I don’t expect any sympathy from this post, but the fact of the matter is, food bores me.
Eating to me is a way to get from Point A to Point B. Sometimes I have to pace myself because I realize that other people are eating slowly. Leisurely. Enjoying their food. To me, it’s a distraction. I could be doing more important things, like drinking or repeatedly Googling my name.
I remember reading Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes. She has a line in there--and I’m quoting from memory here--where she remarks that her family “would spend several hours preparing food, and then at least two hours eating it, and then immediately begin discussing what the next meal would be.” I’ve never read a line that made me feel more like I was encountering a way of thinking so strange and foreign that it verged on the extraterrestrial, and that includes the six or seven paragraphs I’ve read by Ann Coulter.
People always talk about what restaurants are good. That’s like asking what gas station is better. As long as it provides the fuel, it’s all the same to me. Collectively, over the course of their lives, people might spend days discussing this topic. Didn’t we stop with the whole hunter/gatherers thing so we didn’t have to waste all this time?
I had dinner with my parents the other month. My mother wanted a glass of pinot noir even though she was eating fish. The waiter said, in a tentative, uncomfortable voice, “Well, that might end up being a little more oaky that you might want. Of course, that’s just me.” Whatever, Jeeves. If you care so much about quality of life, why do you spend eight hours a day dressed in that monkey suit? Good taste is for losers. My rule of thumb is: red wine with anything that requires ketchup and white wine with anything that requires mayonnaise.
This weekend I went hiking with a friend and we had breakfast at a place called “Country Waffles.” She was disappointed that the place was more like a Denny’s than its quaint, upscale exterior seemed to suggest. Me, I was glad. I only had to flick my eyes and the waitress appeared at my elbow to refill my coffee cup. At some hip Yuppie-fied, place, I would have had to ask for it. And then they would have had to grow the beans. Then pick them. Then ship them to the United States. And several weeks later, I might have gotten a second cup of coffee.
I’m in the habit of putting everything into my slow cooker. I get up for work, stumble around the kitchen, and throw in random ingredients. I pretty much just hope for the best that something will be edible by the time I return home. Occasionally this method has resulted in the creation of new life. I even put cold cereal in the cooker now; granted, it takes five hours on “High” for it to be ready, and the flakes taste faintly like pot roast. Still, it gets the job done.
I read other people’s blogs and they have all these elaborate, trendy recipes. And it’s not that I wouldn’t want to eat the food. I just don’t want to make it. I want to walk up to a replicator and say “One serving of elaborate trendy blog recipe” and then it shimmers into view. Failing that, forget it.
That’s not to say that I don’t understand some of the subtleties of gourmet cooking. For example, I do understand that presentation is half the meal. That’s why I can tell you, almost to the millisecond, how long it takes to nuke something in the microwave without having it explode. Not only does the food explosion look unsightly, but it takes a long time to clean up. Which means more wasted time in the kitchen.
So anyway--who wants to come over for dinner?
While I do enjoy food and restaurants, I too long for the day that the replicators make it to real life. I just die with envy every time Troi asks for and gets her “cup of chocolate”, to the precise degree of hotness.
Being a total foodie and a former server I can tell you that the person who told your mother that Pinot Noir might be too oaky for fish is completely lame-O. Next time, if you want to “face” that waiter just say, “Pinot is the perfect wine for EVERY type of food, particularly fish.” Then give him a snooty stare.
I also love that your anti-picky rant lead to a Google ad about Emeril and the Food Network.
Come over for dinner??? Sure! What do you want me to prepare?
Sounds like you’re depressed or something as you’re failing to enjoy or seek out pleasure. Get better.
Maybe you’re the one to explain to me why my husband, who claims, as you do, that food “bores” him and eating is only a time-consuming method of refueling, nitpicks constantly about my cooking?
I’m not coming over, but I’ll totally meet you at Denny’s. Or Cracker Barrel.
What can I say? I had recently seen Sideways. From my vantage point, fish, pinot, Papa Goose, and Greg all went well together.
I must disagree. There is no end to the pasta discussions that I am willing to have. There is nothing worse than soggy pasta and nothing better, after a depressing day, than a hot bowl of my favorite pasta! But cooking is sort of a waste of time. I must admit that I dream about these replicators making said bowl of pasta!
that waiter: he should die die die. In fact I’m now pondering of an elaborate, trendy blog recipe featuring him braziered slowly, alive (at first).
ew. did I say that? I put my recipes on my blog occasionally. I’ve been cooking since I was eight years old. Making good food is a big power trip for me, I think. If you are a truly wiley cook, you can compel people to take great pleasure in the meal. A subtle thrill I guess but it works for me.
However I hate food fashion, hate food pretension, hate The Food Network, and my recipes probably aren’t very helpful because I do so much by instinct and can’t record that very well.
“red wine with anything that requires ketchup and white wine with anything that requires mayonnaise.”
that must make picking a wine that goes with burgers and fries kind of difficult. then again, i don’t drink so what do i know?
No, your post makes perfect sense.
so when you refused me a lunchdate at Weinerschnitzel, it WASN’T about the food?
