Freshman In The Kitchen

From clueless cook to creative chef

When my girlfriend first gave me the Max & Eli Sussman book called “Freshman in The Kitchen”, I thought she had finally called my bluff about my wanting to cook more often. Well, not a bluff, more like a threat. I am left handed, so I find it rather hard to wield a knife and find my rhythm in the kitchen. Nevertheless, I have always wanted to be more like one of my culinary heroes (Anthony Bourdain), so I opened the book and started reading.

 

The great thing about this thin, gloss paged book, with its wide plastic ring binder is that it can be brought in to the kitchen with you. You can wipe sauce off the pages if a little gets on there. Also, the pages lay open easily which, as a new cook, it is important to have the ability to continue staring at the recipe you are preparing.

 

Funny enough this book is written by two brothers who were taught to love cooking by their old world mother. The two grew up cutting up veggies, making soups, and enjoying the homemade meals many of us now find to be a luxory. As two men that have been in the kitchen for so long, I did not expect they would be able to relate to how foreign things like blanching, poaching, and julienning are for the rest of us. Yet, they do a surprising good job in teaching even the most novice of cooks to learn to be comfortable in the kitchen.

 

The book starts off with easier no cook recipes like bruschetta and guacamole that help you master the basics. Then it goes in to simple salads, soups, and finally entrees that can take over an hour to prepare. In side columns throughout the book simple cooking concepts are explained, like how to pick out ripe food and what a paring knife is.

 

Many people feel overwhelmed when learning how to cook because in most cookbooks recipes call for a plethora of ingredients, many of them expensive. That is the main way this one differs. Due to the fact it is for the beginning chef it has recipes with every day ingredients, like onions and parsley, which we are all used to.

 

One of my favorite sections is the first chapter where they list off the differences between regular food and organic, eating out versus cooking in, and why it is important to care about what you put in your body. They also list off items for every budding chef to have in their kitchen. I was surprised by how many I had already and did purchase the few odds and ends I would never have thought of owning.

 

I have been working my way through the book slowly the past month and I have to say that I less intimidated by cooking then I was before. So, if you are the type of person that thinks making a meatball is too hard or that blanching is a torture method this book is definitely for you. It is also a great teaching tool for anyone that just wants to know more about the fundamentals of a dying art.

Nature's Path Organic Frosted Toaster Pastries: Brown Sugar Maple Cinnamon

Just looking at that title makes me contemplate one arena in which mass market processed foods are kicking the butts of the organic/healthy competition: product names. Compare that name to, say, "Pop-Tarts." It's short, it's snappy, and kids can remember it. Which is important, because kids are the ones driving the purchase of Pop-Tarts.

Everything about Nature's Path Organic Frosted Toaster Pastries screams, "My parent bought these." For one thing, they were on a relatively high shelf, at eye level for an adult. The box features a photograph of fall leaves, which is surely an abstract connection to "brown sugar maple cinnamon" that an adult is more likely to make than a kid. Kids like cartoon characters, and there aren't any.

The box is also incredibly heavy on TEXT. There are words all over this thing. Words in tiny, six point font. There are even words on all of the flaps of the box, top and bottom. It has a quote by Thoreau on the bottom flap, for pity's sake.

There are also a surprising number of asterisks deployed on the box. I have never eaten a breakfast treat that came with footnotes before. The entire thing looks like it was crafted by a very earnest group of lawyers.

Are they really trying to sell a product to the American public using words? If so, I'm afraid Nature's Path may be sorely deluded.

I'll tell you one thing, though: in a subtle way, this box also screams, "Bring this to your parent's shopping cart and I bet you can convince them to buy it." I mean, they just look so darned wholesome! And nothing is as canny as a child who wants a sugary treat.

As to the aforementioned sugary treat, they are not bad. A lot better than I expected, frankly. I find no fault with the filling, which is just as gritty and sweet and cinnamon-y as you could want. It is pleasantly thick when eaten at room temperature, and warms nicely in the toaster.

From a visual standpoint, the frosting looks just awful. It doesn't look edible. It has a strange unhealthy sheen, like the forehead of a sick person. It had peculiar pockmarks from popped bubbles. It looked as if it had been applied with a spackling knife. But it tasted fine, adding that requisite kick of extra sweetness to the outside of the toaster pastry.

As for the pastry itself, it had a definite tinge of wholesomeness. It carried the very distinctive taste of whole wheat flour.  Its texture was decidedly wholesome as well, and as you can tell, I'm not exactly using the word "wholesome" as a compliment.

