Category: Food & Drink

Favored Nation

Food & Drink

As I’ve written before, I used to work from home before all the cool kids started doing it, for a tech company based in Pompano Beach, FL.  I used to fly down once a month to attend meetings, hang around and basically remind management that I was alive and doing good things for our clients, and in that time I ate out a lot at the local restaurants both in Pompano and the surrounding towns.

Some time later, I was chatting to one of the tech guys, a Cuban named Danny, and he asked me out for dinner, just the two of us because I was busy on some private skunkwork project and he wanted to get the details.  The conversation went as follows:

“Kim, do you like Cuban food?”
“Danny, I don’t like Cuban food — I fucking love it.”
“Really?”  (sounding surprised)
“Not just the food, either.  I love everything Cuban:  your food, your music — I don’t smoke, but if I did, I’d probably love your cigars as well.  I love your booze, your way of life, the way you guys dance, and your women — oh my Gawd, your women! — and if I could be reborn to any nationality and culture in the world, it would be as a Cuban, here in South Florida.”
Pause.
“Of course, your system of government absolutely sucks.”

So he took me to a little Cuban restaurant I’d never even heard of, let alone seen.  That night I fell in love with all things Cuban all over again, and Danny and I remained friends for years thereafter.

And my little skunkworks project turned into a system which later become an industry standard.

Anyway, here’s a little background Cuban music for you, and of course some local flavor:

¡Compasión!

We Knew That

Food & Drink, Lies and Untruths

And now we know:

Too bad that all this has come at a time when I can’t afford to buy the lovely stuff… but I guess I can always cut something from the budget (like a Netflix subscription) to get more meat.

And yes, I know I can’t afford the gas to get to the supermarket, either.  Which is why my apartment is walking distance from not one but two of them.

And now, if you’ll excuse me…

My Thanksgiving Story

Food & Drink, Friends and Family

Outside the United States, Thanksgiving isn’t a holiday, nor even a thing — their loss — so I’m sometimes asked to explain the whole concept to foreigners.  Here’s the story I tell to do so.

Tom worked in the office next door to mine, back at the Great Big Research Company in Chicago.  He had moved down from Minneapolis to take the job, bringing his wife and kids with him.  Under the term “Straight White Corporate Guy” in the dictionary, you’d find his picture:  always immaculately dressed in suit and tie with polished Johnston & Murphy wingtips, glasses with thick lenses, hair cut short but not too short, a workaholic — you get the picture.

He also had a dark and impish sense of humor, completely out of character but made all the more enjoyable because it completely destroyed the stereotype.  (At the staff cafeteria lunch table one day, we were discussing what we’d do if we won the lottery.  Tom:  “Porn movies.”  “Make them or perform in them, Tom?”  “Both.”)

It came about that on one Thanksgiving, instead of taking the family back to Minneapolis for the extended family reunion, Tom had to stay because of work pressure;  He couldn’t leave on the Monday, as he usually did, so this year his wife and daughter went up early, while he stayed behind with his son, intending to drive up on the Wednesday evening.

Well, that never happened because on the day before Thanksgiving, the greater Minneapolis/St. Paul area was hit by a truly gargantuan snowstorm which was too much even for Minnesoduh to handle, which meant that Tom and his teenage son were stranded in Chicago until the day after Thanksgiving, at which point the roads would be clear enough for him to get there.  But as for Thanksgiving Day itself?  Just him and his boy.

Needless to say, there was no Thanksgiving meal, but Tom decided to make the most of it anyway, so he and his son went off to the nearby Jewel supermarket to get a substitute.  Tom, of course, did not know how to cook, so they got two frozen turkey dinners and went off to the checkout.

The cashier was a lady in about her fifties, and when she saw the two lonely TV dinners on the belt, she looked at Tom incredulously and said:  “Is this your Thanksgiving dinner?”

“Yes,” Tom said (and here’s where that sense of humor came in),  “This year, it’s just the two of us.”
“What about your wife?”
“She’s not with us.” (said with just a touch of melancholy)
“Oh no,” said the cashier, distraught.  Without a moment’s pause she said, “Would you and your son like to join my family for dinner later today?” 

And this, my friends, is the meaning of Thanksgiving.  This lady was prepared to open up her home and table to two total strangers, just so that they would have a family to share Thanksgiving with.

To his great credit, Tom was mortified, and with considerable embarrassment managed to extricate himself and his son from the predicament.  But he never forgot the episode.  Nor have I and, I hope, nor will you.

