The Gospel of Guy Food
Last weekend was my wife's birthday, so I wanted to surprise her and make dinner. I thought long and hard about it, and I prepared the perfect menu for the occasion:
• Steak
• Beer
• Cake
Then I had second thoughts. My wife is, after all, a nurse, and she is very much in tune with issues like nutrition and a balanced diet. I revised my menu to include all the essential food groups:
• Steak
• Beer
• Cake
• Hot Sauce
Not necessarily in that order. Oddly enough, when I served the meal, my wife did not seem entirely satisfied. For one thing, she doesn't like beer, and It didn't seem to make her feel better when I offered to help out and drink hers. But I knew it was more serious than that when she screwed her face up into that cute little "I can't believe I married this moron" look and said, "Where are the vegetables?"
"Aha," I said, holding the bottle of hot sauce triumphantly in the air. "Right here!"
"How do you figure?"
"Well, catsup is a vegetable, and this is kind of like catsup. Only hot."
"Since when is catsup is a vegetable?"
"Since the Reagan administration."
Like Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Agriculture, I eventually lost that particular argument.
I really don't understand my wife's ideas about food. She bases her bizarre concepts of diet and nutrition on the advanced diet and nutrition courses she took in nursing school, along with a lot of subsequent reading and study.
I, on the other hand, have developed and refined my culinary knowledge through many years of practical hands-on experience, standing around the yard with a beer in one hand and a barbecue fork in the other. That, and watching beer commercials.
Picture in your mind a typical beer commercial featuring a bunch of young, good looking guys sitting around with a bunch of young, good looking women, enjoying a young, good looking campfire, drinking beer, and toasting their youth and good lookingness.
Now picture what they're eating. I'm thinking steaks, or ribs, or maybe some burgers and brats. It's a pretty safe bet that they are not letting the good times roll with little watercress sandwiches and puree of broccoli.
I have developed a very simple set of eight cooking rules that I live by. I offer it here as a nutritional model for men everywhere.
1. If it doesn't fall through the grill into the fire, and it's not zucchini, it's good. Just as long as it's not zucchini.
2. A leaf of lettuce and a slice of tomato on your hamburger counts as a salad. A slice of onion sort of counts.
3. "Hops" are little green leafy thingies. A lot of green leafy thingies are vegetables. They put hops in beer. Therefore, beer is a vegetable.
4. Potato chips are vegetables. Don't let anybody tell you any different. Add onion dip with chives, and you have a vegetable medley.
5. Never make a casserole. Ever. It's ok, maybe even mandatory, to eat the casseroles prepared by your wife, but initiating one without provocation could cost you your Guy License. This is because many casseroles include ingredients that could be grilled (see rule number 1 above). Chopping these up and baking them in a dish with mushroom soup is an abomination of nature.
6. When it comes to seasoning, if a little bit is good, a lot is better. If it makes you sweat and brings tears to your eyes, it's great.
7. There is no flavor problem that can not be resolved with Tabasco.
8. No zucchini.
Copyright © 2007, Michael Ball
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I met Ernie Harwell in person
I met Ernie Harwell in person once. It was toward the end of his career, and he was all alone walking along the concourse near the are press box in Tiger Stadium wearing a Greek fisherman's cap. I was struck by how small a man he was, and by the intelligent kindness in his eyes. I introduced myself, shook his hand, then babbled on and on about how much I loved listening to him.
He listened patiently and thanked me for my kind words. Then he basically interviewed me, asking all sorts of questions about my ccda column and my life, listening to each answer as if I was somehow the most important person he could possibly be talking to, rather than a star-struck fan who had accosted him in front of the hot pretzel stand.
A few years back Ernie retired from broadcasting. True to form, in his avaya certification good-bye comments he knew just the right words to help all of us deal with the end of an era that we had hoped would somehow go on forever. Here is my favorite part:
"Thank you for letting me be part of your family. apc
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I've tried to imagine how
I've tried to imagine how frustrating it would be to have something like nbrc practice test that Elizabethan collar put on me, especially if I was not able to really comprehend the reason for it. I might wonder if I was being punished for something. Or I might feel as ncbtmb practice test if the people I loved and depended on for everything in my life were simply trying to make me miserable. In either case, I think I might be pretty angry with those people.Fortunately, Mindy does not seem to feel that way. She knows darned well that I am personally responsible for that collar being on her, and despite all the hissing and baleful looks she still crawls up on nce practice test my lap for a little comfort.I guess that's what real trust is all about. It seems like she has decided that as much as she hates that stupid collar, and as incomprehensible as the whole situation may be to her, I must have my reasons for putting it on her. And she ncidq practice test won't waste one moment holding a grudge.