Are these actually better for you than a Pop-Tart? They cost more (although I bought mine with a coupon, thus rendering them cheaper). Each pastry has 210 calories, which is more than a Pop-Tart which clocks in at 198 calories.

Most of the ingredients are organic, though, which may turn your crank. They also contain no HFCS or corn ingredients of any kind, relying instead on evaporated cane juice, brown sugar, dextrose, molasses, and honey for sweetening.

Final verdict: Not bad. Probably you should just have a bowl of granola, though.

What's Liquidity, And Why Does It Matter?

"Liquidity" is one of those financial terms that I always thought really rich people (and people involved in the financial industry) needed to know. A specialized term; jargon that the rest of us don't need to know.

Then a few years ago I decided to start my own financial education. And I learned that liquidity is a concept that is actually quite relevant to "the rest of us."

To put it simply: Liquidity is why, when you're living on the edge, you only ever put five or ten bucks of gas into your car's gas tank.

You know that you will eventually use an entire tank of gas (and many more). You are already at the gas station. Most people, in that situation, will just fill up their tank. But if you only have (let's say) thirty dollars until payday, which is five days away, you can't just put all thirty bucks into your gas tank.

You need some of that thirty bucks to spend on other things. You need it in cash form, not in the form of gasoline in your car's gas tank. In other words, you need some of that thirty bucks to stay liquid.

Liquidity is a very basic concept, but it has been given a weird name. "Liquid." What the heck does that mean? Money is not a fluid!

Except that it kind of is.

Let's think of money as water, and you are very thirsty. You want your money to stay in water form (liquid) because that is how you can drink (spend) it. If you let it freeze or evaporate, you lock it into that form. It's no longer liquid. You may be able to recoup it later - you can thaw ice, and collect condensation. But you will probably lose some of it in the transition, and it can take a while, and be a pain.

Cash is the ultimate liquid form of money. You can use cash anywhere, without having to do something to it. But not all cash is created equal. If you have a $100 bill, you may need to stop by a bank and break it into $20s before you can spend it at the local convenience store. If you have all of your cash in the form of pennies, you have to take them to the Coinstar machine (or whatever) before you can really spend them.

Any time you purchase something, you are translating your money into a non-liquid form. It becomes an asset. Let's say you buy a Beanie Baby. You are banking that the value of that asset (Beanie Baby) will increase. But it's a pretty bad investment, because the value probably won't increase, and in order to get your money back you have to go through this whole huge process of selling the Beanie Baby. (This is what's meant by "liquidating an asset.")

Liquidity is why it's dumb to buy an entire year's worth of food at once. You're locking all of your money up into a form (food) that you will probably use, but which won't earn you interest, and could easily be destroyed (e.g. by mice). And it's hard to sell food, if you end up needing the cash instead.

Liquidity: it's not just for bankers!

Photo credit: Flickr/MinimalistPhotography101

It's Not As Hard As It Looks

There are three things that primarily keep people from taking on serious projects in the kitchen: Money, equipment and intimidation. The first two are easy to dispel. The truth is, cooking excellent food is no more expensive than buying packaged goods or eating out. It's actually often cheaper to go for the kinds of ingredients that chefs prefer anyway, namely fresh and locally produced items. A smart shopper can eat like a king without putting extra stress on the food budget. Kitchen utensils are also sorely misunderstood. A set of proper pots and pans are easy to come by and don't have to be the expensive sort from specialty stores. As for knives, there's really no reason to have more than a good chef's knife, a boning knife and a paring knife in your kitchen. The rule is to aim for generalized tools and learn how to use them. The investment will pay for itself in home-cooked meals. But it's that last problem that stops even the best-equipped cooks. Here are some cooking myths that need to be debunked once and for all.

French is Fussy

Saying that French food requires too much work and skill is to misunderstand the very principles of modern cooking. Honestly, a lot of the basic techniques of culinary art from the 20th century on have been based on principles invented in French kitchens. There are no esoteric secrets in the best, most pervasive French dishes. The key to understanding French cooking is reducing the concepts to their bare, unpretentious roots. A crepe? That's just a rich pancake spread thin enough to cook quickly and wrap a simple filling. Coq au Vin? Chicken stewed in wine and field vegetables. The list goes on like this. All it takes is a little Anglicization.

