip cookie, and within that maze of ingredients, I’m sure, is the reason that they retain their moisty quality. Is it the palm oil? Or milk? Might it possibly be the molasses or the annatto extract? Only God, and the wizards/alchemists at Nabisco know. But I will tell them, as they ought to be aware, that they have made, for me at least, crack in cookie form.

Damn you, and I love you, Nabisco.

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