Cereal (name) Killer

I have a packet of Weetabix on my desk which is drawing a lot of interest from my work colleagues, mostly because it’s not every colour of the rainbow, caked in sugar and more sugar, and isn’t represented by a cartoon tiger, captain, or fucking leprechaun.

What cereal ACTUALLY looks like

I’ve had comments like, “What the hell is THAT?”, “It looks like hay!”, “Is that rabbit food?”, and “It’s so weird!”; you know, all the encouraging and open minded thinking I’ve come to expect.

But my favourite was about 20 minutes ago when someone walking past my desk stopped, looked at the box, and read the name of it out loud to himself in the form of a question.

Naturally.

Now, us Brits know it’s pronounced ‘WEE-tabix’, with the emphasis on the ‘WEE’

(He he).

But he pronounced it with the emphasis on the ‘TA’ part, and dropped the ‘Wee’ to a ‘W’, so he said:

“wTA-bix?”

I nearly spat my cereal all over my laptop.

What a wn-KER

 

I’m eggsasperated!

Dear America,

Please learn how to cook fried eggs.

Yours sincerely,

People who like fried eggs.

Now, who do I send this letter to? Who is responsible for the sad state of affairs when it comes to correctly frying a bloody egg?

Probably someone by the name or Sam, or Nella.

(get it?)

Anyway, bad puns aside, when it comes to the simplicity of frying an egg, there seems to be 4 choices available:

Sunny side up – 90% raw white, mostly cooked yolk (although who knows; raw and cooked yolks look pretty much the same)
Over easy – 50% raw white, cooked yolk (but the yolk is never as good as sunny side up).
Over medium – See ‘over easy’.. It’s the fucking same. Don’t tell me it’s not.
Over hard – 110% cooked (rubbery) white with a dry, overcooked yolk.

Mmmm, delicious. Oh, wait, no they aren’t.

Frying an egg is simple, Dennys/IHOP/any breakfast diner in America!

All you’ve got to do is NOT be in a rush to get it out to the customer and let the white of the egg actually COOK. We can wait an extra 45 seconds; just cook the bloody whites will ya! Then you wouldn’t need to add a disclaimer at the bottom of your menus telling us that eating raw eggs can be harmful.

It beggars belief that this is a thing, and that it’s completely acceptable! Are you telling me I could be POISONED by your eggs?

Imagine getting your tyres [tires1] replaced, but the mechanic only half bolts your wheels back onto your car, and then hands you a disclaimer telling you it can be dangerous to drive with unsecured wheels?

Dangerous? It’s practically lethal!

Just put the wheels on properly, I mean….you’re RIGHT there! Just bolt them on fully!

My wife is in her thirties and has never liked fried eggs. I couldn’t understand why and I pleaded with her to let me cook her a proper fried egg. She finally agreed, and I fried her an egg the right way. I watched as her pupils dilated while her brain rewired her feelings about fried eggs. She had a look on her face that was somewhere between confusion, disbelief and utter joy; she loved it! And now, three decades into her life, she’s finally enjoying fried eggs, as long as they’re cooked by me.

So please, America, learn how to cook eggs! I’m sick and tired of sending them back to be finished, or having to order scrambled eggs when I don’t want them.

Sincerely,

Patient 319,
ICU – Poisoning ward,
Las Vegas County Hospital.

1 – It’s ‘tyres’, not ‘tires’. The latter is a verb.

“I don’t know why you say goodbye, I say hello” – The Beatles

I got to work a bit early this morning, so took the opportunity to make myself some coffee and toast.

Whilst I was waiting by the toaster another employee came over to put some Tupperware’d nastiness in the microwave.  We smiled and performed the customary “Good Morning”, the optional “How’s your day going?” and (as I found out very quickly) the unnecessary “I’m utterly fucked”.

I must say, her face indicated that maybe, just maybe, I may have gone a tad too far; but she asked….so….

Anyway, she went back to zapping her box of whatever and I went back to waiting for my toast to ‘Shadunk‘ out of the toaster, when another employee walked by and shouted out to my new ‘friend’.

“Yoo Hoo gurl!” (not a typo; she said ‘gurl’, not ‘girl’)

“Oh, toodle-oo!”

Face palm.  That’s ‘goodbye’, you twat.

Ding!

Shadunk!

Oh, thank fuck.

toaster hit

The breakfast contradiction

Today is my wife’s birthday so – in the face of all the visits to the gym over the last month – we decided to treat ourselves to breakfast at IHOP.