 

Omelets are Impossible

This one seems to be a major hurdle for budding chefs. Omelets are temperamental and require some experience, but there are really only two things you need to know to make one right. First, a slick pan is a happy pan and second, eggs continue to cook after they've been plated. It's important to know how much oil is the right amount of oil for anything that might get stuck to the pan. Even in non-stick cookware a little lubrication is necessary. Just don't turn it into a deep-frying project and you should be fine. Also, learn to appreciate the value of the pan jiggle. If your omelet can slide around in the pan, it's ready to fold and you've oiled properly. When you do fold, don't be afraid of runny egg in the center. Remember, eggs cook quickly and as long as there's heat, even residual heat in the eggs themselves. It won't take long after the fold for the rest of the omelet to set, so be careful not to overcook it.

 

Steak is Easy, Great Steak is a Mystery

Ya wanna know the difference between that mediocre steak you made at home and the amazing steak you had at a restaurant? Garlic butter. Seriously. The open secret of restaurant-quality steak is and has been for decades the application of garlic butter halfway through the cooking process. Making garlic butter is easy. All it takes is minced garlic, a pinch of salt, some unsalted butter and a small sauce pan to melt it all together. Refrigerate it to let it set and then add a dollop to the top of your steak after you flip it. The nutty flavor of the butter and the sharp aromatics of the garlic elevate the taste of the steak like nothing else. Aside from getting a decent cut of meat, that's all you need for a proper steak at home.

Washington's Palace Korean Grill: a lot of good BBQ for cheap

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I had Korean Barbeque for the first time yesterday in the Federal Way, Washington restaurant, Palace Korean Grill.  Korean barbeque is expensive in Seattle--I guess that plates of meat cost upwards of $20 a pop--but in Federal Way, you can get cheap barbeque, with an all-you-can-eat barbeque meal going for $15.99 per person. 

At Palace, there is a small grill at every table, with a fan above it to blow away the smoke.  They also offer a charcoal grill variety to give the meat a signature Korean, smoky taste. The restaurant is simple, with a lot of booths, clean lines and dark colors with the huge silver fans serving a utilitarian and decorative function.

Korean barbeque consists of various types of meat, generally beef, along with many small side dishes. The meat types are quite varied.  We started with beef tongue, which was particularly delicious.  It crisped up on the barbeque grill and then we dipped it the thin-sliced meat into a soy-based sauce.  The dipping sauces made the meat that much better; along with the soy sauce, there was an oil-based peanut sauce and a thick and creamy soybean sauce.  Other types of meat offered at Palace are beef intestine, a kind of thick Korean bacon, shrimp and an on-the-bone cut of beef marinated in Korean barbeque sauce. 

The side dishes are what really made the meal. Traditional Korean table settings feature cooked rice as the centerpiece with the Banchan (side dishes) arranged in order of recipe, ingredients, colors and temperatures for the best balance. Some standouts at Palace were jjigae, a stew with soybean paste, green beans, squash and tofu, saengchae, a fresh salad with vinegar soy sauce, red paper paste and mustand, jeotggal, salt-fermented anchovies, and jagajji, pickled radish.  The meal was also served with cold kimchi, cabbage and green onion pickled in a spicy red sauce, that we put on the grill and ate with the meat.

Federal Way is a big Korean immigrant town, so our menu and the restaurant’s sign—along with grocery stores, salons and the sign over the toilet in a Korean coffeeshop that I think warned against flushing too much TP—are bilingual in Korean and English.  Our waitress at the restaurant, too, spoke almost entirely Korean to a Korean-American friend—I caught the words “potato salad” and “tea” only—as well. 

For some reason, this kind of atmosphere seems more authentic than other types of Asian food, even in Seattle. Chinese food, for example, is nothing like what you’d find in China in most of the restaurants.  True, I’m no expert on authenticity in Korean cuisine, but somehow with the majority of people in this part of town speaking Korean, it seems like the restaurants, shops and salons were created specifically for Korean immigrants, rather than to please Americans. Also, since Korean immigration was later than Chinese, perhaps some of the stigma towards Asian-Americans had dissipated and allowed Korean immigrants to be more authentic to their real culinary heritage when they came to the U.S. and set up shop.

To some extent, the International District in Seattle serves this same function, but because of the mix of Asian ethnicities there—unlike in this part of Federal Way, which is primarily Korean—as well as it becoming such a huge tourist attraction, Federal Way’s isolation seems to keep it more “pure” somehow.   

