Om Nom Nom, Kronshe Kronshe Kronshe

by Sorcha

I love me some salad.

I realize that, to look at me, you might assume I subsist on Doritos, raw chocolate-chip cookie dough, and Crisco slurped directly from the tub through a large straw. (And if you do, you're a sizeist jerk.*) The truth is, while I do enjoy those things on occasion (except for the Crisco, ew), I also love to sit down with a big bowl of salad that is MINE ALL MINE and munch away while reading a good book. (Right now I'm reading one of Littlest's Christmas books, Badass, by Ben Thompson. Most awesome book of mini-biographies ever. You should buy it.)

While I do love my salad, however, I'm very picky about the ingredients. My usual at-home salad has only three: cucumbers (peeled), tomatoes (not peeled), and baby spinach. I used to use iceberg lettuce back in the day, but I like spinach better and it has actual nutritional value. Plus, you don't have to pull the tasty bits off of the thick, bitter ribs like you do with iceberg. You just dump it in the bowl and go, which, for someone lazy like me, is ideal.

Now, as I said, I'm picky about salad, like I am about a lot of things. Thus, there are some things that I just plain don't like. For your edification, just in case you ever invite me to your house for salad and feel like putting up with my childish whims, I'm listing them, along with the following rating scale:

Meh - I don't like it that much, but I can eat it, especially if there's not a whole lot else on the menu I like.

Bleh - I don't like it at all, but I can either pick it out or eat around it without it bothering me.

No Fuckin' Weh (Yeah, I'm committed to this rhyme scheme) - Dealbreaker. Sorry, mum, no salad for me today.

THINGS THAT SORCHA DOES NOT LIKE IN SALAD

1. Raw Broccoli - Much like Norwegian singer Ida Maria likes you so much better when you're naked, I like broccoli much better when it's cooked. I can eat steamed broccoli with just a bit of salt by the plateful. Raw broccoli, OTOH, makes me sad in my tummy. Rating: Meh

2. Raisins - I like raisins in one place, and that's in raisin bran. Don't put them in my lunchbox, don't put them in my oatmeal, don't put them in my cookies, and damn sure don't put them in my salad. They look like bugs against the green stuff, and that's just not something I want to see in my food. Rating: Bleh

3. Salad dressing - I have yet to find a salad dressing that is more than just barely tolerable. Oil and vinegar, ranch, blue cheese, Thousand Island (which looks to me like someone ate it once already) - I've tried a bunch of dressings and they all just ruin my day. Rating: No Fuckin' Weh

4. Carrots - Carrots are another vegetable I adore, but not in salad. Shredded carrots are all right, but carrot coins can go fuck themselves. Rating: Meh (shredded carrots); Bleh (carrot coins)

5. Mushrooms - No, please. Just, no. I can pick them out, but I'd rather not have to. Rating: Bleh

6. Celery - My feelings for celery, along with the fact that I am lazy, are one of the main things standing in the way of my becoming a really good cook. I hate, hate, hate celery. I hate it raw, I hate it cooked. I hate the taste, and the texture, and the way it has those little channels running up through it. *shudder* Celery is not a vegetable, it's an alien species that will eventually try to take over the world. It hates us, and it hates us even more when we put peanut butter and raisins on it and give it cutesy names. Rating: Bleh with a strong inclination toward No Fuckin' Weh, depending upon how long it's been around the other vegetables.

7. Radishes - Why do people eat radishes? I imagine that if finely-chopped glass had a flavor, it would be "radish." There must be a reason people like them, but that reason, like the reason that people enjoy listening to Celine Dion, is, and always will be, a mystery to me. Rating: See "Celery."

8. Fruit - I love fruit. But not in my vegetables, please. Rating: Bleh, although that becomes a bare Meh if I'm able to pick it out and eat it separately.

9. Onions - I have, over the years, developed an appreciation for the way cooked onions flavor a dish. I have never developed an appreciation for the way raw onions make me want to run away, flailing my arms and screaming. And contrary to what you might think, picking them out is useless - they've already turned all the other crunchy, delicious salad veggies to the dark side. Rating: No Fuckin' Weh

On a completely unrelated note, I'm trying to come up with a new handle for Littlest, since technically, as of sometime last week, he's not really the Littlest Food N00b anymore. "Youngest" just isn't as catchy. "Snarkiest" is a title that changes hands among my family and Kal with some regularity. And "Malest" is not grammatically correct. I'd continue calling him "Littlest" but he knows where I sleep. If anyone's actually reading this and has an idea, feel free to let me know. Unless you're going to be trollish about it, in which case you can follow the example of the carrot coins and go fu- well, you know.

*Just kidding.**

**Maybe.

Image: Suat Eman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Comments

[Amadi]

All the things you don't want in your salad? Send them to me! In return, I will send you my portions of tomatoes (ick) and cukes (I love them but they make me urpy) and all will be well in the world.

[The Food N00bs]

It's a deal!

[groundhog.judy]

If I don't have salads 3 or 4 times a week I feel like I haven't had my vitamins. I like dried cranberries, fried chinese rice noodles(for crunch) and pepperoncini peppers on the side.