I was discussing a recent 5 star dining experience with my cousin Tierra last night. I was telling her about my perfectly tender, medium rare pork chop over butternut fondue, served with walnut spatzle, apple bacon, braised savoy cabbage, and pearl onions. It was so good that I didn't even pick out the canker nuts, and happily ate the spatzle without knowing what it was. I have since learned from a Google search that it’s like a dumpling, and makes a "wonderful companion to pork and sauerkraut."
The meal was fabulous in so many ways. Good friends, good lighting, white linens, and subtly nuanced food whose flavors each occupied a separate layer of taste buds in my mouth. Every bite was perfect. I even did a truly middle-class thing and stole the menu, since the choices change daily, mostly so I could remember what I ate and dream that I could one day know how to marry flavors as well.
I watch a lot of The Food Network and wish with all my heart that I could chop like Jamie Oliver or know which herbs go best with which meats like Sara Moulton, or believe that raw duck eggs could be a wonderful thing to eat, like the Iron Chefs. I want to be Nigella Lawson, and though he seems to be wildly unpopular, I’d really like to go on a date with Bobby Flay, even though his show is pretty boring. But imagine the food! And he's darling. (And I know he stands on the cutting board. I kind of like it.)
Anyway, I’m working on it, though I’m nowhere near a very good chef yet. I love good food, I appreciate both the precision and the instinct that composes a great meal, and love to make great food for other people.
But I am a walking paradox, because just Wednesday I bought lunch from a kiosk-type establishment with a green roof called The Dog House. They are strictly drive-up, and serve something called Cheez Spuds, which are frozen French fries with nacho cheese sauce poured over them, and a truly southern hot dog, which, for reasons unknown to anyone I can find, is a pink color I can only describe as magenta. As far as I can deduce, the color is added to the, um, meat sometime during processing, and doesn’t serve any purpose of taste. In fact, I find it deters me from appreciating the real cheap hot dog flavor, since I imagine it’s coated in something like pepto-bismol and red hots. This day my hot dog was advertised with cheese and bacon, and it arrived with the aforementioned Cheez and imitation bacon bits, strangely the same color as the dog itself.
Pinkness aside, I didn’t hate it. Because I love bad food. I can walk into a convenience store and be delighted by anything manufactured by Frito-Lay containing some sort of neon orange cheesy substance. I appreciate those fruit pies coated in waxy lard, I think Pepperoni Hot Pockets are divine, and at certain times I can honestly say I love the quarter pounder with cheese, the double version of which my meat-crazy Polynesian friend T once called "a burger she could respect."
The rural South is full of greazy little grills, where they serve up everything on an almost-stale bun and some pale iceberg. There’s always a lot of mayonnaise involved, and never any seasoning. At places like this, my food snob takes over, since there’s something about airy buns that make me think I might as well be eating brown paper bags.
But get me to a Maverick or a 7-11 and you will find me happily wandering the aisles of overprocessed, unnaturally-colored, misspelled food. I might even stop there on my way to a real store to buy some endive and shitake mushrooms for the appetizer I’ve planned to serve you later.
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