Greg In The Desert

I spotted a Dear Abby column, in the Chicago Herald News of all places, where wives are enforcing specific rules during eating on their annoyed husbands.

Dear Abby: My wife has been criticizing my table manners ever since our wedding. When we’re having dinner, if we’re having meatloaf, broccoli and mashed potatoes, I eat all of my meatloaf and then all of my broccoli before starting on the mashed potatoes.

My wife claims it is proper etiquette to rotate one bite of each different food rather than consume all of any one of them before moving on to the next. I have never heard of this rule and neither has anyone else I have asked.

Am I violating a rule of etiquette, or is this something else my wife has “cooked up”? — Ruminating in Rio Rancho, N.M.

Dear Ruminating: I have never heard of such a rule either, nor is it mentioned in “Emily Post’s Etiquette (16th Edition).” Your wife may have cooked it up, but that doesn’t mean you have to swallow it.

In-N-Out Burger hates Albuquerque. They refuse to build any restaurants in the State of New Mexico. (ok ok, perhaps they are trying not to go out of business by over expanding like Krispy Kreams. whatever). What happens where there’s unfulfilled demand? Knock offs, like Stop-N-Go that was found by KOB in southwest Albuquerque.

While In-N-Out Burger only serves burgers, Stop-N-Go serves wings. This isn’t a bad idea from my perspective. KOB fails to indicate if Stop-N-Go serves non-frozen meat, non-frozen french fries made right from the potato in the store and real ice cream shakes. So far the reviews on Yelp are not favorable.

It’s a bit far from Rio Rancho and doubt I will make it to that side of town unless I hear rave reviews. My waist line is better off in either case.

Serious Eats, one of my regular food blogs, has been in New Mexico. Recently they describe Sopaipillas.

Deep-fried, the dough pieces puff up dramatically, crisping on the surface while remaining soft and tender inside. The perfect sopaipilla? The outermost layer, fried in the oil, should be paper-thin and crisp on the corners. When properly fried, the interior will separate into two layers: the chewy yet soft layer of dough directly underneath the browned shell, followed by the innermost layer—soft, a little stretchy, and just cooked through.
While each New Mexico restaurant has their own rendition, all tables are stocked with a bottle of honey, the traditional condiment for slathering.

Sopaipillas are something that most people out of state complain to me about once they have had them in New Mexico. Rarely can they be found out of state.

One thing to watch out for in New Mexico are restaurants which use artificial honey. It’s some sort of concoction of sugary syrup that looks like honey but usually contains high fructose corn syrup. It’s more common that most people know and most restaurants won’t admit to it.

KRQE has a news story of home beer brewer and Rio Rancho resident Ben Miller winning a Sam Adams contest. His beer will be sold by Sam Adams in April 2010. They fail to mention what it will be called.

Only the most important development work is being done in Rio Rancho, New Mexico.

Vincent Price’s 1958 Thanksgiving Special (Saturday Night Live version) via a Hulu. Happy Thanksgiving.

I’m the official turkey cooker and carver this year and therefore interested in Alton Brown’s video on YouTube on how to carve a turkey. His suggestion is to place the turkey on a cutting board, using a towel as traction, and to cut out each of the main parts of the turkey.

Found on Serious Eats.

After writing my post on the “How To Eat Chicken Wings Video”, I got a craving for some chicken wings. I called-in an order at the nearest Wing Basket and drove down to Albuquerque to get them.

When I pulled up to the place I could see a car sitting in front with it’s lights on and people inside. It took me a few minutes to get parked and out of the car. As I got out, the passenger of the other car got out and hurried to the door. We both seemed to race to the door but I did stop to open the door for the other person. She ignored me as I opened the door, not even a thank you, probably because she was too busy talking on her cell phone.

She was now first in line and both the cashier and myself were getting annoyed as she kept asking the same questions since she didn’t pay attention to the answers the first time because she was too busy talking on her phone. Since I was the only other person in the place it because pretty clear their one call-in order was for me. They only had one cashier so they could only do one order at a time.

