Trickle-Down Chickenomics

 

The most terrifying 9 seconds of my life happen immediately after flushing an airplane toilet.

 

There are 5 seconds of ominous mechanical silence and inactivity, just long enough to make me wonder “did I push the button hard enough?” This is followed by 4 seconds of sudden deafening noise and suction, the kind which leaves me convinced every single time that I have obviously opened a hole in the plane, and every passenger regardless of seat assignment will be exhaled violently from the aircraft, through the gateway of the toilet seat, starting with me.

The second most terrifying 9 seconds of my life are kicked off when a well-intentioned soul asks me (and it’s not often) “hey, you wanna come over and watch the game?”

And I am sucked through the toilet seat of life, spit out at 10,000 feet. What should I say? What game? NO. This is seen as a declaration of war to those who would not miss “the game,” who have been waiting patiently for “the game” all week, and who have a clear allegiance to one side/team/city in this “game.” It is an allegiance polished lovingly over the course of years, studded with live viewings of this team in action, and upheld even in the bad years, the low years, the losing years.

I simply cannot what game? this noble jerseyed person I see before me.

BUT over the years I have come to find out that there is secondary purpose to these functions and gatherings and viewings. A hidden valley if you will, of opportunity. Because running coolly just below these jovial hangings-out is an undercurrent, a salted, crunchy, messy, long-cooked, crock-potted, and many-coursed riptide of food.

Eventually I got wise to the idea that I could attend a function such as this and spend the entire duration in the kitchen, where I have found many other amigos willing to spend an 75 minutes with me co-chairing The Committee To Open This Bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, or serving dutifully on the chili advisory board.

Fish and Flowers-The Foodess Files in Paris

Remember when cameras posted the date in the corner? Remember how nobody knew how to change the date when it was wrong? Remember that time I went to France and as a result of a camera debacle was forced to use one of these contraptions with the constantly wrong date, while eating the greatest ice cream of my lifetime?

I do. But mainly because it was two days ago.

I have been trolling a different set of streets for the past few days. Less freeway, more fromage.

I have been here:

I stood in the long shadow of the Eiffel Tower in the middle of a GreenGrassBlueSky day, and realized I was hungry.

In L.A. when this happens, I usually track down a food truck and have at it. But on this day, in Paris, I sought out a very specific cassoulet that I had read about. It takes two days to make, and you eat it at a table blessed with red and white cloth napkins that make you feel like a real live girl. A lady, even.

Thank. God. It's. FryDay.

The first thing I want most in the world is a set of visible abdominal muscles. I ask for them for Christmas every year, and they never come. The second thing I want most in the world is something fried to eat.

You can see my dilemma-these two things rarely happen to the same person. It’s a one or the other type deal. Those Carl’s Jr. commercials are a lie.

I have a crème brulee torch, a Japanese mandoline, and a cherry pitter. These things make my kitchen an arsenal of deadly culinary toolery, and I consider the cabinet next to my sink to be my first line of defense in the event of a break-in. I will dash PAST the mace by the door, push the block full of sharpened knives OUT of the way, seize the contents of that cabinet, and brulee the intruder to a crunchy-brown sugar crust. Or slice them into thin uniform rounds with my mandoline. I’ll just have to see how I feel.

But my food preparation brinkmanship does have a limit. I draw the line (for myself, not others) at a deep fryer. Here’s why:

First of all, I know that once I get started I won’t be able to stop. Fried chicken is a gateway drug, make no mistake. The road to hell is paved with good fried chicken. It starts there, and it ends with you staying up for four days straight frying peanut m&m’s and mini marshmallows individually with a crazed look in your eye smelling like a chicken nugget, and all the while justifying it to yourself by muttering: “Can’t waste all this oil, can’t just throw it away…such a waste…such a waste...” Trust me, if you're Breaking Bad in your midnight kitchen with a jug of canola oil, don't do it for the sake of being "green."

Secondly it’s a lot of work, and I’d rather just let someone else do it for me. It takes a lot of prep time, and then it’s gone. The people you fry things for will love you forever and stain their shirt with your finished product, but it still remains the ultimate thankless task. Like untangling Christmas lights, or putting tights on a baby.

Pancake Taco Genius Grant.

As a kid, I once walked into a room where my dad was using a soup can to hammer a nail into a wall so that he could hang a picture. When I foolishly asked him why, he said “You know Francie, some people in life ask why. But I prefer to say ‘why not.’”

I knew that he had not set out to make the hanging of this picture a pivotal character-building moment in my life. He just couldn’t find the hammer.

Nonetheless, it is a philosophy I have tried to incorporate into my daily life as much as possible since that day.

Make an entire loaf of Wonder Bread into cinnamon toast one piece at a time?

And then eat it.

Why not?!

(It was the late 90’s, everyone was doing it. Plus, it was during a Weekend at Bernie’s slash Overboard marathon with my sister. He without sin may cast the first stone…)

Make a pie crust even though you have nothing to put inside of it, and then eat aforementioned empty pie crust because my sweet tooth is THAT bad?

Why not?!

The crust is always the best part anyway. Three cheers for having only the best part of anything, ever! I'm all over that.

Wear the crazy swingy gaucho pants that swept the nation like baby fish mouth that one summer, even though they were clearly designed only for all-legs model types, and actual real-life gauchos?

Why not?!

I can’t lie, there’s actually a lot of why nots for this one. But, hey! At least we all looked weird together.

When my dad came for a visit recently, he had a few things on his “To Do” list. Catalina Island. Solvang. The Biltmore Hotel where he worked when he lived in Los Angles 35 years ago.

And to hit a food truck.