TMI Foodsday

Because I like food. From the archives:

1. If your sandwich is cut in half on the diagonal, creating two triangles do you bite the hypotenuse or the point?

Point, because if you bite the diagonal you get sandwich on your cheeks.  And I don't bite the right-angle point either, because that causes the sandwich to collapse when it gets too thin in the middle.  But really, who cuts a sandwich into triangles?  I don't cut mine unless they come that way, and then I eat from the point across.

2. Dipping a tortilla chip– do you dip the tip or the side of the chip to scoop the dip?

If the dip is super-spicy, maybe I might dip, but usually I shovel.  I like salsa.

3. Do you think you drink too much coffee? How much do you drink daily? What is a “cup” of coffee to you–how many ounces/grams?

I rarely drink coffee.  I used to, when I was younger and doing school plus at the theater all night.  But now, I reserve it for occasions when I really need it, so it still sort of works, because caffeine stopped working for me a while back.  Not because I overindulged at all; I had given it up because I wanted it to work better when I needed it, and for a few years it was fine, but then it just didn't have the kick it used to.  But that's true of all stimulants I'm afraid.  As well as depressants.  I can take a handful of sleeping pills and be wide awake (not that I do that, but you get my hyperbole).

4. Do you take cream in your tea? How many sugars?

Cream is wonderful in tea.  But I don't keep it around the house, and I drink tea so rarely.  If I'm really treating myself, cream in tea is grand.

As far as sugar, I try very hard not to drink too much sugar because it's meaningless calories that go straight to my belly and thighs and a gal doesn't need that shit.  But I love me some extremely sweet iced tea because I'm fairly Southern that way.  In hot tea, it's got to be sweet enough to not be bitter, but that varies from tea to tea.  I do like a spoon or two.

5. How do you eat a burrito?
a. Pick it up with your hands, bite into an end.
b. Cut it in half, then pick up one half and eat it.
c. Eat it with a fork and knife
d. Open the tortilla, eat the food inside and eat the tortilla last.
e. Other

The burrito is nature's perfect food, developed by Incan scientists to be its own wrapper and delivery mechanism.  Okay, maybe not, but seriously, unless it's bigger than my mouth, why would I cut it?  It's designed to contain the fillings as I eat it, and cutting it just spills filling everywhere.

Unless, of course, it's a burrito smothered in something, in which case I eat it with a fork (I rarely use knives because growing up we had two knives which actually cut anything and five people who needed them, so I adapted and pretty much use a fork for everything but the toughest meat, unless someone offers me a steak knife or something).  Because it would just get messy.

People who deconstruct their food by picking it apart miss the whole wonder of the food: that it has been prepared together so you can eat it together and get all the goodness of all the ingredients together in one bite.  That's why we don't just eat each individual ingredient separately-cooked.  You wouldn't suck the cheese off the macaroni, would you?  Okay, you would.  You shine on, you crazy cheese-sucking star you.

6. Pizza…How do you eat a slice?
a. Pick it up and eat it as an open slice.
b. Pick it up and fold it together, then bite into it.
c. Leave it on the plate and eat with a fork and knife.
e. I eat the crust first, then the rest of the slice.

Is it stable?  Because some slices hold their own weight, in which case I eat them from the tip until there's just enough to fold over the crust, then I fold and eat from the end (or just eat from the end if the crust is thin and I can get a bit of topping along with).  Unless the crust is incredible, in which case I might just eat stem to stern.

If the slice isn't stable and will just droop, I'll do a little origami.

And if it's deep dish, all bets are off and it depends on how messy it is and how neat I'm feeling.

…Why do you eat your pizza like that?

Practicality.  I want to eat the crust, but I want a little topping to go with it most times, so I fold over that last bit of topping so I can have topping on the whole thing.  If it can't be held up, I'm not going to let it droop into my mouth and get grease all over me and look like a moron, so I fold a bit to make it possible to eat it rationally.  And if it's deep dish, I'm not usually a pig so I don't eat what is basically a baked pasta dish with my hands.

Bonus:
What is the weirdest thing that you are into?

I'm going to assume this means weird food because if I don't, we'll be here a while and you can just catch up on my other weirdness in other posts.  Also, I hate superlatives.

I like spicy things on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  I put Montreal Spicy Steak Seasoning on PB&J, or just cracked pepper.  I put sriracha on peanut butter when I have no jelly because it's both sweet and spicy.  But I really like cracked pepper and sweetness.  I spent a long time trying to figure out how to infuse honey with the taste of cracked pepper, but was never able to figure it out.  But fresh pepper and honey... yummy.

Bonus, bonus:
Do you care if your different foods, on a plate, touch each other? Yes!?! What’s that all about?

As I said above, part of the joy of cooking is mixing flavors.  I don't always just mush everything on my plate into a pate and then eat scoops of it, but I do like to mingle flavors on the plate.  If there's meat and veg and starch, I'll take a bit of each with each bite.

I might not mix everything, but I don't care much if the vast majority of things touch.  I wouldn't put sushi and cheese on the same plate, though, if we're going to get picayune.  And some condiments go with some things, and others with others.  And I don't like cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving.  Give me hot sauce or chutney any day.  I do care about flavor combos, but not in the, "Eliminate them all," sense.