For those who don’t know IHOP, it’s an acronym for ‘International House Of Pancakes’.

It’s not international.

Anyway, on my way to the toilet I passed a woman sat having breakfast with her family.

She was huge. I mean BIG!

This isn’t unusual in this fine country, but I have to say that her ‘Planet Fitness’ T-shirt was a bit of a stretch (or a lot of a stretch if you know what I mean).

Fitness indeed.

“Fitness whole stack of pancakes in my mouth” more like.

United Steaks of Hamerica

I’ve been in the U S of A almost 5 days, and already I have SO many notes compiled on things that I’d love to blog about.

That said, I don’t want to blow my load on one post, so I’ve decided to drip feed them in an attempt to look like I’ve thought long and hard about each and every post.

I probably haven’t, just so you know.

Today’s entry is food related.

Last night my wife and I went to a restaurant called Brio in Tivoli Village. Great restaurant with the usual oversize portions and suspiciously joyful staff.

When the waitress (I don’t like the word ‘server’ [1]) took my order, she said “super salad?”

“What?”
“Super salad?”
“Is it?”
“Is it what?”
“Super?”
“Is what ‘super’?”

“The salad?”

There was a pause….

My wife tapped me on the arm and said “Soup or salad”

Yeah, that made more sense.

It seems that choice with your meal is a big thing in the United States.  If you want eggs, you can have them sunny side up [2], over easy, scrambled, boiled, poached or the waiter can bring the chicken out and you can suck the egg directly from its arse.

If you want chips (fries) you can have them regular, curly or seasoned.  Alternatively you can have them boiled, baked or mashed; not to mention the option of hash browns, wedges or having them peeled and inserted rectally to save yourself the calories.

And if you’re having breakfast you can have pancakes, waffles, French toast, English muffins and all sorts of artery clogging carbohydrates….with or without cinnamon frosting or powdered sugar.

Oh, and by the way America,  French Toast isn’t French; nor are English muffins English.  Both are American.

Crepes are French, but oddly you don’t call those French pancakes.

Also, smothering anything with Marinara sauce does not make it Italian.

But I digress.

Going back to the subject of choice when dining, you also get free refills on a lot of things.  Having visited America a lot in the past I am fully aware that you get free refills on coffee and soda (yes, I use the word ‘soda’ now)…but imagine my disappointment when I once declined another bowl of delicious soup at Olive garden only to find out afterwards that it was, in fact, a free refill.

On soup!

This morning I saw an advert on TV (amongst the many, many, many, MANY adverts) for a restaurant called Applebee’s in which they offer free refills on fries.

FRIES!

But, to be fair, you only got these free refills on fries when you order one of their massive, supersized, over the top burgers that includes meat from every species known to man, topped with 8 cheeses and sugar, or something.

It’s like the Heart Attack Grill found on Fremont Street who give free meals to anyone weighing over 350 pounds.  This is a place where they have a burger called the Quadruple Bypass which totals 10,000 calories.

My wife told me that a guy once had a heart attack in the Heart Attack Grill on Fremont Street and, considering the ‘servers’ are dressed like doctors and nurses, all the other diners though it was some kind of show.

Well, it’s Vegas after all.

But going back to Olive Garden for a second, they offer a “Buy one, Take one” deal on entrees [3].  You order your main meal and they give you another one free.

Seems normal, right?

Well, this second dish isn’t for your dining partner; it’s for you to take home to presumably eat naked and alone in the dark, sobbing with shame.

Lunacy.

But it’s not all bad, they have twist off bottle caps on their beers.  That’s something they’re getting right.

Oh, and they have Spinach and Artichoke dip.

That’s a thing here.

It needs to be a thing everywhere.

Now.

fat uncle sam

[1] Although people in I.T. swear by them 😉
[2] Also known as ‘half cooked, slightly raw and snotty’

[3] Main course

When puddings turn bad

I was in the break room at work making coffee when one of the senior managers burst through the door.  He was quite flustered and started talking loudly to one of the customer service team who thought they were going to be having a quiet coffee break.

They were wrong.

He was talking (or half shouting) about an on-going complaint we’d received from a customer who had become seriously ill whilst on holiday.

“Apparently it’s semolina poisoning!” he half shouted.

I stopped making drinks, turned and smiled, “Did you just say semolina poisoning?”

He turned to me with a face of genuine, serious concern.

“Yes”

“Really? Semolina poisoning?”

“Yes!”

