Whinging Wednesday: Things that are food and shouldn’t be! NSFW

I am a fairly adventurous person, especially when it comes to cuisine.  I’m interested in new techniques, tastes, textures and cultures and I will try anything once.  However, there is a disturbing new trend that makes me wonder whether these people are cooks or sadists.  This trend, ladies and gentlemen, is the use and ingestion of bodily fluids in food!

First we have the menstrual cookie!  While perusing my favorite comedy sites I came across this post on Failblog After Dark:

Now surely this is a joke.  Some of my online friends even got into a discussion over the consistency of blood being kept in a jar over the course of a year and the general consensus is that this is probably just some kind of publicity stunt or art project.  However, New York Magazine talks about a trend among new mothers who eat their placenta after their babies are born and even swap recipes.

Anyone up for some Placenta Pasta?

It seems pregnant women really get into the recycling bit when it comes to their fluids!  How about washing down that Placenta Pasta with a Breast Milk Smoothie?

I scream, you scream, we all scream for… well, suddenly I’m lactose intolerant:-p

Not to be left out, men are also taking part in the recycling of bodily fluids for consumption.  Yes folks, this fun little cookbook can be all yours!  While away the hours cooking up some special treats for your friends and family like Strawberry Splasharitas and Spunky Candied Pecans guaranteed to have your guests talking.  Ok maybe they’ll never speak to YOU again but they’ll definitely be talking!

Who wants Flan?

So it seems this trend is not only here to stay but it’s actually been picking up steam over the years!  As a kid I always wondered how societies in sci-fi movies tolerated things like Soylent Green and zombies.

Deep fried BRAAAAINZ

Ciao for now.

UPDATE:  I had actually heard about this a few weeks back but forgot all about it until my local news just reported it.  A joke turns serious and after some testing and analysis it looks like Oregon’s Rogue Beer is about to launch its first brew using yeast from the beard of the brewmaster himself!  Just one more reason I’ll stick to wine, thanks.

Whinging Wednesday: Unrealistic food scenarios in movies and on TV

Me mum took me RUM!

From time to time I’ll be watching a movie or TV show and one of the characters will do or say something so incredibly dumb or unrealistic that I have to suppress the urge to start throwing things at the screen!  I will not be including cooking shows with hosts who touch everything in the kitchen but don’t wash their hands once or advise viewers to wash their hands.  I also won’t be including cooking shows with hosts who leave their hair loose so that guests can potentially find a long ass hair in their salad.  I won’t even include those cooking shows whose hosts wear a ton of frigging jewelry on their hands and wrists and stick their glittery nail polish adorned fingers into things presenting a major contamination hazard because we’ll be here all damn day!  I will even refrain from talking about cooking show hosts who seem to confuse their kitchens with the circus and decide to stack EVERY INGREDIENT OF THE RECIPE on top of each other  and barely manage to get over to the counter without dropping everything rather than just grabbing a few items at a time and going back and forth while they speak.  Hell, you’re on a major network, I’m sure someone could spring for a MFing cart you can place everything on to and wheel around the kitchen like an intelligent human being.

So let’s start shall we?

A Mirror Has Two Faces

Ok, I LOVE this movie:)  I love Barbara Streisand, I want to have babies with Jeff Bridges, I ADORE Lauren Bacall, I love Sting, I love the story.  I mean I love everything about this movie!  I can even relate to Barbara Streisand’s character, the smart but frumpy English professor who is invisible to men especially when around her fashion plate sister and mother.  That being said, it drives me absolutely batshit crazy that throughout the movie Rose pulls raw carrots and celery from all kinds of places around the house but what REALLY burns my toast is when she’s at the gym.  Now, as you may or may not be aware the gym is full of lots of people sweating all over the machines and equipment.  Most of the time these people don’t wipe the machines down afterwards and even if they do, who knows what’s in those spray bottles the gym provides to wipe down the equipment between sets.  Anyway, Rose is doing her thing at the gym.  She uses the bench press machine, stops because her pectoral muscles are sore, reaches off camera to pick up a RAW PIECE OF CELERY AND EATS IT!!!  GERMS! SKIN CELLS! BACTERIA! GAH!!!