Eventually she made her order. It was the smallest least complicated thing on the menu and it only took her 10 minutes. I’m not sure if she was consulting with the person on her cell phone or made this choice all on her own. Once she got out of line, she seemed oblivious that there was someone waiting in line behind her.

My Wings were delicious once I got home to eat them. The point of this story is to explain why I hate people and try to order everything on the internet.

There is a YouTube video making it’s way around the internet titled “How To Eat A Chicken Wing” by foodwishes.com.

I have been a chicken wing connoisseur since I used to eat 10 cent wings at the Native New Yorker in Arizona (which was supposed to come to Rio Rancho). I now prefer the Wing Basket in New Mexico, specifically the mild original and lemon pepper.

The video describes a way to remove bones from wing without wasting meat. I have used the method for many years and actually prefer wings over drumsticks thanks to this method. Some of the other websites, such as Lifehacker, suggest this can be done with “little to no mess”. Sorry, wings are messy. Plan accordingly.

On Thursday a week ago I went into work and had an large ice tea. I went to Dion’s for lunch (I am not blaming Dion’s for the following, it is very unlikely it had anything to do with them) and had a sandwich. I went home for the rest of the day and had water and some homemade soup while I worked on my house.

Friday morning I woke up about 7 am to go to the bathroom. No problems during the transaction and I went back to bed. At 8:21 am I woke up and looked at the clock and thought it was strange I was dizzy. Then I could feel I going to throw up.

I ran to the bathroom and spent about two hours at the toilet. I had no food in my stomach yet I experienced uncontrollable vomiting. I was extremely dizzy. I was sweating more liquids than I was vomiting and was freezing cold. I became disoriented.

The disorientation is hard to explain but my brains ability to tell which way is up or down was gone. It’s kind of like when a picture is turned on it’s side and it’s difficult to make out until the picture is rotated correctly.

Sometime during my marathon vomiting session I had to go to the bathroom. I managed to get myself up on the toilet and continue to vomit nothing into the tub. Crapping my pants wouldn’t have helped the situation. I am very thankful that didn’t happen.

After about two hours of what felt like a month I managed to stagger my way back to the bedroom. I was still vomiting but I had nothing to vomit so I wasn’t making a mess. It took a lot of concentration and stillness to get my vomiting to stop. Meanwhile I was still dizzy and cold. It was at this point that I considered calling an ambulance but I finally stopped vomiting and I didn’t want to start again by moving.

I managed to text a friend after a while, something about “HELP”. They brought me some crackers and electrolyte liquid. The throwing up stopped about noon on Friday and I spend the next two days eating crackers and mostly drinking water and electrolyte liquids. And sleeping.

Over the next week I had little appetite and it even seems like I forgot what hungry was. I had to force myself to eat real food. I also had body aches and headaches to suffer with.

I’m sure I had salmonella poisoning. I couldn’t be the flu since I didn’t experience a sore throat, coughing, sneezing, fever and other flu like symptoms. I could be pregnant but that seems unlikely.

I was already on the weight loss path due to lifestyle changes (as in I’m not dieting) and I can attribute at least 5 lbs of weight loss to the food poising. Although it was nice to get a boost in weight loss I absolutely cannot recommend this method.

This Taylor Digital Measuring Cup and Scale is available for pre-order from Amazon. This is a handy device, I hope they come out in other colors.

Product Features

Combo measuring and weighing tool

Digitally weighs food or liquids

4.4 lb capacity/1 Liter

Measures in pounds,ounces,militers,grams and fluid ounces

Preprogrammed to convert weight to volume.

Product Description

The first digital measuring cup and scale combination. The unit measures in weight and volume as the recipe dictates.The 3890 digitally weighs dry ingredients as well as liquid ingredients. Preprogrammed to convert weight to volume for water,milk,oil,sugar,and flour. The weight capacity is 4.4 Pounds (2kg). The volume capacity is 1 liter. The unit weighs in increments of mililiters,cups,fluid ounces,grams,and pounds. The plastic measuring cup runs on one long life Lithium battery(included) The easy to read LCD readout is in the molded handle.A great gift for the Foodies in your life.