Ok then.  I won’t argue.  Your education probably cost more than mine.

salmonella

Waiter minute!

I’m a fast eater.

eat-fast

I always have been.

I’m not sure where it stemmed from, but I’ve never remembered a time when I ate slowly. My brother is the same.  Maybe it was due to having Italian relatives (on my Father’s side) who loved to feed us whenever we visited, or maybe it was from our time spent in prison.

I’m joking of course. There’s no way my relatives are responsible.

I suppose I began noticing my accelerated eating pace when I became an adult and started dining with other adults. Whenever I go out to a restaurant with anyone I’m usually the first to empty my plate.

This isn’t an issue for me as I’m happy to sit there having a conversation as they painstakingly take an age to eat their meal that probably went cold an hour ago.

Really, it’s fine. I can always lick my plate if I get bored.

Or can I?

You see, my big issue with finishing first is the fact that the waiter/waitress inevitably comes to the table and does the unspeakable; they take away my plate.

Why?

Are they so bereft of crockery in their restaurant that they need to relieve me of mine as soon as possible?

They’re like sharks, circling the table and watching.

fight club waiter

What makes it worse is when they quietly ask “are you finished?” whilst reaching for my plate before I can answer “yes”.  And let’s be honest, the only answer I can possibly give is ‘yes’ because my plate is empty.  I can’t say no because, well, my plate is empty.

“Actually, I’m not finished yet.  There’s still a pattern on this plate” is not a well received answer.

And once I’ve been parted from my plate I’m left sitting there watching the others eat. I realise I was doing this beforehand, but somehow I now feel less involved.  I’ve now become an outside observer like a scientist with a room full of chimps.

I really hate this behaviour in restaurants (from the waiter/waitress, not my chimpy friends). I’m sure the waiting staff think they’re doing the right thing, but I find it intrusive, unwelcoming and a bit rude; and they don’t even have the decency to leave a copy of Watchtower magazine to keep me occupied.

To me it’s the same as saying:

“Wow, someone was hungry weren’t they Mr Piggy McOink? Look everyone! This guy has finished before anyone else at his table!  How Fatty-Boombatty is this jelly-belly?”

This is all made worse when it’s only two of us having a meal. Now they’re not only mocking me non-verbally with their smile, they’re piling the pressure on my fellow diner (usually my wife):

“One down, one to go. Come on slowcoach, you’re wasting everyone’s time.  Pay up and get lost; I need this table for another couple.”

A while back I went for a meal with a friend who is the slowest eater in the world. And when I say slow, I mean s-l-o-w.  Usually, by the time she approaches the end of her meal, the restaurant has become a bank and cobwebs have formed on her plate.

As frustrating as it could’ve been, I didn’t mind. We were so busy catching up on old times that it didn’t matter she took an additional 20 minutes to finish her food.

Seriously, 20 minutes.  Time it.  That’s a long time on a single plate of food.

eating-tortoise

The worst part was when the waiter unashamedly cleared my plate and cutlery after I was finished (5 minutes, tops).  My friend, who was now feeling the pressure, apologised to me.

It can’t be a good thing when the person you’re eating with feels the need to say sorry for being ‘too slow’.

I didn’t care. I was there for the company and the conversation…and dessert, but there was no way I was seeing that for at least 2 hours.

My point is, don’t take plates away until everyone has finished.

In America they get it right. And here’s why

  • They don’t usually take away your plate until everyone has finished.
  • If they DO take your plate away, they replace it with something else (free refills on soup in Olive Garden anyone?).
  • Usually the meal is so massive it’s almost impossible to finish it anyway.
  • Sometimes the meal comes with more than one plate of food (breakfast at Denny’s for example has one plate for your massive breakfast platter and one plate for your massive stack of buttermilk pancakes).

Sometimes a waiter/waitress will also attempt to take your plate after a period of inactivity, despite how much food is still on your plate. It’s like some kind of evil computer screensaver with a plan for world domination through malnutrition.

If you stop eating for a period of time (I estimate this to be about 2 minutes), it is assumed you’ve finished and they will attempt to wrestle your food away from you.

I will stab you.  Be warned.

This behaviour wouldn’t translate anywhere else would it?

For example, whilst writing this post I’ve stopped a few times to re-read paragraphs, check my splellnig and make coffee.  This means I’ve left the keyboard for small periods of time.  By their reckoning I’m finished with this post and they’ll simply attempt to take it away from me, even if I’m in the middle of a

Some gross ‘under the table’ action.

