A Naked Steamer with a Ginger

My local coffee spot made my day today when one employee announced to the other, "Just ring her up for a Naked Steamer with a Ginger"...Steamed soy and a ginger molasses cookie never sounded so risque!

Opsom

In ancient Greece there were two words for food. One, "maza" meaning bread and another "opsom" literally translating to "things eaten with bread" or "everything else". Cheese, proteins, plants, tubers; All opsom.

I prefer opsom.

Actually, I just don't care for the bread. Maza, maybe. If ancient Greece's little mounded flatbreads were our staple then fine. Really, in a perfect world, all bread would be artisan and cooked off in a wood-fired oven.  But bread-in-a-bag? Really? Barring hangover-induced sandwich cravings, it's just not worth the gastric saga. 

And so I focus on the opsom.

I can lick the last in my soup bowl, eat peanut butter on a spoon and wrap thin little cured proteins beautifully around my cheeses and never miss the "vehicle". I love a hearty salad, prefer to conserve my appetite and just don't find the crispy bag of frozen toast very appealing. There are so many delicious and nutritious foods in the world, ones that I love, that life just seems to be too short for subpar bread.


So, unless it's full of love, still warm, or I'm trying to be polite, I'll stick to the opsom.

A Series of Poorly Referenced Points Defending my Hatred of Lasagna

It is estimated that six percent of the population hates lasagna. This is for the ninety-four percent of you who seem eternally concerned about that.


Lasagna pans are hard to clean. It could take days of soaking and scraping to get the burnt embers of your nasty concoction off that pyrex. Days that pan could have spent making brownies. Lasagna pans are hard to clean.


Lasagna noodles resemble large, squiggly flatworms. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, flatworms can burrow into the skin and organs of human beings causing pain, itching irritation and epilepsy. Lasagna is like flatworms.

Lasagna is inconvenient. James Beard, beloved culinary expert, suggests that a good lasagna is a process that should take about a day to cook. A rare steak takes ten minutes. Lasagna is inconvenient.

Lasagna has the texture of barf. According to The Johns Hopkins Medical Care Guide, vomit can have many textures but generally, in my experience, is just a bit slippery, a touch chunky and sometimes a drop watery. Additionally, I should mention the unique acidic tinge that, though rare, it seems to share with lasagna. Lasagna is like barf.