Does This Taste Funny? A Half-Baked Look at Food and Foodies
Read Does This Taste Funny? A Half-Baked Look at Food and Foodies Online
Authors: Michael Dane
DOES
THIS TASTE FUNNY?
A
Half-Baked Look at
Food
and Foodies
Copyright
© 2012 by Michael Dane
All
rights reserved
To
everyone who believed I could do this, and to everyone who helped me survive
until I did.
AS-L, BH, BS, CC, CH, CO, CT, CW, DB, DC, DD, DF,
DG, DJ, DM, DM, DM, DO, DR, DRT, EH, EJ, FE, FH, FM, GH, GWB, HM, IP, JB, JJ,
JLS, JS, JT-S, JZL, KB, KK, KM, KS, LD, LK, LM, LW, ME, MF, MF, MO’L, MP, MS,
MT, MW, OS, PE, RB, RD, SAS, SD, SR, SS, TO, VH, VR,
and especially, GEB
But Could They Write A Recipe?
Through the Crazy
When
I think about my mom’s cooking, the first thing that comes to mind is squash. I
remember squash, because we grew it in the back yard. That meant that every
meal I had at home for eighteen years had some squash-related element.
Banana
squash, acorn squash, zucchini. Every single meal. I don’t even remember if I
liked it, but I do know I haven’t eaten a lot of squash in the last thirty-four
years.
My
other evocative memory of food and childhood is of my mom making what’s known
in Danish as ‘
frikadeller
,’ which sounds so much more exotic than ‘cheap
ground beef and some onion in Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup.
I
can still see myself standing by my mother’s side, stealing chunks of raw
ground beef, adding some salt, and chowing down. It was a more innocent time,
and
E.
coli
was the farthest thing from my mind.
Like
most Americans, I think the first thing I ever ‘cooked’ by myself was ramen
noodles, in college. Strange concept, ramen noodles.
Not the noodles
themselves, but the fact that the package contains the noodles and something
called, in Orwellian style, a ‘flavor packet.’ I have since learned that some
foods actually have flavors
already built in
, as opposed to requiring
you to
add
‘flavor.’
The first time I ever
read
about food (not including menus) was about fifteen years ago. It was a time
when the President had been impeached, NASA had lost a spaceship, and the
country was reeling from the divorce of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee.
I worked at a bookstore
in California, and I was randomly assigned the food section. Although ‘worked’
is a stretch, since once the books were shelved and their spines faced out,
there wasn’t much to do, unless there was a customer.
It felt like I was
getting paid eight bucks an hour to read! I don’t know if there were
other
things I was
supposed
to be doing, but I know I did a lot of reading.
The store was promoting
Thomas Keller’s
French Laundry Cookbook
, and it didn’t look at all like
what I thought cookbooks should look like.
From the austere
white-on-white cover, to the ridiculously close-up pictures of ‘sculpted’ food,
to chapter titles like “The Law of Diminishing Returns” and “The Importance of
Hollandaise,” it was clear that this was not
The Joy of Cooking.
I didn’t even know
hollandaise sauce
had
importance! This book was like a portal into some
weird, mystical world. I felt like a fourteen-year-old discovering Tolkien for
the first time.
Who
knew you could infuse something with white truffle oil? Who knew there was
white truffle oil?
As sucked in as I was by this
alternate universe, I didn’t suddenly become a foodie. In fact, for most of my
adult life, ‘cooking’ involved a can and a can opener.
I was fascinated by the
idea
of cooking, but for years, I never
made
anything more sophisticated than
an omelet. I defrosted a lot of things. I heated a lot of things. But
cooking
,
with different ingredients and . . . more than one pan? Not a lot. I had to ask
a friend how to hard-boil eggs.
Around the time I turned fifty, I
taught myself how to cook. Now, a couple years later, I’m eating home cooking
almost every night.
At first, I had no idea
why
I was suddenly makin’ with the mirepoix
,
and it was months before I
figured it out. Since you asked, I’ll tell you—I started cooking to avoid going
insane.
I
had spent years kicking around the fringes of showbiz as a comedian, with just
enough success during the standup boom to keep trying.
But
years of trying to eke out a bohemian life had ground me down (eking isn’t
easy), and I started to, in psychiatric parlance, lose it.
I
was diagnosed with ‘generalized anxiety disorder.’ ‘
Generalized
.’
Yeah, thanks for narrowing it down for me, doc.
“Mister
Dane, it would seem that you’re anxious about some things just—in general.”
Well, the diagnosis might have been vague, but it was accurate.
While I was working through my
breakdown, I was also trying to live as cheaply as possible, and I figured
making my own food would save a few bucks. I dabbled a little.
Then I started noticing recipes
online, and buying kitchen doodads at the thrift store. Soon, I was recording
episodes of ‘Top Chef.’
My
newfound love of the kitchen saved me some money, but more importantly, it gave
me something to do with my hands, and something with which to occupy my (then)
unhinged mind. I had stumbled upon the perfect activity to distract me from my
demons.
It’s
harder to worry about your long-term drama when you have a pot that’s boiling
over right now. Cooking is so tangible, and so very ‘in the moment.’ Doing it allows
me to get out of my head, plain and simple.
Now,
if I’m stressed, I cook something. If I’m depressed, I cook something. If I’m
angry, I cook things that involve a lot of chopping (you can release plenty of
rage if you cut up enough carrots).
And,
I figured, if I’m going to be fumbling around, making a mess of the kitchen
anyway, I might as well write about it.
Unfortunately, if you add lack of
experience to my inherent clumsiness and throw in the occasional panic attack,
my resume didn’t exactly scream ‘food writer.’
I was truly starting from scratch,
and all I had to guide me is a handful of old cookbooks. Well, some old
cookbooks and the internet.
I
like to think I put the guesswork back
into
cooking. Guessing,
improvising, experimenting, and frequently making a hellish mess of my kitchen.
In the past couple years, I’ve burnt, undercooked, and over-seasoned a lot of
food.
If
you’re a food snob, this book probably isn’t for you, since I spend a lot of
time mocking food snobs. Because they’re ridiculous.
No
matter how elaborate the prep or the presentation, we’re ultimately just
talking about food here. Which brings me to meatloaf muffins.
I spent several days
dithering about a name for my website. I tried every variation and combination
of words related to ‘food’ and ‘humor.’ I knew I was running out of ideas when
I looked into the availability of ‘eatyourcomedy.com’ (available, by the way).
In a delirious moment,
I almost called my site “
rustyskillet.com,
” and thought about creating a
cartoon mascot
named
‘Rusty Skillet,’ until I realized that sounds like the name of a buffet joint
in a strip mall. Oh, and I also briefly considered ‘Food Pimpin.’