One day in the elementary school Cafetorium, I got really engrossed with the way a packet of ketchup flexed when I twisted it. The little spiral-pinch was fascinating. I kept twisting it to watch it get narrower and narrower. After a certain number of twists, the pressure build up caused a seam to burst and shoot a stream of ketchup most of the length of the table. I never saw the lunch lady coming. Noone believed that it was an accident.
In junior high or so, Jeff Tomaso and his dad took me to a minor league baseball game. I can’t remember if they were the A’s or Yankees at that point; they switched names more often than Diddy. I got a slice of pizza and then covered it with the white powdery substance in the shaker. Jeff’s dad wanted to know why I was putting coffee creamer all over my pizza. I told him I really liked it that way, instead of admitting that I had mistaken it for grated parmesan cheese.
Jen & Bryce Bixby, and Michele and I went to Chicago to spend a weekend with Marsha and Brian. It had been years since we got to see each other, and part of the ceremony of the weekend get together was each couple cooking a meal. Marsha and Brian were out briefly for a social function while Michele and I made Chicken Mole. Mole is a mixture of Mexican spices that is hard to explain, but wonderful. Marsha and Brian keep kosher, and during the preparation, we accidentally unkoshered their kitchen. They were incredibly gracious when they discovered it upon arriving home, but I felt so sick and ashamed that I basically didn’t talk to Marsha for almost five years. When she found out that was the reason we had lost touch, she tried to climb through the phone to kill me.
My wife prefers to cook from scratch, even when she’s coming at something totally new. She thinks it makes dining more meaningful. When we were first dating, she wanted to introduce me to one of her favorite home cooked meals. As a busy medical student, thinking it would save time as well as enhance the flavor, she added the chopped jalapeno peppers into the soaking dried beans – for 24 hours. Neither one of us remembers much else about that meal, besides searing pain. Twice.
On a trip back to Houston, we met up with old friends Beth & Scott Phillips at a Red Robin, and had a wonderful chance to reconnect, before heading home. Michele and I both had the Blue Cheese Buffalo Burger. Later that night, we knelt side by side together in the bathroom, taking turns throwing up and praying to die. Blue cheese is dead to me now.