I’m seriously behind in my (food) accounting so I’ll post a multimix of things eaten in the last couple of days. I’ll also tease the fact that I went to Veggie Heaven (worst site ever)! That’s right, there is an entire heaven reserved just for us vegetarians! Oddly enough it’s populated entirely by Chinese people.

Here we have a Naked Veggie Burrito from Qdoba, and an Eggplant Parmesan sandwich from Esposito’s in Cedar Grove, followed by a salad I made myself in the cafeteria at work. It was heavy on the cottage cheese and featured supporting roles by black beans, baby spinach, corn, tomatoes, black olives, and little taco strips (that were stale). Afraid that this would not make me full I added a side of Mozzarella Sticks and a small cup of tomato sauce to dip in.

Which reminds me… I was slightly pissed when I ate this meal.

You may or may not have been able to discern from the limited run of masterpieces put forth on Hangry Pants that I am a very particular person. I say particular, not with specific intention or meaning but rather to paint a sweeping stroke across all possible categories of eccentricity. If I were borne from another woman than my mother, she might say I’m special. Since I’m borne from my mother, however, she says I’m weird.

Chief amongst my long list of seemingly bizarre eccentricities is my staunch penchant for consistency, exposure of truth, and the annihilation of hypocrisy in everyday life. I am completely serious.

What the hell am I talking about?

I made the salad you see pictured above. I then walked over to the incubator which keeps French Fries, Curly Fries, Chicken Wings, Chicken Fingers, and yes – Mozzarella Sticks at room temperature plus 1 degree Fahrenheit, known to insiders as the Anti Congeal Threshold. Contemplating whether to get Fries or Mozzarella sticks I bent over to look inside said incubator, noticed that the nearest tray of Mozzarella Sticks was just far enough in there for me to have to reach in, grab the edge of the container, and pull it forward to make a safe extraction possible. I successfully performed this adjustment and decided to regroup. The stage was set. Another go at it was needed for successful hydrogenated procurement.

With the Mozzarella Sticks now within my reach I laid the tray down to free up my hands and get down to business. I proceeded to shift the material on my left sleeve upwards, un-bunching it to prevent contact with the inside of the heat house where the Fried Family lives. I prepared to make my second approach when…

The “chef” behind the counter looks THROUGH the incubator and says to me with the ignorant ire of judgement and swift condemnation:

If you touch something you have to buy it.

…

I don’t know what I said. I’m pretty sure I just said, “I know” and kept going, but I tell you now faithful and enthusiastic readers: this was mere self placation to exit the premises in a timely manner for I was hungry. Not “on death’s door” hungry, but surely Incredibly, “you wouldn’t like me when I’m hangry” hungry.

Then the thoughts started flying through my head.

Oh! The hypocrisy and stupidity of his statement. As Rachel Ray and Ernie Hudson as my witnesses, I have seen things THAT WILL TURN YOU WHITE occur behind the counters of this establishment. Not scandalous, unprintable things, no, but things much, much more grave than mere contact with the exterior of cardboard. I’m not going to draw you a diagram (not in this post at least) but take me seriously: I did not touch those Mozzarella Sticks. The damn things come in a fuckin carton for a reason. They’re meant to be outwardly handled and transported that way. As for the real vile actions and those who’ve perpetrated them…

We’ve got people with no hair nets, people not washing their gloved hands after touching their face or hair, people dropping condiments on the counter and just putting them back on the grill. Sneezing, coughing, throat clearing (not “ahem” throat clearing either, I’m talking deep and dangerous as if they were a Medieval Conjurer of Spirits attempting to Summon a Living Lung from the Underdark throat clearing). We’ve got dirty rinded lemon slices bobbing up and down in thousands of styrofoam cups already lined with dust piled ass to ass atop a counter top yearning for a twice daily cleaning. We’ve got cups full of stamped metal utensils and plastic flatware with mislabeled signage causing very normal people to have to repeatedly attempt to draw the short straw: “Is this a knife? No! Is this a knife? No? Ah! There’s a knife!”

Each time returning the dejected piece to the communal cup.

We’ve got spoiled food on multiple occasions that is ingested without hesitation by unsuspecting food-goers for they put their trust in the establishment. Yogurt Parfait, so cold, yet so curdled that no amount of daintily sliced strawberries placed atop can undo such a wild imbalance of bacteria or attempt to mask the flavor. Frozen yogurt that has been mixed improperly as to bely the advertised flavor and just spew forth from the spigot as an odorless, grey mass, inexplicably sweet with no distinct flavor.

Then there is the crescendo.

In one of the early days of Meatless Month I purchased these same Mozzarella Sticks. I also took a small cup of tomato sauce to dip them in. I am entitled to this.

I am at a loss for words in describing what the sauce tasted like. “Bad” is a good start but that might denote that it just didn’t suit my tastes or agree with my palette. “Gone Bad” is a better description because it insinuates that some chemical reaction occurred within the confines of the sauce to cause it to inherently be sauce no longer.

These both fail to accurately convey the medical risk that first dip and subsequent bite exposed me to. The sauce had turned to the Dark Side, mercilessly slain its friends and family, and now donned an evil respirator and robotic life support system, seeking tutelage under the devilish and corrupt wings of a wretched sorcerer with only a mere faint of hope that it might one day feel the cool bath of redemption and realize its tomatoey progenesis once again.

Right, the Eggplant and the Burrito.

Short review: mediocre, but passable.

Short Review: Dat’ shit was salty.

I’m going to take a walk.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 at 10:00 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.