Amen, brother. My sis and I were raised by two gormet cooks (who were also gormands). They could spend an hour at dinner talking about tarragon and whether next time they should add more or less. Boring! I think when we left our house we spent 3 years at McDonalds.
Hate to cook but loooove to eat. I’m lucky enough to work in a place that has a culinary institute and the staff get a deal. Fancy gourmet cooking, 10 bucks. Can’t beat that.
Hey what ever happened to the idea of taking a pill for a meal. I remember seeing it on one of those sci-fi movies or TV shows. Maybe it was Lost in Space. That would make things so much easier wouldn’t it. Or, even better, the “meal pill” from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (the Gene Wilder version), with the pill that “walks” you through a the taste of a full meal. Or, there is the Star Trek: Next Gen. replicators - just ask for what you want and there it is. Of course, the danger there is the ease of asking for a rich, moist piece of chocolate cake at my every whim...or heck, why not a whole cake at my every whim...say maybe I could just set it to jettison out a whole cake every hour...mmmmmm....
A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou.
Ah, wilderness were paradise enow(*)
The wine should be a good German Riesling
(*) Victorian English intended to make the Arabic-to-English transliteration rhyme in English
I highly suspect you are a non-taster (as opposed to a medium-taster or super-taster). Silly terms--they really refer to how many tastebuds your tongue has per square inch and how you react to flavors. Medium is the preferable way to be--Super-tasters are often repulsed by flavors, and non-tasters don’t get much enjoyment. Medium-tasters enjoy a wide range of flavors.
Here’s a non-subjective test: Dip one end of a Q-tip into a bottle of blue food coloring. Smear it on the front part of your tongue. Move your tongue around to make sure the dye spreads out. Using a magnifying glass, count the number of tastebuds near the front of your tongue in an area the size of a hole punch. Note: Instead of USING a hole punch on your tongue to get an idea of the right size, it would be less painful to lay a “reinforcement” on your tongue and count how many tastebuds can be seen through its hole.
Scoring:
< 7: Non-taster
7-20: Medium-taster
> 20: Super-tasters.
If you’re a non-taster, blame your folks. It’s genetic.
I do, I’ll swing by to pick you up for work, and bring breakfast, 3 fruit smoothies. Breakfast you can drink, and cleanup in two minutes or less.
Mmmm.
Slow Cooker Lucky Charms.
Now there’s a meal!
I will talk about and fantasize about and plan for meals 20 hours a day, so this “point A to point B” nonsense is like Martian to me. But I’m a total lazyass in the kitchen, and total low-brow food is every bit as fantasize-worthy as filet mignon with a sprig of slovakian feffernuss.
um, about that dinner invitation.
can we do a potluck?
Actually, this post incited a lot of sympathy from me.
clearly you have never been to ambira, everest or charlie trotters in chicago. there is nothing better than a wine list that’s 30 pages long!
I was right on the verge of emailing your mother to tell her that she wasn’t wrong in ordering Pinot Noir! Grrr, I want to smack that waiter SO hard! Oaky Pinot? If there was such a creature then it would be SO disgusting. She was right on the money, movie or no movie.
Jeez...now I’m hoping I didn’t misremember the incident. I can’t swear that he said “oaky,” although I thought he did. But I know I’m right about the fish and pinot noir combination.
Great post.
I love food. I cook interesting stuff because I can’t afford to have someone else cook it for me. But then I have a big ass. My guess, you have a small ass.
That waiter should have the pinot shoved up his pretentous ass. Or however you spell it.
Hey didn’t you post a recipe for greasy pepperoni once ?
I have a love hate relationship food obviously. I don’t cook, I’m not fancy, and I don’t fuss about it. I just like to eat it (apparently). I fantasize about it being as easy as taking a food pill to get out of the mess I got myself into. Actually I’d prefer the replicator and then a pill to reverse the damage.
If you were looking for sympathy, keep on lookin’! As someone who is currently on Day 7 of Phase 1 of the South Beach Diet (but who’s counting?) I can summon NO sympathy whatsoever for your affliction. However, I did find David’s taste bud counting suggestion interesting, and am going to find something the size of a hole punch to place upon my tongue post haste.
Pretentious :D
Hate food. I’m a Uni student with a microwave to feed 6 people in the same flat.
Although, I do enjoy going home every other weekend to have some of my dad’s home cooking…
In the famous words of Mr. Terry Pratchett:
‘...sex bore some resemblance to cookery: it fascinated people, they sometimes bought books full of complicated recipes and interesting pictures, and sometimes when they are really hungry they created vast banquets in their imagination - but at the end of the day they’d settle quite happily for eggs and chips. If it was well cooked and maybe had a slice of tomato.’
Terry Pratchett - ‘The Fifth Elephant’
(Footnote on page 294)
I love to cook. Sometimes I get sick of it since I cook for an army just about every night. I love my own cooking which is a horrible thing because it makes me gain weight. My theory has always been tho....it takes 3 hours to prepare a wonderful huge meal and only 15 minutes for it to be gulped down....what’s the point???