Food Sins

You know that sticky white rice you find at American Chinese restaurants? And that reddish pink "sweet n' sour" sauce you also find at American Chinese restaurants?

I love that shit.

I love dripping copious amounts of that sauce over the plain rice and watching it turn from light pink to reddish, all the while I am telling myself to use as little as possible. I love eating it. I consume its warm, sick sweetness with much voracity. It's nothing but sugar and cheap carbohydrate, but I wallow in the self indulgence.

I don't buy these things for myself; it's my parents and associates. They buy takeout filled with sodium and saturated fat, and they don't like rice without it being fried with bits of animal in it. So, they stop by and give me the rice because they know I often pair it with flavor it with fresh garlic, ginger, and chiles, and pile it with stir-fried vegetables.

But sometimes...sometimes there is that sauce. It beckons to me--beckons to my childhood memories of comfortableness with unhealthy eating habits...and I just can't help myself. I've just got to have it. Just a taste. I bargain with myself: "Only a little serving of white rice and a tablespoon of sauce. I'll save the rest of the rice to accompany my [name of healthy vegetable dish]." But a little bit of rice becomes half the carton and way too much sauce, and then a few subsequent spoonfuls rice later I figure I might as well finish it all off in one sitting...

If foodie-dom were like the Catholic Church, then admission to this kind of lust in confession would no doubt cause the priest to grip hir lentil bead rosary tighter and cringe at the unholiness of the flock.

"Vicar! Forgive me! I cannot bare this secret! Visions of these warm satanic sugars plague my every waking hour! This scarlet lust stirs in me and I just can't control it! Free me from this temptress! Why can't I stop, oh why?! The madness! THE MADNESS OF IT ALL!"

Satan steams among us.

Eating Out: Orion's Belt Sandwich

Spring 2011. I went to Knoxville, Tennessee for reasons relating to graduate programs.

Like a good foodie, I scouted out interesting restaurants on the Internet before I ever even set out on my journey.

This magnificent sandwich below was my reward for this endeavor. It can be found at the restaurant/bar, Sunspot, on the main drag near UTK.

NOW LOOK AT IT! LOOK-AT-IT!! (The hyphens are there for your convenience b/c I hate when people scrunch their words together in an attempt to convey the rapidity with which the phrase would be said if verbalized. You're welcome, fucker.)

NOW LOOK AT IT CLOSEUP!! [hisses:] It puts the lotion on it's skin!

Ahem. Allow me to describe it to you: The star of this attraction is the blackened tofu, which was the perfect texture--not squishy, but nicely dry and toothsome--on the one occasion I had the pleasure. It's topped with this special hummus, whose flavor profile I cannot recall, and now have only the memory of how divine it was. From the pictures you can obviously tell it was also served with alfalfa sprouts and some fresh veg for crunch. All of this was on a scrumptious ciabatta bun, paired with these glorious house-made sweet potato chips whose spice combination I also cannot recall. Nonetheless, they were delicious as well.

The singular  "complaint" that I could find for it was that I liked it a little better with some mustard from the bottle on the table. But, I'm an outright mustard weirdo, so...It puts the mustard on it's skin?

At any rate, you do not know of how I have dreamed about revisiting that sandwich. Allow me to demonstrate: [adopts Elvis impersonator voice] And now, uh, to close I'd like to sing a little diddy for, uh, a very special little lady. Sandwich, baby, this one's for you:

Sandy, can't you see?

I'm in misery.

We made a start,

Now we're apart--

There's nothin' left for me.

Love has flown,

All alone, I sit

And wonder wh - yi-yi-yi

Oh why, you left me

Oh, Sandy!

(It doesn't matter that Elvis came along way before "Grease," you pop culture whore! The point is that I actualized my impulsive vision of how I could demonstrate my abnormal love for food by not only singing to it, but placing well-known lyrics into a completely different context and altering their meaning, but without changing a single word. Geesh! This is the Internetz--it's not about validity!)