Garlic??? What the Hell...

Ok, I like garlic as much as the next person. Ok, that's a lie. I pretty much hate garlic. I hate the smell, I hate the flavor. I hate it's overpoweringness in anything it's added to, in that it becomes all I can taste and it makes my stomach uber-sick. Now that we all understand that..

We went out to dinner last night as a belated Birthday dinner for yours truly, and as such I picked Mizu. It's a japanese steakhouse, rather pricey as those are, but I figured that's what I got that birthday money for, right?

[related anecdote]: So for Lem's last birthday I took him to Benihana. It's a japanese steakhouse nationwide, same as above kinda pricey but the food is wonderful. Should I say, it used to be wonderful. Now,they cook everything with garlic butter. Ev-Ry-Thing. The fried rice. The vegetables. The steak. THE FREAKIN STEAK. And they put a shitload of finely chopped onions (did I mention I hate onions too?) in the fried rice, which made it inedible for me. Basically I paid a shitload of $$ for food that I couldn't eat. I was unhappy. That is an understatement.

Back to Mizu. So we sit down, and the table across from us is already underway with their chef cooking.. and I can see the contents of his little food cart. Hmm... that huge bowl of butter has green bits in it. Butter does not normally have green bits in it in it's natural state, unless maybe you fed the cow some really good weed or something. The waitress comes over and I ask her if the butter is garlic butter. She says no, another worker overhears her and corrects her, yes it's garlic butter. I verify that they can in fact substitute plain butter. *whew*

Our chef comes out, starts taking our order. I ask to see the rice he'll use to make the fried rice. He pulls out a huge platter with a pile of cooked white rice on it, and on top they've dumped enough diced onions to depopulate an entire garden of onions. *gag* I ask him if he can switch it out for rice WITHOUT onions.. which he very nicely does. The rest of the meal proceeded and the food was quite tasty. They even put small cut-up shoots of asparagus with the shrimp appetizers. Big kudos to my family, including the in-laws, for letting me take over dinner and putting up with my pickiness. But really.. they put SO MUCH of that garlic butter in there all you can taste is garlic. I can go to the damn grocery store and buy garlic for a couple dollars, and saturate all my food at home if I want to. If I'm paying $20-$30 per PLATE at a restaurant, I want to taste the FOOD I'm paying for, not garlic with a hint of steak flavor, thank you very much. Same with the onions.

Yes, spare me the "oh but garlic is SOOOO good for you" lectures. I don't like it. I don't anticipate liking it anytime in the near future, and I don't have to eat it. So there!

Del

The Things I Do For You People

It's time for me to help you get in touch with your inner burp. Yes, that's right, no more laying awake at night pondering the meaning of the Universe as it applies to Burp Science. If you're easily grossed out, then by all means keep reading so you end up puking on your keyboard. Just make sure you get a family member with a camera ready first so they can upload the pics to me and I can laugh and laugh and mock you. :)

So, as we all know, some foods, or drinks (carbonated in particular) will cause you to burp. What I've noticed is that some burps are BETTER than others. I'm not talking volume, or strength.. actually my daughter has us all beat on that one (how the hell a little body like hers can house such a resonating chamber I still don't know).

I'm talking QUALITY, people. All burps taste (and usually smell) like that which you ate (though some drink burps will in fact reflect what you ate too, they get complicated). Admit it, there are just some foods that burp better than others. Unsurprisingly, people differ as to their favorite burp subject matter. They, of course, are nuts, because mine are the only ones that matter. They are:

BEST:

Watermelon. Watermelon burps are so yummy it's like you're eating it all over again, but without worrying about seeds that will grow watermelons in your stomach.

Salad (with correct dressing). Viva Italian or Ranch dressing salad burps are divine. They remind you that you COULD have eaten something healthy but instead chose to liberally saturate it with a completely unhealthy delicious dressing.

Steak. That's right, you're not some leaf-eating rabbit, you're a MEAT EATER!! RAWR! SMELL THE CARNIVORE!

Baked beans. What could be better than something that will produce gas from BOTH ends??!

WORST:

Hotdogs. Even high quality Oscar Mayer (yes, I did have to sing the song in my head, shutup you).. nothing says *urp* like processed meat.

Tuna salad. It was fishy on the way down, and now it's fishy-acidic YUCK coming back up. Note: these burps are excellent for tormenting the cat.

Salad (with wrong dressing). Ever go to some buffet, and all they have is weird generic off-brand pseudo-dressings that are probably actually paint thinner that they bought in bulk from an art store that was going out of business? It's difficult to actually taste test while in line, so you go ahead and risk it, go sit down, and EWWWW so nasty. But, now you have Guilt because there are little starving children in Africa that would gladly eat turpentine salad every meal, every day if they could, so you suck it up and eat it anyway. And then later you have horrific Salvadore Dali burps.

Pickled beets. Ok, I admit it, I can't remember the last time I actually ATE a pickled beet. But, I imagine the burps would be just as unappetizing as they appear to be. Even my imagination gets queasy thinking about it. Hold on a sec taking an imaginary Tums. Ahhhh

So what I'm saying here is that I pretty much evaluate what I eat on TWO scales: 1. Burp Factor 2. Red Dawn Factor

Seriously. Lem can attest to the fact that at least once a week while I'm cooking I'll make the comment, "Yeah that's perfect Red Dawn food." This basically means a canned food that you can eat straight from the can upon opening without cooking/combining with liquids etc. and it would still be edible. I didn't even really LIKE the damn movie, but somehow when the teens were grubbing for food and stealing fruit and canned stuff, that stuck with me so now that's part of how I evaluate everything. BTW, Campbell's bean with bacon soup.. totally Red Dawn food.

Del