Monday . April 07 . 2003 . 9:18am lobster fest Now that I finally got my appetite back, Joe and I went out for dinner to celebrate the results of our match. We wanted to go someplace new, so we had dinner at City Crab, which is, not surprisingly, a seafood joint. Joe went with the swordfish steak, but I, dazzled by Red Lobster commercials since my youth, ordered the "Lobster Bake" meal, which included a whole lobster, mussels, clams, potatoes, and corn on the cob. (And a little pile of seaweed for garnish.) It got to wear a bib and everything! Oh, and the little well of butter for dipping! I loves me some lobster with the butter sauce! Not until I went to college was I introduced to eating lobster in that way. Before, I had always eaten lobster Chinese-style, stir-fried with black bean sauce. Or possibly fancy-restaurant-style, cut up into little bite sized chunks tossed into a salad. But you know how it is at college. Once a year, they had this "Food Fest" event, where they served lobsters, steak, corn, nachos, cotton candy and such, and the whole school was welcomed to hunker down and gorge. (This was to make you feel as though your tuition money was going towards something other than landscaping.) It actually used to be Unlimited Lobster Food Fest, but they had to shut that down after people started inviting their monstrously hungry frat boy friends to the event and they would suck down, like, 30 lobsters each. After that, they started issuing tickets for the lobsters, which allowed one per person. And if you really, really had to have more than one lobster, then you'd go through the line, trying to find people who were kosher or who just didn't like lobster to surrender their extra ticket. Sometimes there would be intimidation and gangland coercion tactics. It was madness! Madness, I say! And also, everyone would always invariably try to hoard food from the Food Fest (some in a normal way, like "oh, let me steal drinks for my dorm fridge, or get a snack for later tonight," and some in a freaky eating disorder way, like, "I must have five pies."). Later that night, the dorm kitchens would reek of soggy, stale nachos. But back to our meal at City Crab. The only tough thing was that they didn't crack open the lobster for me, so I had to figure out how to penetrate the shell that evolution gave the lobster to get to its sweet, sweet innards. I don't think I was very good at that part. They gave me a nutcracker, but what I really needed was one of those vibrating saws that the Orthopods use to saw off casts. It was also somehow difficult for me to figure out how the nutcracker worked. I know, you're just supposed to squeeze it together, but it just seemed like whenever I closed it, the claw was just sitting pretty between the two jaws of the cracker, without any pressure being placed in the shell at all. I also tried hammering the shell with the nutcracker, which yielded a lot of noise, but not much in the way of edible meat. This was definitely not a meal to go into hungry. You'd probably get so frustrated that you'd just throw away the lobster and start eating the seaweed garnish. In the end, I resorted to hacking away at the thing with my butter knife and ripping at it with my bare hands. It was like that scene before the credits in "Naked Gun 2 ½" when Frank Drebin rips off the lobster claw so hard that he punches his neighbor in the face. Elsewhere... Have you been into The Gap lately? They're subversive subliminal advertising masterminds. Not even subliminal. I was there yesterday picking up some Polo shirts and socks and underwear from Gap Kids (shut up, they have cute stuff, and cheap, if you don't mind sleeves and shirttails that run on the short side) and The Gappers were playing their standard background shopping music over the loudspeakers. But every once in a while, the background music would do a fade into that crappy cover version of "Feelin' Groovy" that they play on their new commercials for khakis. You know, the ones with skinny ladies prancing through the streets, wearing impossibly well-fit pants and tops. I know Gap doesn't do small sizes that well, so don't even front. And there are the ladies, hopping from park bench to sidewalk, slouchy hobo bag and arms swinging, while the commercial sings, "Doo doo doo doo, feelin' groooo-vyyyyy." They kept playing little snippets of the commercial song in the store, and then fading back to the standard overhead music. As though by refreshing you memory just a little with the commercial, you'd think to yourself, "Ooh, khakis, how youthful and carefree!" and be drawn to the khaki display like a fly to dung. It may have kind of worked, too. I didn't buy any, but the thought did cross my mind as I was fingering the low-cut cargo pants with a dreamy look in my eye. And I don't even like clothes from The Gap, unless its in the form of days-of-the-week underwear. Meanwhile... My stomach has been hurting again. Just a little bit. Barely noticeable. Except that these days, we're all hyper-attuned to every little blip my small bowel has to offer. (And before you suggest it, no, it's not from eating too much lobster, you diagnostic whiz kids.) Joe says that this situation with my appendix is like a bad horror movie. Every time you think the monster's dead, it pops back up for one final scare. I hope not. xo Michelle Countdown to the wedding: 20 days |