Friends: Monica Gellar

So this formerly obese beautiful but completely neurotic woman who is obsessed with cleaning and has to have everything just so is also a chef.  Now you would think having all her OCD qualities would make her a fantastic chef with a super clean kitchen and yeah she probably is a nightmare to work with.  However, on several occasions she has made mistakes so incredibly stupid that you have to wonder where she went to school!  For instance, in episode 5 of season 2, Monica finally gets promoted to head chef of her restaurant and in celebration she makes everyone a nice steak dinner (eggplant for the vegetarian Pheebs) because there were some leftover at the restaurant.  Now this was already a red flag because I think unless you’re the owner of a restaurant, employees aren’t necessarily allowed to take home “leftovers” out of inventory.  It turns out the “leftovers” were actually a gift from a restaurant vendor also known in the industry as a kickback!  Management finds out about it and fires Monica who insists “it was a gift not a kickback!”  C’mon lady, if you’d had the proper training or been working in the industry long enough you KNOW gifts from vendors and kickbacks are the same damn thing!

Then there was the time when Monica and Phoebe were working her catering business and were hired for a function of Monica’s mother.  The party is in full swing and Monica realizes in horror that one of her artificial purple finger nails has disappeared sometime during prep and is probably nestled in one of the guest’s quiches!  Once again, had she been properly trained or if she’s working in the industry long enough she would know YOU DO NOT WEAR NAIL POLISH OR FAKE NAILS WHEN COOKING!  Or at the very least she should have worn gloves to prevent physical contaminants like fake nails falling into the food she was preparing.  Then she has the nerve to get mad when her mom, in anticipation of a colossal screw up, whips out some lasagnas from the freezer.

You did WHAT to my quiche?

Friends: Emma’s birthday cake

Ok, this show seems to be on a roll with unrealistic food stuff.  Then again this is the same show that depicts a group of friends living in Manhattan who apparently never ever lock their doors yet aren’t murdered in their sleep or robbed (except when Joey was stupid enough to get locked in that entertainment center).  Anyway, Rachel decides to get a fancy bunny cake for her baby’s first birthday but goes ALL the way the hell in New Jersey to get it!  Of course, on the way home she discovers the cake isn’t of a bunny but a penis and there’s no way to go back and get a replacement before the place closes for the night.

First of all, I don’t think I want to even KNOW about a bakery that will make up a penis shaped cake for a 1 year old girl’s birthday and not think twice about it.  Second, who the hell picks up a cake and DOESN’T check to make sure it’s correct before leaving ESPECIALLY when coming as far as she did?  Third, really?  In the entire city of Manhattan, in ALL 5 boroughs of New York City, in the fru fru area of the Hamptons or where ever they grew up, you mean to tell me neither Ross nor Rachel could find A SINGLE BAKERY that could handle making the kid a friggin bunny cake?  Ya know what?  That’s what you get you pretentious nerk!  Next time do what true New Yorkers do and get that little girl a friggin Carvel cake!!!

Unfortunately that’s all I can think of right now although I know there are tons more examples.  Anyway, Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day! Aaar!

Is this thing on?

Apologies once again for being AWOL last week but between midterms and my mother paying us a visit I barely had time to put two moments of sanity together!  Although I don’t typically post on the weekends I thought I’d share a little tidbit with you and some sage advice for those who may need it.  Gather round grasshoppers!

As I just mentioned my mother is visiting us from New Jersey and because of some health issues she sometimes needs to make substitutions to any food she orders.  Sometimes these substitutions need a degree in engineering to figure out while other times it’s fairly simple.  So this morning, while still in pajamas because we’re having a lazy day, my husband and I hop in the car and head for the drive thru of Dunkin Donuts because mom hadn’t gotten much sleep and needed coffee before her two hour drive to visit my cousins.  I pull up to the speaker thing and order two poppy seed bagels toasted with butter, two vanilla frosted donuts and an extra large coffee cream and sugar (Paul’s breakfast), a medium pumpkin coffee and a plain bagel toasted with cream cheese (my breakfast) and a large coffee half pumpkin half decaf with cream and 2 sweet and lows (mom’s breakfast).  As I pull away from the speaker I hear the guy say “Well that was an obnoxious order!”