Despite everything, we Americans still have a lot to be thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Crap Statistics

Food & Drink, Lies and Untruths, Marketing / Advertising, Nannies

Via Reader Mike L. comes this nanny article telling us how youngins are drinking themselves to death:

An estimated 1 in 5 deaths of people ages 20 to 49 were attributable to excessive alcohol use in the United States, according to the study published Tuesday in JAMA Network Open. For people ages 20 to 64, drinking-related deaths accounted for 1 in 8, the study said. The percentage of deaths attributed to alcohol use varied state by state, but nationally it’s a leading cause of preventable death, said lead study author Dr. Marissa Esser, lwho leads the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s alcohol program.

Researchers took national and state mortality data from 2015 to 2019 and looked at deaths either fully or partially attributable to excessive drinking. Those causes of death included vehicle accidents, alcohol poisoning and other health impacts, such as liver disease, Esser said.  The data showed that the deaths fully attributable to alcohol have risen in the past decade, Esser added.

Umm yeah.  Notice how when you add the 50-64 age group’s numbers, the incidence drops from 1 on 5 to 1 in 8 — which should your clue right there that the BULLSHIT STATISTICS bell is clanging loudly.

Ever wondered why beer company commercials tend to show young people drinking at picnics, beach parties, watching the game on TV and so on, and not old farts like me huddling over a pint in a dark pub?

 

It’s because the 20-49 age group accounts for most booze sales (from memory, it’s about 70% although that’s an old number).  Also, youngins (especially young men) are most likely to do stupid stuff, especially when drunk (“Hold my beer!”) and so it’s small wonder that the death rate is high.  Remembering my own misspent youth and narrow escapes, I’m amazed it isn’t higher.

Also from the article is another little snippet which makes me reach for the gin bottle:

“I’m not surprised at the numbers,” said David Jernigan, a professor of health law, policy and management at Boston University. “This is a conservative estimate.”

Health law and -policy?  Allow me to bring in a guest speaker for comment:

It’s all neo-prohibitionism, masquerading (as always) under the mantle of caring.

Fuck off, the lot of you.

Cultural Tastes

Food & Drink, Lifestyle

This is an interesting topic only insofar as it reinforces something I’ve believed for a long time:

‘Eating with your hands is scientifically proven to improve texture and the flavour of food, as well as a whole host of health benefits. It’s something more people should know about and get to grips with.

‘Many of the world’s most popular foods are eaten with the hands – think burgers, tacos, tortilla, wraps, and wings, so why can’t other foods be as well?

‘Eating with our hands helps to make us more mindful about what we are eating and heighten our dining experience, rather than just thoughtlessly using cutlery like we always do.

‘The fork gets in the way and separates you from your senses.’

Like many South African kids of my vintage, I had a Black “mommy” — technically a live-in housemaid, but in reality much, much more than that.  When I was little more than a baby, while doing the housework Mary would carry me around on her back, held there by a blanket wrapped around herself, thus:

Put a White face on that kid, and you’d have me.  (My feet still point outwards when I walk, a common trait among people carried in this fashion.)

Anyway, I remember asking Mary why Blacks didn’t use knives and forks when they ate.  Her response was interesting:  “How do White people taste their food?”

And she was right.  It really does make a difference.

Now, I’m not going to follow the thing to its illogical conclusion like the guy does in the linked article;  some foods should only be eaten with a utensil — I draw the line when it comes to eating slushy foods like pasta and soup, for instance.  (And forget eating with mouth open, as he proposes — that’s just disgusting.)

But as he points out, we do eat many solid foods with our hands:  pizza, hamburgers and assorted sandwiches are all eaten by hand — and this extends to foods best eaten by hand, such as ribs, sausages and similar delicacies.

As much as I enjoy eating with my hands, I do draw the line at doing so in a restaurant setting (unless at a BBQ or picnic, where anything goes, as it should).  But at home?

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to make my normal breakfast of boerewors, a boiled egg and cheese chunks.

All to be eaten by hand.

And by the way, Charles Spence is a psychologist, not a scientist.

Fiddling With Beloved Institutions

Food & Drink

Aaaargh here we go again:  yet another of the world’s greatest institutions is under attack:

British meme account No Context Brits set off a rather fiery debate on Twitter where they proposed a rather controversial question.  Along with a snap of a plated full English, they asked: “You have to lose one item. What is it?”

All the trimmings were up for the cut, including mushrooms and black pudding.  Although what first seemed like a impossible decision, many opted to rid of the tomato sauce-covered beans.

This is what happens when people have too much spare time:  they change things that need no changing.

That said, I could lose the black pudding (top right) because I seldom eat it unless I’m starving and all the other items on the plate have been devoured.  (Frankly, though, if all the items as pictured have been eaten, there’s no need to go any further, Kim you gluttonous fat pig.)

Next thing they’ll be wanting to put an automatic gearbox in an AC Cobra.  (You saw it here first.)