Sources and further reading:

http://www.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/FO/FO_EN_6_1_2_1.jsp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_cuisine

New Rule: Pre-Packaged Foods are OK

When the Shit Hits the Fan, I'm Going to Survive on Trader Joe's Sauces


El Chef and I did not have a special understanding in regards to the kitchen; whenever I cooked, I wasn’t allowed to cheat. And, no, I’m not talking about fidelity or infidelity. I mean that I wasn’t allowed to use any pre-packaged food at all, which limited my options.

 

Now that El Chef is not sharing the same space as I am, I get to make all the rules. While I’m not exactly loading my shopping cart with hot pizza pockets just yet, the first rule that I’ve made is that it’s ok to eat pre-packaged or frozen food on occasion. You cannot possibly understand how life-changing this revelation has been for me.

 

On the suggestion of a friend, I took a trip to Trader Joe’s, a store my friends and family had raved about for years, but that I wasn’t all that familiar with since we cooked most of our meals from scratch. I bought up a few sauces, a few spices, and a strange mix of frozen ethnic food and prepared myself for the worst.

 

I  first tried out Trader Joe’s Thai Green Curry sauce, which had a little kick and a distinct lemon-grass flavor. I can’t say that it was the best Thai curry I’ve ever eaten; I’m really picky about my Thai food. The curry sauce seemed like it needed a bit more coconut milk added and maybe a little more spice. I sautéed some garlic, spinach, and green beans to throw into the mix so I could get some greens in with my green sauce. The result was pretty good.

 

Both the green beans and the spinach were frozen and have served as my main source of vitamins over the last week or two. I’ve yet to figure out how to work the temperature gauge on my fridge, which has so far kept all of my fresh produce eternally frozen in a cryogenic-like state. Should the proverbial shit ever go down, my eternally frozen produce will de-thaw and I will have fresh produce much longer than most of my unprepared American compatriots.

 

I will also have some handy Trader Joe’s sauces on hand to eat on hand; if the sauces can’t be heated because none of the stoves or working or because I have to flee the premises because of zombies, I truthfully think they are good enough to stand on their own, without rice, pasta, or any vegetables to back them up.  

Image Credit: Flckr User ingridjee

Home Products You Don't Need to Buy

Some ways to outfit your apartment for cheap or free

Apartment living as a young adult can be tricky at first. You're still figuring out how to take care of the new place you call home, how to cook and clean up after yourself unassisted. And then there's all this stuff that people want to sell you. Since I moved into my first apartment two years ago, I've found that a lot of standard home products are easily replaced by cheap or free solutions. If you're new to the apartment game, budgeting is always good. These are five things I eventually realized I didn't really need to buy.

An Electric Coffee Maker

If you don't drink coffee, you obviously don't need a coffee maker. But for those of us hooked on this sweet black nectar, there are other options too. Unless you're brewing coffee for a ton of people every day, a simple coffee cone or French press will suffice. The latter is a good option because you save money on paper filters. I personally use a little ceramic cone and "tea" pot to brew about 16 ounces daily. You use less electricity and your water gets hotter when kettle-boiled. 

A Full Knife Set

If you're cooking for yourself, you'll definitely need knives. But most companies will package six, nine, or twelve into one set and price it accordingly. Really, you'll only need three knives starting out--a big one, a small one, and a serrated one. Your big guy works for bigger vegetables and meat, while your little guy acts as a paring knife for things like garlic. The serrated knife should be big enough to be a bread knife, but can double as a tomato knife in a pinch. Unless you're doing some gourmet foodwork in your kitchen, you're not going to need a big expensive knife kit anytime soon. 

Drinking Glasses

"What?" I hear you say. "But how will I sip my lemonade without a drinking glass?" Here's what you do: go buy a jar of jam, use the whole thing, then rinse it out. Tell me it doesn't bear a striking resemblance to those glasses that can cost you three, four, five dollars a pop, or more. Just reuse every jar you buy until you've got a steady supply of glasses to drink out of. On that note, you also won't need to buy...

Storage Jars

Hey, I have a lot of these! They came free with my pasta sauce. Why IKEA and Crate & Barrel charge money for glass lidded jars is beyond me. Sure, if you need a really big storage container, you might want to buy one. But for most of your bulk storage needs, a good mason jar will do the trick. 

Cleaning Fluids

Unless you've got some heavy duty mess, you don't need to shell out on chemicals to clean your home. Vinegar, lemon juice, and baking soda are time-tested substances that will disinfect and clean most bathroom and kitchen surfaces. Just mix one part water with one part vinegar or lemon juice and put it in a spray bottle: instant counter and tile cleaner. Or mix baking soda with lemon juice or vinegar and put it on a sponge for a deodorizing cleaning paste. It's way cheaper than buying the pre-bottled stuff, and much greener too. 