In a restaurant there’s nothing worse than the realisation you’re touching someone’s discarded chewing gum under the table.

Then again, is it gum?  It could be part of the table.

You push your finger into it and it’s not part of the table.

Too soft.

Too warm.

Yuck.

grossed out animated gif

Don’t send a man to do a man’s job

This morning in the break room at work I saw one of the girls struggling to open a pack of muffins.

I laughed.

It wasn’t a malicious laugh to say ‘ha ha, you’re pathetic!’, but more of a little chuckle to say ‘aaw, can’t you open da wittle packety wackety?’

Nothing patronising, you understand.

“Struggling by any chance?” I said, smiling ear to ear as I made coffee.

She let out a sigh of frustration and, with bottom lip fully extended and puppy dog eyes set to maximum, thrust the packet at me (the man) to open it.

I put down my coffee spoon.

“Give it here”, I said in my most manly way and gripped the packaging with both hands, preparing to pull it open as effortlessly as a bag of crisps.

Smiling smugly, I pulled.

But wait. Oh no! It wasn’t opening!

I pulled harder. Nothing.

Oh shit.

I looked up and saw a grin forming at the corners of her mouth.

I pulled with all my strength, but the muffins still remained locked away inside their impenetrable fortress of transparency and deceit.

“OK, this isn’t good!” I said; half playful, half fearful for my masculinity.

No matter how hard I gripped the packaging and pulled at it, this thin plastic treachery to my manhood wasn’t going to open. I thought about tearing a small nick with my teeth to help rip it apart, but it wasn’t my packet of muffins and she may not have appreciated my slobber all over her breakfast.

It was unavoidable, this bastard was going to need scissors.

Admitting defeat, I shamefully handed the packet back to my chuckling colleague and went back to making coffee.

As I left the room I gingerly picked my penis and balls up off the floor and put them in my pocket to be reattached later.

Open the bag

Fool English Breakfast

I have to share something I saw a couple of days ago that was mildly amusing.

By ‘amusing’ I mean ‘ridiculous’.

There are times when you see something that simply defies logic and sense, and decide to share it whether people like it or not.

A bit like duckface selfies.

An example would be when, a couple of years ago, I saw some biscuits on special offer in a supermarket. They were labelled up at the usual £1 per pack, but this time they had a big red sticker next to it that read ‘Special Offer – 2 for £2″.

I wish it had been done for humorous reasons, but it was more moronic than ironic.

Unfortunately it was my in pre-blog days so I didn’t have any way to share it with the world, but now I do 😉

And a good job too; another example of printed idiocy raised its stupid head this weekend.

image

Although, thinking about it, it did take almost all day to order it.

Are you going to eat that?

Here’s something that really pisses me off.

You’re in a restaurant with friends and you all order your meals. But when the food arrives and your much anticipated delicacy is placed in front of you, one of your friends exclaims loudly “Euw! That looks disgusting! What is that? Are you really going to eat that?”

Did it ever occur to these culinary challenged arseholes that the reason these meals are on the menu in the first place is because there are those of us out there with a palette craving more sophistication than a Big Mac and fries?

Of course I’m going to fucking eat it. Why else do you think I ordered it you prick?

Also, thanks for pointing out that it looks disgusting. No, really….I mean it, thanks. Now I really, REALLY can’t wait to eat it; knowing full well that others at the table may now perceive it as disgusting. Did I say the same about your wife when I met her? No.

At least I get to poop mine out in a day or two.

It seems to get worse with anything salad related. Usually I get told by people that they “don’t eat that green shit”. That might explain why, when we were seated at the table, you decided against sliding onto the bench behind the table by the wall and opted for the chair instead. I know you said it was for better back support and leg room, but you’re fooling no-one.

I have one friend who, whenever the word Parmesan is mentioned, scrunches up his face and squeals “Oh god, come on! What’s wrong with you?”. This is to highlight that I’m somehow an idiot for loving an entire nation’s most revered grated cheese. He then continues to loudly exclaim that it smells like baby sick, over and over again.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never actually smelled baby sick. However, I do concur that it does have an aroma not unlike full grown adult sick. Mind you, Stilton smells like feet and I still absolutely adore it (Stilton, not feet). One could argue that a curry smells* the same going out as it did going in, but does that make it any less appealing?

Does it fuck. Pass me a fork.

He makes matters even more infuriating by announcing that he hasn’t actually tried Parmesan. The smell is enough, apparently. He also doesn’t like Stilton…or any strong cheeses for that matter. He also hasn’t tried any of them either.

