Thursday, February 22, 2007

a list long overdue.....

i have to admit it has taken me a long time to come up with a list of odd food-related facts about myself since i was asked/tagged by trinigourmet several weeks back. i guess i wasn't even sure if i even had any weird food facts about me to divulge to the public at large. after all, it's not like i'd eat stuff like this .... now that's weird. anyway, you can read on and decide for yourself. all things being relative, the question remains ....... just how weird are you?!

6 weird food facts about me:

1. i am obsessed with ACCURACY, especially in the arenas of measurement and size. when it comes to cutting and shaping things, i can spend inordinate amounts of time with my best friends in the kitchen — my ruler and uber sensitive & accurate scale [which, by the way, was one of the best purchases i've made]. ok, admittedly, i am not ready yet for a hospital program since i will forgo measuring and weighing things if they agree with the "eyeball" method. still, things look better when they are uniform and the same. errrr, most of the time, that is.

2. i rarely eat at other people's homes. this has been an item of contention for many years and made me either flatly turn down offers or find inventive ways out of eating at another person's home. i think my neurosis began with my experience of eating at a friend's home and finding dried food on the plates and then more on some of the serving utensils, including dog hair. i think i nearly barfed on the spot.

the fact is that you really never know how clean someone (you don't really know) is or what goes into the cooking of things. i also know people who have no problems with this, so maybe i am just weird! lol. my favourite thing is what i call "the microwave/oven" test. i always try to sneak a peek at the insides of the microwave (or oven) to see the state of it. if it's not clean, i definitely "ain't" eatin' your food.

3. glutinous and bitter foods are not my friends. anything which involves stringy mucilage is vorbotten and literally makes me wretch. foods like okra and natto come to mind when i think of goo. melted cheese, however, is not mucilage and is therefore 100 per cent fine by me in terms of goo. bitter things are also not items which please my palate. i have never understood people who actually say they enjoy things like rapini, radicchio, hilbeh or bitter gourd. i might as well use buckley's as a condiment if that were the case.

4. i only started eating dried fruit in my 20s. i have no clue where that came from but i refused to eat or even use it in my cooking until the recent past. i felt tortured as a child to continually find those damned little red boxes of sunmaid raisins in my lunches or given them for snacks. even to this day, i will not eat raisins though i have eaten the golden ones and will use only those kind in small amounts in cooking. owning a rabbit as a child reinforced my distaste for small dried black things. :O

5. i probably have 3 more sets of dishes, utensils, kitchen towels, etc. than you do. keeping a kosher style kitchen means separate everything (well, almost) for preparing and eating meat, dairy and pareve foods (anything non meat or non dairy). that's a 'hell-a' lot of stuff. i also have a whole set of everything again just for passover use but that is strictly for meat/pareve use (think whole kitchen's worth). no wonder i hardly have any space for all of my wares.

6. i love cutting up chickens. ok, that's definitely weird [and no, i'm not a hannibal lechter but i do own very sharp knives, so watch out!]. i just like being able to know that all parts of what i'm eating came from the same bird!! do you even have any idea that those chicken parts you're buying came from 20 different birds??? cutting my own chickens also means i can get the sizes and pieces i want but, of course, i have to use disposable kitchen gloves cause it's a dirty deed.

and as an added extra, since 7 is a lucky number:

7. sugar is a food group all on its own. i love sugar in all its forms. i mean i REALLY love it. my favourite sugar high is to toast [challah] bread, shmear it with lots of butter and then pack on a good 1/4 inch of brown sugar. oh baby.

weird, eh?

as this is supposed to be tag, i wanna know what oddities are behind the personae of:

*rosa [still workin' on your list!]
*aria [oh, for sure there's some good ones there!]
*beenzzz [c'mon, i know you wanna spill the beenzzz]
*topchamp [i can only just imagine!]✓
*pammie [i know you have more than 6! lol]
*tschoerda [tell me yours, my little gugelhopf ]
*emily [oooh, can't wait to read what the scientist reveals!]
*you [-> e-me if you want to do yours!]

note: feel free not to do this; it's just an offer for a fun post. [if i haven't mentioned you, take no offense, was thinking of those who have done memes in the past or i though would be inclined to try one].

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

awesome list :) i wig out eating by people with indoor pets.. esp when i see felines all over their counters and they think its charming ... ick!!

ochro is your goo goo! :D i <3 food slime :D lolz comes from my days of pretending that raw tomatoes were the hearts of my intergalactic foes :D lolz .. i was an imaginative child :D

i'm now learning how to cut chickens!

Beenzzz said...

Your list is great! I will definitely have to spill the beenzzz! HAHA!:)

Anonymous said...

I'm COMPLETELY with you on #2, 3 (well, glutinous - a little bitter is OK),5 and 7.

We can be weird food buddies. ;)

burekaboy — said...

sarina - hehe, inventive indeed about the tomatoes. klingon hearts, no doubt. you can add okra as their fingers for me.

i don't do cat hair in my food either and mine doesn't walk on counters! that's not cute :o

cutting up chickens yourself is pretty easy after the first few trials. just look for the natural junctions, give it a crack and slice away. gulp.

so which dish are u making from the site?? LOL.

beenzzz - can't wait to read your list. i'm sure it'll be totally funny.

pam - i'm sure we could find more oddities in common, too. :)

Emily DeVoto, Ph.D., said...

Verrry interesting... you definitely don't want to see the inside of my microwave!

