Food restrictions

Going out to eat with friends or family is one of life’s greatest pleasures. At least it should be. But it turns into an exercise in frustration and mortification when that loved one has food restrictions.

Being gluten-free is child’s play in the face of folks who are trying to work a menu when they are avoiding dairy, nightshades, high-fructose corn syrup or sugar in any form, prefer their water filtered, and are currently avoiding eight major foods as part of an elimination diet.

This is when I’d like to eliminate them. Or disappear into the floor of the restaurant, after giving the server a sympathetic look and a massive tip.

We all thought Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally was a high-maintenance diner. While she might be the patron saint of these picky eaters, her requests for salad dressing or ice cream on the side seem downright quaint.

It’s great that as a society we’ve evolved to the point that we can cut out major food groups and pantry staples from our diet. It’s a modern first-world problem. The Irish weren’t in a position to cut out starches or any other foodstuff when the famine hit the Emerald Isle, for feck’s sake. And I bet a starving child in Burundi would be more than happy to down that lobster mac and cheese you just poo pooed, dairy, gluten and shellfish sensitivities be damned.

If you don’t want to eat something, navigate toward a more palatable dish on the menu or stay home and roast an organic chicken. Don’t ask the chef to change a dish he or she spent considerable time perfecting. And don’t broadcast your laundry list of food issues to the table. This type of extreme self care just comes off as an attempt to pull focus from what really matters—that lobster mac and cheese, of course. I’m packing Prilosec.

Bay shrimp

I love shrimp, I do. So the description of “bay shrimp,” found on menus at crusty country clubs everywhere, sounds delightful to me, like the shrimp had been surfing some tasty waves off the Baja Peninsula before it was netted.

So, so off base.

Rather, bay shrimp are teeny-tiny versions of a grown-ass shrimp. These embryos look like they should have had more time in the water to gestate and become fully cooked. As they are, they look like they should be sent off for stem cell research instead of dressed with ranch dressing or made into seafood salad.

In lieu of a scoop of Bay shrimp, I’ll take two to three grilled prawns, thank you very much. Drop that pink larvae on a decomposing body so it can get to work or ship it off to some fisherman so it can be used as bait for something more worthwhile.

(Photo: seattlefishcompany.com) 
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Ancient grains

Question: What is Amaranth?

1. A city in the Holy Land where Jesus reputedly lost his sandals
2. A flowering bulb similar to Amaryllis
3. The latest celebrity baby name
4. An gluten-free ancient grain

You probably have a frenemy who sings the praise of a gluten-free lifestyle when you’re tucking into Eggs Benny at brunch, so you know the answer is 4. You also know that ancient grains and their grassy-eyed acolytes need to be ground into a fine flour.

Along with spelt, ancient grains like quinoa and teff sound more like onomatopoeia describing a punch to the gut than a digestible alternative to wheat. And Quaker Oats had to go and get on the picky foodie bandwagon. They just rolled out quinoa granola bars. What’s next? Millet Pop Tarts? Kamut Krunch cereal?

Ancient grain devotees think there’s some magical quality associated with something that’s old, that rated a mention in the Bible. Newsflash: that prophet in Ezekiel eating millet? It didn’t give him the key to eternal life. Back in the BC days, they suffered a high infant mortality rate, plagues, short lifespan, and a host of problems that were not going to be cured by a bowl of wheat berry porridge. Now, if these foods had antibiotic-infused kernels that would keep my UTIs in check or heal a wound, I'd be the first in line to cook up this stuff for consumption or a poultice.

Ancient grains may be healthy but they’re not the way to the promised land. That’s what kale is for.

Desserts in jars

I love Anthropologie, I do, but I don't want to eat there.

These days, restaurants—so precious that I want to squeeze their white-washed and reclaimed wood cheeks—are squeezing all sorts of tasty cakes, crisps, puddings and brulées into Mason and Ball jars.

Adorable.

But what looks like a saccharine craft project becomes another kind of project, as I try to scrape, pull, and otherwise extract all of the tasty goodness out of the jar and into my piehole with a spoon or fork that doesn't have the same curvature. Serve my molten chocolate cake with a spatula, if you insist on stuffing it into a jar better suited for jam.

Let my dessert breathe on the plate, so I can breathe a sigh of relief.

(The idea for this post comes from a friend with the last name, ironically, of Mason.)

