Taste Bud Damage dun duh dun dun

I sat down to blog about 2 hours ago and while I was thinking of something to write about, which was obviously going to be food, I got hungry. With summer school finals and moving out of my apartment falling in the same week, I’ve neglected to go grocery shopping in quite a while. So a few hours ago when I needed food, I made one of my college girl staples: stir fry.

All I had in my kitchen was a can of black beans, frozen stir fry veggies, and a cupboard full of spices. I sautéed the veggies with a little PAM until they were caramelized and then threw in chili powder, garlic, basil, red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper. It was the best thing I’ve eaten in a while, and the only calories came from the veggies at 30 calories per cup and the beans at about 100. It was a spicy, yummy, low-cal treat for a poor person like me.

I love spicy food. As I dumped chili powder and red pepper flakes into my pan, I wondered if eating spicy food was going to damage my taste buds and as a result, ruin my chances of being a good food critic. After all, how can you critique foods for a living if you can’t taste anything?

After about an hour and a half of research, I am relieved to say that eating spicy foods does not ruin your taste buds. It only numbs them for a short period of time. Furthermore, if you do happen to damage your taste buds either through smoking cigarettes or burning your tongue, it isn’t permanent because taste buds renew themselves after time. The only bad part about taste bud renewal, is that is slows down with age. Fascinating.

Well lucky me I guess. I’m still on the right track to eating for a career. Thank Goodness!

Comfort Food Pairings

We all know that certain flavor profiles go together in cooking; ginger and citrus, sweet and savory, etc. I fully subscribe to this idea, or rule of eating, that layering these certain flavors is a good idea and will make for good food.

What I am about to do is compare Jell-O to Crème Brule (I hope you appreciate the reference to "My Best Friend's Wedding"). There is a different variety of food pairing out there that I don’t really get, and that is comfort food pairings. I was intrigued by a friend the other day who was dipping pretzels in whipped cream cheese, and it made me think of all these things that people do to their food that I just don’t support.

If you haven’t noticed, I love making lists. So here is a list of weird food pairings that I think should be stopped:
· Pizza and Ranch
· Grilled Cheese and Ketchup
· Scrambled eggs and Ketchup (I am not a "ketchup hater," I swear)
· Kraft singles should be outlawed on everything besides grilled cheese
· Chips and Brownies
· Putting Syrup on Breakfast Meat
· Taco Bell Sauce on a McDouble

Now, here is a list of unique comfort food pairings that I don’t necessarily eat, but still make sense:
· Oreos and Peanut Butter
· Peanut Butter and Marshmallow Fluff Sandwiches
· French Fries in a Wendy's Shake

I certainly sound angry, but I am just on a tangent. I am not mad at the people who eat these things; I've tried some weird stuff too. This includes spreading butter on a gooey chocolate chip cookie. That however, is beside the point. My point is that I like food okay, a lot. Therefore, I don’t think it should be violated. Food is good if it can be eaten in its original state without being masked by some weird sauce. So if you can’t eat something without it, don’t.

You know your becoming a real adult when...

You can pick up someone from the airport successfully.
That is without getting lost or having to loop around again.
That is all I have for today. Ponder it.

What am I going to do with myself?

I am a planner. I plan everything and I plan things too far ahead of time. For instance I know what I will probably make for lunch tomorrow. Whatever.

If this blog serves no other purpose, at least this post will remind me about the plans I've made for the future. I make a new plan everyday. Most of them are contingency plans since I'm planning (or is it more like 'banking?') on the fact that I will not be able to get a real world job when I graduate.

If I'm not going to be a magazine food critic, PR agent, or entertainment reporter after I earn my Communications degree, I'm moving back in with my parents and from there will:

1) Apply to culinary school
2) Intern for free at a news station
3) Start a business (which I wont reveal because I actually think its a great idea)
4)Marry a rich guy
5) and if all else fails, Ill be a waitress

ponder that.

My First Blog

So I feel like the new kid in school, except by school I mean blogging and I have never been the new kid. However, I'm assuming this is what it feels like... I'm nervous that I will be bad at this, that I will run out of good ideas, that no one will read it or heaven forbid even find this thing among all the other places one can travel to on the web (I hear new kids feel invisible after the first day of being stared at). I'm sure my family will read because I'll tell them to (Hi Mom!). But it isn't the same. I hope that these "random thoughts" I speak of in my profile will actually be interesting to other people. Hold on-- I'm having one right now.

Do a lot of people think that their lives would make for great reality TV? I know I've thought this at least once before, but I wonder if everyone else thinks this and secretly dreams of having their own show.

Anyway, I'm not about to go on Rock of Love Bus to launch my food writing career-so blogging seems like a good start. Here's what I'll probably write about:

Good, healthy recipe ideas I come up with
Good, unhealthy recipes I come up with
Sharing the meals I am able to pull off with random ingredients found in a college kid's cupboards (and I don't mean Ramen Noodles)
Good and bad restaurants I go to
Cravings
The random thoughts I contemplate

So that's it for today. I know this is sort of an abrupt end to this post, but I'm going to try and ease into the whole blog-scene. Wouldn't want to over do it on my first day.