I LOVE COOKING

I love cooking. Eating as well, but, mostly cooking. Ok, I lie. I REALLY REALLY REALLY love eating.

I will eat just about anything. Believe me when I say that. I have eaten things that have left me with the partial function brain that I do now (is that really a sentence?). You know, stuff like: library paste; paint chips (the good old fashioned lead based kind); mercury from a thermometer (once, and it was an accident. I accidentally bit through it); and last but not least, my dads cooking.

Dad was a career military man (over 28 years) so his idea of "tasty" cooking involves replicating the wonderful "chow hall" experience by utilizing extremely high heat (think White Dwarf Star going Supernova, kind of heat), long cooking times (use a calendar, not a timer) and differing combination's of the following seasonings:

1 Salt,
2. Pepper,
3. Flavor-A-Way, and/or
4. Taste-B-Gone

Dad's cooking motto is "Let the oven do the cooking". And by cooking I mean, leaching out every lick of moisture imaginable, rendering a 22lb succulent turkey into a 5lb mummified "turkey shaped"cigarette ash. Yummy!!! He also says "the meat fell off the bone". Yep, just like that cigarette ash fell off the filter. When he says he is making mashed potatoes, that is what you are getting. Mashed potatoes. No milk, butter, salt, pepper, garlic, etc. Mashed potatoes!!!

It took me moving away from home to realize that all vegetables do not come out of a can. There are actually even more choices than Creamed Corn, Whole Kernel Corn, String Beans and Peas. When I discovered the joys of fresh veggies, boy howdy did I freak out. I couldn't believe there were vegetables that were colors other than green or yellow.

And don't get me started on seafood. The most exotic seafood we would eat was Fish Sticks. Sometimes it was Friend Shrimp (but only in a restaurant). Fish Sticks aren't even fish. Ok, they do have "some" fish in them, but they have more filler than Hot Dogs or Head Cheese. I've seen how they get the fish. I was on fish processing ships in the middle of the Bering Sea. I've seen the assembly lines of cutting fish and the squeegees pushing the leftover parts into openings in the floor where the "fish stick" ingredients get sluiced. I digress. Woof. Back to cooking (and EATING!!!).

The one thing that I have yet to master, while cooking, is portion control. I am unable to cook for 1 or 2 people. Even though there are only 2 of us in the house, I invariably end up cooking for the entire neighborhood. If the neighborhood in question was, say, Chicago, there will still be leftovers. My friends love it, cause they get to eat yummy stuff as well. Corned Beef and Cabbage, Pasta with Meat Sauce/Seafood Sauce/etc. Sauce, Prime Rib, Crab Cakes. There are always too many. Our poor freezer is so jammed packed with leftovers, we couldn't fit a string of dental floss into it, if we wanted to.

Because I cook, I can be very judgmental about others cooking. I don't mean to be, I just am. Silently. Unless they ask how I like it. Then I have to tell them. In my own way. Which can be a bit crude, but then again, if Mother Theresa spent over 20 years in the military, I think she might of had the language of a sailor too. I only really have 3 food compliments.

Here they are (from worst to best):

"It's Good"- meaning it's not. It's the worse compliment I can give. I may as well
say "it's just like Dad used to make".

"It Doesn't Suck"- I'll even eat seconds.

"It'll Form A Stool"- You have to eat a lot of "something" to form a stool. I'm talking the "loosen
the belt Marge and keep your hands away from my face, I'm going in" kind
of helpings. There haven't been many meals that receive this compliment.

That's all I want to say about cooking and eating. I'll be in the kitchen having a bowl of cereal. There will be leftovers. Trust me!

THOUGHT FOR FOOD

Ok, so when you're eating, please make as little noise as possible. I'm thinking it may save you a tasering/stabbing/shooting/fill in your own worst nightmare.

Don't get me wrong, even I have been a noisy eater. But nothing like some rude cud chewing, gravel eating, talky McSpewersons I've run into (and against). Lemme sum up- nope too short. Lemme 'splain:

I've got a thing for loud noises. Not really noises, per se. More like food noises. It turns my stomach when I can hear someone's saliva predigesting their meal, even before it hits their gut. I've been like this for as long as I can remember.

Growing up, I had the pleasure of listening to my dad "squeak" when he chewed. It didn't matter what he ate- he squeaked. Hard candy- Squeak. Mashed potatoes- Squeak. Water- Squeak. How the hell he did that, I have no idea. It would drive me absolutely batshit crazy listening to him squeak. I could leave the room and the noise would follow. Gaaaaahhhh!!!

I also know someone, near and dear to me, that chews incessantly with their mouth open. Woof!!! From the smallest mouthful to great white shark sized bites, it mattered not. Crap would be churning around that open gob like some insane cement mixer. Talking, smacking lips, etc. You know the drill. Urrrrp... Oops. Just thinking about that, I think I just threw up a little in my mouth. Oh well.

This is also the same person that can crunch one potato chip for 20 minutes. ONE!!! With an open mouth chewing frenzy, it sounds like they are eating gravel. And not those small bits. NO! I'm talking quarry sized, rock crusher smashing, asteroids. Multiply that by a gajillion to the Nth power and you get the idea.

The last thing that really works me into a berserker-like rage is slurping. Sipping hot tea (or coffee), to make sure that it isn't "center of the earth" magma hot, is one thing. Doing that "inhale, suck whistle" while nursing a tepid, piss warm cup of anything, is enough to push me over the deep end. In some countries, that is grounds for justifiable bludgeoning.

This evening, while at a sushi dinner, I sat in front of some guy who sounded like a sea cucumber trying to suck his guts back in after being attacked by an octopus. You know, they throw them up to get away from predators? I actually thought it sounded like someone being fellated by the Blob. He was eating soup. For the love of all that is sacred, if it's that hot, let it cool down! I'd rather have lukewarm soup, than a mouth full of dead skin and a blistered esophagus. It took all my energy to keep from jamming my chopsticks into his ears and turning his head into a bizarre "cranium on the cob".

Oh, that reminds me. I have to go to the store and get more pork rinds to take into the movies with me on Friday. Just joking. They're corn nuts.