I'm sure there are other clever alternatives to common home products. What cheap solutions have you found to work for you? 

The Most Confoundingly Useless Crate & Barrel Kitchen Products

Dregs of a capitalist society

I'm big on living small. I don't like buying things I don't absolutely need, unless they're concert tickets to a favorite band or something intangible along those lines. I try to keep my food budget to $20 a week. Not only does it cut down my overall expenses, but it reduces my carbon footprint and keeps me saner to boot. I believe consuming for its own sake can be a destructive activity, and I've almost stopped shopping recreationally altogether. So my opinion on novelty home products, as you might imagine, is a little harsh. But Crate & Barrel, one of the annoying gatekeepers of upper-middle class taste, stocks some items that ought to frustrate even the consumer-minded. Here are the biggest offenders. 

 

Egg Crate

What? Why would you need to buy your eggs in a carton, take them out, and put them in a different carton? Unless you're collecting your eggs from the hens that live in your backyard--and let's face it, most Crate & Barrel customers aren't--this half-dozen porcelain container is just a pretentious way to pretty up your fridge. 

Banana Hanger

Did I miss something? Is there a problem with putting bananas on the counter, or even in your precious fruit basket? Does it make them go bad more quickly? Do you just like pretending you're picking them from the trees in the comfort of your over-equipped home? 

Silverware Storage Box

Suddenly drawers aren't good enough. No, we need a "handsome" hundred and thirty dollar box with an "espresso finish" to display the finest of our forks. I get the in-drawer organizers--I have one and I enjoy sorting out the big spoons from the little ones--but a whole seperate box? Maybe it makes sense if you have enough fancy silver that you only break out at your dinner parties for 12, but if your friends are too high and mighty for your daily drawer-stored flatware, they probably aren't very good friends anyway.

Butter Spreader

A device designed exclusively for spreading butter on your corn on the cob. That's it. That's all it does. For people who are above holding butter by its wrapper, we have a tiny stainless steel box. Congrats! Your swanky tastes have been catered to. I bet you didn't even know you needed this; now you see yourself in the hot summer, smearing butter on your corn with a knife or directly from its wax paper, and you realize what a fool you've been. But worry not! It's never too late to mend your errors. You can still buy this thing for only nine dollars. Praise the heavens!

Strawberry Huller

Oh, gosh. Not only does it take the green stuff off your strawberries, it even looks like a strawberry itself. How have I lived so long without one of these on my person at all times? Speaking of strawberries...

Berry Colander

Wow! All this time I'd been rinsing my berries in my regular colander. I bet I looked like an idiot! Thanks, Crate & Barrel, for making a special berry-sized colander just for me. 

Herb Scissors

Here I thought herbs were weak little things. Little did I know you need a five-bladed weapon to defeat them. 

Pasta Measurer

How else will I know how much spaghetti I should eat? (Hint: one pound per four people. Do the rest of the math yourself like a big kid.)

Marshmallow Fork

Because skewers just don't cut it anymore, now we need a specially branded utensil for s'mores. Back in my day, we used sticks foraged from the forest to toast our 'shmallows...

 

I could go on but I have to stop for the sake of my mental health. It just enrages me that there's a market for this kind of stuff. If nothing else, Crate & Barrel's catalogue is a sign that the upper ends of our society have way too much money to spend on the most superfluous crap. 

Five Ways to Make Legumes Work for You

Fit in three weekly cups of the magical fruit

The prevalence of Whole Foods and other novelty health stores has led to the notion that a healthy meal can only be made from expensive ingredients. Between organic produce and imported spices, eating well seems more and more like a privilege. But that doesn't have to be the case. As a health-conscious vegetarian on a limited budget, I have managed to find ways to make filling and very healthy dishes. That's not to say I'm without my privileges; I have access to a great grocery store and time to cook for myself, which is not the case for all Americans. But these bean-centered recipes make great use of generally available and inexpensive ingredients. 

Legumes come recommended by several public health organizations, who suggest we eat at least 3 cups per week. Eating beans on a regular basis helps lower the risk of cardiovascular diseases, as well as improving digestive health. They're good stuff all around, especially if you have the time to buy them dried and cook them yourself. Here are 5 favorite bean recipes that I find myself devouring on a regular basis. 


