Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Stomach ache & self loathing

I am really bad at culinary forecasting.

I was the kid who ordered the enchiladas at Frank's Roadside Cafe in Schulenburg, Texas. Every time I would leave another meal on the road unsated, if not ill, my dad would remind me: When you're at a hamburger place, you get a hamburger. When you're at a Mexican place, you get enchiladas. The Bobby Hill to my Arlen, I always wanted to get creative and usually got burned.

Not much has changed. Last week I really wanted a hot sandwich for lunch. I skip down to Shorty's Subs and see a poster for the French Dip -- it comes with Au Jus sauce. I love sticking my sandwiches in stuff and French Dips have sounded so enticing ever since people kept mentioning how it was born downtown at Felipe's. Does it occur to me that I really don't eat beef? (N0.) Does it occur to me that perhaps Shorty's Subs is not the optimal place one might want to lose her French Dip virginity? (No.) So I march right up to the counter, place my ill considered order and don't enjoy my sandwich, which believe it or not is just a bunch of beef inside bread that you can dip into beef juice.

Today was a bad day for eating things that taste good. Breakfast was innocent enough with oatmeal and a banana. It went downhill from there when I had Ramen noodles for lunch (I know, I know -- not even Top Ramen). I burned my tongue. Later I followed up with a V8. So that makes two things I've ingested that contain more than 30% of my daily sodium intake. Then I have blueberry yogurt. Any one of these things in isolation or paired with like-minded entrees is acceptable, but this combination is terrible. I go to a meeting about the administrative details regarding one's dissertation -- there are honey mustard pretzels. They are quite tasty. I sit next to them and thus make up for the other 40% of my daily sodium intake. I wish I could say that it ends there, but sadly the death march continues. I was going to this comedy show and didn't want to be hungry (I spend most of my time trying to avoid hunger and coldness), so when my friend grabbed a salad on the way-- what did I pair with my Naked fruit juice? French fries, of course. I wanted to be clear about the nutritional value of this day.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Mmmmmmm, Naked Juice.

By the by, what you said about Kottke soliciting cash from strangers was totally prescient. I never even thought about people disagreeing with how he spends THEIR money. The nerve! I want to go to DUMBO where he lives and hang up signs that say "KOTTKE, get a job!"

8:48 AM  

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