Smothered Burrito? Yes, please!
Let us all be brutally honest and just admit that sometimes what one wants to eat is NOT the farm to table, perfectly seasoned, beautifully presented dish, but a greasy, cheesy, fat-laden mess greedily eaten out of a paper bag. Even the most food passionate of us, and yes I will say it, food snobs, occasionally want, no crave, no NEED, that guilty pleasure that only fast food can provide. These are the same people who roll their eyes at the Taco Bell spots, that give disdaining looks to those at the Burger King drive-thru and refuse to eat pizza that isn’t in the Neopolitan style. Trust me, there are nights when these same people are giddily returning home from a fast food run, sitting down on the couch and digging in. How do I know? Because I am one of them. I don’t eat fast food often, but there are times when only a fast food meal will satisfy me. It is a guilty pleasure that I truly relish.
What do I eat? Well, I dream about the salty, crisp and just greasy enough fries from Carl’s Jr. I eat them with way too much ketchup and eat half the bag in the car, on the way home. I also obsess over really good waffle fries. The best in my opinion come from Chick-Fil-A, but now with the owner’s outspoken rant about gays, I can no longer eat them (sigh). So, if you know of a great waffle fry, please recommend! For breakfast I want an Egg McMuffin with a side of those gut busting hash browns. I spent many late nights (early mornings?) in my twenties stopping at McDonald’s on my way home from a wild night and ordering not one, but two Egg McMuffins and at least three hash browns. My hands would feel greasy for days after eating the hash browns, but it was well worth it. I also like the ultra thin crust pizza from Domino’s, much to my husband’s chagrin. You know the one, it is cut into squares and is like eating a pizza cracker. Remember the Edge pizza from Pizza Hut? Also loved that and wish they would bring it back. But my true first love when it comes to fast food is Taco Bell and Del Taco. They are always first on my list when I am considering giving in to a craving. At Del Taco, I always want a couple of Spicy Jack Quesadillas. I get sides of sour cream and put Del Scorcho sauce on each bite. They also have surprisingly good crinkle cut fries. I go to Del Taco when I want Mexican food AND fries, but Taco Bell is where I go for Mexican with no fry chaser. I like just about everything on their menu, but am now completely obsessed with the new smothered burrito. Every time the ad comes on the television I groan and turn to my husband and say, “I REALLY want this!” Something about all that burrito goodness with the extra kick of enchilada sauce and cheese… Remember the Enchirito? I LOVED that and this reminds me of it. Have I tried it? Not yet, but I am thinking a night of Taco Bell is in my near future.
I guess I wrote this fast food confession because I think that we, as food passionate people, feel that we can’t enjoy both a Chef created masterpiece AND a smothered burrito from Taco Bell. That somehow, if our secret forays into the fast food world got out we would be shunned and our palates called into question. Why? Just like I can enjoy a CNN Documentary and then watch the Real Housewives of New Jersey, I can revel in the subtle flavors in a beautifully composed dish and like the in your face flavors of an Enchirito. Well, I am breaking my silence and proudly saying, “I am food passionate and I like fast food!”
P.S. I am married to a Chef who is an admitted food snob and he too likes fast food. He craves Whoppers from Burger King, Chinese Spare Ribs drowning in that sticky, sweet sauce and Kentucky Fried Chicken. He won’t however, eat any chain pizza. You know, the whole New York thing…
A Single Girl’s Dinner
So, my husband is out of town and will be for a few days. I do miss him, but am enjoying living the “single” life again. No, I am not going out to clubs, getting drunk and picking up men. I am taking long hot baths, playing lots of online Boggle, catching up on my gossip magazines and tweezing my eyebrows in the living room (better light). Before he left, he said, “Make sure you eat!” I laughed at him, but now, I understand why he said it, one eats strange things when they live alone…
These strange eating habits are not new to me. I was single for a LONG time. But somehow, I thought being married had “broken” me of these habits. I was wrong. Scary how quickly we can revert to old, comfortable ways. When I had my first apartment (with no roommates) I NEVER cooked. I lived on Lean Cuisines, alcohol, cigarettes and Del Taco (always at 3 in the morning). Looking back it is a wonder I didn’t develop scurvy. Wait! Must have been the grapefruit juice in all the Greyhounds I drank that saved me. At this point in my life I would order Bloody Mary’s because I thought the vegetables that came with it were like a meal! As I got older, I didn’t get much wiser. I was always working in restaurants and would live on pilfered bread which I would dip into salad dressing, olive oil or spicy mayonnaise (REALLY good! Just mix hot sauce into mayo until it is pink). Occasionally I would go to a salad bar… But I still used my stove as storage and had nothing but beer, vodka and every condiment known to man in my refrigerator. I wasn’t alone in this behavior. My girlfriends were the same way. We loved to play the game, “What I ate for dinner”. My friend Adelaide’s go to dinner was an entire sleeve of saltine crackers, each lovingly slathered with mayonnaise. My friend Nicole would stand at her kitchen counter and eat 1/2 pound of cheddar cheese. If I didn’t pick up a Lean Cuisine (can’t even LOOK at these now) I would dip Snyder’s pretzels in mustard & light sour cream. Remember the Lean Cuisine spots where the woman talked about the horrible dinners they ate? Loved that spot, because it was so true. True story, during the L.A. riots, when all the markets were closed, I was forced to live on VERY stale corn tortillas, cream cheese and Del Taco hot sauce for three days. Still, it didn’t change my habits.