Quick Black Beans with Cumin and Oregano

Sort of a poor man's chili, these black beans are delicious on their own, over rice, or garnished with baby spinach. I've mixed leftovers into eggs before as well. The onion, garlic, and spices pack an awesome antioxidant punch. I like to swap out the hot sauce for a teaspoon or so of cayenne pepper but either way is delicious. This recipe is a great way to use up any leftover fractions of onion you may have lying around the fridge, as you don't really need a full one for a single can of beans.

Lima Beans with Garlic

I love a minimalist ingredient list, and this recipe ensures you'll only need to buy one, maybe two things you don't already have lying around your kitchen. It calls for frozen lima beans, which for some reason are a little tricky to find in my neck of the woods. I'm sure cooked dried limas and their cooking water would work just as well for this simple little dish. I still don't know if this counts as a soup or a stew or what, but either way, it's super tasty.

Warm Lentil Salad

I had no idea that red wine vinegar and Dijon mustard made such an enticing pair. The dressing in this salad is one of the most delicious I've ever seasoned with, and it was born out of two things I already had sitting around my kitchen. The recipe calls for French lentils as its base, but I use whatever happens to be in the grocery store, French or otherwise. Make a ton of this salad and eat it throughout the week; it keeps well and tastes fine cold, too. 

Cowboy Beans

This one calls for the quick cooking of dry Pintos, so no cans to be seen. Set aside a few hours for this; it's worth it. I make it without bacon and with a lot of spinach on top. I've also never been able to find sambal, though I'm sure it makes this bean soup taste even better if you have access to it. 

Chick Pea and Parmesan Salad

This one is such a staple for me, it's ridiculous. It takes about two minutes to assemble if you're using canned garbanzos--no cooking required, just a little mixing. I like to put the beans, olive oil, and lemon juice in a lidded Pyrex bowl, shake it all up, then sprinkle the cheese on top. I usually only eat about half a can at a time, so I essentially get two full meals out of a dollar fifty or so. This salad still tastes great without the parmesan if you're dairy-averse. It's also tasty atop a handful or two of dark, leafy romaine for an added nutrition boost. 


There you have it--that's mostly how I get by as a broke vegetarian. All of these recipes could easily be a side dish for a larger meal. The black beans in particular would go great in a burrito or something of the sort. But they'll do just fine on their own, as budget-friendly, (mostly) vegan meals for the survivalists among us. If your grocery store offers beans in bulk, fill up some huge jars for maximum savings. If not, cans will do nicely (and save time) as you fit in your three cup weekly minimum. 

(Photo credit: Orangette)

That Burger is OUTRAGEOUS!

Yeah, and so are you, and so is this stupid channel.

I’ll admit that I was hooked on Food Network for a while, and I still like shows like “Chopped” and “Best Thing I Ever Ate.” I even loved Tom Pizzica when he was a contestant for the Next Food Network Star, and I’d love to see him cooking with his weird, creative ways and his quirky sense of humor.

But now that he’s hosting Outrageous Food on the network, all I can do is turn my head and try not to barf. “Big Chef is back!” we’re told on the channel. However, he’s not really back and cooking in the kitchen; instead, he’s traveling the country, finding the most “outrageous” food—which really just translates to the biggest, most disgusting foods on the planet.

They’re not gourmet or special or cooked with a twist, something we can replicate at home. Instead, they’re just monstrously big—pounds and pounds of tacos or meat or whatever, made for eating contests or restaurant challenges and the grotesque American lifestyle.

Make no mistake; I love food. Food is my favorite, as I might say in Buddy the Elf-enese. But when it comes to this disgusting display of giant food, I’d much rather go sleep or have sex or mow the grass or gouge my eyes out with a dowel rod before eat. Not only are these foods gross, they’re also a gross display of how wasteful and privileged we Americans are. We don’t just eat a lot, we eat BIG, and we like to use a lot of FOOD for no reason at all but to be OUTRAGEOUS!

It’s disgusting and it’s even more disgusting to see it so glorified. And while I’m on that subject, I’m also disgusted with the whole meat and potatoes show, where “Vegetarians just don’t get it!” Yeah they do. They get that you like to be wasteful and deplete resources faster and showcase how you eat more than a child in Ethiopia eats in a year in one afternoon and that you don’t give a damn about it. And they don’t like seeing you do it on TV, either.

With the growing prices of gas and food—and the depletion of both these resources, in addition to water—I don’t know how much farther our obsession with OUTRAGEOUS! FOOD is going to go, but I’m also sure it’s not helping anything, either.

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