Olives=bitter, no? It's funny about rapini - I don't find it bitter at all, just more flavorful than regular broccoli.

Rosa's Yummy Yums said...

It's very interesting to discover your personality/habits/manias via this meme; quite hilarious ;-P... You do have weird habits, but don't we all?!

Hating to eat at other people's homes must be very stressful, especially if you have to turn down their offers. But, I do understand your point, because certain people can be a little dirty. The best test after the microwave/oven thing is to check that they wash their hands after going to the bathroom and before cooking!...

It's funny, but your challah and sugar "recipe" is not unknown to me. In my family (Swiss) some people ate their bread with sugar and butter! A countryside and poor people's spread, I was told...

Thanks for tagging me! I'll do this meme with pleasure...

ServesYouRight said...

BB - Your list was so illuminating!! While I am happy to eat 'street food', I totally agree with you about the microwave thing - gross!!

Smita

burekaboy — said...

emily - workplace situations have reinforced my disgust for using microwaves other than my own. i find it odd that people would reheat their food in filth. {shudder}

hey, never thought about the olive connection. yeah, maybe that's my one ok "bitter" food.

u know, my friend is a rapini-aholic and is always trying to shove it down my throat. i CANNOT stand it. i think i read somewhere that some people's taste buds are wired differently and they don't perceive bitterness the same way. i know the case is true for women and men with differences is perception of sweetness; women tend to use much more sugar than men in their coffee or tea, for example. some people also don't feel the same amount of burn sensation when it comes to eating chilis.

thanks for joining. can't wait to see what u post!! now clean that microwave!

rosa - awww, c'mon -- i'm not THAT weird!! i know others who can take the prize and run.

when it comes to eating at other people's places it's usually w/ people i don't know at all. there's sometimes an issue with some of the foods i cannot eat, too. i'm pretty straightforward about it though.

the toast with brown sugar thing, i have no clue where it came from but i know i'm not the only one!! having it with (caster) sugar and cinammon is also very common here, too.

looking forward to seeing your list :)

smita - LOL, no comment on the microwave :P now you know a little too much about me, smita!! hehe.

Jihan said...

With your cooking BB, its hard to imagine how you can eat any other person cooking.

Anonymous said...

Animals on counters are a definite no-no. No matter how much I love cats and think that they are basically clean creatures...I have also seen where they walk and dig.

I think I can wilfully blind myself to some things in the interest of politeness, whereas I think my sister Lilandra is less flexible - if she doesn't like it, she doesn't like it and no amount of coaxing or "it's rude" will get her to eat it. I don't think either way is better than the other, it just shows that people are differently made :-) After all she eats sausages and smoked meats (ew ew ew).
But not eating at other people's homes must make it a bit difficult. Or interesting :-) Have you always "just eaten a big meal"? :)

burekaboy — said...

hey chennette - i hear you loud and clear about the paw business. mine gets his washed after he uses the facilities when i know he went (spoiled brat, crazy owner). i know a few people who don't care if the cat goes on the counters or dining room table. blech.

the thing about eating at other people's places is partly due to my following kosher rules and also allergies to certain foods. it also mostly pertains to eating at people's places who i do not know at all. i am actually pretty straightforward about saying no. the other night i ate at someone's place; i have know this person for years but still had things running thru my head. guess i'm just neurotic about this issue.

hope all is well with u :) thanks for the comment.

tschoerda said...

hey cool, you tagged me!

i have to think hard if there even are any weird food facts i can share ... because i am perfectly normal ...

... eeehh, who am i kidding - this will be a looooo-hoooooong list!

tschoerda said...

dammit!
my weird quotient is 117!!!

11% are more weird, 3% are just as weird, and 86% are more normal than me!

god, i always have to do these quizzies online ... and find out things that i knew all along :)

ah, who cares. i embrace my weirdness.

burekaboy — said...

gerda - LOL LOL LOL. i'm not even gonna say where i ranked on the weirdness scale!!! can't wait to read YOUR list 'cause i know it's going to be verrry "interesting". thanks for taking part :) just please don't tell me u eat bugs, hehe :P

Anonymous said...

I completely understand the part about not eating in the homes of people you don't know. I have the same problem, since I follow rules similar to kosher. So I actually shy away from eating out for any reason, but sometimes have to give in for a team lunch at work, but I have these doubts about the food preparation all through the lunch.

I wonder if you consider oatmeal too gooey. Forget regular oatmeal, consider my daily breakfast of 2 cups old fashioned oatmeal cooked with 2 teaspoons of flax meal. While it is not my favorite, it does keep my pipes unclogged for all those cheese and milk I drown in. I do add a lot of dried fruits and nuts to make it palatable.

burekaboy — said...

vidya - i'm sure part of it came from my parents, too. it's just something we didn't do. additionally, i know all too well from the industrial/professional side what happens in SOME (not all) cooking facilities and restaurants. hehe, at least i know exactly what is in my food :)

ohhh, you had to mention oatmeal!! my first reaction to it is disgust. it's just too gluey, gooey and mucilaginous for me. winter was horrible (as a child) because i remember being made to eat it and literally gulping it down so i could not taste, or rather chew it. as an adult, i don't mind it so much but it's definitely not high ranking on my list as a cereal. i do use it and like it in cookies, muffins, etc. you are right about the its health benefits. i should eat more of it. i have started using the irish steel cut oatmeal by mccann's. it helps to soak it overnight first however. it's supposedly better than the rolled version.