I FINALLY broke out of this a few years back and actually, gasp, starting grocery shopping. I realized how nice it was to come home and have something besides fast food ketchup packets, pretzels and canned green beans in the house. You know, real food. So I was rather shocked when I first started dating my husband and opened his refrigerator. A half-eaten can of salmon with a fork in it and a jar of whitefish was all that was there. I told him, “Go shopping!” He did, but I was comforted that single eating habits applied to men as well…
So, here we are, present day and I am alone in a house full of food. Lots of fresh vegetables, cheeses, salsa, fruit, bread, etc. And, when my husband is home I cook! Every night. But he is gone and what do I choose to eat? The first night I had a handful of baked tortilla chips, four strawberries and some chocolate chips. I did drink too many light beers and played Boggle to the wee hours of the morning. Last night I ate some almonds, a whole wheat tortilla with mayonnaise on it (it was delicious!) and some shredded mozzarella cheese straight from the package, standing in front of the fridge. Wow.
So now I face another “single” dinner tonight and would like to think that I can have a proper meal. I am planning on making myself a big salad, but deep down I know I will probably opt for a grab and nibble approach to dinner. Why do we do this? What compels us? I don’t have the answer… I DO know that my husband is eating VERY well on his trip. He has gone out for breakfast, lunch and dinner everyday and has eaten salads, fish and other disgustingly normal things.
I am going to be honest. I am not going to go home and make a salad or anything else. I am planning on chips and salsa. Beck’s Light (Try it! Really great & only 64 calories) and more Boggle. I guess I don’t need to understand why I do this… I just do. And secretly, I enjoy it. Like I enjoy driving too fast, scary movies and the Jersey Shore. I feel like I am being bad. And sometimes, nothing feels better than being bad. One more thing, I will put lime in my beer, so I AM getting vitamin C.
Eating Under The Influence
It is three a.m., you are leaving a club or party and you are buzzed or otherwise “influenced”. What do you do? Well, if you are like me and lots of people I know, you eat. You head for the closest drive-through or all night diner. Maybe you head home and call the place that delivers REALLY late or stumble around the kitchen, eating chips as you make a killer sandwich. Whatever your M.O., it is about the joys and problems of eating under the influence.
Now, to be honest, most of my “influenced” eating occurred when I was younger. Leaving the bar or club, my thoughts would immediately turn to what I was going to eat. I knew I wasn’t alone, due to the fact that I was always one of twenty cars in line at the drive-through at two a.m. Food not only tasted better at that hour, but it also served a purpose. Hangover prevention. So many Saturday mornings we would chastise our very hungover friends with, “You should have eaten something!” The drive-through for me was always preferable. Not only could you drunkenly eat your food in the privacy of your own home, but you could also eat aforementioned meal while comfortable in pajamas. This means a lot to a woman because by 2 a.m., your shoes are killing you, your waistband has tattooed your stomach and at home, there doesn’t have to be even a semblance of daintiness. So, come along with me as I recount some memorable influenced eating. And yes, feel free to sip a beer as you read.
One of my favorite eating under the influence stories does not belong to me, it belongs to a friend of mine. A group of us were out at a club in L.A. and had a fair share of drinks. At 3 a.m. she went home to her husband and we went to Del Taco. The next day she told us that when she got home, she stripped nude and proceeded to fry chicken! She woke her husband up with her cooking, but wouldn’t go to bed until she had eaten every piece of chicken. Now that is a determined eater!
Another incident happened when I was about seventeen. My sister and her friend were house sitting and invited me over to “party”. When I arrived the party had not only begun, but it was just about over. They had smoked a joint and started eating. The coffee table was littered with half-eaten burritos, chips, salsa and even a container of melting ice cream. They were covered in food and laughing hysterically. My sister had at some point been eating oreos. How do I know? She had several chocolate wafers, sans filling, stuck to her chest. I slowly backed out of there and yes, you guessed it, got something to eat (the night didn’t have to be a total loss!) and went home.
The thing with eating under the influence is it sometimes happens inadvertently. Have you ever faced a long wait at a restaurant, parked yourself at the bar and drank way too many drinks on your rumbling empty stomach? I have and it is never pretty. I either get sick before we are even seated (stories that will be saved for a different blog) OR even worse, I make it to the table and eat. Manners aside, many times under these circumstances, the food seems FABULOUS! The BEST EVER! Why? Not because it is, but because you are soooo drunk, shoe leather with cheese would be manna. But that really isn’t the worst part. That happens when you go back to the restaurant, stay sober, eat and realize just how incredibly awful the food you have been bragging to your friends about for two weeks really is… I am now convinced that some restaurants are set up this way on purpose. Get ’em drunk at the bar and then feed ’em slop.
