The Divinity of Food

NOT what I had for dinner.

With how awesome I've been feeling (sarcasm), I have not grocery shopped in quite a while.  I'd say close to two weeks.  Sure, I've ran through some stores for the necessities, but as far as stocking the house with things besides ice cream and yogurt pretzels, I've been negligent.  It's just that seeing raw meat grosses me the hell out and I cannot stand the smell of that whole general vicinity of the store.  Here's to say I've been eating a lot of cereal for dinner and Jack's been thrown to the wolves (see: frozen pizza).  Adam is easy because he loves a variety of foods and is perfectly content with a buffet of different cheeses, fruits, veggies, and a cracker or two on the side (or a sandwich).  I found some cool frozen meals by Bertolli and Friday's, but that shit gets old real fast.  I figured out last night that I need to figure something out because Jack was turning into a pizza and I couldn't play off that I had actually prepared the takeout for much longer.  I was going through my mediocre collection of coupons and found a package offered from Omaha Steaks that gives you a plethora of meat for one not-so-low-but-not-highway-robbery price.  Not only do you just walk in to a clean, not smelly store full of frozen meat, but they package it all up for you and it comes in boxes so you don't even have to look at it.  The package I purchased came with two different kinds of steaks, chicken breasts, pork, hamburgers, hot dogs, and side items.  Of course I also purchased some dessert, because obviously.  It was the easiest grocery experience I've ever had.  I literally just stood at the cash register looking at sauces and the girl went from freezer to freezer putting all my stuff in a cool bag.  Excellent.  Last night, I made filet mignon with a light teriyaki sauce and parmesan crusted garlic potato slices (from TJ's, sauteed in a little bit of olive oil---so damn good, so damn easy).  All together it took less than 20 minutes to prepare (and we like our steak medium well) and the meat (from frozen, not thawed!) was extremely tender and restaurant quality.  I was so damn impressed with the product from Omaha and will definitely buy again.

Fast forward to today.  I went out to eat with my friend to a sit down chain of restaurants that is more expensive than it should be (aren't they all!?).  As we walked in, we were behind a couple of loud mouthed oldies and the woman noticed on the door that this establishment has a Zagat Rating for best burger.  She made a comment about how she was going to get a burger and seemed all excited about trying it.  Naturally, we were seated directly diagonally from them, so I had to listen to her talk about all the other places she has been to that had the best burgers.  Now I've never been a picky restaurant eater (or a burger eater for that matter), or one that sends shit back unless something was extremely wrong.  I once dated someone who would CONSTANTLY send things back for the most pathetic reasons and I always felt so awkward for whatever reason.  This woman received her food and judging by how quiet that table was, I assumed it was damn good.  They were already finished eating by the time the waitress came back to check on how everything was going.  So with the burger completely consumed, this crazy ass starts to complain about the quality of the meat.  NOTE: SHE ALREADY ATE THE WHOLE DAMN THING!  She goes off on some beefy tangent about how the meat quality was inconsistent and how it tasted wrong and the texture was off, blah blah freaking blah.  The waitress couldn't help but see that both the woman and her husband had already finished their food, so like any smart woman, she sympathized and apologized and said she'd send her manager over.  (HAH!)  A few moments later, the manager comes over with this memorized pitch about the meat (always fresh, never frozen, blah blah freaking blah) and the woman is attempting to talk over him about it.  The manager finishes (without ever stopping), and asks her if she had switched entrees with her husband, to which she, of course, responded no.  The manager seemed to think she was just as nuts as I did, because he apologized to her again but told her that he had spoke with the cook (cough cough bullshit cough) and nothing had changed with the meat they always use.  Crazy ass decided to take a new route and say she WOULD HAVE sent it back had the waitress come around more.  I really wanted to get involved at this point because we had the same waitress and I knew for damn sure that she had been around checking with the patrons often enough.  Luckily the manager wasn't a shitbag because he apologized to the woman several times but never offered her anything free or something along those lines.  He ended the conversation cordially and even served them the bill himself.  Boo-yah, bitch.  When he turned around he saw that my friend and I had watched the entire thing go down, we both kind of smirked at him and shared a simultaneous, "Yeah, we know she sucks" moment.  It was grand.  Although, it probably would not have been so grand if it were my sandy burger...

Thinking of my experience from my frozen food last night (mmmmm!) compared to my restaurant experience that I witnessed, I may try and cook more at home.  I'm not going to be pregnant for that much longer and I am running out of excuses.