November 14, 2007

The Giant Monolithic Crouton of Doom

There I was, making my obsessive compulsive "identical for the two hundred and sixth day" salad. Wait. No. Who am I kidding? I've been eating this exact salad, with slight variations, for five or six years. My defense is that it's the kind of food I switched to when I decided to stop eating entire one pound bags of M&M's in an obsessive, color-pairing fashion. At least I'm making healthier choices with my neurologically glitchy behavior. Anyway...

First, a fistful of spinach. Full of iron.










Then a healthy sprinkling of broccoli, cabbage, and carrots (they keep one's hair nice and orangey-colored).









Then a glob of fattily delicious real bleu cheese dressing (I don't skimp and use crappy store brand lowfat slimey ranch. There's got to be some pleasure involved in this ordeal).








One shiny red apple, buffed to perfection.










Choppy choppy.










Addy addy.










Then, a few croutons -- whoa! What is this?










The giant monolithic crouton of doom. I'm scared*!

Someone at the crouton factory needs to review their quality inspection procedures.

*No, seriously, I'm scared. I can't eat this crouton. It's in a plastic baggie on a shelf above my sink. I have no idea what to do with it.

11 comments:

nora leona said...

Does the giant crouton happen to look like Jesus or Mary or Elvis?

Elizabeth McQuern said...

No, but I could carve one, if that meant I could sell it on Ebay for $5000.

nora leona said...

When I read this post yesterday I thought, wow at least I don't have any obsessive food habits. Lining up M&M, seriously? Says the girl who will only eat Twizzlers if they are the traditional size (that can be wrapped around my index finger) not the bite sized ones, not the freakishly long ones.
I was thinking about it again this morning when I scooped out half of a cup of granola, plopped a big spoonful of Greek yogurt on in the bowl and topped it with half a banana. So what if I eat this every single day, so what if I get wildly excited if the granola, yogurt and bananas "match up" - finish the box of granola, the tub of yogurt and no half banana is left hanging.
Then I realized -- it's my cat that is obsessive about food. He just has to have has dry food mixed exactly with half of a can of wet food. Freaky pets.

Elizabeth McQuern said...

Ah HA! See? I'm not the only one. Pets are freaky, too. Calpurnia loves to drink out of the bathtub and will whine and burble if I don't leave it dripping. Cuthbert was the same way.

Oh, and you're a nut, too. Not that I'm not obsessive about ratios of food (the Beat Kitchen gives you plenty of guacamole with your tortilla chips but never enough sour cream, by the way).

nora leona said...

My cat loves bathtub water and um...toilet water. I'm going on vacation next week and I hate asking the person who feeds my cat to please flush each day, so Felix can have "fresh" water. It sound so trashy.

I had a cat in Philadelphia who could turn the tub tap on by himself. Once he turned on the water and managed to slip the plug in to the drain. The bathtub overflowed through to the landlord's ceiling. I was not supposed to have a cat -- trouble all around!

Elizabeth McQuern said...

Well, Felix has strong preferences. We shouldn't make judgments.

Wow, the Philly cat story is a good one. That sounds like a great short story.

Mob said...

Have you considered taking the crouton to the zoo and seeing if monkees gather 'round it like in 2001? That might be worth video-taping.

Or the pigeon who grabs it struggling to take flight with all that weight.

Elizabeth McQuern said...

Hey, Mob! If the monkeys thump their chests in rhythm, does that mean the crouton is their god?

That would make a pretty cool video.

Coaster Punchman said...

Yum - I LOVES me a well prepared spinach salad - I eat them several times a week for lunch.

Check your bleu cheese dressing brand to make sure there's no high fructose corn syrup - too many bottled dressings have it and it's the devil. It it does, switch to using just bleu cheese crumbles and supplement with some olive oil and vinegar - or you can make your own delicious bleu cheese dressing by mixing bleu cheese crumbles with a mixture of 2/3 sour cream 1/3 mayo, salt 'n pepppa and a splash of vinegar.

I'm so friggin hungry now and it's 3:00 am. I wonder if I have a 1 lb bag of M&Ms sitting around anywhere?

Elizabeth McQuern said...

Ohhh, that sounds good, I should try that. It probably is nicer than the bottled stuff. Although that complicated combining of ingredients probably qualifies as "cooking," which I'm still too stubborn to learn how to do.

Dale said...

You should write a movie for that giant crouton or at least some music no?