Grinch-mas Wish

Usually when ‘Grinchy’ companies run short on glam, glee n’ glitter as well as biz sense, they hire a consultant to reign in their silly sleigh problems and swing for the fence. It seems Christmas is getting earlier every year, though my presents are smaller and less costly I fear; clearly a reminder for the season is due, before this infestation affects more holidays in view. The last thing I need is New Years on a budget, or still worse yet - a Valentines heart more bleeding than delectably rich choco chocolate.

What’s wrong is that people have forgotten the season and what it’s all about and that it’s for ‘Pleasin’. Oh sure good cheer, bright lights, and snow are all fine, but the longer the receipt then the better the time. Just give me large boxes and fat-filled candy too, since excess  and bigger are always better it’s true.

The REAL Santa is great if you only want one, but legions of red bucket fingering ding-ringers are always more fun after given some rum. Reindeer never smell quite as nice in person, unless you have eggs with the fried n’ sausage-fied tastier version. Who needs to give and a softy spot for the poor, when MY need for lofty stuff and golden swag is importantly MORE. 

Now don’t get me wrong I wish no hit and miss ‘Grinch-mas’ to your nutcrackers or you, nor do I expect special days to run smooth on cue too. I just wish the material world to remember it all, that there’s far more to the season than faith, family, and charity tales so tall.  Remember my practical mantra to take my advice, whatever you buy for yourself,  buy early, buy often, and buy me at least TWICE!

MERRY GRINCH-MAS!!!

Food Racist Manifesto

Given that I spend lots of quality time with my beak in a bowl, I often tend to bond with food in more ways than I care to share or can hose off before blokes dare stare. Aside from a green veggie or two, generally I bow to chow which consists of quarantined islands of browned cow or pink sow. I don’t like my farm meat co-mingling or lingering long on my lips or plate, ‘cause those calories have a BIG job down South adding doughy softness to my hips and my weight.

My wife likes salads with colors galore, chunks of veggies, twigs, sprouts n’ sprigs, but if you gaze upon what I graze, it is just a leafy green sea of plain Jane nutrition-less iceberg ennui. My ruminant palate prefers to ruminate sans surprises, so the last thing goat-goofs like me find appealing, is a pot of porridge with colorful nuggets free-styling and keeling. Remove all rainbow mystery treats from my feed bag and please rush, since clearly the stuff stuck in my cup should be served ONLY in six shades of mush.

So keep your bulky pulp pox and crammed jam full of seeds away from my jelly jar or juice box needs. Get a clue ‘cause I eschew goo which should ordinarily be smooth too like chunk-free peanut cream, bricks o’ butter, or grit-less paste for dingy teeth and craggy face.  Don’t tread upon the red badge of my colored ketchup or insight a hateful coup over my caffeinated sodas of caramel hue. Keep your facts to yourself and stay on your side of the fiber tracks - just leave me alone, fat n’ happy, with my white- bread filled sacks.

If your tea teases me sweetly with tapioca boba and fancy faloodah, I’m sure to be in a very bad food MOODa. Just keep my chocolate pure and wax free, and dare not exhaust raspberry laced wafts anywhere near me. I admit I’m a little provincial and prefer to pen my manifesto in black like my coffee and white like my milk. So leave your colorful Neapolitan to someone more cosmopolitan, because this fat gorilla savors wolfing down ANY fav-flavor - as long as it’s just PLAIN vanilla.

'Mess' Manners

Miss Manners surely would frown on my ilk since generally I distrust fussy formal place settings loaded down with highbrow habiliments populating my placemat. For that matter why must all of my eating effects be confined to a runty rectangle of colored fabric under my dishes, where even the saliva-salver gets a cheery charger plate of its own? If I have a table full of prime real ‘eat-state’ I’m going to cover it ALL with stew, goo, and a napkin or two, to collect the spew before it reflects off my face and back on to you.

What can I possibly do with a shorty fork that I cannot do brilliantly better with a much longer one? In fact I think most of my gut-plugging can be done with just a long tong and a ‘tick-pick’, so I can finally poke those pesky bottle-upped bottom olives, and absolve tooth-bound stringy asparagus from lingering longingly in a mirror and staring back at us. I savor soups with stars too so the big dipper comes in quite handy, but given that dessert is decidedly more dandy, I think it is doubtlessly dumb to sing a smaller spoon-tune before I consume soon.

For most folks it is customary to wear a bib when buttering up boatloads of lobster, but my wife insists that I always don a full length tarp, regardless if I’m pawing haughty claws or plowing down towny-chow. She reasons that a raincoat’s hot pockets awash in a comingling collection of cleaved-off  crunchy calories, beats any day where floor-freed peas plastered to her pads will turn her a shade of ‘green’, far closer to that of the Hulk than anything akin to envy. I of course am usually too dizzy to notice my wife’s pasty pedi-plight since hairy hungry hippos can’t help getting lost following crumb trails, especially while circumnavigating their favorite dining room high-chair. 

Hey I’m sorry that I’m not laced with grace nor a fan of that handsome n’ tanned ideal man who is part of the shiny silverware-savvy snob-set. Oh sure I maize still be a little WET-Nap behind the ears but that’s normal when bobbing for cobs and my lug of a mug is routinely covered in slop-trough gobs. Yeah I may not have mainstay manners yet, but at least when I slurp a drinkie I still park my pinkie high in the sky and I’m pointedly polite . . . since I never ever burp - unless spoken to first.  

