Friday, January 26, 2007

GOD'S CUTLERY

That's what I call my fingers. Clever! And another thing: I think that eating with one's fingers is both one of the more disgusting and more enjoyable of life's small pleasures. It's messy and undainty (although, when I do it, it's VERY dainty) and potentially unhygienic but it FEELS SO GOOD. And: you can do it in public.

Today at work, due to my incessant goading, we had a pizza party. I'm full of good ideas, and a Friday pizza party to reward our "hard work" was one of them. Management complied. My other good idea was that the pizza party should include buffalo wings. Again, management complied. More than my professional talents, I think this might be the reason they continue to hire me; nobody goes hungry when I'm around!

I ignored the pizza, courtesy of Fat Sal's (great name, but redundant. ALL Sal's are fatties, right?), and went straight for the wings. They were acceptable: spicy, meaty, bright orange, but that's not really the important part. Or: how they tasted is less interesting than how they were consumed.

I had a really tough time maintaining my world-famous demure femininity while I ate these wings. I was a lady in that I only put three little pieces on my plate at a time, and I chose the drumsticks so that at least I'd have a literal handle on the situation. But as I bit down and ripped the meat from the bone, all decorum was lost. Immediately, I became an awkward meat-eating monkey with hot sauce on my lips. Which doesn't really telegraph wherewithal and competence, two things I think are valued in a work environment. So even though I care about The Forests I ended up using one's worth of trees in napkins over the course of six little chicken wings. I just didn't want to have a saucy face in front of my co-workers! So I'd bite and wipe and wipe and bite and chew and wipe and bite and chew and wipe and this went on for about 15 minutes before I gave up. Also: I was full.

Had I been alone, of course, things would have been much different. For one, I wouldn't have had the wings. Because I'm not into giving myself private pizza and chicken parties. But more than that, I wouldn't have felt the unnecessary self-consciousness that I felt at lunch today. I would have licked my own hands rather than wiped them on napkins (God's Cutlery is also God's Salt Lick). I might have been more profligate with the blue cheese dressing; instead, I was reserved. But: it's okay. I got through it alright. Next time I'm suggesting taco day!

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

GETTING WARMER

The New Year is hard. It's so cold! Right now, the season mirrors itself; the weather isn't a coincidence. It's appropriate.

Look, I know I need a Bahamavention, but it's not gonna happen so I'll settle for warm foods that soothe. Like soup. Best when taken with friends who soothe. Like B.

I met her and her baby at a totally decent Vietnamese place and played about an hour's worth of hooky from work so that I could fill up on some chicken rice-noodle soup and hot tea.

Thank God for B. Atheist, agnostic, true believer: Thank God for B. She is as much a winter panacea as any soup could be, and just knowing that she's willing to haul ass and baby 35 blocks downtown to meet me for a quickie lunch means so much.

The soup was good. But when I think about it now I'm sure I ate too much! There's not enough room in my body for all that liquid and now tears are squeezing themselves from my eyes.

Monday, January 22, 2007

MY FAVORITE MEAT IS MEAT

Let me be more specific. I like meat, and I especially love good meat, like fall off the bone fatty short-ribs meat and savory tender strip steak meat and musky salty lamb chop meat and fresh red juicy hamburger meat. That's the kind of meat I mean, but, you know, I can't get it all the time. Which, actually, is for the better, because an overload of meat, good or not, is bad for the belly and bad for the heart and I want this thing to pump forever. Or at least another 70 years.

This is all just to say that I have eaten the steak and eggs at Schiller's on Rivington. Forgive me: they were mediocre. So tough and so small.