 

Paul and I looked at each other and laughed as I pulled up to the window.  He wasn’t sure we heard correctly but I sure did.  Yes, I guess that last coffee was a bit obnoxious which is why I hate ordering it sometimes or go inside when mom isn’t with me to do it herself but as I was still in pajamas and there was no one on line I figured it was safe.  Now I wasn’t angry but in the fru fru neighborhood we live in I know if any of the locals had heard that there would have been hell to pay.  Being a fast food/retail veteran I didn’t know how long this guy worked in the field or how experienced he was with working a drive up window but I thought it might benefit him to learn a quick lesson before it bit him in the ass.

So when I pull up and he opens the window to take my order I smile and say, “I apologize for the obnoxiousness of my order but…”  I couldn’t even finish the sentence, the guy at the window blanched and started to quickly explain how he was having trouble trying to push the buttons to accept three bagels (um yeah right ok) meanwhile the mouth of the girl standing next to him dropped and as she ducked away from the window I could hear her laughing.  I just waved him off but I’m hoping he learned to be more careful while wearing his headset.

Morale of the story folks, if you’re gonna talk shit about a customer, make sure they can’t actually HEAR you! LOL

Whinging Wednesday: Weird News

Some may argue that American cuisine is non-existent and doesn’t hold a candle to the rest of the world.  Well, it seems not everyone feels that way as many cultures and nations have been trying to emulate American cuisine.  Whether the attempts are all out fail or a decent attempt at the original, it seems the natives are in love!

While Malaysians have Pizza Hut, their pizza of choice seems to be the complete opposite of what we like in this country.  The Super Pan Pizza features chunks of chicken AND chicken loaf, caramelized pineapples with two different sauces, cheese and “Garlic Napoli,” rolled into the crust.  The end result is that the innards of each slice come oozing out with every bite!

Um, nom?

Hungry yet?  Well hold on to your butts because we’re headed to Baghdad where the Iraqis rock the casbah scarfing down knock offs of American food!  With American troops leaving the area and bases closing down a big void opened up for those missing Western fare, however savvy entrepreneurs have stepped up and have presented to the masses knock off dining establishments like Florida Fried Chicken, Mr. Potato, Pizza Boat, Burger Friends and KFG or Kentucky Family Group (which sounds to me more like one of those Christian fundie groups who get vocal over things like gay marriage than a chicken joint). One burger joint, called Burger Joint actually, has gone the extra step of surfing burgers and milkshakes while music by Frank Sinatra serenades diners and often has to assist customers understand their foreign offerings like milkshakes and cookies. The owners of Burger Joint also own a Turkish chain called Pizza Pizza and intends to a new sandwich shop called Subz.

The Home of the Shawarma

Of course China is one of the countries who refuse to jump on the American cuisine bandwagon. Instead choosing to perfect their own culinary contribution while embracing technological advances by creating noodle slicing robots!  Restaurateur Cui Runguan is selling thousands of these robots which slice noodles into pots of boiling water called the Chef Cui. Each robot costs $2000 compared to the annual Chinese chef’s salary of $4,700 and Runguan has already sold 3,000 robots. Although these creepy little metal guys have faster and better knife skills, without taste buds can robots really be a fit substitute for a chef?

“Iron Cook, eh? I can’t lose. I’m 30% iron!”

While many parts of the world have embraced famous American foods I urge my fellow Americans who haven’t yet done so to check out the rich and flavorful cuisines cultures around the world have developed and perfected.  Not only is it an awesome experience for all 5 senses, it will prove a fantastic out should Peta and groups like it actually succeed in growing meat in labs!

Chow for now!