Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Frittata and The Craziest Fast Food Crimes Of 2011

Frittata
Food Diary (December 28, 2011)
Breakfast: Toast
Lunch: Frittata
Dinner: Sweet corn soup, bread
Baking/sweets: Toscatårta (Swedish Almond Cake), chocolates

Sweet corn brought back a food memory, a positive one. I spent a year in board school. Boarding schools are not known for their food and this one was no exception. There were very few highlights. One of them was sweet corn. We were served corn on the cob which we used to make sandwiches – white bread, corn, lots of butter and salt. This was magical. And yes I count this as one of the highlights. I can count all the highlights using my fingers and still have many spare fingers.

The ‘lowlight’ by far with a unanimous (or even consensus) vote was beef olives. I think even the chefs hated it. Now that I think of it, even stray dogs kept their distance when beef olives were served, they must have a sixth sense, or a good sense of smell. Beef olives may sound great but thats where it ends. It looked like dehydrated rocky mountain oysters, and maybe also smelt and tasted like it. I haven’t tried rocky mountain oysters yet, not the real thing anyway. I think many of us boarders are forever traumatized by beef olives. One day I will make it. 

I don’t know how the chefs succeeded in screwing up food so well. I am sure they had good intentions. The most logical explanation I can come up with is that this was a strategy to motivate us to study hard so we would not have to hang around for longer than necessary. This strategy worked, we studied hard, because we saw light at the end of the tunnel, and there surely were no beef olives dangling at the end of our tunnel. Jokes aside, the chefs were really kind ladies.

Moving on to a totally different issue. I am grateful to whoever invented the refrigerator and freezer. This Toscatårta  was sitting in the freezer, all I had to do was to take it out and eat it frozen. Now its all gone.

Toscatårta

Today's Favourite Photo
Source: Smoky Wok
Fragrant Soy-Caramelized Prawns


Today’s Favourite Blog
Source: Huffington Post and various other sources
An interesting round-up of “The Craziest Fast Food Crimes Of 2011”.

Drunk Driving at Taco Bell: A customer was so drunk that he passed out after receiving the tacos but before he was able to eat them. The cops arrived, woke him up and requested his I.D. Instead of reaching out for his wallet to get his license he pulled out a taco and started eating. I guess he was still drunk.

Selling Fake iPads at McDonald's: At McDonalds a lady was approached by two guys who offered to sell her an Apple iPad for $300. She only had $180 which they accepted. The iPad turned out to be a block of wood, in a Fed-Ex box.

Shooting Out the Window at Taco Bell: Taco Bell again. A guy was so mad that his crunchy beef taco went up in price, he shot at the drive-thru window with his gun. It didn’t end there. He waved a pistol and an assault rifle in the parking lot, and then went to a motel room, where he barricaded himself, sparking a 3-hour standoff that lasted until police lobbed tear gas inside and the man surrendered. No one was hurt. I wonder if he regrets not accepting the 50 cent price increase instead of going through all the drama

Selling Babies at Taco Bell: Taco Bell yet again. A mom tried to sell her 3-day old baby boy for $500. Now we know the offer price for a 3 day old boy. No sale was concluded so we don’t know what the market price is. I am guessing some parent(s) would offer to pay money to someone to take their children way, especially when they are misbehaving.

Beating at McDonald's: Two teenage girls violently attacked a transgender woman in McDonald's allegedly for using the women's bathroom. All this was caught on camera by a McDonald's employee who was laughing during the attack. He didn’t laugh for too much longer, he got fired. Eventually a customer stepped in to stop the attack. 

I remember being in a club once, queuing to use the bathroom. In front of the queue were two girls. It didn’t seem to bother anyone that girls were going to use the male bathroom. Male bathrooms, especially in clubs in the early hours of the morning, is probably dirtier. I felt sorry for their bad judgment but I suppose they were drunk, really drunk if they could not distinguish between a male and female bathroom.

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8 comments:

  1. This has got to be one of your most entertaining posts! Loved hearing about your sweet corn sandwiches and the nasty beef olives...wonder what the heck they put in this to make it so awful! And the fast food crimes are just plain crazy~

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  2. Awww... you gotta love those canteen ladies. They're just trying to toughen you boys up to face the big, bad world out there. Now, doesn't everything taste so much better compared to what you had? It's an education in appreciation.
    Somebody better find out what they put in those refried beans ... or maybe it's just gas?

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  3. Those are some very bizarre crimes! And not to mention the crimes against the food! ;)

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  4. The food "crimes" are hilarious (maybe apart from the 3-days old baby...).
    When I read "beef olives" it sounded really appetising. I think the main problem with school cafeterias is the cheapest cuts which are cooked by unskilled cooks and lack of spices. I have never been to a boarding school and even didn't eat at the cafeteria (my mum made my lunches), but some children were forced to eat cafeteria lunches and frankly the meat was always the worst part: horribly fat and gristly cuts, no spices (they even lacked salt and pepper), greyish sauces... The cooks were also very nice ladies but either didn't know how to cook or were told to follow strange procedures. I'm sure they cooked well at home!
    Have you had the cake without unfreezing it???

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  5. these stories are terrifying! this is why i stay away from taco bells

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  6. Those are terrible stories! I can't believe that many of those victims were privy to such antics.

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  7. Lizzy: thank you, glad you liked it. I really don’t know what they did to screw it up.

    ping: you are so right, everything did taste so much better. I am talking about sweet corn sandwiches as one of my few food highlights during the whole year. Certainly an education in appreciation, and taste adjustment:)

    Lorraine: very bizarre indeed

    Sissi: Beef olives should be delicious if done properly. On few occasions such as special dinners the cooks cooked good dinners so they knew how to cook. I guess they had constraints.
    “horribly fat and gristly cuts, no spices (they even lacked salt and pepper), greyish sauces... “ this sounds exactly like what I ate when I stayed in a hostel in Russia
    Yes I had the cake without unfreezing it. It was delicious. I had no time and no microwave.

    Alexis: maybe they will start to increase security

    Yummychunklet: poor victims

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  8. I have never been in Russia, but I can only imagine how a Russian hostel food tastes like...

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