Category: Culinary

Sex.Food.Rush.Chill

April 3, 2019

Sex.Food.Rush.Chill.

What else is there? Really?

Epicurus — that devil-dog from 300BCE — would have stepped back from such a statement. He would have shaken his head like a dog, olive oil and bits of sardine flying, his wang hanging out of his toga and said with authority — let’s party!

Sex: If you’re not driven by your hormones to procreate — then why are you even here? (Even it no progeny could ever come of your libidinous acts.)

Food: There are so many flavors, textures, and culinary sensations that obesity should be a badge of honor, not a shroud of shame. Oh, and Al-Ko-Hall – straight up!

Rush: The need for speed, death defying feats, an adrenaline high and risk — it’s all about the risk baby.

Chill: You need time, we all need time to pontificate. Sit back, puff a doobie, gaze at the sunset, the stars, or each other and just contemplate all of it — or none of it.

Sex.Food.Rush.Chill

 

 

Why so many flavors?

March 16, 2019

Buffet

[Flickr: Commons Image]

Humans, in fact most animals, could survive given the bare essentials of nutrition: Some grains, some beans, some earthy greens and maybe a few eggs. Pretty basic, nearly tasteless stuff. So, why do we have such refined sensibilities with regards to taste (and smells)?

There are literally millions of ingredients, spices, recipes, mixtures, and cooking methods all producing exotic, intoxicating, alluring odors and flavors. It seems overkill. Thousands of culinary media stars (over the years) continue to entice us with the promise of just one more umami taste, one more Maillard enhanced sensation. Sheesh! Talk about the absurdity of The Excess.

If I were designing a brand new biological creature I’d focus on a binary eating process:

  • Will this kill me (or make me ill), or not?
  • Will this enhance my nutritional energy quotient, or not?

There, done.

With such a process, a vast swath of beneficial food stuffs now opens up for such a creature to leverage. Think: super goat. The whole concept of “squeamishness” would vanish.

“Oooh, I can’t eat that.”

“Well, sure you can. It won’t kill you, or make you sick, and it will keep you alive for another day and a half.”

Does today’s food culture seem excessive and absurd to you?

How do you like your eggs?

July 11, 2018

That should be the opener to every relationship.

“How do you like your eggs?”

Doesn’t it say just about everything about a person?

“Oh, I don’t eat eggs.” — NIX!

“Sling those delicious little ovums any ol’ way you want for me.” — WINNER!

“Ooh, I can’t stand runny yokes.” — GONNER!

“A buttery, soft-boiled treasure chest of golden goo and toast is absolute heaven.” — CHAMPION!

“Bouncy and dry, Don’t try to feed me wet scrambled — any day.” — EXIT STAGE LEFT!

“Tobiko, a raw quail’s egg yoke nestled in a tiny cup of flying fish eggs, wrapped in sushi rice and nori, tipped onto your tongue, popping the yoke, letting that unctuous creamy dream slide down your throat while nature’s pop-rocks burst like salty fireworks in your mouth, must be the most sensual food ever invented.” — DING DING DING — GRAND PRIZE!

If you don’t share your love (or hatred) of eggs — the way you like them — then what do you really have in common with that person?

Poached, fried, scrambled, soft-boiled, hard-boiled, deviled, frittata’d, quiche’d, pickled, omeletted, and raw. Eggs are wondrous orbs of divisive lines in the sand. Cross those lines — at your peril.

How do I like my eggs?

(Spoken with a heavy Scottish brogue): Squeezed from a chicken’s vagina, heated slow for the whites to jell, the yokes jiggling like a fat baby’s cheeks, and then slid over grits creamed and peppered, with a thumb-sized dollop of salted butter lowered onto the delicate golden pillows, and then, oops, I’ve slit the sack, providing for that viscous yellow ink to leak, molten and slow into the nooks of the dish. Yes, that’s how I like my eggs.

Tomorrow’s swill

December 6, 2017

The internet is like tomorrow’s swill.

There used to be a comic called The Wizard of Id, and I used to read it often enough to have memorized some of the panel sets. One of them sticks out in my mind. The dungeon guard is delivering a meal. He hands a bowl to a prisoner (maybe the prisoner) and the prisoner speaks up. “This swill tastes funny.” The guard takes it back, gives it a taste and says “Of course this swill tastes funny. This is tomorrow’s swill.”

That is what we have to live with. That is our internet nourishment these days. What you read today, what you gasped at or marveled at or cast aside as today’s entertainment, we’ll be re-stewing at tomorrow’s swill of content, maybe bringing last weeks or last years memes in for spice, and then serving it to you as if it was haute cuisine.

And you’ll lift the bowl, sniff it, sip it and think to yourself, this internet info-tripe tastes funny.

Bon-appetit.

Societas absurdum

November 25, 2017

At what point does society become absurd?

Humans need water, food, clothing, housing to survive. But today, for some reason, (Boredom? Compressed competition? Neurosis?) society has fixated on the most absurd quasi-competitions. And I’m assuming it is a competition of sorts. And all of it results in the most absurd behavior.

  • Cuisine is absurd.
  • Fashion, absurd.
  • Home decor, absurd.
  • Rarefied water, absurd.

When an entire media network has dedicated itself to absurd food fetishes (Food Network) society must have devolved into some backwards image of itself, some alt-universe, twisted mirror vision where Bobby Flay must pull the hair from Guy Fieri’s head while stirring a omelet made from Rachael Rae’s and Giada De Laurentiis’ peeled facial masks. (Eww!)

Here’s a suck omelet. It’s food. Eat it for cripes sake!

CrappyOmelet

No, no, no. It must be a savory, delicate fold of creamy eggs and chives. To eat an omelet any other way would be barbarous! Heathens! Ovum Infidels!

PerfectOmelet

Fashion? Hell, this has been absurd for centuries. Why? It must have to do with $$$ (but certainly not MY $$$ — I haven’t spent money on clothing for years). Maybe it’s what the Absurdly Rich do with their Absurd Billions.

What are we now, New Guinea Birds of Paradise competing for the three remaining females (or males) on the island?

BirdOfParadise

SQUAWK!

Fashion

Home decor — oy vey! Like the world needs more bizarre sculpture, furniture, fixtures, lighting, stairways, fireplaces, brickwork, aluminum windows and indoor topiaries. If it’s art — that’s OK. But if it’s edgy for the sake of being edgy…

Sheesh! Would you want to try and relax in this prison?

housing

Water. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?

Water

Society has become absurd has it not?

What is the cure for this absurdity? I know, but I’m not telling. Alright, ow, that hurt! Society needs to have its priorities reset. How? GLOBAL CATACLYSMIC DISASTER of course.