My personal most memorable or cringe-worthy (same thing, right?) eating under the influence story? Okay, I will tell you, but only because I really am for self-expression and if you can’t laugh at yourself, well, then, all is lost. It happened while I was in college (surprise! surprise!) at a dive bar we all frequented. We went because the pitchers of beer were cheap (they said it was Heineken, but I KNOW it was Meister Brau), they had pizza by the slice, a jukebox and well, they didn’t card. So there I was, VERY drunk. And STARVING. My boyfriend bought me a slice of pizza that I forced myself to slowly eat. I did okay, except for the trouble I had figuring out how to use a napkin. So, after eating my girly single slice of pizza, I am still starving. So I start picking up leftover crust off of everybody’s plates and eating that. At one point, one of the guys across from me gave me a funny look, to which I responded with a giggle, burp and a shove of a crust into my mouth. Now in retrospect, SOME of the pizza was a little soggy, but at the time I just thought it was extra sauce. The next morning my boyfriend asked, “Why did you eat all that pizza?” Now I thought it was because of the amount I ate, so I said, “Listen, real women eat and-“. He cut me off and started laughing. Apparently, the reason all the drunk, hungry, football players didn’t finish their pizza (I KNOW, DUH! Red Flag! But, I was drunk.) was due to the fact that one of them had spilled a pitcher of beer on it! Ah, the sogginess. I just laughed with my boyfriend, but inside I was mortified. No wonder that guy was looking at me funny! I was teased for awhile, but really, even beer soaked, to my influenced mind, it tasted pretty damn good.
So, I celebrate our eating under the influence and say eat on my friends! It is better than a hangover.
On a side note, I am endlessly fascinated with the nocturnal eating that occurs in some Ambien users. You can’t drag me away from the “caught on tape” footage or the confused responses of the people when they are shown the tape. “I ate a jar of peanut butter with my bare hand?” “I ate 12 mayonnaise sandwiches?” Just another form of eating under the influence…
Confessions of Secret Eating & Guilty Pleasures
It’s time we all came clean. We ALL secretly eat. And we all have things we eat that are our guilty pleasures. Things we would be mortified if others knew about… Today, I am coming clean. My name is foodwinejunke and I am a secret eater.
So, here it is, almost nightly, after my husband falls asleep, I make my way to the kitchen. Usually it is around three in the morning and by the light of the open refrigerator,I make my “snack”. Most nights it is three corn tortillas with shredded mozzarella cheese put in the microwave for 30 seconds. Then I top them with either real mayonnaise or sour cream and Tapatio hot sauce. I take my food back to bed with me and ever so gently get in beside my husband. I happily eat the three mini-quesadillas while watching Sabrina The Teenage Witch (remember, 3 a.m., options limited). Wow, I suddenly feel much lighter for confessing! Here is the thing though, when I am sleeping, my husband also eats. He is less ritualistic, but he eats nonetheless. How do I know? He leaves a trail of cheese wrappers, empty bread bags & mayonnaise coated knives in the kitchen. I was very comforted when I found this evidence of nocturnal noshing. Oh, I thought, we ARE meant for each other!
As for guilty pleasures, it is time for self-proclaimed foodies to get off their high culinary horse and admit that they too like a grilled American cheese sandwich on Wonder bread! Or a mayonnaise sandwich with Nacho Cheese Doritos. Mine? Velveeta. I tend to be a cheese snob, but I like nothing better than a Velveeta sandwich on sourdough bread with too much mayo, sweet gherkins, lettuce and tomato. Ruffles potato chips on the side. Also, LOVE Del Taco. My husband shares my secret love of Velveeta, but also will sneak in a fried Oscar Mayer bologna sandwich in too. We aren’t the only ones. I have a girlfriend that confessed to me that she loves to eat saltine crackers smeared with mayonnaise. She eats them one after another, right from the sleeve until they are all gone. I say, Yes! Another friend likes to eat an entire Duncan Hines chocolate frosting out of the can with her fingers. Yet another, will eat fruit cocktail from the can, while squirting Reddi-Whip on it. Finally, is the friend that loves VERY cheap frozen pizza with you guessed it mayonnaise on top!
Is this wrong? NO! Can you love these foods and still appreciate the subtle nuances in a well-prepared dish? YES! Furthermore, do we all have our secret eating rituals, that not only nourish us, but also comfort us? I hope so. Because most of the secret eating and guilty pleasures are rooted in our childhood and associated with warm memories. So confess, it will do you good.
I have to go, I want to be alone with my Velveeta sandwich now.
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