(photo: cynthiashaffer.typepad.com)

Restaurants that don't put salt on the tables

Saturday, I had the most amazing meal at the newest hot spot in town. Brick walls, warm candlelight, waiters with Ira Glass eyewear and corresponding attitude, hour-long waits. You know the place.

This time, the food lived up to the hype. We ordered the tasting menu and soon, a dizzying array of appetizers hit our table, followed by homemade spaghetti. Then came two entrees, one of which was pork cheeks, a dish that will dance through my dreams. Two desserts brought up the rear and went straight to my rear.

All in all, a perfect evening.

Well, except for one tiny little thing that forced me to bust out a four-letter word.

Salt.

Much like my personality, my palate runs toward the salty side. While I usually order dishes based on how the chef wants them prepared, I also want the right to season my food to my palate's preference. I want to sprinkle bread with sea salt after I dip it in olive oil. I want to add a pinch to the Bolognese sauce, which, while full of flavor, was a little too Healthy Choice for my taste buds.

But there was no shaker or cellar in sight. Like a napkin and silverware, salt on the table should be a given. Don't make me ask for it and don't arch your judgmental foodie eyebrow at me when I do. While I may be rubbing salt in the wounded ego of Chef Fancy-Pants, it's definitely preferable to punching you where your taste receptors don't shine.

(photo: luxist.com)

Vegan baked goods

The farmers market in my neighborhood is a delicious place of magic, wonder, and things to delight the senses. I love to peruse the stalls, sampling soups and spreads and breads. The vegan bakery looks so charming, like etsy was blended with anthropologie and shot through with a dash of country café. 

So I suspend my disbelief and reach for a peach muffin.

Five dollars lighter, I lick my lips and prepare to make my oral assault. What’s that? How is it? Ummm, hmmm, gaaaaa, uhhh, kakakaaaaaaaa.

Hey, thanks for that sip of organic goat’s milk. Whew. I forgot there for a minute that sawdust is vegan.

I’m pretty particular when it comes to breads, pastries, pies, and baked goods. Since I don’t eat them every day, I want to make sure that when I do, it transports me to my grandmother’s kitchen, an authentic pâtisserie, or a dessert cart at a four-star restaurant.

I don’t want to conjure up the lumber yard, lawn clippings, or a wood chipper.

When it comes to baked goods, no butter + no eggs = no dice. There’s a lot to be said for going vegan, sure, but melt-in-your-mouth muffins and flaky croissants sure as shit isn’t a vegan baker’s sweet spot.

(photo: espressoandcream.com)

Foodies

Don’t sniff it, don’t eyeball it, don’t comment on how it’s plated like a pagoda or a Zen garden, don’t detail the 39 steps it took to make it, don’t start comparing it to the meal you had at El Bulli, and don’t complain about the new chef while alternately giving me his culinary CV.

I don’t want to hear it. I just want to eat it.

I love food as much as the next person. I like food the way Homer likes his doughnuts and burgers and junk food aisle, oh my.

But a food snob I am not. You’ll never find me asking whether my Copper River salmon was gill-netted and bled and dressed on site. I’ll never lift a fiddlehead fern and wax rhapsodic about hunting the zenmai in East Asia during a trip with Anthony Bourdain. I’ll fork that fern and put it where it belongs: my belly.

Don’t put nettle pasta on a pedestal, put it in your piehole. After all, it’s food. You’re supposed to eat it, not dissect it.

Sometimes, I just want to eat a box of mac and cheese, and not the Annie’s kind. And I don’t need you to tell me how to zest it up with Emmentaler cheese and Linguiça. Don’t take the comfort out of my food or I might have to bust out the mandoline and create a new dish of hurt.

(photo: mmonroedesigninspiration.wordpress.com)

Onion skin

I’ve been making a lot of fajitas lately, which means I’ve been slicing my fair share of onions. This also means I’ve been crying a lot.

But not for the reason you might think.

The sulphenic acids may make me tear up, sure, but it’s the slimy onion skin between the crunchy layers that makes me flip my culinary shit. If I let an onion sit for a week or two, it invariably develops a gross film, not just on the outer layer, but between every layer.

In a word, ick. I wind up pulling slippery strands out of the skillet and praying I caught them all. When I bite into my tortilla and find a rogue skin, I can’t help but retch every so slightly at this root vegetable version of a loose strand of hair. And we all know how we feel about finding one of those in our Mexican food. Since hairnets don’t exist for onions (yet), I’m going to teach onions a lesson and eat a few leeks until they get their act together and are in season at the farmer’s market.

(photo: srgc.org.uk)