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Monday . April 07 . 2003 . 9:18am lobster fest Now that I finally got my appetite back, Joe and I went out for dinner to celebrate the results of our match. We wanted to go someplace new, so we had dinner at City Crab, which is, not surprisingly, a seafood joint. Joe went with the swordfish steak, but I, dazzled by Red Lobster commercials since my youth, ordered the "Lobster Bake" meal, which included a whole lobster, mussels, clams, potatoes, and corn on the cob. (And a little pile of seaweed for garnish.) It got to wear a bib and everything! Oh, and the little well of butter for dipping! I loves me some lobster with the butter sauce! Not until I went to college was I introduced to eating lobster in that way. Before, I had always eaten lobster Chinese-style, stir-fried with black bean sauce. Or possibly fancy-restaurant-style, cut up into little bite sized chunks tossed into a salad. But you know how it is at college. Once a year, they had this "Food Fest" event, where they served lobsters, steak, corn, nachos, cotton candy and such, and the whole school was welcomed to hunker down and gorge. (This was to make you feel as though your tuition money was going towards something other than landscaping.) It actually used to be Unlimited Lobster Food Fest, but they had to shut that down after people started inviting their monstrously hungry frat boy friends to the event and they would suck down, like, 30 lobsters each. After that, they started issuing tickets for the lobsters, which allowed one per person. And if you really, really had to have more than one lobster, then you'd go through the line, trying to find people who were kosher or who just didn't like lobster to surrender their extra ticket. Sometimes there would be intimidation and gangland coercion tactics. It was madness! Madness, I say! And also, everyone would always invariably try to hoard food from the Food Fest (some in a normal way, like "oh, let me steal drinks for my dorm fridge, or get a snack for later tonight," and some in a freaky eating disorder way, like, "I must have five pies."). Later that night, the dorm kitchens would reek of soggy, stale nachos. But back to our meal at City Crab. The only tough thing was that they didn't crack open the lobster for me, so I had to figure out how to penetrate the shell that evolution gave the lobster to get to its sweet, sweet innards. I don't think I was very good at that part. They gave me a nutcracker, but what I really needed was one of those vibrating saws that the Orthopods use to saw off casts. It was also somehow difficult for me to figure out how the nutcracker worked. I know, you're just supposed to squeeze it together, but it just seemed like whenever I closed it, the claw was just sitting pretty between the two jaws of the cracker, without any pressure being placed in the shell at all. I also tried hammering the shell with the nutcracker, which yielded a lot of noise, but not much in the way of edible meat. This was definitely not a meal to go into hungry. You'd probably get so frustrated that you'd just throw away the lobster and start eating the seaweed garnish. In the end, I resorted to hacking away at the thing with my butter knife and ripping at it with my bare hands. It was like that scene before the credits in "Naked Gun 2 ½" when Frank Drebin rips off the lobster claw so hard that he punches his neighbor in the face. Elsewhere... Have you been into The Gap lately? They're subversive subliminal advertising masterminds. Not even subliminal. I was there yesterday picking up some Polo shirts and socks and underwear from Gap Kids (shut up, they have cute stuff, and cheap, if you don't mind sleeves and shirttails that run on the short side) and The Gappers were playing their standard background shopping music over the loudspeakers. But every once in a while, the background music would do a fade into that crappy cover version of "Feelin' Groovy" that they play on their new commercials for khakis. You know, the ones with skinny ladies prancing through the streets, wearing impossibly well-fit pants and tops. I know Gap doesn't do small sizes that well, so don't even front. And there are the ladies, hopping from park bench to sidewalk, slouchy hobo bag and arms swinging, while the commercial sings, "Doo doo doo doo, feelin' groooo-vyyyyy." They kept playing little snippets of the commercial song in the store, and then fading back to the standard overhead music. As though by refreshing you memory just a little with the commercial, you'd think to yourself, "Ooh, khakis, how youthful and carefree!" and be drawn to the khaki display like a fly to dung. It may have kind of worked, too. I didn't buy any, but the thought did cross my mind as I was fingering the low-cut cargo pants with a dreamy look in my eye. And I don't even like clothes from The Gap, unless its in the form of days-of-the-week underwear. Meanwhile... My stomach has been hurting again. Just a little bit. Barely noticeable. Except that these days, we're all hyper-attuned to every little blip my small bowel has to offer. (And before you suggest it, no, it's not from eating too much lobster, you diagnostic whiz kids.) Joe says that this situation with my appendix is like a bad horror movie. Every time you think the monster's dead, it pops back up for one final scare. I hope not. xo Michelle Countdown to the wedding: 20 days |
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