I don’t know what it is, but come mealtime, I never can come up with something satisfying to eat. It’s uncanny…I think I’m well stocked in the food department and then I walk out to the fridge and there’s nothing worth eating there. It seems like it’s all condiments and fruit. I know this isn’t the case because every single week, sometimes even twice a week, Greg and I go shopping. I spend in the neighborhood of thirty or forty dollars every time. Somewhere in the deep, dark recesses of this apartment there’s something satisfying. It’s of no consolation that it’ll probably be rotted when find it.
This apparent lack of satisfying food seems to stem from my reformed diet. As the vast majority of people I hang around know, I’ve been on a diet since January and I don’t really deviate from it much. I remember back in the good ol’ days when I was a large and unhealthy man I used to be able to get by on 30 bucks of groceries a month. You’d think this was a paradox…I ate more, but I spent less…how could this be? Well, mostly it stems from the cheap, unhealthy food that can be had by the pallet-load. Safeway has these awesome burritos that are 2 bags for 5 bucks…so good, so filling, so unhealthy, so cheap. I used to pound those puppies three or four at a time. I love the results of being healthy now, but man, I miss those crazy burritos. And hot pockets. Mmmm…drippy cheese.
So anyway, I get to the fridge and there’s nothing there. What usually results is one of three things:
1) I get ambitious and bust out the George Foreman (yeah! free advertising) grill and make some chicken or fish.
2) I get lazy and microwave a tasty, but miniscule lean cuisine meal. Although the portions are small and the price is large, I regret purchasing them not a lick. I think part of it has to do with my amazement that something so tasty could come out of what is essentially reconstituted cardboard and flavored ketchup.
3) I concoct some ungodly meal by amalgamating whatever is lying around in the fridge. This is always scary. I have to push to the back of my mind the quote from the Nad’s hair removal cream commercial: “Made by combining things from our own kitchen!” I know they’re probably referring to combining bleach, dish soap, and oven cleaner, but I can’t get past the nagging fear that something I make will dissolve my tongue or cause periodic lycanthropy. I’m hairy enough as is. Some delights that have come from experimentations: rice burritos, cottage cheese and yogurt slurry, rice sandwiches, egg beater surprise (egg beaters combined with the first three things I see), rice with various condiments poured on it, or corn/tuna mash. (Yeah…we do make a lot of rice).
Well, all this talk of food has made me hungry. To the infernal kitchen…may my doom be postponed another day.
