Skip to main content

Surprisingly Good

You know how sometimes one of your friends will eat something weird? Most people react by scoffing in a surprised manner and then shaking their head in disbelief. Me? Not so much. Sure, I do the surprised scoff just like everyone else. Where our paths diverge, and drastically at that, is with what comes next. I usually take a second to think about it, and then I figure, "why not?" So, I usually end up resolving to try that particular item or combination of foods. Really, though, given how willing I am to tweak my diet, this should come as no surprise.

Actually, there's a very good reason why I'm willing to trade one bad meal for a lifetime of certainty: I've seen that scenario bear fruit in the past. I specifically remember the first time it came up: my old college roommate swore up and down that dipping fries in to a milk shake was delicious. I'd never eaten that way, and I looked at him skeptically. After all, combining my sides with my drink sounded as appetizing as dipping cole slaw in to a can of soda (read: not appetizing). Nevertheless, he convinced me to try it, and I eventually did. Sure enough, the combination of the sweet milk shake and the salty fries were a hit. I learned my lesson, and I was suddenly willing to humor people when they suggested that I eat peanut butter and banana sandwiches or potato wedges with ranch dressing.


Even so, people are constantly surprising me with the combinations of food that they mix and match to come up with new flavors. I actually had a friend of mine insist that Red Vines and Cheese Whiz were a delicious combination. I will readily admit that this one caused me to arch an eyebrow, but like I said, I have a standing policy to be open to these things. So, when we were at the movies, I got some nachos and she got some Red Vines. The plan, of course, was to combine the two into this concoction that she swore was delicious. After I had finished the nachos (waste not, want not), she handed me a Red Vine and offered up the Cheese Whiz. And sure enough, the combination of two highly processed, unnatural flavors produced something pretty tasty. I'm not even sure I can tell you why it tasted good, but I was sold.


My favorite example of this, though, came a few weeks before that. I was also at the movies with some friends, and they had gone all out with the food purchases. There was soda, Raisinets, mints, popcorn, Red Vines, and probably a couple of other types of candy that I don't remember. Like I said, they had done some damage at the concession stand. Anyhow, I had a chocolate covered raisin in my hand when someone offered up the popcorn. I did want some, but I had to get rid of the raisin first. So, I popped it in my mouth before scooping out some popcorn. Not thinking much about it, I ended up popping some popcorn in my mouth before I had finished the raisin. And that's when I tasted it: the sweet chocolate and raisin mixed with the salty popcorn to make an unnaturally tasty combination.

Surprised but oddly amused by my discovery, I told the person sitting next to me to try this. She gave it a shot, and she liked it. So, we figured we'd go all in by dumping some of the chocolate raisins directly in to the popcorn bag. We happily ate away, and continued to watch the movie. Of course, someone else eventually asked for us to pass the popcorn. We'd either forgotten that there were raisins left or we thought that they were gone, because we didn't even think to mention our little experiment. Right on cue, I heard, "what? I think I just ate a Raisinet!" a few seconds later. It cracked me up, and we came clean about our culinary experimentation.

Regardless, let me take this opportunity to let all of you know: should you ever get the chance to mix Red Vines and Cheese Whiz or popcorn and Raisinets, do it. Just trust me on this. You can thank me later.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Pink

Way back in high school, there was a male teacher that all the girls thought was attractive. It was an open secret that a bunch of them had crushes on him. In fact, the school newspaper even did an article about him that quoted some girl saying, "he's so cute, he even makes pink look good." Yes, he had worn a pink shirt to school one day, and it had apparently been a big hit. I was reminded of this story when my sister-in-law suggested that she would choose pink as the color for her wedding and bridal party. I don't think I've ever made a color look good before, but I remember thinking, "well, I know it's possible to not look stupid in pink as a straight guy, I guess I can try." And I think that's almost exactly what I told her. I also happened to own a gray suit, so I figured the combination would look all right. However, I was pretty much the only one willing to play along. My sister-in-law's brothers wanted absolutely no part of th...

Dreams

Normally, I don't eat very many sweets. I tend to eat pretty generous portions, but I generally prefer savory food over sweet. In fact, I usually prefer things half as sweet when possible. My preference doesn't have anything to do with health reasons, it's just one of those things that I've always liked better. That said, I do inevitably eat dessert, particularly if I'm out with other people. My stance towards dessert is roughly equivalent to those who are social drinkers . If other people want to munch on something for dessert, I'm not about to cross my arms and refuse. That'd be just a tad gauche. So, I do eat some dessert. I even have a few standby favorites that I'll usually order when presented with them (brownies, creme brulee, and apple pie). But left to my own devices, I'm not about to go hunting for dessert. Apparently, this means that the sugar can really mess with my system under the right circumstances. As I've discovered, ...

New York City Trip (Day 1)

After my crappy flight , I was now in Newark, New Jersey at 7AM on a Friday morning. I had done a little bit of reading up, so I knew which bus I needed to take and where I was going to get off. All in all, getting into the city was surprisingly easy. I suppose speaking the language does make things simpler. Through no real planning of mine (a theme of the trip, at least on my part), I picked one of the later bus stops at which to get off, Grand Central. I actually just figured that getting off at Grand Central would give me options, and heck, it's called Grand Central. That just screamed "decent place to disembark that might be close to some stuff" to me, so that's where I got off. However, it also meant that we drove down 42 nd St to get to my bus stop. That just happens to be a big street, and it gave me a glimpse of Times Square as we drove by. My bus stop choice had accidentally given me a rough layout of the city. Go me. I had about 6 hours to kill...