When I was 5 years old I probably said that girls smell funny and are disgusting too. How wrong I was.

He then continues to ‘correct’ us all by saying that chicken has no place on a pizza and neither does barbecue sauce. Domino’s and thousands of their customers worldwide may disagree with you, but what do they know? Apparently pizzas should only have pepperoni on them. I suppose he’s just being a traditionalist, although I haven’t the heart to tell him that pepperoni pizza is actually American.

But it’s not just him. Loads of people have sat there and done the whole “Euw! What is that? Are you going to eat that?” shit at various times in my life. Yes, I like a variety of foods:

Liver, steak and kidney, Marmite, artichokes, Parmesan, Stilton, lettuce, parsnips, brussel sprouts (yes, I fucking LOVE brussel sprouts….what’s wrong with the rest of you??), garlic, plain yoghurt, skimmed milk, ice-cream in a bap (the Italians do it all the time, and yet we’re accepting of it in a cone shaped wafer somehow…and arctic roll gets away with it in sponge!), calamari, baked beans, etc…..the list goes on and on.

And these were just the ones I could think of recently.

I do, however, draw the line at things like tarantulas, placentas, sheep’s eyeballs etc…because I don’t want to do something that would make the room smell of parmesan. Otherwise I’m a lover of flavours, textures and variety.

I also once got openly berated for saying that I’d eaten cornflakes for my lunch.

“Cornflakes for lunch? They’re for breakfast; you can’t have them for lunch!”

Oh the scandal!

I did point out that the cereal box didn’t specify that it HAD to be the morning, but it made no difference. What if I worked nights and my morning was actually at 5pm? Would the world implode? Apparently, it’s just the way it is…cereal is for the mornings.

I recall this conversation vividly. We were walking in town on a lunch break and when we’d arrived back at the office my friend approached some colleagues standing outside having a cigarette and said, “Dan had cornflakes for lunch, what the fuck’s up with that?”, to which one of the guys replied, “Yeah? So? I do it all the time”.

Awesome.

In your face traditionalist.

Two days later my berating friend admitted to trying cereal in the evening when he’d got home from work and had loved it.

I’m changing the world, one narrow-minded wanker at a time.

*and feels

gross-food-16

Breakfast At Tiffanys

The new year has come and gone, and for most of us all we have to show for it is a perpetual hangover and a distinct sense of fatigue that simply wont bugger off.  

Not me.  

Having shared in excess of 12 bottles of proseccco between four of us I should’ve been, by rights, a fucking mess. Instead I woke up as bright as a button and felt great; much to the chagrin of one half of the couple we’d celebrated with.

He was simply struggling to function properly.

In fact he spent a majority of the morning concentrating on difficult tasks like walking, talking and breathing (very gently).  

It was on his recommendation that we find somewhere that does breakfasts, or a “dirty fry up”as he called it. Works for me; I was frigging starving!  

We were in the middle of Brighton so we knew there would be plenty of places to eat. Although having said that, it was mostly bloody fish and chip shops. Our slowly dying friend pointed out there was a great cafe that he’d eaten at before called Tiffany’s. This was met with a snort of laughter from me as it was either a bad pun or a happy accident.  

Please be the latter.
Please be the latter.  

It was the former.  

Bum.  

Oh well, not to worry. We entered and ‘bagsied’ a table like a stereotypical German with a towel before approaching the checkout to place our orders.  

“There’s a 25 minute wait for food” we were told.   We didnt care, just take our order, bring us buckets of orange juice and tea and we’ll be happy.  

It took 35 minutes for our drinks to arrive which meant that we were so dehydrated we resembled a table of tortoise scrotums. It then took a further 20 minutes for our food to get to us. By this time we’d started gnawing the table and licking other customers as they came in.  

The food was good though; truth be told. I had sausage, egg, bacon, beans and chips. I did wonder if it still counts as breakfast if it had chips with it, but figured it must do as it was on the breakfast half of the massive chalkboard menu behind the counter.  

Whilst we waited forever for our sustenance my brother called me to wish me happy new year.  

“What are you up to?” he asked.

“Having breakfast in a greasy cafe in Brighton” I replied.  

“Good man! What are you having?”  

I told him.

He then said the exact same thing about the chips.  

Seriously, why do chips turn a breakfast into lunch?  

Anyway, we finally left about 2 hours after we’d arrived.

When it said ‘All Day Breakfast’ we didn’t realise that meant the time taken to serve it.