'EGGS'cellent ODDventure

Despite the gelatinous albumen which stuffs the skull upon my shoulders, I prefer all other fragile eggs in my life to be a little less viscous and fertile, yet heated even harder to a perfect boil. I know some folks like yolks as wet as water, but for me that gooey blob makes me sob as it dampens my spirit as well as my toast. So you can go roe roe roe your boat FAR away and keep your caviar in the car ‘cause no lips of mine find briny slime at all sublime.

Being married for eons means I don’t mix with fresh chicks when I am hungry, so I have been forced to stock up on powdered eggs from apparently mummified dried up featherless fowl. That means my daily diet is limited to ‘Egg Foo Old’ and my pancakes don’t rise quite as high that of decadent dudes destined for Dennys . I don’t mind using the dehydrated dust for baking or just juicing up a ‘Julius’ but believe me the stuff is no joy to juggle and a lot less fun to throw than the wet ovoid others egged-out of a penned hen. 

These days is it me or have all barn birds joined a union to just cough and drop a lot smaller and smaller squat-offerings while still asking for MORE chicken feed as minimum wage?  Even their extra large chicky egg efforts seem still a tad tiny and don’t anoint my toast points like they used to. If these haughty hens want more scratch for what they hatch, then they had better start delivering more double A jumbos instead of those B grade yolk jokes which usually grace my plates.

I wonder why grocery chains have not crossed the road and tossed a laudatory nod to the slightly odd yet largely untapped and uncracked venture market for a GREAT chicken egg substitute. Can’t somebody just ‘cluck’ their fingers and talk shop with a down-on-their-luck ostrich, or coax a few quarts of nog grog from an alcoholic emu or slew, to produce a carton or two of up-sized eggies in fridge-friendly lumber-jack packs?  Only then could I honestly tell my Doc I’m in control of my cholesterol by eating a ONE Egg breakfast - though regardless of size, it had better be cooked to a tough rubber McMuffin instead of a drippy dropped Dumpty!

A Thanks-giver story

I know Thanksgiving is getting close when my Mother starts turning her ceramic jack-o-lanterns and candle holders around to hide their faces and reveal their backsides to the world. Don’t worry it is not as disrespectful as it sounds, it’s just that nobody wants to see legions of leering Halloween pumpkin pusses glaring and staring back while trying to stealthily sneak a snack before the big holiday feast. I already feel guilty enough since I have to violate a frozen turkey’s personal space and literally get under the thing’s skin with a mixture of herbs, spices, and a warm mayo massage.

A true thanks-giver like me will eat just about any broiled or baked deceased beast as long as you park those sickly sweet potatoes and chunky cranberry chutney around back where the slop trough wafts. It makes sense since portly Pilgrims like me cannot reach the peak of the day until my belt slips a slot and I have made an indelible impression upon any house guests and at least one rickety recliner.  Yes, there is nothing like pinching a sofa after a hearty carb-laden meal and a couple of slices of warm pecan and pumpkin pie.

As far as Thanksgiving traditions go I have never given in to the ‘football thing’ so in that regard I am probably a bit of a disappointment to my Father who IS a fan. It’s not that my family ever expected me to be interested in contact sports anyway since I only wear glasses to read restaurant menus and newsprint. I just figure that my clan probably hoped for a head injury to explain my odd behaviors and occasional use of eye make-up to block the glare from the white caps of whipped cream desserts.  

Of course the real meaning of a traditional Thanksgiving gathering is not entirely lost on me. I know the event means a lot more than parades, excess caloric consumption, and gadfly gossip about off-centered relatives and brainless  causality arguments over which came first, ‘the chicken or the maize’. Indeed I always remember to celebrate and give thanks to what REALLY matters on this special day - an ad-laden lead-weight of a newspaper brimming over with Black Friday discounts n’ deals!

I could 'Carrot' Less!

My wife and I recently discovered that those little pinkie sized carrots at the market don’t grow that way but are actually carved from their big orange brethren into the mini ‘nary- a-carrot’ versions. Sadly I am all thumbs so to cut up skinny carrots in my own image is impossible so no matter how hard I try, they will end up too fat. Fortunately I am not a quitter so inadvertently whenever I get hold of a peeler now, even if the carrot starts out as long as a leg and as thick as a tree, in the end, it will always give me the finger.  

I know it would be a lot cheaper to just buy the banded bunched carrots instead of paying for the cello bag full of of washed midgets. But the problem is to this day I can’t eat a cleaned raw carrot while the stalk is still on for fear of being shot as a fat gassy rabbit raiding the root cellar. Of course that means just like most folks, I resort to the store cut packaged variety and must always entertain myself with a temporary orifice insertion or two before eating.

Honestly other than an occasional yam around the holidays, I can’t think of any other orange food I would shove in my face without serious second thoughts. Oh sure you marmalade fans will disagree but I gag just at the sight of those disposer chunks of rind and whatnot floating around in some translucent synaptic gelatin.  Also lets all acknowledge right now that slimy ‘punkin’ guts’ might make for a good pie with enough sugar and spice but they won’t win any beauty or smell tests right out of the gourd’s raw craw.

Though good for me, fresh carrots are a bit of a pain to snack on since I can’t hear the television over the sound of the carotene-crushing reverberation through my skull.  I know they can cut them down to size but can’t they grow these things in the image of lettuce or something equally feckless and flaccid so I can eat in peace? Oh well,  It seems like other babies don’t mind glass jars full of orange n’ messy goo so maybe if I stew a few, bear down and coo,  I DOO TOO!