Edible Skeletons in Kitchen Closets

I was tagged for a meme. How exciting is that? I feel all bloggerly and validated. Someone out there in the great big bloggy world cares to know what 5 foods I am ashamed to love.

It’s a neat concept for a meme, but one that I have a bit of a problem with. I don’t need to add to my reputation of food snobbiness. I think there is equal beauty in a perfectly ripe, sweet and juicy plum with a crackly, taut skin and a masterfully prepared complex dish with 50 ingredients and 30 garnishes. I don’t like to judge food on anything beyond its merits.

That said, I will now release all my nasty food habits out into the open. Let them run around and make friends with one another.

1. This skeleton may already be out of its closet, but I love Cheetos. I do. I love them. I don’t really know what they are or what they are made of, nor how they get to be knobby, crunchy, and day-glo orange, but I love them. I love how the neon-colored fake cheese gloms onto your fingertips. I love scraping it off with my teeth once a thick enough layer has accumulated. So good and so bad all at the same time.

2. I love burnt cheese. You know when you’re making mac and cheese or baked brie, and just a little bit of the cheese spills its way onto the baking sheet and gets fried into a hard, slightly bitter and massively salty cracker? That’s the bit I love. I will stand there picking at it, chipping it off the metal sheet, shard by crispy little shard. The mac and cheese is a poor consolation prize after all the burnt cheese is gone.

3. Ok, it’s now time for scary “ethnic” stuff. [As an aside, I find the word “ethnic” to be one of the most cringe-worthy in the English language and borderline offensive. It’s a remarkably efficient way of setting someone apart, making them feel different and left out. Speaking as an “ethnic” person, of course.] I love pickled herring. I know I am fulfilling about 15 different stereotypes by saying so, but I do, I love herring. Russians serve it doused with vegetable or sunflower oil, with sliced white onions and occasionally minced dill on top. My hands smell of fish for a whole day afterward, but I don’t mind. I guess I am just ethnic that way.


4. Every five years or so, I find enough time to make my own chicken stock. I really like doing it. It makes the house smell good and it reminds me of my Mom’s cooking. She used to buy chicken drumsticks for stocks (now she bad-assedly dismembers whole chickens for the purpose… I have a long way to go before I can even pretend to do that). I loved, and still love, to eat the resulting plain boiled chicken, with some mustard or horseradish. It’s not a particularly bad or disgusting food habit, but it is a really boring one. It’s boiled chicken. Period. But it reminds me of when I was little. More than anything else I cook for myself, boiled chicken drumsticks (possibly the most un-photogenic food in all creation) send me back home.

5. Last one. I should make this one good, right? The grand reveal? The complete gross out? Ok then. It’s not so much a food as an approach to food. I hate utensils. Really, I do. I cannot stand forks, spoons are ok, knives are instruments of dining torture. All the pomp and circumstance and watching where you put what and how you hold it in your hand, blah blah blah. I may be rebelling against my old world upbringing or embracing all the Indian food prepared by my best friends and their Moms over the many years (close to two decades!) of our friendship, but I think food tastes better when you eat it with your hands. You get to feel its weight, its texture. You taste more of it because it’s not scalding hot… And frankly, it’s more fun.




So there you go. When no one is looking, I am eating Cheetos, herring, and boiled chicken with my bare hands, while picking at burnt cheese. How’s that for attractive…