On pet peeves...

I think the biggest response I have ever had to a question of the day, was last Friday.  The question?  What is your biggest pet peeve?  I think sometimes people just want you to ask them how they feel about something and it opens the doors.  An invitation as such.  Even though I write a blog pretty much 5 days a week, I am human, I love being asked how I feel about something.  Because even though you pretty much know how I feel about EVERYTHING, there are things I wish people would ask me.  I probably don’t get asked because maybe people don’t want to know the answer.  Who knows?  The bottom line is this question got a lot of responses.  And most of us do not just have one.

I hate liars.  I don’t look at that as much as a pet peeve though as a major character flaw.  People that are different around different people.  Again, not so much a pet peeve as a character flaw.  It has to be hard to be so many different people.  How do you keep track of them all?  And who is supposed to be who when?  There were a lot of people who didn’t like Christmas lights up past a certain time.  I don’t know that that is so much a pet peeve as a joke.  But whatever.  I am supposed to be answering this question.

I really hate when you are on the phone with someone, and someone else is standing next to you telling you what to ask and say to the person on the phone.  Call them yourself for the love.  I don’t like being the middle man.  People who cannot drive at the very minimum, the speed limit as posted.  Arrogance.  We have no need to be the arrogant assholes that some of us can be, but yet, some people love it.  People that order multiple orders in the drive-thru.  People who don’t take a cart in from the cart corral, but instead, walk past 100 carts to go get one inside.  REALLY?  God we are a lazy society.  People who are perfectly capable of walking but insist on parking as close to the front door of a business as possible.  Dirty hands (when there is no reason and on a perfectly clean person.)  I am obsessed with clean hands…dirty hands I just can’t see the point of them.  I hate dishes in a sink.  They make these cool little gadgets now where you can have just enough soap to wash that one dish, you don’t have to run water…so use it and just do it.  Putting stuff back in the fridge that is blatantly completely empty, butter dish, milk, juice.  Jesus, use the last bit and be done with it. 

I just realized that I can make this list go on all night…I will stop there…those are probably my biggest ones.  There are a lot of things that bother me but I don’t know that I would call them pet peeves, as much as I would call them life requirements.  Like wet towel on the floor?  JUST PICK IT UP AND HANG IT.

San Clemente CA. for dinner please...

I love food.  That is blatantly obvious if you have seen me lately.  However, putting that aside, I love trying new food, I love cooking food, I love cooking food for other people.  I am not normally a jealous person, but on occasion I desire things other people have.  I am seriously jealous of Guy Fieri.  I mean Jesus H, what better job than to drive all over the country (although he probably flies) and eat at different cool ass joints.  I want to do that.  I want to be “that guy.”  Or girl, or whatever. 

There usually are no rules to the answers you folks provide, just whatever comes into your mind first.  So when I posed this question, I did not say it had to be present day.  So I was not surprised by those of you who wanted to go back to Grandma’s dinner table.  If you look back, I mean really look back, a lot of our best; most fond, most FUN memories involve food.  And that is how meals should be with family.  They should be events.  Even if it’s a 4^th of July party, or Sunday dinners…good times surround good food. 

The other most popular answer was abroad…more specifically Italy.  And Paris.  I have never been to Paris, or Italy for that matter.  Although I truly believe that I would gladly go if offered.  So, with that being said, in MY MIND, I was shooting for a place I love, or had to been to, or hoped to someday return to because I loved it so much. 

So with that being said, my first answer would have been Redfish, in downtown Chicago, was attached to the Voodoo Lounge, which was just down from the House of Blues.  However, I know the restaurant is no longer there, not even sure about the lounge.  It was Cajun and Creole based food…and oh my God did I love that place.  Probably the best mac and cheese my mouth has encountered…and it arrived in a mini cast iron skillet. Anyway, it saddens me that it is no longer. 

So, if someone wanted to take me to dinner, I would ask them to take me to Fishermans Restaurant and Bar in San Clemente California…right on the beach.   It was the first stop on a trip I took with one of my BFF’s up the Pacific Coast Highway.  I absolutely LOVED San Clemente and hope to return.  I suppose it was the scenery and being on the ocean and the view and all that, but it was some damn good food.  Like it makes my mouth water just thinking about it.  Feel free to check it out.  It was the trip of a lifetime, just driving and enjoying the locals.  I truly love California though.  

What a waste...

The biggest waste?  I think there are a lot of wastes.  Time probably being the biggest.  And as a society we are real, real good at it.  Wasting time.  I really enjoyed the answers this question evoked, because there were many different ones.  Like Junk Mail.  Huge waste of trees.  People, taking up space.  There are some people who are true waste of space indeed.  Plastic water bottles, overpaid employees who do very little work, mindless government paper work, Medicare, the cover your ass mentality, saying no when you are just going to say yes…you guys thought of some really great wastes. 

I think we live for the most part, above our means.  Certainly above our needs.  We waste a lot of things as human beings…air, land, space.  But to be honest with you, the biggest waste for me?  Food.  I didn’t realize how much food we discard as a society until I worked on the boat.  Food that is perfectly fine and can be used by hundreds of people, but once it’s been touched; it cannot be used for anything else.  We had our own mess hall on the ship, and were NOT served the food the passengers were.  And if you worked in the main buffet you were in for a rude awakening at the end of shift, when you had to dispose of 1000 of pounds of food, at each serving.  Food you were not allowed to eat either, even though it was going to be thrown away.  If you were caught stealing food, or eating that food, you were written up.  Written up 3 times and you got sent home.  For eating trash you would lose your job.

My point is that that is one facility…hundreds of thousands of restaurants, grocery stores, etc. discard unimaginable amounts of food.  And yet we have poverty and starvation in the United States?  Hard to wrap your hands around.  No one, I mean NO ONE should ever be hungry.  Ever.

If you eat with me or I fix you food, you will eat everything you take or I will eat everything I order.  Which can be really troublesome because some places OVER SERVE, like the portions are ridiculous.  Remember when 12 ounces was all the pop you were going to drink?  Now you can get a liter.  Well you can get a 2 liter as well, but I don’t know many people who can drink a whole one in one sitting.  Or when you go out to eat you get like half a head of lettuce, a loaf of bread, and then a meal?  I mean it is nuts. 

We need to take a step back and stop over indulging especially where food is concerned.  I hate wasting food.